LifeBook Week08: Treasure Seeking

Week 08 of LifeBook comes with a lesson by Mati McDonough. The lesson features an intuitive painting process on a canvas, which I didn't have the confidence to attempt. Instead, I created a journal page for my LifeBook and used the paint over collage technique for my background. I did borrow the symbol of the boat in the ocean from the lesson, which ties in perfectly with my word for this year: progress.

I used Tim Holtz tissue paper to cover my entire background. This tissue paper is wonderful to work with; it is not at all fragile, yet quite translucent. Next, I added some colour with my newly acquired Golden fluid acrylics in teal and phtalo turquoise and distressed the look with white acrylic brayering.

Next I added my elements and painted a large sun with Golden's Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold on a gessoed base layer. I only needed a few drops of paint to get amazing colour depth! You can tell this paint is in a different league to my regular craft acrylics.

The boat shape was cut from a toilet paper roll - only because it was handy and I couldn't be bothered to look for cardstock! I used DIY polyfiller to create the texture, painted it with indigo blue acrylics and used copper gilding wax to make it look metallic. This project called for gold leaf, which I do not have, so I substituted it with the gilding wax, which I also used to outline the sails and the make a thin border all around the page.

I happened to find a metal charm of a ship wheel, which was just the right size for my boat. This symbolizes the steering of my boat in the right direction, so I can make progress. My quote ties in with this sentiment. The sea might be choppy, but I can steer my boat and set my sails to take me where I want to go!

As a finishing touch, I added some pieces of washi tape and stamping and shaded around the elements. This page is very meaningful to me and will be a valuable addition to my LifeBook. I might recreate something similar on a canvas later, perhaps trying the intuitive painting technique when I feel a bit more confident about it.