Journal 52, Week 9: guest artist Daniela Mellen on artistic restraint

For Week 9 at Journal 52, Chelle had a guest artist, Daniela Mellen, who encouraged us to use artistic restraint.  The rules were simple: one color (other than black and/or white) and one shape.

I began by painting my used file folder white.  These file folders, given to me by various friends, are quite old and well used.  Some have ugly spots on them from where they were handled with dirty hands.   By painting this one white, I had a good background for the next step.

I haven't used this stencil for at least two years, mainly because I associate it with Christmas.  It's actually NOT a stencil, but a scrapbook overlay accessory that I picked up for far less than I would pay for a stencil, even one that was drastically reduced.  I paid $1.50 (USD) for it and it was not on sale!

I made sort of a mess of the ink, but my plan was to blot it by using a sheet of copier/printer paper.  The copier/printer paper will be used as my embellishment.

Here's what the used file folder looked like right after I removed the stencil.  It was now time to let everything dry, then cut out the embellishments from the copier/printer paper.  You can barely see one edge of the copier/printer paper sitting on the wipes.

Not the best photo in the world, but it's pretty obvious my scanner is still not working.  That meant I had to position the finished piece under my OTT light in my office.

The restraint quote I used was by Daniel Webster:

Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint.

~Daniel Webster

I was amazed when I put the embellishments on the background how different the colors looked, even though everything came from that same bottle of handmade shimmering mist.  My theory is the different weights of the paper/folder and the white acrylic paint background I used on the file folder acted differently.  I added nothing to the white copier/printer paper before I laid it on top of the stencil.

I spent a lot of time trying to get a close-up of my shimmering mist, but the shimmer, even under the OTT light, was hard to pick up on film.

The author of the quote and the week number are shown in this close-up.

One final look at this week's entry on artistic restraint.

BTW, it's not too early to start looking for your Second on the 2nd, where you show a post you have shown before.  The link goes live on the second of March at midnight CST or see Wichita's time on my right sidebar.

Thanks for visiting this week.  I'm so glad this one turned out as well as I had hoped.  I hope you like it, too.