lettering love: journal

Lesson 24 of Joanne's lettering love online class was to make a bunch of backgrounds and bind them with duck tape (or washi or whatever tape available) into a journal.   I've been working on these the last few days to the exclusion of all my other projects and decided to share my background pages with you before I start the lettering.

I used a wide range of art supplies & techniques:  acrylic paint, watercolor pencils, oil pastels, stencils, stamps; paint spreading with a credit card, a brush, my fingers, spritzing and splattering.

Front cover:

I was lucky to find this patterned duck tape in a color palette that blends with colors I like to use.  I decided to use a recurring theme of stamped butterfly-ish critters throughout.....

Pages 1,2 (2 is smaller than the rest of the pages)

You can see the edge of page 1 peeking in at the edge....

Pages 7 & 8 - I made them side by side with a big 12" clock stencil as the first layer.  The black & white is another duck tape pattern.

Smooshy finger painting, some brush dancing on the right, stenciling and a small blue butterfly stamp along with mixed use of my duck tapes.

Wanted to have something dark to try my white lettering pens on....not my fave patterns, but maybe the addition of lettering and details will liven them up.

Like these colors MUCH better.

Finally, the back cover.

So, as I finish the lettering on each page, I'll share my progress....  One of my goals this year is to add some pizzazz to my handwriting.  I think I have neat, tidy printing but it's unremarkable and I want to be able to be more artsy about writing when the occasion calls for it.  This class is NOT a calligraphy or class for making formal, structured letters, but more about free flowing, creative, spontaneous alphabets.  I'm having so much fun with it.  AND I like that it combines my enjoyment of making layered, textured pages with lettering.  What could be better?