Focus on Texture

I had decided that this year I would play around in my art journal whenever possible but without recourse to prompts.  However, some friends from my “art tribe” convinced me that I should check out Art Journal Adventure and I decided to participate in a dip in and out fashion.  I recognise that I am someone who, in my present hectic circumstances, needs an occasional poke and a prod to actually find the time to just be playful with my art and that is something that journal prompts encourage me to do.  However, I am also going to attempt a themed art journal for the first time and will dip into that when the mood and mojo arises.  From time to time, I may well incorporate the Art Journal Adventure prompts into my themed art journal.

I got off to a good start as far as being flexible with participation goes because I did diddlysquat with the first week’s prompt.  I did, however, make use of this second week’s prompt.  It was pretty simple – the focus was to be on texture.  I am not one for adding much dimension to my art work – I am definitely a 2D person – so I focused on creating visual texture as opposed to anything tactile.  I had a half-finished page in my art journal that I hated.  It had been malingering in the journal for several months but I opted not to rip it out because I rather liked the art work on the reverse side of it.  A couple of months ago, when I had some surplus black acrylic, I smeared the paint across the page.  I decided, therefore, to return to that page as the starting point for my “texture” page.  I added some torn paper collage, spatter with pearl blue paint and white paint, printing with found objects, dribble, and finally some alphabet stamps.  It was all a bit random and abstract so I chose to give it a focal point by adding the word “Focus” which is my word for this year.  As art journal pages go, it is pretty mundane and mediocre but it is a massive improvement on what was beneath that black paint so I am happy.