Be the star you are

 have always found this quote empowering so I thought I would create a page to share it with you for this month’s Art Journal Journey theme, which is “Poetry in Motion”, where you are asked to create a page inspired by a poem, quote or saying.

To tie into the quote, I masked off a large star shape and then I painted some distinctive vertical and horizontal lines using grey watercolour paint making sure that I kept the colour to the right-hand side of the page. Then I used a paintbrush to apply lots of fine splatters of the same grey and also some red watercolour paint; I concentrated the splatters on the bottom right-hand corner and fanned them out across the page like a star burst. Next I stamped an alphabet stamp by Kaisercraft and a star garland stamp by Craft Expressions using black Archival Ink and applied black and white acrylic paint splatters again. I used a black Faber-Castell Big Brush marker to outline the star and then I removed the masking tape. Next I used the star garland stamp and black Archival Ink again to continue some of the star strands over the white star. The individual letters for the quote are cut from an alphabet paper sheet by Creative Sensations, they are stuck to the page using a UHU Stic and I outlined them with a black Uni Pin marker. To finish, I stuck gold outline stickers onto a sheet of paper from the same Design Pad by Creative Sensations, fussy cut them out and stuck them to the page with a UHU Stic along with some little gold star stickers.

I got the idea for the background splatters from some street art that we recently discovered in Blackpool . There are quite a few murals on the side of some buildings and we noticed that rather than leave one of the side walls plain the artist had painted the wall black, then masked it off in a geometrical design and applied lots of fine splatters of paint.

Here’s a close up view of the wonderful art that resulted when the masking tape had been removed – isn’t the texture amazing!

This is the main mural on the other side of the building, painted in 2015 it now looks a bit worn but the images and colours are fabulous.

This mural was on the building next door, I think this one was created as part of Blackpool’s “Sand, Sea & Spray 2016” urban art festival and the way the artist has created the light on the pretty ladies face and also the rain effect is stunning!

I do hope that you are inspired to get creative and join us for this month’s “Poetry in Motion” challenge over at Art Journal Journey! I’m looking forward to seeing you there.

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Here is a list of all the materials used to create this art journal page:

• Pébéo White Gesso
• DecoArt Crafter’s Acrylic (Black, White)
• Winsor & Newton Cotman Water Colours (Payne’s Gray 465)
• Rowney Georgian Water Colour (Crimson Alizarin 515)
• Ranger Archival Ink (Jet Black)
• Faber-Castell Big Brush artist pen (Black 199)
• Derwent Graphix Line Marker (Black 0.05mm)
• Kaisercraft Clear Stamps (Alphabet CS887)
• Craft Sensations Clear Stamps (CRO274/16R2)
• Homemade wooden stamp block using plasterboard/drywall tape
• Craft Sensations Design Pad (Soft Colours CRO730/R)
• Outline Stickers (Stars Gold)
• UHU Stic