Beginner Art Journalist: May Mission Inspiration Challenge

In my last post, I told you that the Mike Deakin mission inspiration challenge was a little daunting for me well I decided to try it this month. I always struggle when facing an empty page so this is a way to start. It is difficult having to take every step and wonder what the composition well look like in the end.

Finished piece.

1. added composition paper.

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3, 4, 5.  I added a teal color to the background
glued ribbon from a lanyard as a border,
and added 3 focal points, shoes, map,
 and the mountains.

6. bubble wrap and a toaster oven utensil
to make marks with titanium white paint.

2. I stamped book pages with butterflies
and flowers using archival ink.

7, 8. I add words for the month
and add cardboard strips. I added
gray paint to the cardboard
to balance the color.

I used the butterfly and flower stamps from these sets. And rummaged around to find these household utensils.

Beginner Art Journalist: Mini Mission Inspiration art challenge prompt cards

The mission inspiration is a monthly challenge with 10 prompts or steps which is the brain child of Mike Deakin. I find those monthly challenge to be very daunting but recently he came out with a mini challenge that gives a word prompt on an index card.  It is A to Z so in the end there will be 26 indexed cards. What I understand is these are to be indexed after each month so you'll have 26 cards to have when an idea for an art journal isn't forthcoming.

I decided to do each month's mini challenge on an 3" x 5" index card. For the letter A, the theme was Aquatic.

 Here's the prompt index card.

 I painted the background with Dylusion's paint London Blue with a blending tool.

 I added Dylusion's paint Cut Grass with a blending tool.

The background was a little to bright so I toned it down with Titanium White.

I drew half of a shark to give the illusion of it swimming through a reef, of sorts. I painted in sea grass, sea anemones, and a clam but I didn't take photos of the process, sorry. I also stamped some circles and flower shapes to the background to give some depth.