heart the art week #5: THRIVE

this is one of the most fun things i have EVER made...and one of the most unexpected. at no point during this process did i really have a clear picture of what i was actually going to end up with. usually that would bug me, but i am determined to embrace the "process is more important than results" school of art journaling, and to that end i tried out an idea that my art journal idol dina wakley apparently teaches in her classes: try to use TWENTY layers on a page. and i did it! well, sort of. ok, first lemme show you the page, it's for the year-long weekly challenge my *other* art journal idol, gina, is hosting on her blog tyggereye art.

(materials: 4x6" piece of thin chipboard; illustration from a vintage book; scraps of hambly transparency, corrugated cardboard, japanese text paper & vintage sheet music; plain muslin sprayed with glimmer mist, maya mist & smoosh spritz; leaf ribbon by may arts; pink glitter glue, silk flowers & leaves from michaels; brenda walton alphabet stamps; stampin' up distressed edge stamp; silver glitter thickers; vintage button; dmc embroidery floss; uniball & micron pigma pens; inks by ranger, colorbox & staz-on; watercolor & acrylic paints; gesso; masking tape, staples, sewing machine & gluedots)

ok, so now onto the twenty layers: i think it depends on how we calculate them. it was smooth sailing at the beginning: cardboard base, gesso, watercolor, stamping, an illustration from a vintage book, the masking tape i used to cover the bit of illustration which didn't fit my theme, the distress inks which camoflauged the tape, the ribbon "vines" i've sewed over bits of the illustration, and so forth.

towards the middle it gets fuzzier: i made flowers out of a piece of fabric on which i had spray-inked & stamped...is that 1 layer or 3?? i figure all the little bits of paper that highlight my journaling count fair & square as a layer each, but how about the staples? and what of the *ONE* cool vintage heart-shaped button i attached at the end? it adds loads of impact, imo--but does it constitute a layer??

in the end, i don't particularly care whether that aspect of the page was successful or not...and i have a really strong suspicion i'm not meant to. i think the point of the exercise is to push yourself, step outside of your comfort zone, and stop worrying if one last layer is going to "wreck" your page; in which case: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! :)