National Geographic and Art Journaling

This is MY Son

This is my son.  He brings home these little books from school that he's supposed to read.  They are so stupid! "Pam and Pat take a nap in the pot." Shoot me now!  

The other night I walked past his room and this is what I see: 

Yeah, that's my boy.  Straight to the good stuff.

He's 6, by the way.

(On a side note, we had a great time Monday night watching Nova together.  We are both fascinated by Tornados!)

My username on YouTube and Etsy is BlackSunJamie.  I've been looking for a sun stamp that I could use to "sign" my projects and things.  I could never find one that wasn't cartoonish with a smiley face.  So I carved my own.  I see a lot of mistakes, but it works for me.  I may eventually end up with a collection of sun stamps.  I LOVE carving stamps.  It's so fun!

Here are some bits from the art journal page I worked on the other day.  The page I chose was painted with grey acrylics to begin with.  Then I sprayed it with Haunted Shadows Glimmer Mist.  I dabbed some off then sprayed again.  This drip in the corner was done with watered down black acrylic paint.  I again dabbed some of the wetness off, dripped some more, dabbed some off etc to get the layered look.

The shiny crackle was done with Ranger Rock Candy Distress Crackle paint.

I really love the way the background turned out.  I seem to gravitate toward framing my pages with a darker color and then gather images and text within those borders.  You can see the random stamping.  I was just trying out some stamps.

Stamping layered over the paint and a photo.

Some more of the distress crackle paint in the other corner.  All the edges of the photos and text are torn.  I love the look and it is symbolic. 

More stamping, the edge of a photo etc.   I love my stamps to sort of make a place for something to go.  For instance the mesh seems to frame the corner of the photo.

Anyway-I hope you enjoyed that peek.  There will be more art journal goodness to come!

PS-I totally sold out of all my paper bags this last week (like within 5 days!).  A new shipment of Newsprint paper bags arrived today so there will be an Etsy update early next week! Keep an eye out!