Art Journal Page - The Documented Life - Wk5

The Documented Life has the next challenge up already, and I have just finished the last! A week goes so quickly!

So the challenge for week 5 was:

Art Challenge | Under Paper

Journal Prompt | What Lies Beneath?

I found this challenge quite difficult as I don't really use under paper. This is all I had:

This is just copy paper I put around my journal:

 And some cardstock I kept under items I used in scrapbooking when I was spraying them:

So with a limited stash, this is what I came up with:

And the steps I took:

I sprayed the background through a stencil with some Glimmer Mist, then with Gel Medium, added my cut strips of paper. 

[This is actually upside down]

Then I painted over all of it with yellow, green and yellow/green paint:

At this point, I left it because I had no idea what to do, and didn't have time to continue anyway.

With all the green in my under paper, I couldn't help but think of leaves. Using a leaf stencil, I cut out the shapes and loosely placed them on my page adding some circles to give me an idea of where to gesso around. Here is my gesso progress:

Which led me to this:

I doodled in the leaves, inline with the stencil (a Ronda Palazzari design), glued them down and added my circles, before adding my finishing touches to get to this:

I have to say, I am not really fond of using Gel Medium as a glue, but it is friendly to the pens/markers I use on top. Any other glue ruins them all. However, I think double-sided tape would be a good option as well. I'm still experimenting.

The next challenge is up, and is available HERE.

Thank you for visiting! Wishing you all a creative day. :)