all at once...

my latest journal pages... lots of stuff seems to be happening "all at once" here, so I journaled about it in my composition book. It's a messy-looking layout, but I wanted it that way, and did it on purpose, to visually express my feelings about everything that's been going on. Mandatory overtime at my job, possible Saturday work (ick!), Tom gone most of the week on a business trip, car trouble requiring a tow truck, etc. etc. Basically there was too much to do, not enough time to do it, and it all came about at the same time. I know that's not really true- it's just easier to focus on the "bad" things so it only seems that way, but still, I'll be glad for a boring, non-eventful span of time...

• This page is made with a lot of layering- the first layer was torn strips of scrapbook paper (light green, tan, and a burgundy stripe, if I recall correctly). I left it that way for a couple weeks, till I decided what to do next with it.
• The second layer ended up being acrylic paint, applied during the class I took with Kelly Kilmer... I think I was trying to use up my paint before lunchtime, and started painting lots of pages by randomly layering color and scrubbing them with paper towels to expose some of the layers underneath. (Plus, I decided I didn't really like the torn scrapbook paper by itself, anyway, and wanted to cover it up.)
• The third layer was stamping with StazOn jet black ink around the edges- a few random-looking pattern stamps including an abstract floral pattern, a criss-cross pattern, small black stripes, and a small circle pattern.
• Fourth layer: magazine image (she's from a Gap ad, I think- I looked thru all three of the magazines in my collaging stash to find an image that fit with my page idea; if I hadn't found her, this page would probably have turned out really different). I glued her down with gel medium, not being careful with the gel at all; after all, this page is about how messy life can get, right?? I also smudged her with some of the black StazOn, and different colors of watercolor crayons. The watercolor crayon also picked up some of the texture from the dried gel medium, which I think is pretty cool. (oh- I made the stop sign from SB paper to cover up some text from the magazine page that I didn't want to show... necessity is the mother of invention, after all.)
• The last layer(s) were created with pens- writing, and many, many scribbles with paint pens and souffle pens to also emphasize the "messy-ness" aspect. Plus, the scribbling was actually really fun to do!! Whenever I had a couple free minutes, but not enough time to work on anything more involved, I just added some scribbles to these pages- I highly recommend scribbling as a form of art therapy!

These two pictures are closeups, showing all the layering of paint, stamping, and pen scribbling...

Overall, I'm really happy about how this turned out- now, I'm looking forward to creating some tranquil, peaceful journal pages, because that means that things will have calmed down at our house! They already have calmed down, some... the car is repaired, Tom got home from his trip safely, and well, the overtime will help to pay for the car repairs (and some crafting supplies, of course- LOL!)