Follow Your Heart a journal spread by Astrid

Hello Shimmerz friends and thanks for dropping in today! I love playing in my art journals, and so today I have another journal spread to share with you.

I'll give you a quick step by step of how I put this together:

1. Cover your page with a layer of gesso and when dry add some crackle paint in places, - let that dry also.

2. Gather some bits and pieces to create a composition on your pages that will provide both different textures and some interest. I have a box of scraps on my desk where I keep bits and pieces left over from previous projects and that is usually my go to place to find some things to add to my pages.

Colours at this point, don't matter at all, as everything will be covered with gesso anyway.

3. Gather some further embellishment and something that can provide a focal point. I chose an image from one of the Tim Holtz found relative cards that I had punched out with a postage stamp punch.

At this point I just played around with the positioning, nothing is glued down yet.

4. Time to decide on a colour scheme, - I decided to go with some warm brown and rose pink colours this time.

These are the products I used:

Spritz Treasure Hymn

Coloringz Chocolate Brownie

Inlinkz in the colours Ruby Lost her Slippers, Tarnished Treasure and Chocolate & Diamonds

Shimmerz in Evergreen

5. Once the main elements are covered in gesso and have dried, add colour with the sprays first of all.

6. Deepen the colours with the help of the Inlingz. Add some water to the little pots with a spray bottle and when they have softened and become all creamy, use a paint brush to highlight certain areas and add shadows for more depth with your darker colours; colour the leaves with the Shimmerz paint.

7. Now for the finishing touches, - add the other embellishments, some background stamping and your sentiment. Mine was computer generated.

A bit of darkening around the edges and some doodling with a fine tip pen finishes it all off.

Below a few close ups still.

I added a bit more shadow underneath the die cuts with the help of a black Stabilo All pencil.

Edging the sentiment strip with some ink and adding shadows below, makes it pop a bit more. I also added a few white splatters with some watered down acrylic paint and an old tooth brush.

A couple of buttons (Prima) and some hand doodling around the edges.

And finally the focal image again with shadows added belwo to create some more depth.

Well, that's it for now, I love Shimmerz products for journalling and am always intrigued how they pool and puddle around different textures, so much fun to play around with.

Thanks for your visit today like always, and before you leave, don't forget, you can order Shimmerz products directly from the Shimmerz Paints Store. If you do,  mention my name (Astrid Maclean) in the «Instruction to Merchant/seller» part of your order form (just below your name and address). After clicking «add», you'll get a FREE product in the color of your choice. And for people from outside the US, Shimmerz do a really good deal on postage!