Getting messy with Backgrounds

Today I've been messing about with backgrounds.  It all started earlier in the week when I was helping my sister Lindsay out creating samples for the "Stitches" trade show in Birmingham later this month, along with our crafty friend Joanne.  I was allocated the task of painting up some canvas backgrounds; being given a free rein with colours, etc, it was a bit daunting at first but I soon warmed to the task.  So I thought that as I had a few free hours today, I'd spend them completing the rest of the (seven) backgrounds I'm meant to have already done for February for my Art Journal 2012.  There were specific instructions for each one and here are the results of my messing around (I showed you the first of them - Blue - in my last post) ......

Background No 2 - Seeing Stars - my background was painted using acrylic paints in grey, periwinkle and blue.  I stencilled some tiny stars on with midnight blue ink, then stamped some larger stars onto old dictionary paper, cut them out and adhered to the page. 

Background No 3 - Splatter, Splodge and Running Paint - I painted and splodged orange and magenta acrylic paint onto my background then watered down some purple paint and dribbled it down and across the page for a runny effect.

Background No 4 - Watercolour wash using shades of green and yellow brushed and blended across the page.

Background No 5 - Used yellow, orange and purple acrylic paints randomly daubed onto the page, then swooshed with an old credit card - very dark and messy looking at the moment, but it will no doubt look quite different when it's finished!

Background No 6 - Dry Brushing Technique - applied a dark shade (wine) of acrylic paint to the background, dried it completely, then dry brushed over it with pale aqua and white.

Background No 7 - Aged Page - for this final page I had to apply brown ink (used Distress Inkpad Vintage Photo) direct to paper, then daubed on Black Soot in several areas, spreading it a little with a damp paper towel.  Stamped a couple of circles in dark brown ink to look like coffee stains, plus a few blotches of  tea dye ink (all I had) here and there.

At the moment they don't look very much, but now I have to follow instructions for the next stage - adding text to each one - we've been given a list of seven phrases/words and have to add one to each of our pages.  Quite intriguing as I didn't read what we had to do next before I made the backgrounds so that I wouldn't be influenced by knowing.  Will show you what the finished pages look like at the end of the month (if I get them done)!