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When I started learning to use watercolor as a medium, I was totally intimidated by facing a blank white page. I quickly realized that I needed to be able to "draw" before I could "paint".

Looking back at my early paintings, I saw that my perspective was off, my colors were muddy, and while some of my efforts were OK, many should be thrown into the trash. (Which I did!)

But I love using watercolor. So what to do?

First, I realized I am an abstract artist, not a realist artist. That relieved me of having to master drawing before painting. What I loved about watercolor was the mixing of paints and the intuitive application of color.

But then, there was that blank white paper to deal with.

To solve that problem, I began using pre-printed card stock as my substrate. It didn't matter the design since I would be altering the surface with my own hand and the original design would never be shown.

Here are several small works of art made this way. And I love them. They were fun to make because there was no pressure. So I encourage all of you to spend a couple of hours creating this way to see what you can make.

Here's how I did this: I found some pre-printed card stock and cut it into the shape and size I wanted. I randomly applied gesso to the surface, not covering everything, and let it dry. Then I painted over the whole surface with water color. I added some gold watercolor just because.

More importantly, I had a wonderful creative day!

Collaging has always been a challenge for me but I recently created an artist book that used many of the photographs I've taken over the years of textures in nature.
I loved the finished pages and then, took photos of each collaged page and used these to collage into a new artist book.
As you can tell, this process is infinite.
And all mine.
Think about how you can repurpose your own art into new expressions.

I've always had a hard time making an art journal. Mostly because my mind is always thinking of new ideas. But it is 2021 and I am going to try again.
Here is one of the pages I made this week. Using CitraSolv on National Geographic pages and then embossing over them, I liked the result!

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