This one is ready to go on!

OK, I may have been the last one to send mine on to the first collaborator, but I'm making up for lost time. I'm getting ready to pack up Kellie's book to send to Suzanne. Any and all of you, including Carole, of course, may feel free to bug me about getting this book out. Kellie, don't look at this post unless you want to see pages in your book!

I chose to do Z because it was really speaking to me, and then B because that's what spoke up in a little whisper when I was leafing through the book trying to figure out what to do next. I had NO intention of them being done in a similar style. This is not a style or even a background technique I've done before, so I just did what I seemed to need to do to this book to get my pages done. I'm really liking what I did. I hope you all - and especially Kellie - like it too!

This page is a pop-up because it just seemed like the right way to do it. I never do this style, these colors, I've never used alcohol inks before though I've had them for ages, nor have I ever used the poster paint pens I bought a few months ago. I was reading Aileen Roberts' blog, Aileen's Musings, about using what's on your desk and thinking about how it seems like everyone I know who does art was cleaning out their studios and getting rid of things they weren't using. Why did I have all these things that I wasn't using? Why not just try them out? Why not try them out here? I guess I did. I'm happy with what I did.

Background Technique: Put white gesso all over page with sponge brush as smoothly as possible. Put about an eighth of an inch of Ranger Alcohol Ink Blending Fluid in a 2 ounce deli cup and add 6 drops of ink. I used Butterscotch, expecting an ochre or butterscotch. I got this lovely warm yellow instead that pleased me very much! I used a natural bristle 'mop' flicked back and forth quickly to apply the color to the gesso. I think I had to mix up my little recipe three times to cover both pages. (The B was cut out and gessoed but painted with a watered down straight Light Magenta Golden Heavy Body tube acrylic paint.)

Here's another page that is just not my style, if I even have a style, that is! It started out as a mistake. I had glued two pages together and gessoed them then I had that blank whiteness staring at me, glaring at me! I wanted to do paint scraping on it and dripped a few controlled colors on and scraped them around. Then I didn't like what I'd done. What to do? The next day, I poured some turquoise and patina green Golden Glaze over it. It looked too plain, so I added some ultramarine glaze and realized that I had way too much on there. So I swirled them all around anyway and it looked kind of cool. So I let it dry. The next day, I had another blank page staring me in the face, so I picked up the black poster paint pen and drew a frame. I did some doodles on some deli wrap and then repeated them on the page.

Yes, I only got about three quarters of the way around before I had to reach for the dictionary!

And there's a surprise in a pocket on the other side of this page, the "front" side. Take it out and read it. My sweetie thinks I'm nuts but he likes this work, too.