Scraps Of Brilliance: Mid-Month Art Journal Challenge at the Flying Unicorn

Can you believe it's December 15th already? I know we say this every year, but where has the year gone? This month is a special one for the Mixed Media/Art Journal challenge on the Flying Unicorn Forums; the challenge was born January 1st, 2013, and this marks one full year of art journalling challenges. Whenever a new challenge debuts it's a waiting game to see if it will catch on. The members embraced this challenge right from the word go, and it has stayed one of our most active challenges every month. The quality of art that is being submitted, and the variety of styles, is absolutely mind-blowing, and I find myself constantly thinking "I have to try that!" as I look through the entries.

I am hosting the Mixed Media/Art Journal challenge this month, and as it has been for the past year I invite you to submit any and all of your mixed media creations - layouts, cards, tags, art journal pages, off-the-page or altered projects, we'd love to see them all.

My art journal is a place of experimentation for me. Because it is a smaller canvas, and is essentially just for me, I can try out all sorts of different things without the worry of spoiling a layout or project I've spent hours (or days) on. This is where I try to figure out how other artists have accomplished specific effects, or try to figure out how to do something I've seen in a tutorial using the supplies I have to hand.

The art journal page I'm sharing today is one of those trial pages. I have a slew of Gelli plate monoprints from a class I did just sitting in a file folder waiting for me to do something with them. For this page I decided to glue them into my Dylusions journal - the journal pages were bigger than my prints, so I cut two down and pasted them in.

I love the look of swirls and tracery in gel medium, and recently picked up a couple Catalyst scrapers I haven't had the chance to try out. I also have a pot of Viva Crystal Gel sitting unused, and decided to pull it out. I have no idea why, but every time I use it I get a crackle effect, which I used to my advantage here. I painted on a thick layer of the Crystal Gel across the background, then dragged through it in various patterns and let it dry.

Once dried, I painted on Splash of Color Primary Elements mixed with water in various colours, making sure to work it into the cracks.

This was just a trial page, so I don't have any sayings or stamping in mind for it and will probably leave it as is - I love the depth of colour and the way it sparkles.

You can enter as many projects as you'd like, otherwise our Standard Challenge Rules are in effect.

Challenge closes at 8pm EST on January 14th, 2014.

Here is the wonderful RAK that is up for grabs: