Hope But Anticipate Journal Collage

 

This journal page started with the idea of experimenting with transparency--while at the Ink Pad, I saw some a big pad of gorgeous, preprinted transparent paper by a very well-known mixed media artist with his own line of supplies. I mulled over the idea of buying it, but being frugal, decided to print my own. And after all, why use somebody else's designs when I have a computer full of my own designs and collaged images that I created in Photoshop?

 

So, I found some similar paper, cut it to size, and printed a few sheets on my laser color printer. It came out beautiful and printed easily. Today, I dared cut it up and experiment. I tried two different journal pages.

• I loved the sheerness of the semi-transparent paper
• I didn't love the lack of stickability...I tried matte medium and also my favorite glue stick. With the matte medium, it buckled and didn't stick very well. With the glue stick, it stuck a little better. I placed the experiment (covered with waxed paper) under a heavy cast iron pot and will see soon what a little time and pressure does to it.

On the piece above, I recycled a hideous painting I did recently as lunch-hour therapy. By laying a section of partially painted deli paper over the watercolor and adhering it with matte medium, I was able to keep some of the underneath image, yet partially mask the ugly parts. After it dried, I then added some of the new transparent paper--the stripe of vintage French script and the butterfly. Next, I put a lacey stamp and a Julie Fei-Fan Balzer stamp made from one of her woodcuts. At the top I used a strip of newsprint from the New York Times.

 

Reflecting what is going on in both my life and in the world, and probably inspired by the butterfly image, the words "hope for the best, anticipate the worst" came into my head, so I wrote the words on the page freehand with markers.