Rising to a challenge

My first ever Art Journalling Calendar Page

My thanks to Sheila Cross for introducing me to the concept of Art Journalling Calendar pages.   So this is my first attempt.  For January I decided to try a snowy scene to make up for being surrounded by floods.

Ingredients:
Stamps:
Pilkington Wood bare tree Stamps Away
Pine Forest Clarity Stamps
January and frame free with a magazine
Snowman Get Stamping magazine
Snowflake unknown origin
Alphabet stamp set Hampton Art
Numbers stamp set Panduro Hobby

Inks:
Adirondack Denim
Memento Paris Dusk

Cutting Dies:
Circle Stampin' Up
Spellbinder Rounded Square

A4 Art Pad
White Gesso Primer Daler Rowney
Spectrum Noir TB4 and TB9
Inkilicious Ink Dusters
Make up sponge

How I did it!

1.  I painted a two page spread with white gesso and left to dry.

2.  Using a piece of torn copy paper as a sky line and a die cut circle for the moon I made the sky by blending Denim ink across the top with the ink duster.

3. I stamped the Pine Forest using Paris Dusk randomly over both pages.  I then used the make up sponge and Denim to put some mounds in the snow and shadow under the trees.  I also put in the horizon through the moon.  Using a piece of scrap paper as a mask I stamped a border with Paris Dusk and the bare tree stamp.

4. With the rounded square die I cut 35 squares of white paper and stamped a snowflake on each in different positions with Denim ink and using the third impression.  Then I stamped two frames and January in one of them, and cut them out.  I then arranged the labels and squares on my pages before sticking them down and numbering them using the stamp set. On the extra four squares on the bottom row of the left-hand page, I stamped 'Notes' with the alphabet stamps.

5.  Finally I stamped a snowman onto a scrap piece of Centura Pearl card, cut it out and stuck it in the bottom right corner.  All done.

There are a lot of mistakes in it and things I would do differently but for a first attempt I am quite pleased with the outcome. So perhaps I might even go on to do the rest of the year, in time.