LifeBook Week50: Colourful abstractions

Oh boy, Donna Downey's intuitive style painting lesson really got the better of me on LifeBook this week. If you follow my blog, you'll know that I've always struggled with this type of work. My results always fall miserably short of my expectations. But perhaps that's the problem - I go into these projects with specific expectations instead of letting them emerge of their own accord.

I did 5 (five!) versions of this lesson until I was reasonably satisfied with it. Either the colours weren't right, or the composition wasn't appealing. Luckily, I used the same piece of watercolour paper, so I didn't lose anything other than a bit of paint and my confidence, LOL! I won't bore you with my fails - I'll just show you the final version, which I have deemed marginally acceptable. Or perhaps I just ran out of steam, LOL!

I started out with a crazy colourful background. The photo actually shows the background for Fail #4, but my final page was very similar, as I liked these colours.

Next, I sketched some shapes with a china marker and painted over the negative space with gesso, isolating some of the more interesting areas from the background. This is actually a simplified version of Donna's lesson. After this I thought I needed a little more oomph, so I outlined the shapes with stickles. My husband thinks they look like Christmas baubles - which wasn't my intention but I can live with that! I'm actually beginning to quite like it now and will not be too ashamed to include this page in my LifeBook. You'll be the judge!

I can't believe we're nearing the end of the year!

I'd better start thinking about how I'm going to bind my LifeBook!