Ever wonder if the things around your art studio come to life when you aren’t there – like in Toy Story?  I am beginning to think that they really do.  This cluster of stuff all seemed to find each other over the course of several weeks as I worked on a variety of projects and magically became an art journal page.

But all these didn’t make sense to me until I made this background by cleaning off my brayer while printing with a Gel Press printing plate on dictionary paper.

The colorized strip of Tim Holtz Photobooth images just happened to coordinate perfectly with the background.  Was this carefully planning on my part?  Heck no.  Was it just luck…or perhaps orchestrated by the supplies as they rearranged themselves at night?

The feather fit perfectly on the turquoise swath of paint. Again, careful planning or did that lone feather that I missed while cleaning up after another project hide until it was safe to come out so it could be on this page?

The words, made with my Fridge Poetry stencil from StencilGirl using a technique in my Breaking the Rules stenciling DVD, are dimensional and simply leftovers.  Scraps.  Bits and pieces of another project. And somehow they completed the story of these colorful women!  More careful planning? Nope, the supplies are in control it seems in the studio.

I’m probably sounding a bit crazy to you that I think all these pieces brought themselves together, but there isn’t an explanation I like better!  Now if I could just get the supplies to clean themselves up at night…

The play gets ugly today.  Really ugly.  The challenge of this page is that I used Dylusions spray ink on the first layer and it reactivates as soon as paint hits it PLUS it will bleed through any paint layer.  But what I thought was ugly became something I love thanks to a little help from a Gel Press printing plate!

Watch How I dealt with the challenge of dylusions spray ink bleeding on YouTube.  See how these pages began by joining the fun in the free workshop, Permission to Play.

This is part of the Let’s Play video series and this month it’s all about just starting, even if it means there might be some running or smearing of the spray ink.  The important thing for me is to just start doing something to the page.

It’s all about rediscovering the ability to play and each month I share a specific strategy that helped me recapture the freedom and fun of play. You can see more of the Let’s Play series here. Be sure to get entered in the $50 Dick Blick giveaway by leaving a comment below.

With surgical precision, those yellow lines were painted.  Okay, not surgical precision but it took all of my concentration and patience. After all staying within the lines isn’t my natural way.

When it started to get ugly, a voice in my head was quick to point out how fabulous it was before I added the paint.  It made me cringe with how ugly it became. O.O.P.S.  What did I do?  Added another layer!

The Gel Press printing plate turned this ugly duckling into a swan.  Now I have smatterings of color all around the page thanks to just a few minutes of play.  That bleeding spray ink created the most wonderful effect with all the other colors.

Here are the supplies I used. Some of these links are affiliate links which means I get a small percentage. It doesn’t cost you anything extra and you are helping me keep this blog and my videos ad free! Thank you- I don’t like ads any more than you do!

InLinkz.com

Now you’ve seen my play, let’s see yours!  Share what you’re creating with us all in the Facebook group and be inspired by what others are creating! And be sure to leave a comment here to get entered in the monthly $50 gift certificate giveaway!

Want to see more Let’s Play videos? You can find all the weekly posts here.

Sharing your play:   I, and a whole bunch of others, would love to see what you’re creating!  We’re sharing it in the Facebook group called A Colorful Place to Play. Why Facebook?  I’ve listened to your feedback about how and where you’d like to share your play instead of the link parties.

Monthly giveaways:  Leave comment on any (and all for more chances) of the weekly Let’s Play blog posts to be entered and one winner each month will be chosen by random.org.  Want more chances to win a $50 gift certificate to DickBlick.com?  Pin any of the images from the page or share about it on Facebook- then come back and leave a comment telling me what you did and you can have more chances to win! Giveaway closes the Sunday, December 4th at 11 pm EST and the winner will announced on the blog the following Monday.

Congrats to Ann, last month’s winner!