In the last couple of weeks I’ve made 3 art journal pages using a similar technique (inspired by a Wanderlust class with MaryBeth Shaw) in which I created a background almost entirely covered with collaged ephemera and patterned papers.

Some of these papers were scrapbooking papers I already had, some of them were black and white print outs which I then painted over in the colour scheme i had chosen, and some were just watercolours I painted wet on wet.

The challenging part came after I had glued down all the papers to make a nice patchwork like mosaic background. How to tie it all together somehow and make it cohesive and not just an assortment of patterned rectangles??

Here you can see one of the pages at this initial stage. What I chose to do on each of these 3 pages was to add some acrylic paint in a light colour to some areas, especially over the edges of the pieces of collage trying to tie them together a bit more and also to provide a less busy area where I could place a focal image.

The next thing was to add some stenciling, which also made the page a bit more cohesive. All 3 of these pages turned out to be about coping with the Pandemic situation we are now in, and calling on the angels for some help.