Here are two backgrounds waiting for me to do something with them. This first one is a bit textured: I used some kind of plastic mat to stamp some gesso, painted over it with orange acrylic and rubbed it back so you could see the gesso underneath. I had also painted a few gesso words, I think “no thought” and “play”. When the orange was dry I painted burnt umber over all and rubbed it back too. The page sat like that for a few weeks waiting for some attention and everytime I looked at it it seemed to say “Fire”. Then one week in my art journaling class with Zom we were asked to create some black gesso areas on one of our backgrounds so I chose this one and painted black across the centre creating the flames. This is quite a strong background now, I don’t quite know how to approach adding something to it. It would be likely that the background would overpower anything I might stick on top of it! Will keep you posted.

Here is another background awaiting a “foreground”. It was created in a similar way to the previous one only in this one I collaged down some pieces first…some music, a black and white photocopy of a photo of me in younger days, a page from the dictionary with definitions of love.Then I stamped some gesso using bought stamps and bubble wrap, and when that was dry painted 2 different shades of blue. Obviously I don’t know many different techniques yet for creating backgrounds! This was actually really fun to do because I was showing my friend Ruth (who has recently acquired the art journaling bug!) a couple of background techniques and we were working together at my dining room table, and having a lovely relaxed creating time. Anyway, I do like this blue background and I trust that one day it will become clear to me what I must put over it!