Anger Management using my Art Journal :)

Until now, I haven't written anything truly personal in my journal and thanks to being thoroughly pissed off at someone.... I went for it.  It was exhilarating and therapeutic nonetheless!  So here goes....  I started this page with a watercolor background.  I misted my pages well and just started spreading reds, blues, oranges, and purples.  I left a few white spots as well.  I knew I would cover this up so I wasn't particular in my painting.  I let my pages dry for a bit and hit them with the hair dryer to finish it off.

Once my pages were pretty dry I grabbed some bright acrylics (blue, red, and purple).  I mixed a little water into each color to dilute the paint a bit.  I did this so that some of the watercolor underneath would show through.  I very haphazardly added some blocks of acrylic color over my watercolor.  I did not cover the entire thing.... I just mindlessly added blocks of color, moving back and forth between each as I went.  Then I hit it with the dryer to speed up the drying process.  After it was dry enough I doodled around the bottom edge of both pages using a micron and a silver metallic gelly roll.

Next, I dove into my piles of scrapbook paper looking for patterns and colors that went with the paints on my pages.  I tore strips of paper and framed my pages with it, using my adhesive runner to adhere them to my pages.  I did not plan any of this... I just tore and laid it on my page to see where I wanted it to go.  I also cut some circles from scrap paper I had laying around and cut flowers from a pattern.  I used a Micron pen to doodle within the existing flower.  I felt it made it pop more.

Then I saw my Twilight Eclipse book on the table, tore out the Robert Frost poem, and burned the edges for an embellishment.  Warning the paper burns easily.... have a cup of water ready just in case of an accident!  I noticed in the table of contents that there was a chapter named Temper.  I should have remembered this since I have read each book of the series 4 times... YES- I am a Twilight fan :) and proud of it!  This gave me the theme for my page.... Anger.  It made all the sense in the world especially after becoming extremely peeved at someone the last couple of days.  So I decided to tear that page out as well.  I mixed up a little Gesso and water to make it more translucent and covered the page in that.  I set it to the side and let it dry.

While the page from the book dried, I drew a small doodle on the purple heading strip (right page at top) using a micron and moonlight gelly rolls.  Then I took my micron and wrote a message at the top.  The thin black ink did not stand out enough for me so I put a little gesso over it.  I hit it with gesso and used the dryer on it.  Then I used a Sharpie Fine Tip marker to re-write my message.

I then worked a bit at placing all of my book pages, text boxes, flowers, etc on my page.  I finally decided on a layout I liked and I glued everything down using my adhesive runner.  I took a step back and looked at what I had and decided what needed a little "umph" to pop more.  So I took a micron and went over the word Temper on the book page and wrote it twice underneath using different forms of my handwriting.  I used a bracket template (made with my cricut, poster board, and Wild Card cartridge) to outline my temper words.  I traced the template with a pen and then colored it in with black oil pastel.

Next I wrote: * Count to 10 and breathe and added some scrap zebra ribbon underneath.  Then I journaled a message on the text box I had previously made.  It reads:  I'm going to have to learn to control my anger..."  In the box on the right hand page I wrote: "Instead of letting my anger control me." Then I doodled the word breathe using lettering from Joann Fink's book Zenspirations.  It is an excellent book and I would highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys doodling, patterning, and lettering.  Finally I used a white gelly roll pen to decorate blue (painter's) masking tape.

I hope you enjoy these pages as much as I did making them.  I will definitely be writing more and adding more personal messages on my pages... the reward was great.  I am way less pissed now :) .