Art Journal Winter Wonderland Part Deaux

You may recall that last week I painted an outdoor winter scene.  There was a cold snowy storm on the left hand side and a warm glow through the window of a house on the right hand side.  I love the view of winter like this, but I love it mostly through a picture window curled up on the couch with a frie… good book and a cup of hot chocolate (or irish coffee).  So this week I decided to bring that scene indoors.

I started by separating some two-ply tissue paper and cutting it to fit the window.  I laid the pieces on a piece of wax paper and used white glue to make lace dots for curtains.  I did this first because I knew this would be one of the things that took the most time to dry.  Once I had all the dots in place I set it aside and began prepping the page in the journal.

Using my X-acto knife and a phone book to protect the other pages, I carefully cut out the glass windows.  This was the hardest part of this whole project for me because I’ve always been told not to damage books in anyway.  I just have to keep telling myself over and over this is not a book.  After cutting the windows out, I used wax paper and masking tape to create a see through window for the page.  Swabbing mineral spirits in circles into the panes give it a frosted look to complete the winter window scene.

Using the same background technique as last week, I rub in warm yellow and red on the fireplace side of the room and cool blue around the window.  This sets the overall temperature of the whole piece as well as provides lighting direction for the additional elements.  As I mixed paints for the floor, window sash, mantle, etc, I used this background as a guide for adding blue or yellow to control the lighting.  This ALSO has the added benefit of spotlighting the brightest thing in the room, the fireplace.

Using the room background as a guide, I began spray painting my elements.  For instance in the couch shown, I first highlight the paper with yellow from the fire side, blue from the window side, black from the darkest corner of the floor and red for the glow on the upper right.  Then, when I added the green, the upholstery has a texture to it because it has captured light from multiple angles.

I drew in a wallpaper background, hung some photos on the wall, added the curtains and black spray paint for shadows and WALLAH!  This was a lot of fun.  I hope some of you try it as well.  If you do, please send me pictures of it, post about it here, or better yet, film it and post it as a video response on YouTube!

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