Cherish Art - Dress Form Journal

Hi, Everyone,

I was asked to create something from the new BoBunny collection called Penny Emporium.  It's shabby chic/steampunk with main colours of teal, lavender & tan with every colour of the rainbow thrown in as accents. So what can I make with such a varied colour palette?  An Art Journal of dress forms of course.

I started off with handmade paper in a neutral shade as the base for my book cover, something to neutralize all that colour.  Then I selected the Penny Emporium Ephemera pack which has a variety of ribbons, buttons & paper pieces to decorate the book with lots left over.  I used 5 different pieces of paper from the paper collection for the pages of my book & 3 pieces from the Trinkets package to create the book jewellery hanging from ribbons on the spine.  Have a look.

I love the teals & lavenders together but needed to tone down the centre of the pages with Gesso so I could draw on them. With embroidery floss I hand sewed a zig-zag stitch over leftover bits of mixed media paper at the spine of the dress form pages.

I use a Stabilo All Pencil for drawing because it writes on absolutely everything including plastic, which essentially paint is.  It wipes off with a damp cloth or blends with a water brush for defining or blending.  

Once I'm finished drawing I make it permanent by spraying it with a Krylon Workable Fixative.

Both the Stabilo All Pencil & Krylon Workable Fixative are definitely necessities in my basic tool kit.

The script writing along the edges of the page & up the dress forms is created with a Fineline Applicator.  I filled the Fineline Applicator with 1/2 Black Fluid Acrylic Paint & 1/2 Fluid Medium (some artists use Airbrush Medium, but I find Airbrush Medium too thin).  

I created my own 2 Part Fabric Spine with fabric flaps to glue the pages into.  I show you how to create this Fabric Spine during the "Denim & Lace" Weekend Event.

One yard of ribbon is placed between each page & tied on the outer spine.

The Fabric Flaps on the spine create a lot of visual interest, again I kept to neutral colours.

I love the unexpectedness of hand sewing & have used embroidery floss to create French Knots on both of these pages.  All the tabs in the book have been sewn on with a machine.

The creativity has been flowing this week & I have created many journal pages.  I will share more of these pages with you soon.

Have fun creating!