Calm in the Storm

My good friend Kelly was sharing  a visualisation with me, for those occasions when everything feels overwhelming. This has really helped me, and I wanted to immortalize it in my journal. Thanks Kelly.

 

This page has two techniques; the background using acrylics and a wax resist for the ship.

Part A: The background
With all my pages, I started by drawing the basic image that I wanted, in this case the waves.

1. Use a a mixture of Payne's Grey and Phthalo blue for the "stormy sky" 
2. Use Phthalo blue to paint the waves. 
3. Using Naples Yellow, and a filbert brush,  paint over the still wet Phthalo blue, to create the greener shades.
4. When paint is dry, dab on White on the crest of the waves.
5. Add lightening with a yellow and white pencil

 Part B: Wax Resist
I like this technique, because it incorporates some of the background colour into the image, which is particularly useful when adding collage elements. In this case I stamped an image, but this would work equally well for b/w collage images, or a black and white drawing.

Step 1: Stamp image onto paper (I used an old envelope)

Step 2: Outline key features with indelible ink (Copic Multiliner 0.03)

For the next two steps, you add colour and white with pencil. Because you are creating a wax resist, you need to use a soft pencil, such as Prismacolor.

Step 3: Colour in dark areas, and areas of shadow. Here I used French Grey 20% for shadow

Step 4: Colour sails with white

Step 5: Add a wash of background colour (mix colour with water.)

Step 6: Wipe off excess colour with a wet baby wipe. Trim and use in your journal.