Adding a little color

This is a new piece I'm working on. I originally meant it to be monochromatic - but gosh, look what happened! I guess because the day was so grey and gloomy outside, I was attracted by my Carandache's and just went a bit wild. This is still in progress. The main image will be inside the large arch. I think I"ll paint it again following the original concept - then compare the two. I like this one well enough not to paint it out to go back to the pale subtle color palette. Some of the pages in my practice book are what brought me to making this work.

Practice Book - and more

Mushrooms were appearing everywhere. The one facing the fairy is really a biscuit. That spread was just too sticky sweet for my taste so I used other images to liven it up. The Wizard of Oz page was done because I had that little scrap lying around, and decided to use it, which meant it needed a yellow brick road and a witch. And as I was still working with mushroom, I added them as well. The joy of making an art journal or practice book is that things don't have to make any sense. They don't need to follow a theme or be in any order. Just a place to play and use up materials you have at hand.

Practice Book - more views

These pages were done with the continuing mushroom theme. I kept finding things that were shaped like mushrooms, or that I could manipulate into mushrooms. Perfect place to play around in a practice book.

Practice Book - new views

I've been working and reworking some of the pages in the art journal/practice book. Here are some pics. I'm showing you this spread because you can compare the final with the preliminary stage. In a way I actually prefer the early version, but this is just a practice book, so if I screw it up - only you and I will know about it. Right?