Inside Out Visual Journaling: Behind the Art with Jen

As much as I love dressing up for Halloween, I love dressing up to educate my students in my art classes! I went as a Day of the Dead Mexican Sugar Skull last Halloween. I painted my face and created a headband of blossoms to celebrate not only our Halloween holiday but also the Mexican holiday, Dia de los Muertos. I love the meaning behind their celebration... to honor those that have passed before us. To remember and celebrate our loved one's lives. A couple days of dancing, eating, singing, parades, and family sounds like a great way to remember our heritage. While I am not Mexican, I can appreciate a holiday that celebrates the life of others even while they have died. Keeping their memory and accomplishments alive is part of the remembering! I'm so lucky that I get to dress up at work to teach kids cultural art!!

To make this page, I started by adding some Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft Gesso to this Fancy Pants patterned paper. I love the energy of the triangles but it's a bit busy. The Gesso toned down some of the optical energy. I used the back of a paintbrush to scribble in the Gesso too. It just gave some fun lines and texture to the area.

Then I used Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft Whipped Spackle through a Crafter's Workshop skull stencil. When dry, I used Gelatos® colors in Banana (from the 50's Diner set), Watermelon, Margarita Mix (from the Tropical Set), and Red Cherry to create dripping color over the Whipped Spackle. I created some puddles of each color on my craft mat and used lots of water and a brush to create drips.

The Gelatos® colors Metallic Melon and Raspberry were added by making puddles of color and water on the craft mat and putting the paper face down in the puddles. I let some of it drip by holding the paper at an angle.

Once all of the color dried, I put the stencil back over top of the skull and used a Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft Essential PITT Artist pen to outline some of the shapes. This gave it a big more definition.