 we're here with another journal page done on a oversized playing card. Again I will try to remember to link the listing in Amazon where you can get these kind of cards in the description below and they're fun to create on but you don't need to have them. You could use Chipboard, an art journal page. You could do it on anything. It's just kind of nice every now and then to use something unusual and out of the norm to be honest. So this month I wanted to do something with my current favorite quote which is of course at the moment coffee related. I have a number of favorite quotes but that's the one I want to work on today and we're going to just do something simple and easy and quick. I and again have filmed this before I moved so I had at the time very limited supplies. Most everything was packed or being packed in the whole house including the art room. So I start out by sanding the card lightly and then wiping it clean with a baby wipe and because we're going to do painting and drawing I give the card a good coat of gesso and let it dry completely. I am using Windsor and Newton Gesso. I'm not sure. I do know it's from Walmart. It was really cheap. Gesso doesn't have to be expensive. It's a little smoother and shinier than I'm used to. I'm used to using Liquitex Gesso which is grittier but they both have their uses and they're both fine. Use what you can afford if you have neither. Use white paint. Use what you have. You could also collage some paper onto the card. Just something so that you have a better substrate than the shiny card is to do some artwork on because the glossy surface of the card is not the best. So you want to put something there. So now I'm just drawing it with heat tool because of course I have absolutely no patience. Again because of the kind of paper we're working on and the fact that we're working with gesso which is an acrylic paint basically medium you want to be careful you don't have the heat gun in one place for too long or it will bubble. Also the plastic coating on the card underneath will bubble so if you want to have that texture in your background go for it but do be careful. These heat embossing tools do get really hot so you want to take some precautions. Once it's dry completely then we can get started. You don't want to do any drawing or anything on the card until all your layers of gesso are done and dry. I did decide I wanted a second layer so I would cover up more of the card and have a white or blank slate. Again I do find these cards a challenge to work on which I find interesting. I'm not always super concerned about covering up all of the card. I just usually in the case of this particular one want most of it covered so we're going to give it our best shot. I do think a little bit shows through in the final piece at least when you see it in person I'm not sure it's going to show up on camera. So once you have that all done and I'll spare you the trials and tribulations of watching all of that because you know who wants to just see me play with the heat gun for eternity. Then we can get started on the next stage of the process and my quote is coffee related so I am going to quickly do just a simple easy sketch of a coffee cup. I am using a pen. I do believe it is a Inkjoy gel pen in brown if I'm not mistaken. Inkjoy makes some super affordable gel ink pens in different colors. They don't have tons but they what they do have I like and they're easy to get. While the pen is wet it is water soluble so I'm going to use a water brush to spread it around and aid me with my shading. I love to use my pens and the ink from them to help me with my paintings and so that's what we're going to do here and we're going to add shadows. I'm trying to keep this really simple. I don't want to have it get too complicated because it's not about the artwork in the background it's about the quote really. The artwork is just to suggest and emphasize the quote. I also tend to use baby wipes as you see here to spread ink around and blend edges and things and then of course the requisite heat gun to get things all dry. Next thing I'm going to do is tear up some jelly printed paper that was painted on with some of my stencils from my stencil line. I'll link the Etsy shop in the description below. I have a number of different stencils and rubber stamps that I've designed in my shop and I'm going to collage some of those on the cup and give it sort of I guess a pattern to the coffee cup. I don't know too many of us who drink out of a plain colored coffee cup myself included. So we are going to add some collage bits to our coffee cup and I am using matte medium to glue them down. I don't want to use anything too glossy to glue the pieces to the cup. That'll make a different cult to write over if I decide to add more writing to the page at some point so and I probably will. So I am using matte medium because when it dries it's easier to write over and it's also honestly it was on the table I could find it anywhere it was. So we're just continuing with the collage process and then we're going to get that dry and then we will continue on. I of course I'm using the heat gun because you know I have no patience. So this is just some coffee ink. It's just coffee boiled down until it's really thick and really undrinkable even for me who likes strong coffee and then I put a little bit of glycerin in it to prevent it from evaporating or growing mold and it makes a really nice ink and a page stain. No it's not archival, no it's probably going to fade but you know we're mixed media artists it's going to be stuck in a journal somewhere it doesn't matter. I'm going to use the coffee ink to tint the page and have it be not so white to help me with my shadows. You could of course use watered down brown ink for this or severely watered down brown paint. Use what you have. I had the coffee ink it was already made so that's what we're using. Now I'm going to take my big pen and I am going to it's black so I'm going to use it to emphasize certain lines and shapes in my artwork in my drawing. Again it's just a simple drawing anybody could do it. I'm going to add some swirls for coffee steam with a distress crayon. I love my distress crayons by the way and then I'll add some broken lines with my inkjoy gel pen. The distress crayons are nice because once they're dry they're permanent. That was like the bag of pens that I had during the moving process that was all I had. So here I have another pen. I don't know what pen this was but I'm going to write the quote in this black pen which I saw on I believe the first time I saw it was on my Facebook page and it actually made me laugh out loud. So those are the kind of quotes I like and at this point in time it was a very stressful time for me because we were packing up the house and getting ready for it to move and my house and brain were in complete chaos so to have something just make me stop and laugh out loud was really great. I needed that. And it says I tried to start my day without coffee which I'm writing on the cup and I do think I go over that with a blacker pen because I don't think you could see it very well. I don't remember now. We'll have to watch the video and find out. My court date is next week or is pending. I love that. So I tried to start my day without coffee. My court date is pending. Yeah because I would totally not be able to do that at all. So that's it for this month. I hope that you have fun maybe creating some artwork out of your favorite quote and I can't wait to see what you all do. I would love to have you share if you would like to join my Facebook group a life of art and self-expression. The link is in the description below along with any other relevant links and if I forget I want somebody to remind me. That's it for right now. Go out and have a great day. Do something nice for yourself because you deserve it and I'll see you later. Bye guys.