Sailing Away on Bleedthrumanade Seas

Sailing Away on Bleedthrumanade Seas

Front of journal page                                                           Back of journal page

Supplies:
VLVS! Stamps used:
Don't Follow You Dreams-Item 19003 Plate 893
Triple Mast Sailing Ship-Item 19026 Plate 890
Graphometre-Item 19017 Plate 890
Dictionary Page-Item 19015 Plate 890
Nautical Collage-Item 19016 Plate 890
Whitelines Hard Cover A5 Notebook (5.8 x 8.25)
StazOn-Jet black, Saddle Brown
Faber-Castell Stampers Big Brush Pen-White
White Gellyroll Pen
Bic Fine-line Alcohol Markers-Tranquil Teal, Hot Aqua, Lime Sorbet, Marquerita Green, Oceanview Blue, Blue Skies Blue, Polynesian Purple, Petal Pink, Pink Flamingo, Lemon Bliss, Yellow Blaze
Scrap of Silk Tissue Paper (mulberry paper)
Golden Soft Gel

Got Lemons? Make lemonade!  Got marker bleed-thru?  Make Bleedthrumanades!

For a long time, I avoided alcohol markers because the color bleeds through to the back of the page, unless you have really heavy or specially-coated paper.  The rare times that I used them, I avoided using the back of the page.

Then one day I had an epiphany (or something hit me in the head, more likely) and I thought, "Why not just use both sides of the paper?  The color will be the same but I can always do something different on both sides."  And thus, the bleedthrumanade was born, lol.  I get to use the scrumptious brilliant colors that alcohol markers have, provide myself with a challenge, and I only have to color once for two pieces!

I've had Plate 890 for a while, and I just love it, but I hadn't settled on a project to use it with yet.

Then recently, I was creating a bleedthrumanade in one of my notebooks (I usually color first before stamping or drawing).  When I finished, the colors looked rather map-like to me, and Plate 890 popped into my head.

The process went something like this:

I colored the front of the notebook page with the alcohol markers.

Except for the ship, I stamped the images, in brown, on both sides of the page.

I stamped the ship's image on the silk tissue paper, and decoupaged it to the front of the page.  When the gel medium was dry, I used a blue Bic marker to color around the ship.

The stamper's big brush pen was used to lighten the areas around the images and to cover up some of the bleed-thru from the brown ink (the stamper's big brush uses India Ink, which won't bleed-thru).  I decided I didn't want to change much about the back--I liked the way it looked.

With the white gel pen, I added a few highlights to the front and picked out smaller areas of the stamped image.  I didn't try to bring out the entire image on all of them.  I definitely left the graphometre looking like a watermark.

I had to laugh--while tangling, I noticed this strange blob, that made me think of an angel or soldier holding a spear, so I highlighted him a bit.  Do you think he's watching over the ship?

Staying with the white gel pen, I added a few Zentangle® -Inspired patterns around the edge of the page, and then decided to call it a day.

Are these pages done?  They feel done to me right now.  But bleedthrumanades are like most art journaling.  Some pages you keep coming back to and never finish, and others are done in one go.  It all depends on the mood of the day.

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