by DeeDee Catron: Earth Day - be the CURE {Sustainable Souls}

Hello friends out there -- hope you're doing well this Earth Day ♥

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Mother Earth and all her glory. I sometimes refer to it as my hippy heart... which I'm happy & proud of. I love the Sustainable Souls Project because this group of amazing artists is bringing to light some topics that need more presence in our communities. As of late there's been a lot of controversy surrounding the validity of global warming, the harmfulness of fossil fuels & the other blights that are harming our planet.

They are real.

and we need to take a larger stand.

today a few of the artists have partnered up for an extra little round of art journaling using a stencil that was created from our Sustainable Souls Project logo (which I created♥). Thank you StencilGirl! Take a look around and see what everyone has done.

Here is my page:

you have to be the cure...
...not just another patch.

It's a base of Canson watercolor paper and an insanely thick layer of modeling paste through the stencil. I use Blick Modeling Paste for this process because it's so damn thick. And when it's finished drying it has a sort of plastery feel to it instead of a hard melted plastic.

After it had enough time to dry I covered the entire thing in white gesso. I was a little nervous about having such varying bases.. the open parts of the watercolor paper & the plaster like modeling paste through the stencil. Then I used a Lindy's Stamp Gang MAGICAL & water to add some silvery depth to the recesses. I loved overflowing the page and having this sort of rainy drippy effect all over. It seemed appropriate for the message I wanted to convey.

I then mimicked the magical process with a Stabilo Marks All. I'm a huge fan of this pencil and will probably send one or two of the owner's children to college. It is such a delicious dark grungy effect and really complimented the silvery magical well.

In all honesty I thought I was done with my black & white grungy page. So I set it to the side and started working on other things... then my brain went into overdrive and all of a sudden I needed a LIGHT shining through the dark desolate page. I grabbed my set of Brushos and got to work with Turquoise, Ultra Marine Blue & Purple. I haphazardly outlined my stencil shapes and drew the color into the background with water. We can, after all, make a difference if we just try. Why shouldn't my page have a little hope peeking through?

And last but certainly not least came what now may be the very most important part of the page.

the message.

I'm not sure where the words came from... and I think sometimes when you're working on a great piece the words sort of just fill your heart and spill out. I put down some patch like masking tape.. grungied it up with the stabilo pencil and then used my archival pen to scratch in my message.