Happy Thursday to all! The weekend is almost here!

This is another journal page which appears in my friend Kim Rae Nugent’s latest book, Journal Starters: Nature Backgrounds, Textures, & Collaborations, which is available for purchase now on Amazon.com.

Entitled “Barren Space,” the page is about the way it feels when one has arrived at the conclusion that they are trapped in a hopeless situation in his/her life. I compared this experience to a plant which finds itself existing in the midst of a concrete jungle, hard and cold and inhospitable. This concept leapt into my mind immediately after seeing a picture that appears in Kim’s book, of a vine growing across an old cement wall.

I started this page with a layer of handwritten journaling, and covered it with another layer of vintage book pages and Washi tape. I then added acrylic paint, gesso, stamped pigment ink, pen markings, a few pieces of construction mesh I found in a parking lot, and a date stamp.

This is one of my favorite pages that I contributed to the book. I loved how the vintage book pages I chose serendipitously featured words and phrases relevant to this topic; I rubbed away the paint in these areas with a paper towel and drew attention to them with my India ink pen. I also liked the possibility the vines presented, as a place to house more handwritten journaling.

Hope your upcoming weekend is wonderful! 🙂