I began our mixed media practice by choosing the topics of love and heartbreak since I had recently gone through a break up and had a lot of feelings that ice cream couldn't help. This was the first time I had tried visual journaling and this was the result of the love theme. I didn't have enough time to finish the heartbreak one.
Since I was only experimenting with different techniques, it didn't turn out quite as pretty as I wanted it to. Before I laid down the pink tissue paper, it was very busy and didn't flow well. I added a photo transfer using tape on top of the tissue paper. It was my table mates' idea to use the tissue paper in making my piece more cohesive.
My final piece was more intentional than this one. I titled it "Down the Rabbit Hole" and it was inspired by the questionable theme as it is about me questioning my sexuality and becoming comfortable with it.
This time around I realized that I could use gesso to make some of the pictures fade into the background. I did this to make the circle in the middle look like it had depth, by putting some things in the foreground and making them stand out. I also used gesso to make several photo transfers, such as the two male faces in the right. I think I gained skill with tissue paper, which I used around the circle. The blacks and whites didn't seem like such a stark contrast against each other when I painted around them. I used real dirt to make the hole, which was new. I wanted to use dirt that was more loam-like, but unfortunately that is not the kind of dirt that we have around the art room. My piece was to show how once I discovered who I really was I let myself fall into a whole new world. I was really pleased with how it came out (pun intended) and with my work on it.