I thought I would update you on my progress in my junk journal Tree Specimen book. I use up left over paint to paint pages after I have worked on another project. So most of these are plaster pages that I have added to.

This shows the progression of one of the pages. I had painted the background with walnut ink (I think, but it was a while ago). The ink didn’t stain a portion of what I think was a medium that was mixed into the plaster. I don’t have a picture of just the white but it is the lichen portion. I decided to add a variety of blue green paints to represent lichen on bark.

This page was using leftover yellow paint. That was way too bright for me! So I added a variety of oil pastels and rubbed them in. I think this page needs more added to the layers. It doesn’t feel finished yet.

This page I had already painted the plaster background. I had made a few rubbings on tissue paper of my California poppy foliage. It looked very tree like so I used matte medium to put the tissue paper on to the background. Does it need more?

I have shown you the pine cone page before but I am thinking of adding the bit of machine stitched moss on the bottom left and the label at the top left. The page feels more balanced with the additions.

This is another plaster page where I added walnut ink. That’s the first layer. Who knows what will go on top.

Here’s a photo of the book open. It’s such fun to page through now. I only have a few more completely white pages that need some color. I always have fun getting the book out and adding a bit here and a bit there.