Moleskine Cover Art

I bought my first Moleskine sketchbook for my last birthday.  It has sat in a pile of journals for the last five months.  I finally decided to decorate the cover two weeks ago.  I cut some hand-drawn letters out of scrapbook paper and one of my painted papers.  I ran the letters through my Xyron Sticker Maker and adhered them to the cover.  I gave all the letters a generous coat of Glossy Accents to give them some dimension.  I used iridescent clear Stickles for the punctuation.

I started the cover painting by collaging pieces of sheet music on the front cover and part of the spine.  I sealed the sheet music with gel medium then added two coats of clear gesso once it was dry.  Clear gesso is very coarse, so I sanded off some of the grit.  After that, I ran into a bit of a snag.  I had originally thought I would paint a fox and some cherry blossoms, but I had no desire to paint that once the time came to actually do it.  My next idea was to have a moon peeking out from behind cherry blossoms with a dragon/snake/koi hybrid racing along the moon.  Again I couldn't summon up the desire to paint it.  Finally, I decided on the sheep.  This year is the Year of the Sheep in the Chinese zodiac and my astrological sign is the sheep.  I played with the idea in my mind, and I decided to make the sheep cute and cartoonish with turquoise fluff.  That's how this cover art came to life.  I also decided to include the alchemical symbol for air, which is somewhat hidden in the background.

These are the media I used on the cover painting:
1. Antique looking sheet music,
2. Cretacolor Aqua Monolith in Delft Blue (drawing),
3. Copic Multiliner (inking),
4. Watercolors,
5. Copic markers,
6. Colored pencils (Prismacolor Premier, Koh-I-Noor Tritone, and Faber-Castell Polychromos), and
7. Acrylic paint.

I also wanted to let you know that the round robin with my friend, Vanessa, has officially started.  I will be posting more on this once we've both finished our first painting.

Wendy