Art Journal Spread: Experiment A

I had to take a little break from painting portraits. Don't worry, I have already started the next one, which will officially be two, actually, I think. But I took the Art Snacks challenge for May and combined it with an idea that came to me while listening to the Pug Party Podcast.

Roxanne and James of the Pug Party Podcast were talking about how much better stale Peeps are from fresh ones in their 35th episode aptly titled "Stale Peeps". The conversation about this occurs toward the end, from memory, but the podcast as a whole is well worth a listen.

This is what Peeps are, for those who aren't familiar with them:

(I am not sure if that is Peep poop in the left hand corner.) They are highly artificial marshmallows dusted in a ton of sugar and come in the shape of bunnies and chicks.

To test the hypothesis of whether stale peeps are indeed better, I followed the instructions given by James in the podcast: cut a slit in the packaging, put in the cupboard and wait two weeks. He also recommended the bunny over the chick, so I went with that also. I pulled out two as a control and put in a plastic ziplock bag. I am married to a scientist so am aware of doing experiments right!

I proceeded to completely forget about them and pulled them out after four weeks.

There’s a definitely a difference in taste. The fresh ones kind of melt in your mouth with an instant sugar hit and the the stale ones have to be chewed on, which I guess means the chewing helps offset the calories a tiny tiny tiny bit.

After four peeps, fresh, stale, fresh, stale, I am (a) feeling like that was WAY too much sugar and (b) prefer fresh to stale.

And, of course, an art journal spread was in order.

First, I typed up the experiment on some old exercise book paper.

Then I tore up the page and collaged it and some more exercise book paper into my small Jane Davenport art journal.

Now to the Art Snacks challenge. Art Snacks is a subscription box service where you get a small amount of art supplies every month. [Please note I am not being reimbursed for mentioning them, just telling you about it and where the challenge comes from.] I've subscribed for nearly a year now, and each month you are challenged to use the supplies -- and the supplies only -- in an artwork.

Well, let us call my collage the substrate and the rest is for the challenge. I sketched out some Peeps.

Then I went on to use the rest of the supplies to color (I scribbled the paint and ink markers onto my palette paper and added water), and went back to the pencil to firm up lines and do more shadowing.
And here it is, with the supplies I used:

The flourescent yellow really is like those Peeps, yes? I kind of failed at the challenge, I managed to smear both the black calligraphy pen and the red jumbo Faber Castell pen so I went back in with a bit of white Posca pen to cover it up. It still counts though, right?

Back to portraits. One is already under way and as usual, I am wondering how on earth I am going to pull it off.