Every once in a while a page goes so completely wrong, as in completely, utterly and totally off the rails, that it might have never ever been on the rails to begin with!

That's what happened with the page above. I used the stamp shown below with a very light colored stamping ink. The ink was pigmented and for some reason, the detail turned into undefined blobs. It was impossible to make heads or tails out of and never mind reading any of the words. It was like the ink melted like ice cream does! It should have looked like this, but lighter:


Instead, it looked icky. The only parts that were recognizable were the wings and part of the brush.

It's in my everyday sketchbook* (which I show in this video) and I had to decide if I wanted to try and salvage the page, cover it up with another sheet of paper or maybe gesso over it. I was pretty sure I couldn't just ignore it.

*My everyday sketchbook is the sketchbook that goes everywhere with me and that I use to capture happenings from my days. I seldom work everyday in this journal as that isn't realistic for me. I create when I have something I want to remember, that speaks to me.

As I said, ignoring the page wasn't going to work. It was too hideous. So that left covering it up or salvaging the page.

Since I figured covering it up with another piece of paper or paint was going to be my last effort, it was time to begin the salvage effort. My thinking was that if the salvage effort failed, I could buried it.

Due to the lightness of the ink, it was actually easier to convert the design into something else than I expected it to be. If it had been dark ink, I probably wouldn't have been successful.

Because most of the ink melted in the thicker areas of the wings, I decided to use the shape of the heart to distract from that. Then, because I could make out a few details of the wings, I added those with black ink. The brush was more of a suggested blob so I created my own. The circles were more blobs so I used paint to hint at the shapes.

Last, I add a whole lot of color to the page and finished up with a washi flake of the bird.

I had also added a quote underneath the map washi tape at the bottom of the page before I realized I had misspelled not one, but three words (are you beginning to sense this was not a happy creating time for me?!).

Rather than fight with fixing it, I opted to cover it.

I was about done with the whole mess at this point.

While I'm not thrilled that my page came out NOTHING like I wanted it to, I am thrilled that I was able to salvage it without resorting to another piece of paper to cover it up and start over.

What have you botched lately?