mama

This journal page was kind of a result of reading Pam Carricker's article in "Cloth, Paper, Scissors" where she explained that her artwork felt like it was about a mother letting go of her children. Then I came across an image of an oldfashioned mother in a vintage children's book while I was looking for pages to send someone in an ephemera swap. She looked so calm and kind and knowing that I had to cut her out and use her. She was originally holding a door handle, but I put the lovely little bird on her hand instead.

The story it tells is a mother looking away and letting her children grow up and make mistakes on their own. The bird is the child that she is letting free. She has given her children all the warnings that she can, and now she knows that she has to let them make mistakes and find out for themselves. Looks like her son in the background learned a rather hard one!!

The quote is a line from Elvis Presly's song "It's all right, Mama", music and lyrics by Arthur Crudup.

The journal page is done on black paper with gesso and acrylic paint as a background. The collaged elements are a piece of dress pattern and images from three different vintage kid's books. The writing is painted in acrylic paints (it took a lot of layers to block out that bright blue underneath!!) and was outlined with fine black maker. The decoratons were stencilled acrylic paints, fine black marker, and white gelly-roll glaze pen.

Hope you like it!

Lighthouse

Aaaaaah! I'm still in a good mood from having finished an Illustration Friday drawing! Now to keep the momentum going! This is a journal page with an excerpt from Virginia Woolf's "To The Lighthouse." Unfortunately I can't claim to have read this book. I found the quote (as well as a couple of others from the same book) and comments on the story line, and now I have to say that I want to read it. I have some others on the go and in line at the moment ("The Artist's Way" "Novel About My Wife" "At The Sign Of The Sugared Plum" and "Petals In The Ashes"), but I think I will see if there are any Virginia Woolf books in the library next.

The method for this page was colouring the page with watersoluble crayons first then washing them with water. Once dried I collaged on the images of the lighthouse, the boats and the woman.

Next I washed a layer of dark paint over the top. I had planned to use Payne's Grey because I love it so, but I discovered that the lid had been broken and my tube had dried up. Because that is what I had envisioned, I made up my own version of Payne's Grey with Mars Black, Phthalo Green and Phthalo Blue. It seemed to do the trick. I masked the portion where the beam of light shone and painted over the entire page (except the woman.) I rubbed the paint off a few times with absorbent towels.

Then I attached the bird image and wrote the text with souffle pen, and added embellishments with sharpie and souffle pen.

journal of mine

This is another first page in a journal. The other journal is more for memories and this journal will be more for everyday thoughts and feelings and observations. Sometimes a bit of fun, and sometimes a bit serious, I guess.

I had loads of fun doing this page. Because it didn't really have to say anything I just doodled and doodled till it was full!

Procedure was page inked first with green ink pad (idea from Ricë Freeman-Zachery http://voodoonotes.blogspot.com/2008/09/part-ii-art-journal-page-backgrounds.html). Then I glued scrapbooking page patterns around the edge (idea from Suzan Buckner http://thriftycollageartist.blogspot.com/2008/02/step-by-step-instructions-to-jouranl.html). Then I collaged magazine images (the altered diva is Kylie Minogue with a serious makeover!!). Then added rubber stamp images. And finally doodled with sharpies, coloured pencils and souffle pens.

Lake Opouahi

The other week my friend and I and our kids went on a trip up North of Napier towards Wairoa to a reserve at Lake Opouahi. There was a gorgeous reserve called "kiwi creche" which has been fenced off as a nature reserve for raising kiwis. I took over a hundred photos (thank goodness for digital cameras!) although only some of them have captured what my eyes actually saw. The nice easy track around the lake was a mossy green tangle of nature that was a joy to explore. We even took sketch pads with us to do a little art. Didn't really have enough time to relax and draw, but below is the sketch that I started there and finished at home.

The feeling of damp and beauty that I was looking for in this drawing is better felt from this beautiful scrap of prose I stumbled on thanks to a comment left behind by the author "Spot".

http://inkhaven.blogspot.com/2008/06/like-runaway-tattoo.html

I urge you to follow the link and experience it for yourself!

I will post a couple of the photos too to give you an idea of the little piece of artist's heaven that Lake Opouahi is!

The next image is a little different but it was a photo I took under a ledge of droplets of water that just begged for a little digital magic! Enjoy!!

Illustration Friday "enough"

"The little bird had travelled such a long way to get the princess' message to the young man that it collapsed onto the ground exhausted. It's tiny heart forced one last beat and said, enough."



Used dyed paper, then shellac. Drew image of bird 3-D with white gesso from a squeeze tube. Applied more colour with oil sticks and blended with a brush and with my fingers. Pushed background back with black oil stick and blended. Added detail with coloured pencil. My aim originally was to get a luminous colour shining through for the bird.

I loved the effect of this combination of media and I certainly intend to keep experimenting with it in different colour and theme combinations in the future!




For anyone interested, above is a scan of the back of the paper that I used. Yummy eh?!