Have faith

Sometimes you have to trust yourself.

I very nearly painted over this last night to start again.  I felt it had got too "muddy" and that Id over worked it.

 

I couldn't really see it properly as there was no natural light.  So instead of painting over it,I put it aside and looked at it this morning.

It was ok, it wasn't too muddy, the contrast was there, the depth and texture were there. So I finished it off by adding the fabric panel, clock face and photograph elements all made yesterday.

I started off with an old canvas that had already had stuff on it. gessoed over and then added some ripped Tim Holtz tissue paper in places

On top of this, some scraped on sand texture paste and then some Grunge Paste through the Mini Harlequin stencil.  where I wasn't happy with some of the stencilling I just smooth it over. 

Texture down I started to add colour.  Well I say colour, I only used four paint colours on this: French Roast, Slate, Chocolate Pudding and Snowflake and some of you might say they aren't colours! As my mother said on the phone this morning - Joanna you tend to favour a certain "shade of browns" (you know what I'm saying- slops, slurry, cowpats).

There is some stamping, there is more stencilling with the beautiful mini Rosetta stencil, glimmer mist spraying, dry brushing and Distress Inks and paint splatters. 

The focal point is made up of scraps of fabric, organza and lace stitched together using the gorgeous delicious silks from Patricia Wood at Mulberry Silks. The colour combination Patricia puts together for the mini topics, well they are hard to resist I have to say. The photograph is one of mind I have added filters too, distressed the edges and stapled to a scrap of embossed and inked card. 

For me the creative process is just that, a process, not necessarily the end result, the finished item.  Its the journey through the stages, the complete and utter absorbtion and submersion into thinking about the colour, the texture, the design, the composition.

But I really must try some "colour"

Hugs

Jo

Ms Muse took a holiday.

Sometimes the creative muse can be a fleeting evasive creature, she flits away, leaves you bereft unable to work out what needs doing, what goes with what, how to make it work.

Well my creative muse certainly went on a sabbatical (she is back I hasten to add, the sabbatical must have done her good because she is raring to go) with this one.

I made the canvas ages ago with the chipboard flowers and Grunge Paste stencilling.  

And I made the scrunched up flowers ages ago using Chatsworth paper (such heavy weight paper takes the water spraying and doesn't fall apart) and PaperArtsy flower dies.

And I knew the two elements were meant to go together, but how?

Loads of paint, layers (the usual suspects: Snowflake, French Roast, Chocolate Pudding, Chutney), water to get drips, dry brushing and TG to accentuate the texture. then putting the scrunchy flowers on in different places. Looking at it, walking away looking at it again shaking my head and repeating the process over and over and over again.

The breakthrough came after I'd made my latest PaperArtsy guest piece of the heart banner.

 

I had a lot of hearts left and suddenly it started to work.  Just adding those hearts in over the chipboard but under the scrunchy flowers anchored the flowers, gave then a more solid structure to sit on. The wooden fretwork hearts gave another texture and echoed the paper hearts and the Sara Naumann text stamped tissue paper added the final element. 

And why "selected bibliography" as the focal point?  Well a slight nod to my profession (not that I do much of the basics of librarianship anymore, don't ask me to cat and class, actually I could never cat and class - don't ask what it is you don't need to know.) and the fact that we don't always list or reveal our life bibliography, everything that influences us, that impacts on us, we are selective in what we say and what we reveal about who we are and how we feel.

Well there you go, perseverance and patience and just letting the process flow can get results, lets face it I'm a tortoise slow and steady, but I win in the end.

Hugs

Jo