Monthly Archives: April 2014

Using a transparency in my art journal

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Aphrodite europe blue Aphrodite Europe orangeA while ago in our art journaling class we were invited to bring a black and white photo of ourselves at any age, which we photocopied onto some transparent plastic. I used a photo of myself aged 24, taken in France when I did my big Europe trip. I cut an oval shaped window and stuck the transparency over it. When you flip it one way the Botticelli Venus shows through my face, and when you turn the page a map of Europe shows through. One page I painted blue (smeared over with Raw Umber) and the next page I painted a kind of pale orange Terracotta colour. The two pages belonged together, since they were linked by my transparent 24 year old face. But I didn’t really have a clue what to do with them after that, so they just stayed like that for quite a few months. The composition was a problem for me with a circular collage in the middle of each page and the oval shape of my face on the facing page. I wanted to make the pages about my trip to Europe in 1979 but I didn’t think a lot of small photos around the edge of the oval would look very good. Eventually I decided to cut the central page into a circular shape. I loved the effect , and this gave me the idea to write in a circle shape around the transparency of my face. I enlarged the nymph fromthe Botticelli painting and she holds a welcoming cloak out from each side of the pages. She seems to be encouraging my young self to travel to Europe. I did collage a couple of photos of me in Europe at that time. I made the second page more about my enduring love affair with Florence, then and now. I included 2 photos of me in the same spot, with Florence in the background, one from 1979 and one from last year. I also used some scraps of an Italian patterned paper I love which Gerrit bought for me in Florence last year. Both pages are quite busy, yet I love the way they have turned out. They are two of my favourite pages from this journal. Let me know what you think! Thanks for visiting.

An Old Photo of my Parents

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Olive and DonI don’t have many old photos of my parents that are useable. They are mostly tiny pictures, sepia and often blurry! Disappointing for an art journaler! My parents were quite old when they had me, having already had four children and thinking they’d finished, and then 8 years later, I came along! Anyway, I did have this photo and, thank God for photoshop, I was able to blow it up and tweak it a bit to make it useable. This is an A4 size journal (Strathmore mixed media, it’s the best!) so I increased the size of the photo a lot and it worked out quite well except their feet are blurry. On the top left I had collaged a piece of an old sheet music cover, one of my mother’s favourite songs, and on the right is a copy of her handwritten music manuscript of an old hymn, “Lead me to Calvary”. Fortunately I have one old song book of hers with several examples of her writing in the back and front. Both of these collaged pieces were not the originals, but photocopies, so I ripped the edges and painted them with Nickel Azo gold paint to make them look old. Then I stuck on a cupid and a 1930’s fashion drawing. I collaged around the edges with 2 small paper doilies sprayed with brown ink, and some pieces of coffee coloured scrapbooking paper. Before I collaged anything I had used a flower stencil and some brown dylusions spray on the background. So there you go, that was a bit of a reverse chronological explanation of how I made this page. Oh yes, then I wrote something about my parents who had a successful and happy relationship for 60 years.

I have not used this blog much in the last year or so because this wordpress site seems so slow to upload and often times out. So I’ve been very frustrated with it! I intend to make more of an effort to post more in coming months! Love and light to you all.

I am becoming an autumn tree

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Autumn TreeA poem I wrote about the aging process!

Our prompt was to make a page in our art journals in which we were a plant of some kind. So I made this page in which I am becoming an autumn tree, and that inspired me to write this poem. I hardly ever write poems so it was significant for me. I am pleased with the poem. Here it is:

I am becoming an autumn tree

My leaves no longer greenly, perkily lifting

Toward the sun

My limbs sometimes creaky in the wind,

All my seeds have floated away and now bloom

In far off lands

My blossoms have lost the blush of youth

And I foresee the day when my leaves will fall, one by one

Into  the silence of winter.

 

And yet, the sap still pulses in my veins,

the breeze still sings in my branches,

and my leaves, Ah my leaves are a blazing torch,

lighting up my corner of the forest.

I offer my gifts to those who come searching,

Vermilion and crimson, russet and gold,

The autumn illuminates me, I am aglow 

with the wisdom of many seasons,

and my autumn song may yet become

the sweetest of them all.