I’ve been doing the 21 secrets Color Color Color (or, as we say in this country, Colour, colour colour) online course. The class that has grabbed me the most is the one by Hali Karla called Make a mess magic. Hali invites you to make a mess, applying paint in different ways with no idea where it is going, and then invites you to make Magic from it somehow. She suggests using 2 complementary colours and exploring the different colours of brown/neutral/grey that is made by mixing them together. In her demo she used Blue and orange but suggested we could also use red and green or purple and yellow. I decided to make 3 different pages so I could try all 3 combinations.
Here is my red and green attempt. Which I HATED because the red bits looked like blood and gore. I can see that red paint used straight can pretty much look like you’ve smeared blood across your page. Or perhaps I’m being a bit sensitive?
Anyway, I stared at it for a long time, I even smeared some gold paint on it hoping to redeem it. Eventually I decided that most of the red had to go, so I used the fern and plant masks that I had cut earlier in the year and masked around them with 2 shades of green, a dark and a light. The red was only poking through in small quantities , which was a vast improvement!
It made for quite a colourful busy background though and so I thought it needed something in black and white to stand out. Black and white, hmmm…? I know, magpies! If you don’t live in Australia you may not be familiar with magpies, but they are everywhere here. Everytime I go out for a walk I see lots of them, usually staring intently at me, sometimes swooping down to scare you away if they have babies in the trees (in springtime). They are very cheeky birds who will swoop in to steal your food if they can. My mother loved them and used to go out everyday holding out food and calling “maggie, maggie, maggie”.
They showed up quite well on this background, but I did have to paint a little bit of watered down white paint behind them to tone down the background. After I outlined them with some white and black pens, I asked them what they wanted to tell me. I thought it might be something timeless and enlightening, since they are quite magical birds, a bit similar to ravens, and they have an intelligent look in their eyes. But they started singing an old silly song from 1981 by Joe Dolce, “Shaddap a Your Face”. In case you don’t remember the song, I include the lyrics of the chorus here for your edification, it was sung with an italian accent. :
Mama used to say all-a time.What’s-a matter you? Hey! Gotta no respect.
What-a you t’ink you do? Why you look-a so sad?
It’s-a not so bad, it’s-a nice-a place.Ah, shaddap-a you face! I’ll include the Youtube clip below.
So my birds said to me: “what’s a matter you? Why you look so sad? it’s a not so bad! it’s a nice place!” Fortunately they didn’t go so far as to say “Shaddup a you face” but I could tell they were thinking it!
It seems a bit silly, but actually, this is quite a deep and timeless message for me. I have been feeling a bit …well, not exactly sad, but a bit FLAT and lacking in joy at times, which considering my life is actually wonderful and I live in the best and most beautiful place IN THE WORLD (and I’ve travelled a lot in the last 6 years which has only confirmed this opinion!) with a husband who is wonderful and supportive, my flatness is inexplicable and disappointing. So I need to hear the magpies’ message! What IS the matter with me? Why do I look so sad?? it’s a not so bad! It’s a nice-a place! So I’ll just Shaddap-a my face now. Thanks for visiting my blog!