Bird Lady

Well I certainly didn't intend to be away this long. For awhile I was popping out art projects left and right. Then this past week or two I've slowed down for some reason.

I have done some work, but right now it's stuff I don't want to show. A few pages in my journal, that really aren't for public viewing. At least not yet.

The cool thing about them though, was that I did them without regard for how it was going to look.

Not that I wanted them to turn out bad, but I just let my emotions, and intuition get carried away, and see what it produced.

It was a lot of fun, because there wasn't a long thought process regarding what collage element to place where. Is this color okay? Should I do this or that? Etc.

Those pages are also the only pages I have actually written on as a journal. Which is funny, because when I started this adventure, I fully expected to use the journal for writing in addition to art. Then the pages became more and more elaborate, and I didn't want to "mess" them up with my feelings of the day. Funny how things turn out.

Anyhoo, today's picture is from my Crowabout Collage Play challenge. Unfortunately I turned it in late, but that's because I pretty much did the whole thing today. Part procrastination, part life got in the way. It happens.

Let's see, to start with, I chose the background colors based on the dominant colors of the collage pieces, we received. Pink, yellow, and light blue.

The first ten pages of my journal have solid color backgrounds, that were done with acrylic paint. The last few pages I have been using those Neo II water soluble crayons. I just scribble whatever colors I'm using all over the pages, then brush it with water, which gives a watercolor appearance. Then I add acrylic paint in spots, and highlight it with shimmerery powder.

So far I really like the effect of these new backgrounds, they are more interesting and colorful. The bad thing is, sometimes I don't want to mess up the background by drawing or putting images over it. :)

The face of the bird lady was a collage piece I had to use, and I knew right away I wanted to make her the dominant feature of this page. I just so happened to have a cool fabric with huge flowers on it that I used for her "hat".

It's hard to see in the picture, but this page is pretty embellished. The earring is actually a real one from a craft store, that I gussied up with glitter and beads. The necklace part of a bracelet. The feathers in her hair, I've had for about a decade and never once used them, so I figured this was the perfect opportunity.

The gloved hand holding a flower is actually me. My husband took the picture in our garden, and I changed the flower color in Photoshop and made it small. To be perfectly honest it was his idea. After searching forever for a gloved left hand holding something delicate, he suggested we just do it ourselves. Duh! Why didn't I think of that? I might do this more often if I can, it sure would cut back on searching for images.

All that helped a lot, but something was still missing. Then I saw it, a blue thread with fringe. Perfect. I put that all the around like a frame, and it really finished it off. Especially since I didn't have my usual borders all around the page.

As usual, I totally did not like this page when I first started it this morning. Even after gluing the collage pieces down, it still didn't look right.

3 hours and many embellishments later, I think it finally blossomed into a nice piece. I really like it now, and I'm pretty happy with the way the bird lady turned out. Half Carmen Miranda, half bird.

If nothing else then at least the colors make it enjoyable right?