Have I told you? I don't believe I have. I've started a new online art journaling class with one of the same teachers as my last class, Jane Davenport. This one is called JOYnal. Such a great name with a Bronx accent (even though Jane is from Australia). The focus is once again on mixed media techniques based on a structure of drawing and painting. I am learning about altering old children's books. But the big stretch for me is that the subject is fairies, or elves or sprites or gnomes. Whatever strikes one's fancy in the realm of magic.
I've been in the class for a month now and I have been struggling with the whole fairy thing even though I once was a HUGE fairy tale lover. Therein, I've learned, lays the secret. Before there were ever pictures of fairies, there were TALES. Its the tales that hold the magic for me. What lays in the recesses of the human mind where these very serious stories originated and continue to resonate, that's where the magic resides.
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Imagine walking out of the shopping mall on Monday night and seeing - THIS!!
As I gaped, struggling for my camera, a man walked past and said,
"Someone just got released from Purgatory"
I cracked up. Talk about a fairy tale!
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The sky burned redder and redder; I'm having a hard time recapturing it.
but OH, it was stunning.
Then, almost as suddenly as we came upon it, it faded to purple and was gone.
Like a story, it got told- and disappeared,
Only a memory remains- and a few pictures that can never recapture the emotions it aroused.
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And so it is with my first mixed media project done in my first altered book,
never quite what was in my mind's eye.
I am encouraged though. What I thought was inaccessible to me - fairies - seems somehow more viable as a subject on which to hang my explorations in mixed media. I am enjoying watching the process unfold.
peace
6 comments:
I saw a spectacular sky in Moreton's Hbr too. Take ones breath away! I really like the fairy: her posture, hand on the shell, leg position and her feet on toes! She looks like she might be expecting someone, poised and ready, but with her eyes closed, savouring the time alone and peaceful beauty of her surroundings before he arrives.BB
Thank you dear Barbara.
that's a thick looking impasto of colour. I used to do something like that with WC. But that's not WC is it?
She must be like you: waiting for something to happen, but not sure she wants to know (with closed eyes).
I can't imagine how you would achieve this effect with Watercolour. The texture is from acrylic and Prismacolor pencils layered over the thin layer of a printed napkin that was set with liquid matte medium. It is the wrinkles of the napkin tissue that give the effect of a heavy layer of impasto. My first attempt!
that's so cool!
I guess you could try all different kinds of papers for unusual effects; I've only heard of tissue paper.
blast the music, get out of your chair and dance while you experiment: sounds like fun
Yes, it's news to me that you can use the printed tissue of napkins as a medium. I'm hoping to share some more uses with it soon.
I don't know how to dance and apply these delicate wisps of paper with my matte medium at the same time, funny you!
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