Tuesday 1 December 2009

B is for.......

BALLERINA. Yes I have just finished another page for my ABC art Journal/Altered Book. Am I allowed to say I am very very pleased with this one? Because I was so intrigued with the Lynn Perella 'painterly' technique I was challenged to use on the altered jigsaw swap, I decided to have a go with this journal page. I thought I would keep it pretty simple and have just repeated the same gorgeous image (from Itkupilly!!) with layers of acrylic, a bit of crayon, gel medium, gesso....

The thing is, I am basically a very simple soul at heart, and when I started off I had a lovely turquoisy blue painted page, which I stamped over in grey versamark to knock the colour back a bit and add a bit of texture. Then I placed the ballerinas etc and was actually quite happy with that - it was pretty!! Took me a week to start adding layers over the top. I am not sure what it is about my psyche but I am always reluctant to trash (OK alter) a lovely image. It seems kind of presumptious, an assertion that what you do with it might be better. Or maybe just different? I have to talk about this kind of stuff to those of you out in the ether as someone might understand what I mean, nobody here does lol. The point I am trying to make is that I find it very, very hard to do - but I'm glad I did, it's kind of liberating. There was a point about halfway through when I hated it, but after a while it all becomes rather interesting.......

Have I bored you enough now? The only bit I am not entirely happy with is the lettering, I was going for a kind of printing block style but didn't really think that one through, limited by the things I've got to use.....and it probably isn't really radical enough for a true Lynn Perella style. Still the nice thing about these pages is that I can always go back and add another layer (or two!!) if inspiration strikes. But for now, this will do.
The next letter is Z. Now whatever will I do for that?......

10 comments:

Mooneybeams said...

Zebras!

Jan said...

I'm totally in awe of your result Cindy.... fabulous work. Your courage in adding layers and altering the original image worked brilliantly.

Sherry said...

It's fabulous Cindy - wish I could achieve something like it. I'm always reluctant to add more layers myself!

For the letter Z I was going to suggest a zetti zebra but that's a bit too obvious!

Carol said...

This is very beautiful Cindy. I know exactly what you mean about not trashing something that looks nice, I find it hard sometimes to cover nice patterned paper. For Z maybe you can think of a lovely Rose wine, there's a clue for you :) Unless I have it all wrong and each page is linked to an overall theme?

Carol x

Bel said...

Beautiful ballerina

Viv said...

Zulu?
Anyway whatever you do is bound to be brilliant!
Love this ballerina page Cindy, colours are gorgeous.

Elizabeth Golden said...

I love your B for Ballerinas. It is great. So full of mystery and motion. I love all the layers!

The Scrappy Tree said...

Wow, I love the dreamy pink with the grungy letters!

roc said...

that's beautiful!

DF - Heidi said...

AWEEEEEESOOOOMMMMMMEEEE - just loving these pages

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