Inspiration can be messy!
We are one week closer to Spring! Lori W. of Art Camp for Women here – Happy Monday.
I was absolutely inspired by Teesha’s use of the Jane Girls. I’ve long admired Teesha’s work and her entrepreneurship as well. A couple of years ago I followed her YouTube of the Amazing 16-page Journal and made a Journal and on a long road trip – where I didn’t drive – I started filling it up with borders and collage people. It has languished on a shelf ever since. I had it in my head that I couldn’t use Teesha’s techniques and still have art that looked like mine not hers. I gave myself a big PSHAW! and got out the journal. I found a mostly empty set of pages and set to work (play). I made up some acrylic spray paint in red and made the basic three-quarter face.
Pulling out that journal made me think of another journal I made in 2009 when I was just starting to take my visual art “seriously.” I thought more of myself as a writer then and was making images mainly to illustrate my writing. At the time, in a workshop, I wrote some Flash Fiction and one of my favorite pieces was about Flower Girls – aliens who had flowers growing out of their heads and green eyes that produced chlorophyll. I decided to make a new Flower Girl ala 2013.
Flower Girl ala 2013 – Note the green tinge to her skin also assists in chlorophyll production (evil laugh). Story at the end of the post.
Remember, the borders and base color were already on the page from about 2010 +/-.
I used Derwent Inktense Blocks for the big color spaces and all of the flower petals were then covered over with Silks Acrylic Glaze, Coral Berry and Teal Zircon. Then I gave her skin a green sheen with the Key Lime Silks and her lips got a Coral Berry Glaze. I will probably go back in and do detail work with a black permanent ink, but I had to stop and let it sit a bit.
Flower Girls 2009 and 2013
The 2009 pages were made while on a camping trip. I had little reading material and a writing homework assignment. The Flower Girls were supposed to look fierce…Here is the story.
“8/30/09 …and then came the Flower Girls – almost passing for human. Passing, in fact, except to someone who might be looking for the unusual or unexplained. Brilliantly colored, spiky, punky hair with the additional twist – a new clique – un chapeau de fleur…A French flair, a cap of matching flowers. The uninitiated would never suspect that the flowers grew in place, or that the startling green eyes were chlorophyll, not contacts, or that the extra-voluptuous lips concealed fangs of the night.” Such drama – sigh.
My sludgy, winter blahs were in complete retreat as I made one page after another. I stayed up late, missed dinner and woke up thinking up little details and nuances…You haven’t seen the last of my Teesha/Jane inspiration. Here is a little taste of what’s to come.
On the left – do you see something in the clouds, in the air?
Stay tuned.