Lemony Snicket

doo·dle ˈ/ do͞odl /

verb: 

scribble absentmindedly "he was only doodling in the margin"

noun: 

a rough drawing made absentmindedly

There's not much doodling here. It's a stretch for linking to Simon's Monday Challenge Blog this week but perhaps it counts that the first step I took was to make a border of circles around the tag.

The chair was stamped (Claudine Hellmuth) and then I drew the table. The globe and the hot air balloon were stamped (Tim Holtz Tiny Things); the books, shelves, windows, wall and floor were drawn.

I would argue that drawing and doodling are not the same. But if you consider the definition, I guess this was absentminded in the sense that I have no idea where the idea came from but once I decided to add the books, I thought the quote by Lemony Snicket was a good fit.

The Phoenix

Just under the wire today, linking up to Simon's Monday Challenge Blog--this week's theme is Mythology.

My idea came from the namesake of my current residence and a little research turned up an interesting story of how the city got it's name, who knew dipsomania played a part in it.

In mythology the Phoenix represents rebirth which is exactly what I did with the wooden support for this piece which was originally an Idea-ology burlap panel (6" x 4").

I removed the burlap, applied an image transfer and then colored it with paint and inks and also stamped some text in the background (Stamper's Anonymous Ledger Script).

The technique was similar to this project which became a favorite of mine and I thought I'd have another go at it. I appreciate how it's possible to take advantage of the brown of the support board and convert the positives shapes into negative ones.

Ada Again

I have modified a recent collage (see previous post, Ada 1916) by scraping off the photo of my great Aunt Ada and replacing the image with one I like better.

Because the original photograph was a bit thicker than the other collage papers I used, it was pretty easy to get underneath it and carefully peel/scrape it off.

Then I used this image as a transfer and created a mask of the hands and face. I used the mask to apply off-white paint on the background where the image was placed. Since image transfers are inherently transparent, this technique keeps the background from showing through.

The image transfer's darker undertones made it necessary to adjust values throughout the collage using transparent paint (glazing) and I also colored the collage paper flowers.

And finally, I felt the need to contain the composition by adding a border which was made using dots of Scribbles. I think the addition of the black accents helped to emphasize the other black elements in the collage.