Inspired by: Safe Ship, Harbored

It's again the 10th of the month and time for the "Inspired by" creation! But what is Inspired by? Every month awesome Marsha and I choose a subject to be inspired by. It can be almost anything -  a movie (link), an item (link), a designer (link), a painting (link) or a music style (link). Then we make something inspired by that theme or a piece of art and share it with you and each other on the 10th of the month.

This time the piece is connected to music, but instead of listening to it we just watched. The picture above is an album cover Marsha found in the net. We both found it really inspiring and made our pieces with it. Although I listed the name song "Safe Ship, Harbored", I was more inspired and drawn to the picture than to the music.

I loved the muted tones of the cover and the different textures the surfaces were given. I also found the visible strokes inspiring. But what hit me to most was the shape. The curvy wave made out of small segments. It captured me totally.

So I guess it's not a complete wonder I wanted to re-create the wave. I wondered how would I go on about it - a canvas, a layout but then it hit me - an art journal page! So I grabbed my journal and went for it. If you want to see how the piece was created, please scroll a bit further down, I took some step pictures while I was creating this. 

I can't wait to see what Marsha has created this time! Usually we have some kind of connection in our pieces so I wonder if the wave was the major inspiration in her piece, too.

Materials: Sodalicious, Talens, PanPastels, Sakura, Tattered Angels, 3rd Eye, Ranger, Stampin' Up!, Lawn Fawn, Copic

This is what I started with: a spread with some ink and paint on it. I taped the gap between the pages and added a strip to either end of the page, too. Then I grabbed my pencil and sketched out the form of the wave.

I then colored the segments using acrylic paints. I muted the colors not with black acrylic but instead with black India ink. The white pieces are just gesso. I wanted the segments be relatively unicolor as I knew I was going to add texture and variation on top.

I felt the inspirational piece had a pastel vibe in it so I grabbed my PanPastels and started to play and add colors on top of the acrylics. I used white, blue, yellow, copper, cold and even a touch of red. 

The piece needed some edge and definition, so I drew the outlines in again with the pencil. I wanted the outcome to look sketchy so I added multiple lines. These refined the segments nicely.

On to adding texture! I felt the pencil lines just didn't give as much contrast as I wanted so I added black ones with a Copic marker. I deliberately varied the weight of the line and drew them "too long" to keep tha sketchy look. Then I added some patterns in a few segments using Sakura pen and a pencil. Just doodling different patterns on top of the paint and pastel. I also added a few pieces of the mesh tape.

To add more contrast and I guess more "me", too, I stamped some crackle pattern with white ink using a 3rd Eye stamp and added also a few black splashes.

Lastly I stamped the title with alpha stamps, doodled them and scribbled the poem. I felt like something was still missing so I took a plunge and drew a little ship sailing there. 

The text is a section of a poem by Edith Södergran. It's called "Wonderful sea". I translated the poem underneath here and put the part I didn't use in this page in brackets.

(Strange fishes slide in the deeps 

Unknown flowers shine on the beach;

I have seen the red and the yellow and all the other colors

but) the wonderful sea is the most dangerous to be seen,

it raises the thirst for adventures ahead:

what has happened in a tale, is also going to happen to me.