Inspired By... Vol 8/2018

Today is 10th of the month and you know what that means, right? Time for another Inspired By!

Inspired By is something sweet Marsha and me have been doing for years now. Until 2018 it was that we chose a subject to be inspired by and then did something inspired by that theme, a piece of art or a book. The inspiration could be anything but we both turned that into some kind of project and blogged the creation on the 10th. You can browse the past "Inspired By" posts from here (link).

Inspired By is a playground, a concept we can use to explore, to play and to discover. We can do as much or as little we want and have time for. I guess it's not a surprise then that we both enjoy Inspired By very much but after doing it the same way so many years, we thought to change the things a bit.

This year, 2018, we both just post on the 10th with some source of inspiration we found that month. Or rather on a period from the 10th of previous month to 9th of the current month. It can be a series of photos, a book we read, an artwork we saw, just a pebble on the street or a new product we bought. We can make something using that source, but it's more about sharing just the inspiration. Consider it as a window to our creative minds!

There were several possibilities this month to be inspired by. For example, we took a short family stay-a-cation in Naantali, a Finnish coastal town where I took a lot of photos. I thought to use those at first, but then I found something even better as it sparked a project immediately.

I recently changed my job and I'm now working in a craft store whole time. I've been trying to avoid mixing business and pleasure, so to say, fearing that the joy will be lost, but considering what I've been feeling so far that fear was in vain. In fact, it couldn't have been further from the truth!

During my first days I was going through the canvases and thought to move some that were almost on the isle further in. I lifted one and instead of a huge one I thought I was moving, I got a tiny, skinny canvas. The little ones were leaning to the side of bigger ones, that's why they seemed to come to the isle. But I'm holding this canvas in my hand and immediately it sparks an idea. I just have to get me one so that I can realize my idea!

The size of the canvas is 10x50 cm so it's really narrow. But I saw this Louise Nelson / Finnabair / art journaling inspired elongated person with a dress immediately. You know those altered old photos people from art journaling that have a dress out of old book paper and more importantly a pointy hat? I had to do mine with the hat, too, as the photo I chose to use didn't have the top of my head so I needed to cover it up. Also I think the hat balances out the piece.

Now I knew what to do but then colors were an issue - again. What color scheme to use? I'm always drawn to turquoises and black but this time I didn't want to do that. I felt that this way the piece would be totally too Finnabair.

The answer came one evening when looking through our kitchen window. The sun was just setting and had colored the sky in the shades of pink and peach. It stood in a harsh contrast to the trees standing just below the horizon - deep green colored firs and pines. I tried to took a photo of the combo, but didn't manage to get the colors right. Probably it was because of the direct light source and that I was just using my phone without the SLR adjustments. But luckily I was able to create the background the next day and the colors had imprinted to my mind. I did take some "artistic liberties" but the main inspiration to the background gradient color is from that.

Now that I had my background done and quite colorful, I thought that the only possible color of the dress and hat was white. Well, black naturally would have been another option, but then you wouldn't see the book paper which I was planning on using and also black would have needed something on top to reveal the texture I was hoping to add. After adding all the layers in I decided to add a hint of watercolor on top after all as the shape looked too pale, but mostly it's just painted white or white washed with gesso.

Above you can see the actual piece. I layered book pages, corrugated cardboard and lace for the dress to create a delicate texture. I used Soft Matte Gel as my adhesive for the layers and then painted the elements white using gesso. After making the dress it seemed that the piece needed more dimensional details so I added some button clusters here and there and made a big necklace or brooch embellishment using a resin clock, metal heart and buttons.

The buttons I used were turquoise, pale green and bright red. I left the cool colors almost as they were, but painted the red ones more white using gesso. The heart needed to be something else than rusty colored for this project so I changed it into gold one using wax and added a golden touch to other embellishments, too.

The piece still needed some contrast, some black. So I took a felt pen and doodled some stripes and details to the dress and hat. I think they really make a difference! Naturally it would have been easier to do it before adding all the embellishments but as I rarely plan my work that far ahead and I'm more keen on letting the project lead me, that didn't happen. Maybe next time! This piece is now at work as an example how you can use that lovely narrow canvas, but I liked it so much I'm thinking should I do a family portrait this way. The problem is that there's no space for four of these in our apartment! But maybe just one bigger one with four people in it... Makes you think!

But without further ado, now's your time to head over to Marsha's to see what she's been up to! Here's a direct link to her post (link).