Fashion Spread – Holly Golightly Mixed Media AJ Page

Hello everyone and apologies for the absence of anything new not related to a DT project but life has been beating me up lately but I hope to get back into normal posting again soon, both here and on socials.  At the moment I am taking it easy and trying not to stress myself too much and find myself doing more art journalling than anything else.  So today, I have a new spread for my art journal to share with you, mostly inspired by one of the April challenges, and here it is:

When I saw the challenge theme I immediately thought of Audrey Hepburn and Breakfast at Tiffanys, so I knew that I wanted to incorporate both into my page somehow. I love her as an actor and I love that movie (plus it also has a very cool cat in it but that’s besides the point lol)  Any time I am in New York I always go to Tiffany’s and look in the window just like Holly Golightly.  By the way, if you ever get caught short walking around Manhattan, Tiffany’s has a really lovely Ladies Powder Room!  I also invested in one of these little Funko Pops as it was so cute.

And of course, I have the DVD in my collection also!

So apart from my Breakfast at Tiffany’s inspiration, I also remembered that I had a few Tim Holtz stamp sets that would work for “fashion”, the Runway set obviously, but I had another two sets that I also wanted to use.  One of them is a butterfly set that has the above city names included in it, and the third one was the Cityscapes set that has London, Paris and New York skylines.  As to what it was going to look like, at this point, I only had a general idea and it involved using these #8 manilla tags, and of course the kraft cardstock pages.

I thought I could position the tags across the centre area and so, I wanted to have something behind them to highlight them, so I used my Paperartsy Fresco paints and a brayer to create this background.  I think it was Bubblegum, Cheesecake and Summer Sky, and the appropriately named Little Black Dress – perfect for a fashion spread!

After much to-ing and fro-ing, I decided to stamp the Cityscapes at the bottom of the tags.  I had originally thought about stamping them on the kraft background but then it was just going to get really messy and/or lost in the background.  I used Archival Ink in Shadow Grey.  These stamps are much longer than what is stamped on the tags but I tried to choose the bits with the most recognisable landmarks for each city.

The Runway stamps have seven runway models to choose from, so I chose my favourites but omitted the dog from that middle one.

It was then time to start working on my Holly Golighty figure.  I actually have this very large movie poster canvas hanging in another room so I used that as the basis of my sketch.

Then I started painting it using Fresco paints; Vintage Lace for the skin and Little Black Dress for the hair, dress, gloves and shoes.  I had to laugh because there is supposed to be a cat sitting on her shoulder but I hadn’t drawn it yet, so at this point she looks like she is flexing her biceps!

While Holly was flexing, I went back to working on the tags.  I stamped the city stamps on to some white card scraps and played around with the placement.

It was then time to paint the girls, and I used Inktense pencils and a waterbrush to do it.

I then took a FIVE DAY break from this project because I didn’t want to start adding the details to the figure.  I can’t really explain it but I felt stuck and i didn’t want to mess it up and at the moment I really didn’t want to add more stress to my life.  Anyway, after five days I felt like I was up to tackling it. so I started sketching in some of the face details and of course the missing cat!  It actually looks a bit like Holly is sporting a ‘tache in this photo but at least she’s no longer flexing her biceps lol.

I started painting in the cat and the bling using more Fresco paints.

By the way, who knew painty water was so tasty!  Good job it’s non toxic!

I added more details to the kitty and the jewellery using Polychromos pencils (browns and green for the kitty and metallic silver for the bling).

Big Kitten is supervising but at least he’s not drinking the paint water.

I made little plaques for the city names using black metallic cardstock and glued them onto the bottom of each tag – making sure I matched up the cities because that would be so easy to mix up!

Something was needed in that bottom left corner so I drew in another iconic BAT movie image, Holly in the big hat, and extended the ribbons out so that I could use them to write more quotes on. I also wrote an Audrey Hepburn quote in black ink on the other side.

Oh and btw, I had some leftover “cat” paint so I started wiping it off on this extra card using my finger and then decided I really liked it and will turn them into something at some point.

Nearly done, just needed to add some kind of title, and I decided to use some of these leftover letters which I didn’t end up using last year on this project.  These teal coloured letters were the ones I chose, and I found some unpainted letters to fill in the gaps in order to create FASHION.

There’s no photo but I also added some black and white splatters using Black fluid acrylic and white gouache before adding the tags and the letters.  I had to cover up Holly with some post-its to keep the splatters off her couture, and that was it finished!

Here’s a closer look at the Holly Golightly quote since it’s hard to read without cranking your head.

I added highlights to the eyes and some shiny Liquid Pearls to the jewellery to make it more blingy.

And that was that.  This photo was taken this morning in slightly better light.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post and like my Breakfast at Tiffany’s inspired fashion spread, let me know what you think in the comments below.

CHALLENGES

Kraft+ April Challenge – Inspired by Fashion. I was inspired by the elegance of Audrey Hepburn, in particular, in the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Creative Artiste Challenge #59 – mediums used fresco chalk paints, inktense pencils, polychromos pencils, liquid pearls, fluid acrylics, versafine ink, archival ink, white gouache, wink of stella,
Path of Positivity Challenge – April option – Style – thinking of this challenge and the title of my post “Fashion Spread”, really that’s the only thing that should be spreading right now, not this horrible virus.  So my Fashion Spread is full of positive and uplifting messages about fashion and feeling good.  If you have trouble reading them from the photos, here’s what they say:

Life is a party – Dress like it. (Audrey Hepburn)
Elegance is the only beauty that never fades (Audrey Hepburn)
How divinely and utterly happy I am (Holly Golightly, Breakfast at Tiffany’s)

Project Recipe

Kraft cardstock A4 size
Paperartsy Fresco Chalk paints
Derwent Inktense pencils
Polychromos pencils
Tim Holtz stamps – Runway, Cityscapes, Papillion, Distress Manilla tags,
Ranger Liquid Pearls
Decoart black fluid acrylic
Versafine Onyx Black ink
Archival Shadow Grey Ink
Winsor and Newton white gouache
Copic Multiliner black
Wink of Stella (on the sunglasses and bits and pieces on the models, though it’s barely noticeable)
From stash:  brayer, precut letters leftover from other projects and painted with Metallic paint, white card scraps, black metallic card scraps, pencil eraser, and of course my TH stamp platform for the tags

I started something new for April:

Since we are all stuck inside and can’t leave the house, I thought I would try and do two things:
1. use this time to finish any unfinished projects
2. use as much recycled materials as possible (I do this a lot anyway) but also not to buy new stuff!
So, with that in mind, I will note the above on any posts, if applicable.
UNFINISHED PROJECT – NO
RECYCLED MATERIALS – YES (recycled cardboard letters, card scraps) Not recycled but used very old TH stamps recycled from my stash back into the limelight!

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