Hello friends,
Today has been a funny day, I woke up too early after having some weird dreams that got me wondering where they came, very peculiar! I did manage to get some art done though and get it photographed before all the half decent light disappeared when it clouded over and started to rain. It has also been very windy which I guess is influencing my journal pages. I also managed to stamp the wrong date on my page which I didn’t realise until I came to edit the photos. I was sure it was the 17th today! lol
today’s art . . .
Today’s art is my Day 18 offering for Art Every Day Month, and for this week’s prompt on Rain’s Thursday Art Date (Wisps and Winds) and for the current theme over on Art Journal Journey which is All kinds of Weather, chosen this month by Chris from PearShapedCrafting. I am featuring wind and snow on this page – far from my favourite weather combination in real life for sure! The wind element is her hair blowing in the wind and also the lines from the poem. The snow is falling in the background.
This page started off as somewhere to clean excess paint off my brush. It was Payne’s Grey acrylic that I was using on another page that was not making me happy. So I abandoned that page and thought maybe I could work with the clean up page instead. In the photo below you can see the streaks of Payne’s Grey going diagonally across the page before I decided to draw a woman on top of it.
To cover up all those white spaces around the edges, I used some Payne’s Grey watercolour which would soak in between the acrylic.
I used Paperartsy Snowflake and Nougat as my base layers
Then I used Polychromos and watercolour pencils on her face and neck
Then I added some colour to her mouth with more Polychromos, and added the whites to her eyes with the Snowflake chalk paint
Her hair is painted with Caramel Fresco paint, Bronze and English Red Neocolor IIs. The Bronze Neocolor is a metallic, you can see some of the shine catch the light in the photo above.
I embellished her dress with some gold paint embroidery.
I splattered the background with some white acrylic snow.
I added more detail to her eyes and more shading to her face.
The poem is one by Anne Brontë, called North Wind:
“That wind is from the North, I know it well;
No other breeze could have so wild a swell.
Now deep and loud it thunders round my cell,
The faintly dies,
And softly sighs,
And moans and murmurs mournfully.
I know its language; thus is speaks to me —
‘I have passed over thy own mountains dear,
Thy northern mountains — and they still are free,
Still lonely, wild, majestic, bleak and drear,
And stern and lovely, as they used to be
When thou, a young enthusiast,
As wild and free as they,
O’er rocks and glens and snowy heights
Didst often love to stray.
I’ve blown the wild untrodden snows
In whirling eddies from their brows,
And I have howled in caverns wild
Where thou, a joyous mountain child,
Didst dearly love to be.
The sweet world is not changed, but thou
Art pining in a dungeon now,
Where thou must ever be;
No voice but mine can reach thine ear,
And Heaven has kindly sent me here,
To mourn and sigh with thee,
And tell thee of the cherished land
Of thy nativity.’
Blow on, wild wind, thy solemn voice,
However sad and drear,
Is nothing to the gloomy silence
I have had to bear.
Hot tears are streaming from my eyes,
But these are better far
Than that dull gnawing tearless void
The stupor of despair.
Confined and hopeless as I am,
O speak of liberty,
O tell me of my mountain home,
And I will welcome thee.
If you missed any November AEDM posts so far – check them out in the slider below.
Let me know what you think in the comments. As always, thanks for reading!
Ingredients
my handmade journal, watercolour paper, Liquitex Payne’s Grey HB acrylic, Liquitex White acrylic ink, Daniel Smith Payne’s Grey watercolour, Paperartsy Fresco Chalk paint Snowflake, Nougat, Caramel, Faber Castell Polychromos pencils, Albrecht Durer watercolour pencils, Pitt Artist Brush pens. Neocolor Iis Bronze, English Red, Molotow blackliner pen, gold pen, pencil,
Challenges
Art Journal Journey – All Kinds of Weather November Challenge – wind blowing her hair, wind in the poem and snow in the background, a wintery page
Art Every Day Month – Day 18 
Rain’s Thursday Art Date – Wisps and Winds – November 18th – wisps of her hair blowing in the wind
Paint Party Friday – Week 36, Year 11 check-in.
You might also like these November posts days 1-17 . . .
Beautiful artworks! So nice how you have the details, step by step. And the poem is lovely!
How fabulous this is, especially as it came from a brush cleaning page. The wind certainly has got into her hair. The poem is one I am not familiar with – oh those words! I do feel rather cold now though! Thanks for such a brilliant entry for my theme at AJJ, hugs, Chrisx
Beautiful Elle, she’s lovely. I’m so happy to see your progress photos too, I love to see a beautiful piece of art come together! Oh wind and snow are not my favourites either! Always a bad hair day after that weather lol! I love your hands that hold your paper too, those are neat! 🙂
Wonderful painting. I love how her hair is blowing in the wind.
Happy PPF!
this is so beautiful Elle. I love how the words softly go through your lovely woman’s hair. Thanks for sharing the full poem too. Happy PPF!
Lovely words and artwork 🙂
I am in love with this lady and her flowing, blowing hair. She is a beauty and I like all the details you shared, too. Her dress is lovely with the detail on the collar. It’s a really great page for Chris’s theme at Art Journal Journey, too.
She is fantastic Elle. An the Anne Bronte poem works well with her. Thanks for sharing with us at AJJ for Chris’ challenge. She works great as a weather page. Hope you week is going well. Hugs-Erika
OMG! This is just stunning. Well done my friend.
Nice art and poem Elle
Much?love