Hi Friends!
Happy Friday 13th! Black cats abound and are crossing my path on the regular because they live here and that’s fine by me because black cats are considered lucky where I’m from. 🙂 We are experiencing some very cold temps at night which is quite a shock for this time of the year- we’re talking lows of 1C (which is frosty to say the least). I am having to light the stove most nights now and it makes such a difference, and then we all fall asleep in front of it haha. Anyway…
Today’s Art . . .
Today’s art is a journal page Neet’s theme this month on Art Journal Journey – In Gear. This one has clockwork butterflies and sunflowers.
Isn’t it funny that sometimes you have an “idea” for a page and then over the course of working on it, it turns into something else entirely? Something that was not planned and not what you intended. That happened with this page as this was not quite what I had in mind and it took me some time to get there, to a place where I was happy (?) with it. I did see it being green with lots of leaves, the sunflowers there but more grungy looking butterflies, and a lot more brown haha. But that’s not what happened…
It started off as this green page which I found already painted (pastel and gesso) while I was tidying up the other day and I decided to use it as I thought it would look nice as the perfect background for the sunflowers I wanted to use. But after creating the sunflowers and then starting to stamp the clockwork parts of the butterflies over the page, I wasn’t happy with it at all. So what to do, save it or scrap it? I decided to try and save it by painting the background black all around the sunflowers.
Time to start again lol. Miss Lily stayed for moral support and encouragement. Also she likes shiny things and was really attracted to the shiny gold card I was stamping on.
It took me forever to find a paper that I wanted to stamp the butterflies on to – one that I thought would look nice with the sunflowers and the black. In the end I settled for this one which is an old 2017 Graphic 45 paper and probably the only G45 I’ve ever bought haha. I always find their papers are too busy for me. The steampunk/clockwork butterfly stamp is this one from Paperartsy and the sunflowers were also made with a stencil from them too, both designed by Tracy Scott and several of their Fresco chalk paints for the sunflowers. Some of the cogs and gears from the butterfly stamp set are the perfect size to fit inside the centre of the sunflowers.
On the clockwork side of the butterfly, I coloured all the clockwork bits with a gold pen, and then on the other side, did a little colouring with a peach Posca.
The black stamped cog? gear? comes from the butterfly stamp set and fussy cut. There’s a few of them on the page including as centres on the sunflowers. The rest of the metallic cogs and gears are cut with a Tim Holtz/Sizzix die set using TH metallic papers – gold, silver and champagne. I even tried to make a couple of them look like leaves by cutting them in half and making them look more oval.
There’s some splattery black and white paint on the background too.
Behind the Scenes . . .
Miss Lily was there at the beginning for moral support and here she is at the end for a behind the scenes photoshoot lol. She just really likes to be involved in all the artyness.
Let me know what you think in the comments. As always, thanks for reading and Happy Journalling!
Ingredients
my journal, a pastel page that got covered in black acryiic ink, Paperartsy stamp set, stencil and Fresco paints, TH Sizzix bigz die, metallic card, Graphic 45 paper, black ink, black and white paint, gold pen, Posca peach pen, glue, glue dots,
Challenges
Art Journal Journey – In Gear
Creative Artiste – Challenge #98 – pastel, gesso, stamp set, stencil, Fresco paint, metallic card, scrapbook paper, black ink, black paint, white paint, gold pen, Posca pen, glue dots,
What a interesting project. I have spent a half hour looking at all the interesting details. Lots to look at. Thank you for joining us at Creative Artiste this month. Hope you are back here again soon. Judy DT
I love how your page turned out – great to see your process too and how our creativity changes from what’s in our head to what comes out through our hands. Of course you have the most excellent helper there – I too have a black cat. I’ve had black cats since I was 8! Thanks for sharing your project with us at Creative artiste mixed media
Lovely collaboration of industrial and nature, the Butterfly stamp is amazing. I love those big sunflowers Elle all so beautifully adapted. So sweet to see Miss Lily keeping you company. Thanks for sharing @ Creative Artiste and joining our October Challenge.
Best wishes Tracey (DT)
Oh my! Beyond beautiful- what a good move to use the black around the sunflowers. The butterflies are fabulous…….but of course Miss Lily is too! Thanks for sharing once again at AJJ and Neet’s theme, hugs, Chrisx
Miss Lilly is a cat beauty queen, that is why she likes to pose for photographs. At least that is what I think.
Love this page. What a lot of work has gone into it and I love how you showed us the before and after – and inbetween photos. I haven’t seen that stamp of Tracy’s before, how lovely is that butterfly, perfect for this theme too.
I do like the big sunflowers and the way the cogs just fit perfectly into the centre.
I think that it is well worth all the effort you put into it, it is a fabulouos page for my theme at AJJ. Thanks Elle.
Hugs, Neet xx
I love how Miss Lilly likes to watch you work. It’s a good thing you have a big enough work table for her to sit on. 🙂 This is such a cool idea. I love the sunflowers and their gear centers, as well as the gear butterflies. I have a gear butterfly page I also made and have yet to post, but it is very different, and I like yours better. And I know what you mean about pages having a mind of their own sometimes. This one came out great. Stay warm. We haven’t been quite that cold at night but our heat just turned on, so it’s chilly. I’ve pulled out my big fleece shirts to wear, already. Happy end of the weekend and thanks for joining us at AJJ. hugs-Erika