Afraid

She was afraid of letting herself go...

He was afraid she'd got entirely the wrong end of the stick when he'd given her that rose... and why was she looking at diamonds in jewellery shop windows?

He was afraid... very afraid...

A bit of fun for Inspiration Avenue's Fear challenge. I was playing with collage after seeing what Sharon Tomlinson had been up to on Katie Kendrik's course. It was supposed to be a piece of wild passion and romance, but the Muse was feeling cynical and down to earth. She decided a fear of commitment might be more grounding (and it did rather fit the theme - subliminal influencing going on there I suspect!).

It's painted over collage followed by more digital layering.

I was never really afraid of commitment when I was younger. This may have been a personality defect on my part as I ended up getting divorced. However, seeing as I got my son from this error of judgement it's not a decision I would ever have changed!

Wings? Eh?

It's not as easy as it looks this collage malarky. I was inspired by my experimental art course and the work of Derek Gores to create this wild Scottish beachscape. I was also doing some serious 'out-of-the-box' thinking with regards to the creative prompt at Inspirational Avenue - Wings.

I mean it would just be too easy to think birds, butterflies and bumble bees wouldn't it? Maybe I should go down the man-made aeronautical route instead? But then a song crept into the depths of my imagination and an idea was born.

This particular song was the first in the UK to ever sell more than two million copies. It was number 1 for 9 weeks and is probably sung by every tourist visiting this distant outpost of the British Isles. It is of course Mull of Kintyre by the group 'Wings' - see, I told you I wasn't thinking along normal lines!!

My collage sort of looks like a photograph I saw of the mist rolling in through the sea.. my desire is always to be here oh Mull of Kintyre....I'm sure the house may be a slight exaggeration to the one owned by Mr McCartney though. I doubt even he would have been granted planning permission (he has made his mark in the clouds though... look closely!).

This definitely looks better when viewed from a distance. I might paint over part of it to help with the illusion of distance. Lots of fun though.

Live Laugh Love

"Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible sun within us."

Thomas Browne

Normally I would write something now - you know me, never can resist a little essay to accompany my art. However, I am very tired and stayed up too late playing with this. There is however a glimmer of light still in the sky reminding us that, despite the rain and chill, it is Summer!

So, to celebrate the Summer Solstice and for all those knee deep in mud at Glastonbury, this is some Summer sun just for you.

Well, it appears that I have managed to write an itsy little bit... And, well now I'm on a roll, so I might as well share how the prompt of Summer Sun at Inspiration Avenue and anticipation of the Experimental Art Course starting on Monday, got me snipping and tearing shades of turquoise and yellow from magazines to make this collage. After the tedium of waiting for glue to dry, I painted on streaks of real sunlight (tis true!) and snatched a little patch of blue from between the clouds. A little digital enhancement and she was ready.

She was going to be rising out of Stonehenge, but she heard the guitars tuning up a few miles distant on Glastonbury Tor (see pics on link) so pulled on her wellies and headed over. It might be raining, but as you can see, she carries her sun within!

Incognito

I remember a friend telling me once that they had a persona for work which was quite different from the one they showed outside of it. A bit like stepping on stage and acting a part, they would become this other person - the confident, no-mess manager who got things done - but underneath they were just a vulnerable person needing a hug as much as the rest of us.

Writing about Take That yesterday reminded me too of how incongrous it seems that someone like Robbie Williams who can step out on stage in front of 100,000 people and command the audience, conducting them in the palm of his hand, can ever suffer with stage fright - which is what he openly confesses. Do some people need that alter ego? Is it part of their soul?

Am I like this too? Am I incognito some of the time? I'm not sure anymore. I know for sure that I shine most when I'm allowed to be 'just me', but then when you think about it we all have these different aspects to our personality, we bend and adapt according to situation. Take this morning - I didn't like being 'strict mother' when my son wouldn't get out of bed and get dressed for school but it was for his own good that I became her.

Then there's the bits we hide - our vulnerability. Sometimes we get so good at this, that we forget it's even there...

This post is turning into a load of old useless waffle and opens up enough questions to fill a psycholdogy doctorate, so I'll just quit while I'm (possibly not) ahead and stick it out there. The artwork was inspired by this piece for Inspiration Avenue's Incognito challenge - so I blame Sharon for all this introspection! I'm also taking an Art Journaling class this week, so took my words to the page - unfortunately they got a little smudged, despite testing the pen's colour fastness first!

Flicking through magazines looking for a nudge, I was reminded of some of the biggest chameleons out there - the models.

"It's Tuesday darling, so it must be Madrid... Who will I be today?"

Tea dance

You have no idea how long it took me to come up with something for this week's Inspiration Ave challenge on 'tea'. Should I collage a neat little teacup? How about using tea as paint? Will there be a tea dance perhaps?

Or shall I throw all three together? Ah, why not!

Collaged on a sheet of music, dabbed with gesso, collaged some more, splatted with a hot tea bag, edged with charcoal pencil, thrown into photoshop for some extra grunging and text addition - I haven't started my 'neat & artistic writing' course yet, so needed some help!

I like throwing teabags at my art. It's great fun, you should try it!

Paisley ponderings

Get ready for a rambling post. My excuse is that I am ill. I have the rather thrillingly-named Labyrinthitis. You might be forgiven for thinking that I am wandering in a maze of confusion or perhaps under the delusion that I am in a fantasy-film pursued by a Bowie baddie. In fact, it is just an inner ear infection that manifests itself in doses of dizzy and whorls of woozy.

And now the reason for the title. Paisley being the theme for the creative challenge at Inspiration Avenue this week, and Paisley being in the picture above. Since I read the prompt earlier this week I seem to be spotting paisley's swirls in places I had never noticed. For one who is supposed to be creative and observant, I only just realised that the pattern appears on one of my favourite summer skirts (a really long hippy affair). It also popped up on the packet of last night's dinner accompaniment.

I was inspired this week by the work of artist Nikki Farquharson (examples below):

Cool eh? I discovered I didn't quite have the patience for this level of detail and wasn't entirely happy with my final output, but I'll try some more I think. My original looked like this, then I played in photoshop for the final version up top when I decided that perhaps the tissue paper ruffle to the skirt didn't have the quite the desired effect. Think I'll borrow my son's felt tip pens , rustle up a dose of patience and have another go...

Melange

What a perfect art challenge for when I'm insanely busy yet still desperate to create!

Melange: noun, assortment, conglomeration, gallimaufy , hodgepodge, jumble, medley, miscellany, mishmash, mixed bag, mixture, olio, pasticcio, pastiche, patchwork, potpourri, salmagundi, variety.

The theme at Inspiration Avenue this week.

This took me 10 minutes including the rummaging around in my stash for collage materials. Never throw any scrap away I say! All sits on a canvas board, various papers and fibres sculpted with a bit of gesso. I love creating :)

The little gecko is scampering through the litter and glitter - see his sparkling scales catch the sunlight!

Child's play

We're nearing the end of the experimental art course. It's been such a pleasure just playing - a return to childhood where art could be anything. I think my love of collage came from cutting up Mothercare catalogues and making pictures with a glue paste made from flour and water. Babies in prams, babies in warm clothes, babies in nappies, babies having fun, babies getting messy! Good old Mothercare!

Funny, my son loves a catalogue too - particularly anything involving lego or other toys... And I have become rather attached to the latest Boden catalogue. It's not just the lovely (but sadly over-priced) clothes; it's the pictures themselves, the locations; the style. I want to draw them all, cut them out and make ... well.... collages.

I present above a bit of a return to child's play. Tea stained page in my sketchbook with a simple cut out from the Boden catalogue. I got this far, intending to do more then stopped - cause I rather liked it! Sandals on the beach... Mmmm - don't you just wish your toes were scrunching through sand right now, shoes kicked off and running into the waves.

I wonder what happened to other six shoes from these pairs... I feel a short story coming on - perhaps involving six single lads searching for the owners of the missing sandals, a modern twist on Cinderella. Will the six single ladies ever be reunited with their footwear and will they welcome the addition of a handsome man returning it to them? I think that they'll just slip their shoes back on, laugh and head out along the beach arm in arm singing happily and swigging champagne!

PS: I guess this rather loosely fits with Mixed Media Monday's Child's Play theme too!

Concrete Poetry

My rushed entry for Inspiration Avenue's Architecture challenge.

I didn't really have time this week, but then suddenly a spare few minutes caught up with, boffed me on the head and said "slow down chickie" - relax and make some art. So I did!

Some more collage practice. A holiday home from Uruguay with delicious yellow walls set against the bluest of skies made abstract then given a bit of a colour and texture boost in photoshop to really. Funny how such a confusion of images still says 'South American'. Well, it does to me anyway.

I loved the headline - Concrete Poetry -a verse or two away from some of the monstrosities gracing our cities today. But it's true, there can be so much beauty in the unlikely.

I cut the images out of World of Interiors magazine. Gosh I love that publication. Imagine being a photographer and journalist for them, travelling the world in search of the most magical of abodes. I'm part way compiling a blog post on my dream house. I would be lying if I didn't admit to snippets of ideas making their way from these glossy pages. Country Life also makes its presence felt in my dreams.

Legs like tree trunks

When I post up an art challenge entry I always like to add a few words inspired by the subject matter. This piece however is a challenge in itself - Legs. What do I write about legs?

I could confess that I am applying tinted moisturiser to mine to tone down the illuminous glow that threatens to announce everyone of my arrival now that summer is here. In fact, one dark summer evening many years ago while walking to the pub through the countryside, a friend commented that he was using my legs as his guiding light. It took me a while to live that one down. I was also once likened to a Swan Vesta after returning from a bike ride. My white limbs forming the body of the match and the red tip my face and crash helmet. Don't I just have the nicest friends?

Yes, I could talk about my own legs. Or I might mention that I've had the ZZ Top song of the same name rumbling round my head for the past 24 hours... I won't put a link to it, or you'll all be suffering alongside me.

To be completely cryptic I might explain that while I was cutting and snipping last night I was half watching a TV programme about start up businesses - the business experts were exploring which ideas had 'legs'...

Nah, after all that perhaps I'll just try and explain what this piece is trying to say. It's the result of some multi-tasking. My experimental art course collage homework and the The Three Muses challenge. I browsed my magazine pile for appendages and let inspiration guide me. I came up with this street in Beverley Hills - you know the one - lined with designer stores, palm trees and the beautiful. Glitz and glamour - and liberal amounts of tinted body moisturiser!