Tuesday, March 19, 2013

The Cry of My Heart


Joy Journal March 2013
 This page evolved over several days. Following the prompts by Amanda Jolley on her Joy Journal Project for March, I started with some quiet time.  Just because it looks like I'm not doing anything, there is usually much going on inside. Purposely quieting myself helped me realize that I distract or mask my chronic physical pain with many distractions.  Music, reading, tv, games on my Kindle Fire, etc.
There is other pain too. We all have it.  I poured out my heart when I came to my journal pages, writing with a red pen.  I tested the ink to see if it would bleed when wet.  It did.  But there is a strong ghost of that written purge lingering under the layers I added.
The writing sat on that page.  Just for my eyes. I followed Amanda's suggestions to add spatters of paint and veils of gesso.  Another day goes by.  I'm not even thinking about the journal and I remember the words of a worship song - "It is the cry of my heart to follow You."  That is what I had poured out.  The cry of my heart.   Another day I came across a Bible verse that put things in perspective and pointing me to the Hope of my heart.    Now I had the heart to continue with the page.  I added glazes of sheer paint and sprayed thinned acrylic ink.  A bleeding heart was drawn with the dropper from a bottle of Liquitex Acrylic Ink.   Scrapbook papers were used for the collage. I glazed layers of paint on a strip, then stamped the words with StazOn Ink.  After tearing the edges, I distressed them with pastel pencils.  The silhouette started as a tracing from an illustration.  I transferred it to scrapbook paper and cut it out.  

Then I added Inka Gold Metallic Rub (a bees wax product). It can be quite sheer but adds a great shine. On the bottom image, the figure looks almost solid in color, but that is the effect of the metallic reflection from that angle.
The page was finished with a few more touches with the pastel pencils, some journaling around the figure using a Pitt Pen, and a bit more sprayed ink.


Saturday, March 2, 2013

The Eyes Have It

Beyond Beyond Assignment - From Above
Shooting a subject from above is challenging.  We don't usually view the world this way unless it is our shoes or maybe the sand along the beach while searching for shells.

In Beyond Beyond we were encouraged to take shots from above.  I tried a few things unsuccessfully.  The subjects were really flat and boring shot this way.  I decided to try a still life of some of my eye makeup.  The round brushes and tubes would roll away from their placement on my smooth surface.  I think putting the rumpled cloth beneath them helped save the shot.  Not only did it stop the items from rolling, the fabric folds gave the light more places for shadows and textures.

In Photoshop Elements 4.0, I enhanced the lighting with a gradient layer and levels adjustment layer.  Kim Klassen's texture layer, Cora, was applied twice and using different blend and opacity adjustments for each layer.  A text layer was added. The finishing touch was to add the frame on a separate color fill layer which was also adjusted for blend and opacity.