Documented Life Project 2015 - Week 3

Week 3 Art Challenge: how to fill the blank page - the color wheel. And the Journal Prompt: "I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way . . . “    - Georgia O’Keeffe

Thank god we don't have to use gesso this week!

As I continue to be partly immobilised (I have to wear the bootie for another 4 weeks, until my next orthopaedic consultant appointment, but I can walk without crutches - I feel completely liberated; it's almost like I can fly!), I have a lot more free time than usual. Is this what it will be like to be retired? Bring it on! Says I! So I am making good progress in catching up. I might be catching up too much, actually - normally the challenges are posted on a Saturday morning, before 10 am GMT, but nothing has come up yet this morning and it's nearly 12:30.

I love colour of course, but I often struggle in expressing this on paper. But, as I mentioned in my last post, I found an excellent watercolour instruction video in my Pinterest stash. I was flicking through old photos on my iPad and I found a picture of a poppy I took a few years ago in the gardens in Glenveagh National Park. So I decided to have a go. And here it is, one of my freer watercolours.

Then I had to find a page to match it. Plenty to choose from. Here is the one I settled on:












But what to do with it?

I came across a lovely poppy stamp that inspired me. The stamp I carved looks more like a pansy than a poppy, but it was pretty enough to use all the same. I love carving my own stamps, imperfect as they are. I've bought a few stamps over the years, but I really don't get why you would buy a stamp when you can make your own so easily.

So I stamped my poppy all around the page, like a frame. But I needed something to place in the centre, and I didn't want to use my poppy, as I didn't want to cover the yummy background. So out came the Gelli plate and blank labels and lots of bright colours. And another stamped poppy on book paper and a word I plucked out of The Little Book of Calm, which was quietly sitting on the shelf behind me when I was looking for inspiration:

   

And here we go. All done!

And you know what? Somehow I love each part more than the sum of the parts, but I can live with it!