Pretty Little Things

I got Sally Jean Alexander's book, Pretty Little Things, last week, and I've been playing with collages since. I've started a few, but have been practicing the Abracadabra Collage Technique. I've done one as an exercise that is very similar in colour and some techniques to her example in her book. I love the colourway, so decided to see what it looked like. It was lots of fun. I've GOT to order the silver glitter glass she uses. I haven't found any up here, so I'll just get it from the same supplier she lists at the back of her book. I have some clear, but the silver just looks so beautiful! I used a tiny artboard and over the week found some charcoal pencils, and got myself some kids' chalk and Crayola oil pastels. I haven't used the oil pastels yet, though. I plan to keep adding to it, and try out the beeswax I bought yesterday. I'll see if I can leave gold off this one. I don't think it works on this, though I love my Krylon gold pen.

Here are a couple of the ones I'd started previous to getting this book. I've added to each of them this week:

I used a transparency to stamp the image in the top left, and have some transfers from magazines onto packing tape. I think that's such a cool technique. I'd painted the background a couple of years ago. I've added some aged, torn, stamped paper and what looks like little envelope since. I think this one is a good candidate for coating in beeswax because of the colours. I love the pic of the lady. It was from the promotional material for an opera company; she looks so confident and somewhat unapproachable. More work to be done on this one.. I think I need to make it darker still. Maybe some sheet music....

I did this one for fun, and just in time for Valentine's Day.

I've got a huge pile of emails from the lists I'm on, and in doing some cleaning today came across one from a French CQ list, from a lady asking if anyone wanted to trade ATCs. I got one ready and into an envelope so fast my head spun. If I didn't do it RIGHT THEN, then it wouldn't happen at all.

I even save the darned baby wipes I'm using to clean up after myself. This looks like little butterflies or birds to me. No way am I throwing it out - I know I'll find a use for it:

Really, how cool is that?

Off to play some more. A friend and I saw the opera Lady Macbeth of Mstensk put on by the Canadian Opera Company last night, and I'm trying to duplicate the floor of the warehouse, if you can believe it. All dark browns, black and grey, with some lovely ochre. Great opera, by the way. You don't really come out of a Shostakovitch opera humming tunes, but we really did laugh far more than I would have expected to. P and I have a sardonic wit, so had lots of fun with it.