Love According to Rumi

The minute I opened my jar of Dina Wakely Crackle Paste, I knew wanted to use it for a Valentine’s Day project. Somehow I felt that it would work well in a heart shape with pink shades, and represent how the human heart stays whole and strong even though it may have cracks and scars from a lifetime of emotion.

I tested the paste on several kinds of paper—it worked great on cardboard, cardstock and heavy colored paper, especially black. On shiny surfaces, it cracked and peeled off. When I tried it on red tissue paper, it shriveled the paper too much. For this piece, I selected a small piece of heavy orange paper, and, after taping the corners down, pulled the crackle paste through a harlequin stencil using a big plastic flat-edged spatula.

Some of the paste leaked under the stencil…mostly due to the fact that I was hurrying. It wasn’t that I didn’t have enough time—I hurry because I am excited and impatient when I am in the “art zone.” Once the paste dried, it didn’t matter—the smears added to the textured effect. I decided to cut it into a heart shape.

 

For the background, I used Derwent blocks in shades of pink, red and orange on a white journal page. After smearing the color with a very wet paintbrush and mushing it around, I added some white Crayola slick stix to soften it in the center.

 

The paper I used was a little too thin—next time I would use a true watercolor paper so it didn’t buckle. I considered ironing the page, but was afraid that the I would lose the design and it would bleed off like when you iron the wax out of batik. I did hurry the drying along with a blowdryer, which helped flatten it a bit.

Once the background was dry, I added a variety of stenciled images with a Faber-Castell white PITT pen. The effect was soft and watery, which was just what I wanted. I used the chakra pocket stencils, mini damask, the edge of the Balzer deco doily stencil and sections of the garden gate.

 

Next, I “auditioned” the orange crackle heart on the page to see if I liked it, and to see where I wanted to glue it. After deciding on placement, I added some brown chalk ink to the heart edges to age it, and smeared a bit lightly over the stencil to add to the aging and enhance the crackle. I also tore the background page out of the spiral journal, trimmed the torn edge away and added a strip of solid orange paper on the side.

A favorite Rumi quote seemed to be just the right words for the page.  After I selected the types sizes and fonts I wanted, I printed the Rumi quote out on Avery clear mailing labels and applied them to my page.

My thought for Valentine’s Day is that everyone should celebrate self-love, and not be afraid to chase their dream, go after what they love, and follow the little voice in their head that is whispering the way.

No-Theme Postcards

Some people love and need prompts to spark their creativity. Most of the time prompts just annoy me, and I find them alternately confining and confounding. So, when I have a chance to do a “no theme” exchange, it is a chance to work on my own ideas that have been in the back of my mind or scribbled in a sketchbook. It is also a chance to rummage through my boxes and bins to find and use little tidbits I have been hoarding that were too pretty to throw away, and unfinished pieces begging to be completed.

On a trip to a great little store in NY called The Ink Pad http://www.theinkpadnyc.com/, I purchased a stamp that reminded me of William Morris’ textile designs. I tested the stamp on some coquille watercolor paper a month or so earlier, then got super busy and put the work aside. I decided to fill in the white space with watercolor, watercolor pencils & markers, and was happy with the result. I then looked for postcard sized 4” x 6” backgrounds for the mini watercolors. I found three: a leftover piece from a pink recycled tissue paper and fabric collage, a green stamped cardstock background leftover from some “jonquil” themed ATCs I made over a year ago, and part of a big blue watercolor that I over-stamped with a white circular texture that I had been saving for a special project. I wanted to add texture, so I attached the colorful mini Morris watercolor by zigzag it to the various backgrounds.

Birthday Birds

September's theme for my Arts in the Cards ATC exchange group was pear. We have been working with only color prompts in 2012, and some of them, like rain and dew, have been rather abstract. Even pear can be many shades--red, golden, yellow, or green. It was tempting to do some pieces with little paintings of pears, but I stopped myself from being too literal and just went with pear as a color. These ATCs started with a discarded painting. About a year ago I made some “Balancing My Chakras in a Hurricane” ATCs. http://lindaedkinswyatt.blogspot.com/2011/08/balancing-my-chakras-in-hurricane.html On hurricane day, I also made another painting—of sort of undulating rainbow colors—but I didn’t really like it, and stuck it in a pile in my studio. One recent Sunday afternoon, I pulled it out thinking I could paint on the other side of the paper. With the pear color theme in mind, I decided to try out some new stamps using yellow printmaking ink. I tested a fleur de lis pattern on top of the rainbow watercolor: somewhat of an improvement, but not really special, but I went ahead and printed the yellow fleur de lis all over it since I had already squeezed out the paint and it wouldn’t go back in the tube. After the yellow stamp dried, I tried out (with black ink) another new stamp on top of it—a little bird with a party crown, the words Post Card, a 1909 postal cancellation and some antique looking penmanship. Somehow the crazy black stamp popped the watercolor and gave a very nice effect, enhancing the warm yellow/orange ripe pear colors. I also tried a few with a butterfly stamp, but since I recently made two different butterfly ATCs, I vetoed that idea. I have a September birthday, so a bird in a party crown seemed appropriate for this month, and made my inner child happy.