Waiting For The Rain - Karen's CJ

This is my entry for the penultimate Desert Island Discs CJ.

I had Karen's CJ and the song I chose from the two that were left was Waiting For the Rain by Manfred Mann. When I looked the lyrics up online the line "Look at you hiding from the rain" made me think of this stamp from Unity. I really like her and use her at every opportunity so she was the basis of this entry. I stamped her on some MME paper.

I glued down some book pages as the base and then lightly gessod over the top. Next I used some Liqutex paint thinned down. I used the Hero Arts Blue Neon ink with a chevron stamp for more texture. The doily was sprayed with Mr Huey in Sunshine and the other stamps are from a MME set I have. The butterflies rub-ons are Bo Bunny. Finally I wrote out two of the lines from the song that had caught my eye. It's now with Nigel for the final entry and I have Nigel's here to complete. It's been a super CJ and I'll be sad to see it end. 

Carmen's Corpse

My Exquisite Corpse has landed and it's truly bonkers. Thank you so much to Jazz, Karen and Sarah for your fantastic contributions to my monster! Mwuhahahaha!

Head - Carmen, Tentacles - Jazz, Scaly waist - Karen, Octofeet - Sarah

I'm going to add some colour to the second piece background and then going to frame her - I love her!

Time for another round of Desert Island Discs

I've got to say that I've been so lucky with this CJ so far when it comes to song choices - even now as we get near the end, and so many songs have already been nabbed for the previous entries, I'm still getting the songs I wanted.

In this case, the CJ is Karen's, and the song was Stay by Shakespeare's Sister

Who could forget that brilliant video???

 I just can't believe it's over 20 years old!

Anyway - this is what I did for my page:

With a spray painted space background and Siobhan in all her eye-rolling nuttiness printed onto tissue paper and stuck on with mod podge

(the yellow border isn't part of it, by the way, that's just the chair underneath :))

As for tweaking previous participants' pages, as is allowed on this CJ, I've only played with two this time, as a lot of the earlier pages have already had a lot of additions made and there wasn't room for any more :)

On Pam's page for "Sebastian" by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, I added some colour to the "rays" to reflect the mention of a candle flame in the song lyrics, and I also sprayed some varnish over the image transfer to darken it up a tad:

And I used grey inks and various crackle effect stamps to add a border around Donna's fabulous portrait of Pink Floyd's Roger Waters, as the song she was illustrating, The Final Cut, describes a man having a bit of a breakdown:






That's all from me for this month .....

Karen's Desert Island Discs CJ - by Sherry

This is my contribution to Karen's Desert Island Discs CJ.

The song I chose was by Emerson Lake and Palmer - 'Cest La Vie'.

I hadn't heard this song before but took inspiration for the page

from the first verse of the song

"Have your leaves all turned to brown

Will you scatter them around you" 

I used my Gelli plate and the page went through various stages

before I was finally satisfied with it.

 The little folder on the front has a button closure and opens

up to reveal a rubber stamped image of 'gratitude' and

an umbrella with little hearts raining down on it.

I thought this appropriate for Karen's reason for choosing this song.

Hope it's OK for you Karen.

I took a deep breath and added to other contributors' pages ....

To Sian's page - Bird Gerhl

I added a little metallic rub on paste to the bottom left hand corner -

to further highlight the embossing.

To Pat Beaumont's page - Sweet Child of Mine

I didn't add to as it was so full already.

To Karen's own page - Ave Maria

I added some metallic rub on paste to the door.

(I must just say that I think this page is really beautiful).

To Virginia's page - Purple Rain

I added some clear embossing to the purple raindrops.

Finally, to Donna's page - The Final Cut

I added a little varnish around the eyes to

highlight the tears.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, to think about The Exquisite Corpse Project

- thanks for the email Sarah, safely received :)

  

The illusive circle journal

Sarah and I have been in communication about Karen's CJ.

I have had quite a time getting it into my studio, in fact, had it been left on a desert island for me to pick up and rescue I would probably have felt less stressed.

Long story short?  it got misdirected and because I mail in and out a lot, a very kind Postie did some investigating for me before we went along official lines...

I've now done my work, and am thinking, rather than tempting fate, I am going to send it my Hermes signed delivery,  because Sherry and I haven't had a problem using my Hermes, and because I use it often the Drivers get to know my packages & routes (they like my art!!!!) and a lost item is less likely.

So I learnt two lessons -

external mail art on the packaging is nice for the Postie,

BUT

  never draw circles over numbers...

I have added to every Karen Joural page and completed my own:

First entry (feels like I'm dong the radio One Pop Charts!)

bird gerhl - I added some background collage and used light and shade to make the face POP

next was Pat's  Sweet Child of Mine, so I added in an embossed 'mother and child' stamp

 

embossing looks odd in the image

 Karen has asked each participant to write what they did on the back:

In at number three:  Ave Maria, I embossed over Virginia's addition of the two crosses in Vintaj Copper Emboss Metal

Four:  Virginia's Purple Rain
I added the rain drop and accented the lettering to give it more POP

 

And Last up (and half way around the rotations) at Number 5:

my very own Pink Floyd Final Cut :  graphite on mount board, sealed with gesso and matte and gloss varnished, 'lifted and lightened' and then accented with blue watercolour.

 

Mail Art Trail

Mr Postie has delivered two fab postcards this week for the mail art trail. The first is from Karen and I love the quote. I'm planning to take it to work for my desk I think so I can have a smile on a rough day.

The send is from Rebecca and it arrived very quickly from France having stood up to the postal service well. The background is great and I have been having a good study of it so I can recreate it. In fact I have been doing that with both the cards. It's nice to see these things up close in the flesh for inspiration.

Thanks you ladies for the lovely mail.

Desert Island Discs CJ - Sonja

This is my entry for Sonja's Desert Island Disc CJ.  There were a couple of songs I would have liked to do but finally settled on Your Song by Elton John.  Sonja's notes say she remembers this song from Christmas time a while back and that she was heavily pregnant at the time.  It is also her son's song as she played it a lot when he was born.  I tried to draw a mother and baby but it was hopeless, so I had to resort to the trusty internet I'm afraid.  I found a perfect picture, it had a wintery background which can be seen through the mum and baby.  I coloured this in with a mix of watercolour pencils, neocolors and skin tone pastels. The background is neocolor II, sprayed with pearl cosmic shimmer, acrylic paint snowflakes and a tissue paper 'tree' -  I also added a line from the song, printed onto Safmat then stuck on.  Hope it is ok.  For the previous entries in the CJ - I didn't add to Sonja's but I added embossed stars to Nigel's.

Jez and Karen Pair Journal (2)

This is the journal I sent to Jez.  It was just a cheapo book from Asda (a complete rip off of a Moleskine) it has an 'eco leather' cover in grey so I decided to doodle on it, I left 2 spaces for Jez to complete if she wishes.

My background pages are a bit of a mix, I did a vintage one - which is not like me but I enjoyed it, I also did a Union Jack - I seemed to have a thing about them at the time !  I hope Jez has managed to do something with the pages :)

Jez and Karen - Pair Journal

Firstly, I must apologise to poor Jez for having me as a swap partner!  This stupid thing called life keeps getting in the way of me doing 'fun stuff' but hey ho! better late (ok, very late) than never !!

Firstly, the pages that Jez did in her journal, I have added only small bits to as they were lovely as they were (but that isn't the point of this is it, lol )

The 1st page reminded me of water, so I added some seaweed and some Stampotiques in the form of a mermaid and 2 Octopets.

Next I added some paisley flourishes in red and a bit of number tape down one edge.

Next up, I added a mask of a bird and inked that and added a small bit of cameo tape and also a cameo necklace to the girl.

I only did 2 backgrounds in Jez's book as she made the book herself and it doesn't have as many pages as a bought journal so didn't want to use up all her space !  The 1st one is ok-ish but I have absolutely NO idea what I was thinking with the 2nd one ... feel free to gesso over it completely Jez and do something else lol!!

I will do a post with my journal in a sec ....





KAREN'S DESERT ISLAND DISK - CJ - AN UPDATE

Evening all, well as we all know from the Facebook group (well unless you're not in it in which case this might be news), but we've been discussing the fact that many of the Desert Island CJ's currently doing the rounds aren't really being added to in a collaborative way, and I've been the first to put my hand up and say - "I didn't want to ruin it" but in keeping with the collaborative spirit I've bitten the bullet with Karen's journal (being brave obviously) and set to adding to the three pieces already contained therein as well as creating my own.

So here goes, fingers crossed Karen will actually like the additions

This is how I received the layout and whilst Karen was mighty dismissive in her original post I loved it!  My worry was adding to it (this is the fingers crossed bit)

Here is the layout following my 'alterations' - yes I know they are subtle, I've added a tissue paper stamped heart and cross on the upper left and bottom right (half a heart each side).

I've add a stamped Midsummer Night's dream stamp over the top of it, not that you can read the words I just like the swirly writing!

 And I've added two metal crosses to the bottom of the page on the lace.

 Next up Sian's page which is lovely and again I wondered how I could add to it!

I've added some clear stamping around the edge and the heat from the heat gun has brought out the additional inks that have been added on it's travels as you can see.  Apologies for the poor lighting - it's late but I wanted to get the post done!

 Up close you can see the enhanced inking and the embossing around the edge, fingers crossed Sian likes the additions and Karen likes how the journal is progressing.

Next up the fabulous layout from Pat as it was received, already a gorgeous piece of art in it's own right

 And the finished item (again apologies for the darkness of the photo!)  By now I was getting braver, so I added three pink eyelets to the left hand side, threaded with organza ribbon, then threaded some gold wire through and some gold beadwork!

Then I added some gold mica to the roses on the top left and bottom right

 And finally added some glossy accents

 to both roses.

And then we come to my addition, of the tracks in the journal this is the one that has a personal connection for me too which is why I chose it.  I've intentionally left mine 'simple' to help with any future additions as the journal goes on it's travels and as it's off to Donna next I know she will love adding to this one!

The layout overall, double gelli print pulled background, foam stamps for the title, hand cut symbol, clear embossing music stamp on the symbol, tissue paper top left and bottom right and stamped image top right and bottom left corner.

 Up close the music stamping

 Up close tissue paper and gelli-print

 And finally the stamping on the edges.

I must admit I had great fun with this journal today and intend next month on working on the 'done' layouts as soon as it's received so I can add to them as I go along whilst considering what I'll create in addition.

I hope you like it Karen and I hope all the contributors up to now feel I've 'added' to the journal!