GUARDIAN ANGEL??

 

Looking back I seem to be posting about every two weeks where once I managed more or less weekly - its not that this blog isn't important to me, but this year hasn't been the greatest health-wise.  Or maybe its just that I am now adding the normal aches and pains of ageing on top of my other problems.  Whatever, it has slowed me down some ....

I made this page when I felt kind of overwhelmed recently - developed a painful shoulder problem which made life rather difficult, and there were a couple of things on my mind as well, all of which contributed to my feeling somewhat "got at"!  I found this gorgeous picture of an antique angel - I love these images, especially the pre-raphaelite ones, even gravestone angels - which began the train of thought about wishing my Guardian Angel would come around here and see off some of the problems assailing me!

I'd made this bright background with no particular aim in mind - I just liked it.  Anyway, if you look at art angels are very often shown robed in deep colours, so the ones in my head always look that way.  Also they aren't girls - Gabriel, Michael,  Raphael .... sorry, that's something I tend to go on about.  Regular devotees of these pages will quick identify that the background is done with Neocolour crayons by Caran d'ache, absolutely my favourite media.

The writing followed easily from there - and as ever you can see how the lettering begins very simply and then I go back and fancy it up.  The pink wings (and the gold ones I added to the angel) are German foil, a great product I used to use a lot in the days when I made ATCs all the time.

I think the drooping skeleton tree says everything about my state of mind at the time?  Drooping would definitely cover it, but then the gold pen came out and jollied things up a bit, and I coloured the robe of the stone angel too (previous remarks apply).

I don't know if my angel turned up (and I definitely do believe in them and always have) but making the page engendered a more positive frame of mind, or maybe I just pulled myself together and stopped droooping.  But sometimes you just have to - so I definitely reserve the right to droop occasionally, just not for too long and without inflicting it on anybody else.

ANGELS

You may think I've lost the plot (and I'm not saying you're wrong either!) but on a very few occasions in my life a messenger I believe to be sent from God has come to me ... and because of that I like to think of them angels. I was blessed by such a visit a few weeks ago ... and this is my attempt to capture what I felt.

The background is mainly rubbed on Distress Inks, splashed with water, and I used my water soluble crayons to add a bit of depth to the colour around the edges. Although I don't subscribe to the idea that angels are girls - the biblical ones have names like Gabriel and Raphael - the Messenger who came to me that day was female, so I chose this image because I've always liked the serenity of this young lady's face. The wings themselves are gold foil bought ages ago - Paper Artsy keep these, and I think they're called German scrap, or something like that?
So then I just journalled straight onto the page - for once it was difficult to know quite where to start, so I pulled words out of a collage sheet of phrases that just seemed right, and worked around them. I almost decided that it was finished once the writing was done, but you know me and blank backgrounds - I just can't leave them alone.
I've recently discovered the joys of adding a little bit of metallic gold or silver to a page, and because what I was trying to record was so special it felt like gold was called for, so I drew a gold vine using a spirit based pen. Stinky, and the fumes may have made me a bit dizzy, but I do love the result. It still feels strange looking back at this experience, and I'm not sure that I've fully unpacked its implications .... but am working on it!