With this page I was determined to use some different colours to my usual - looking back my journal is a riot of pink and purple, with orange, red and occasionally lime green or blue. So the first thing I did was pick up a bottle of this deep gold paint "Caramel Corn" is what the label says - such a lovely name!
So anyway, below is my starting point with gold paint and a border of warm brown. I think of these as "bumble bee" colours, there's something warm, fuzzy and comforting about them!
I've recently reorganized my collage stuff by colour in a tall trolley of flat drawers - so I went into the one containing orange/brown/gold and pulled out all kinds of bits and pieces. This system is working so much better for me. You can see below that I just cut curving shapes and stuck them around the edges - some of the pieces are from a rather shiny children's book page, so I had some reflection problems with the photo.
Then below is almost exactly the same stage of work, except for the fact that I've added a soft brown shadow around the edges (using Pan Pastels) and a strong black outline. I've also added some bits of doodling and a couple more images.
In the final view you can see that I made changes to the figure, giving her different hand-drawn eyes. Its important for copyright reasons to always alter what you use from magazines etc. You'll see that I generally cut out shapes and colours that appeal to me, rather than recognisable images, and then try to doodle on top so that they become "mine".
Then it was onto the message of the page, which was about finding peace in a situation where its how I think about things that will make it possible to get through. In other words I needed to calm down and think positive! I do love how peaceful and serene this girl looks, and I like to think that the little gold bird is telling her "everything is going to be fine"
Sorry this is a little bit later than usual - we had a slightly mad weekend and I never got around to posting until now!
