Dragonfly High

Hello everyone.  Hope you're all having a great weekend.  I'm here to share my take on Tim Holtz's glorious June tag... 

I made it well over a week ago - but this is my first chance to get it on here since then.  Life's kinda crazy - what can I say?

Anyway, here it is... following the master pretty closely, with the main variations being in colour choices, and my irresistible urge to add words.  Again, I had a ball making it.

I'm finding crafting a bit sticky at times at the moment - fitting it round another highly creatively demanding job means that it feels like there's not much left over when I sit down at the table - I know, I really shouldn't complain!  But this was pure fun - definitely flying high!

You can find out all the how-to details from Tim's own post so let me just share some pictures and  keep you posted on where I've departed from the recipe...









I had several stampings of the dragonfly on the go at once, experimenting with different colours and techniques, but ended up - no surprise - with my favourite blues and greens... though there is some Dusty Concord in there too!














It was great fun to play with the Distress Markers.  I usually do my "watercolouring" with the Distress Stains - love their fluid ease - but there's no doubt you can apply colour with great precision with the markers if you want to.










Love Tim's suggestions for adding extra colour, like tinting behind the words, and casting "shadows".

LOVE the flicking effect!











And the play you get on the watercolour paper is yummy.

In the end, I couldn't bear to cut any of it off, so ended up using a large tag!










One of my favourite bits was blending Distress Inks onto the edges and drawing the colour in - meant I could bring some Mowed Lawn into the picture - one of my favourites at the moment!











Mixing the media on the background was such fun - and again one of my favourite things to do... the interplay of the paints, stains and inks gives you such constant and glorious variations of effects and possibilities.

My background stamping is one of my main departures from Tim's tag.  Although there's some done in Archival, I wanted to pick up on the white of the watercolour paper. 









So I decided to stamp my text in Picket Fence Distress Paint. 











I love the Papillon butterflies hovering in the background.

And I do love the white text, but if I made this again, I'd probably do partial text stamping rather than completely all-over, but it's a minor quibble!









For the topping, I dyed two separate pieces of crinkle ribbon - one using only inks and stains, for full glowing translucent colour, and one adding some Chipped Sapphire Distress Paint to the mix, so that you get the opaque shabby chic look.  

They're tied together with some paper string that I curled around a wooden skewer.









And then, despite all that text, I felt the need for some words to add to my pictures, so I used some of the Alpha-Parts - Newsprint, I think they are - and added them to the mix.  

I dabbed Picket Fence DP onto them, gave them a quick spritz of blue mica mist, and blended a touch of green ink onto them - pretty pleased with the effect - it's iridescent in the light.







I decided to mount my watercolour dragonfly on padded tape to give some extra dimension, and
there we are... so grateful to Tim for one of my favourite times at the craft table in recent weeks!









Thank you so much for stopping by - your visits and comments make me so happy... and that's really helpful just now, believe me.  

Wishing you all a lovely weekend - whatever you're up to, and I look forward to seeing you somewhere out there in Craftyblogland.

Clouds of insects danced and buzzed in the golden autumn light, and the air was full of the piping of the song-birds. Long, glinting dragonflies shot across the path, or hung tremulous with gauzy wings and gleaming bodies. 
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Dragon-fly
Today I saw the dragon-fly
Come from the wells where he did lie.
An inner impulse rent the veil
Of his old husk: from head to tail
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.
He dried his wings: like gauze they grew;
Thro’ crofts and pastures wet with dew
A living flash of light he flew.
Alfred Lord Tennyson

I'm entering this as my June tag in Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of 2013