The Depths of Winter

Hello all!  Isn't it grim and grey and horrible?!  Appropriately, I've got some more wintry journalling for you today.  It's number three in the sequence (see Winter Growth and Winter Recovery if you've missed the earlier ones - it's definitely a series), and maybe my favourite so far...  We're picture-heavy today, but not too many words alongside!!

When the weather is this gloomy in the early days of January, with so long still to go before spring, this is when you really have to dig deep not to let it grip you.

It's fine to feel blue occasionally I think - if this grey dingy dampness didn't affect your spirits, I think there would be something very strange about you - but I, for one, can't afford to let it seep too deeply into my insides.













I need to pay attention to the demands of my body for rest, for kindness, for a little indulgence every now and then.











So yes, I can dig deeper into my safe hibernation mode, but I need to fill that hibernation with warmth and pleasures, and not feel I'm buried in the cold earth.











The heat of the underground colours here really excites me, as does the crackled texture - sharply articulating the reflections of the light off its shiny surface.







(There's a Gerard Manley Hopkins line rising to my tongue as I type - all about the shine of a newly-turned furrow of earth - I'll include it as today's quote!)

The sky, just tinged with rays of winter sun, is another part of this which gives me great pleasure.






It was completely accidental - the colours from the earth seeping up into the paper above...

(You can see the earlier stages here - crackle and paintwork in place below the earth; starting to shape up the paper collage; and playing with the paper bubbles - a more defined version of the ink-lid stamping which has formed the bubbles so far.  The bubbles are becoming more substantial!)













... but I embraced the accidental seepage, and loved how it became the sky at dawn - or is it dusk?  Your call...













The tree branches are stamped with a new purchase, though I've separated the stamping of the two halves of the original image to fit my wider landscape.











And I added some extra pen work to extend the grasses a little on each side.












The bubbles journey from under the earth...














... carrying the fermenting ideas generated in hibernation out into the world.

Again I've used a tiny tag, wired up with rusty wire, to carry the words which fuelled the page.

And I couldn't resist including some of my other favourite texture on this page - this is the reverse of a coffee cup holder... I love the fine corrugation.











There's even some of my favourite Artistic Stamper script stamp in amongst the crackles.














And within the layered papers.











So yet another wintry page for you...  I think they're changing as we go, so I hope you're still enjoying the journey.  I am!

Thanks so much for dropping in today, and I'll see you again soon - either here or elsewhere in Craftyblogland.

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,  Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

The last three lines of probably my favourite Gerard Manley Hopkins poem (which I think I've probably quoted in full elsewhere), The Windhover

With lots of old favourites - book pages, corrugated card, crackle - and playing with the Golden paints which are new to me, as well as my first Penny Black stamp for the trees and grasses, I'd like to play along in Make New Friends But Keep The Old at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge.