Encore - Nature Assemblage

Encore Posts

Projects which made their first appearances elsewhere for Design Team duties or Guest Designer opportunities, but which only had a sneak peek here, are being gathered together in the pages of my virtual scrapbook while I'm away.

As always, the Encore Posts are formatted differently from the regular ones, so that you can easily spot them.  Please don't feel that you have to comment all over again!

Hello all!  Thank you so much for your lovely comments on my jumbo Autumn Splendour tag.  It seems I'm not the only one for whom it's a favourite!  I've another creation with autumn leaves for you today, but this time they're real leaves.  This assemblage canvas was created back in May 2017 for the PaperArtsy "Assemblage" theme.  Those leaves, and the fact that it uses Lynne Perrella stamps - she's on my mind because of the recent release of her Egyptian stamps, which I was lucky enough to make some samples for - as well as the subject matter of a woman connecting with the landscape around her, all made it seem like good timing for this Encore.  Here's what I wrote back then...

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Hello all, Alison from Words and Pictures here to share an Assemblage piece with you this evening.

The definitions I read spoke about Assemblage as essentially being three-dimensional collage - 3D objects projecting out from the substrate - and from the first moment of reading that, these Lynne Perrella houses popped into my head.

My imagination took flight from there - the woman from LP036 (probably my top favourite image from Lynne's latest exquisite releases) trapped inside the buildings, her domestic life, her position in society.

Her joy lies in escaping into the grounds of the large manor house she lives in and gathering botanical specimens, or natural keepsakes to remind her that there is life outside the walls of narrow society expectations.

And though her life is regimented, and she tries to follow the conventions in displaying her collections by lining them up and labelling them, nature always breaks out of the mould.

The twigs and branches refuse to be confined in straight lines...

... and so do the dried flowers, so carefully preserved.

The Frozen Charlottes are part of her own broken self - expected to behave in certain ways and follow certain codes...

... but feeling fractured and constricted by those expectations.

You can see how her obsession with the natural world has infected even her appearance!

And she feels ever more constricted by her world...

I'm indebted to Amanda at Treasured Moments of Inspiration for the background here.  I had my layout all in place, but I was struggling with what should go on the canvas itself - design paper?  Brayering?  Stencilled texture?  My usual crackle?  But thanks to a moment of inspiration from the blog visiting, I have these layered tags.

Over my tags, I applied a glazing technique picked up from one of Donna Downey's Inspiration Wednesday videos.  I used the PaperArtsy Matte Glaze mixed with successive layers of paint - applying and then wiping back with cloths both wet and dry, until I was happy with the look.  The paint layers were Nougat, Taupe and French Roast, knocked back at the end with Snowflake both as a glaze and, eventually, plenty of spattering.

I added harlequin stencilling with the Snowflake and text stamping using script stamps from Hot Picks 1006 and 1217...

... so that the background would echo the Tim Holtz paper used to make the houses.

I used a variety of mediums to add extra depth and shading - a Pumice Stone Distress Crayon, a Ground Espresso Distress Marker, and a Sepia Archival ink pad, and the final touch was some French Roast spatter to add extra depth.

The Matte Glaze mixed with French Roast was also perfect for distressing the Frozen Charlottes.

It's really easy to get the look you want, as the Glaze gives you so much extended time to play.

I almost forgot the roofs - another stamp from the LP036, featuring the little cottage where she dreams of living out a simple life...

... instead of in her father's great mansion with all the attendant privileges and duties.

So that was the journey my imagination took into the mind of this woman and her collection of natural found objects, as I was assembling this creation.

Thanks for coming along with me to share her story, and I hope you'll be inspired to gather some three-dimensional stories of your own.

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So there's another Encore post safely gathered in to my online virtual scrapbook of my creative journey.  One day maybe I'll have them all safely here in one place, but I warn you there are more than 100 of them still to go!  And of course every time I create something for another blog and only have a sneak peek here at Words and Pictures, that number goes up rather than down... ah, well.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I hope the autumn weather is being as kind to you as it is to me here in the Czech Republic.  There's something new up next (which this canvas also gives the tiniest little hint towards - you'll see what I mean on Saturday!) and after that I hope to find time to share some of my autumn photos of the beautiful Czech countryside with you, as well as a couple of the watercolours inspired by that landscape.  I've definitely been connecting with the nature around me, just like this woman, though feeling considerably more free!  In the meantime, happy crafting all!

There is an eternal landscape, a geography of the soul; we search for its outlines all our lives.
Josephine Hart

I would like to share this as part of Simply Neutrals Tuesday over at Apple Apricot