Hoping for some light

Hello all, and welcome.  Well, the tax return is done, so I thought I'd celebrate with some time at the craft table, but with the shambolic chaos that's going on politically everywhere in the world at the moment I didn't feel very celebratory.  No prizes for guessing my state of mind from this sombre little pairing which turned up on the table in front of me!

They're done on two MDF tags, considerably smaller than the standard size #8.  They measure 12cm x 6cm (that's not quite 4.5 by not quite 2.5 in inches).  I like working on the MDF substrate - it has weight and substance, and it can take pretty much whatever you throw at it.  I had planned to get all mixed media and textural, but as it turned out they ended up in a very different, much simpler place.









There's some Tim Holtz design paper in the background - you can still just see the subtle harlequins under a chalky wash of white paint.















The paper already had some darker shading in places, but I intensified that with some watery washes of DecoArt Fluid Acrylic in Raw Umber. 













I sanded back around the edges after adding the paint, so that you get nice pale borders.















Then I fiddled around for a while with paper scraps (including some die-cut pine trees left over from the Winter Journalling) and photos and wire mesh, but I couldn't get happy with any of it.

So I reached for the meadow flowers... of course!














These exquisitely delicate stamps are by Carabelle.  I adore the thistle - just look at those tiny thorny hairs around the head.  It's stamped in Watering Can Archival.













And the grassy stem is equally detailed... the slightly smudgy bit is just from me wiping away some over-enthusiastic white spatter.

This one is stamped in Ground Espresso Archival.  (I got a Ground Espresso re-inker when those came out a couple of years ago, and a blank ink pad so I could make my own.)












The words, as I'm sure you've spotted, are from my own PaperArtsy quote sets.  This one is by Pythagoras (he did more than just triangular theorems!), from EAB02 Darkness & Light, and seems to come out when I'm in melancholy mood.









The second one, digging deep to find the resources to deal with all the nonsense, is from EAB03 Music & Silence, and is by Lao Tzu.  (I'm a bit cross that the black pen I used for some edging has gone slightly blue somehow, but I'm embracing imperfection.)













There's some leftover Raw Umber spattered around in the background, some white paint spattered around in the foreground, and the simplest of toppings in the form of some white twine finishes the pair off.
















It's interesting that with both quotes I'm reaching back more than 2000 years for wisdom with which to survive the present day.

















In fact, the two men seem to have been born very close together (close in time, not geography)...  Pythagoras in c.570 B.C. and Lao Tzu in 601 B.C.










I worked on these with the tags one way round (as in the photo at the top of the post), with the shadows crowding in from the edges.  I really love that sense of gathering darkness - it suits my mood perfectly.  But now they're done I also like them with all the plants in the centre, reaching outwards into the light.

I think it's just a little more positive that way round, so I thought I'd share that pairing with you too.  I don't want to depress you as well as me!  Thanks so much for stopping by today.  I hope the weekend has lovely things in store for you, whatever you're up to... and I'm looking forward to having some time to hop around and visit at least some of you.  Happy crafting all!

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they can seem invincible, but, in the end, they always fall.  Think of it - always.
Mahatma Gandhi

I'd like to play along at Mixed Media and Art where they shared this lovely January moodboard celebrating Coolness.  I'm always inspired by meadow flowers, the moonlit spatter is right up my street, and I love those sombre neutrals, suitable for my chilly mood










At Try It On Tuesday they are looking for Something Old, Something New.  You can do either old or new, but again I've got both - the papers and paints are old, old, old, but the Carabelle stamps are new (or at least never-before-inked)

I'd also like to join in with the Simply Neutrals Tuesday party over at Apple Apricot - a lovely place to find like-minded lovers of the neutral tones