Inspiring Herbs

Hello all, and welcome!  I'm on a bit of a roll with my Neal's Yard Remedies found words.  (If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can find out in the previous post, Pace Yourself.)  So here's another journalling page for the Art Journal Journey theme, Words To Live By.  This one heads into my favoured world of wildflowers, but let's imagine there are some herbs too somewhere in the deep layers of the background.

And this really is a very layered background.  I've been doing a series of landscapes in this large 10x10 inch journal from Paperchase.  (I may choose to share them soon - they feel a bit personal, so we'll see.)  In those landscapes I've been playing with a lot of textural paint, heavy body acrylics and palette knife work, and this page layered some more over the top of one which wasn't really working for me.






I don't have any process photos, I'm afraid.  I've been doing my best to stay in the moment, follow the flow of what's happening in my imagination and on the page.  That doesn't really allow for stopping to take a picture!













The dip pen has been in action, working with black India ink.  Black is a rare departure for me, and one that seems to release something of sadness into the work when I use it.














There's some book text transferred into the layers of paint in various places, as well as a bit of script stamping.
















Paint and pen work give a lighter touch of greenery to the black shadowy stems of the flowers.















And the flowers themselves are done with some more of the heavy body acrylic, trying to capture the fullness of the heads of the blooms with all that texture.












They have a very different energy from the watercolour versions I've been playing with in recent months (have a scroll through the Watercolour Birthday pictures if you missed those).












Here are the Neal's Yard words, which I went over with my dip pen and ink to give them a less formal appearance.  I really like the effect, so you'll see it again soon.













I am, as regulars here know, hugely inspired by meadow grasses and wildflowers, but if we're in a garden rather than a wild meadow, one of my favourite things a proper Elizabethan herb garden.












Walking down the tiny paths amongst foliage in greens and greys and blues, twisting a leaf between your fingers to release the fragrance of pungent mint or tangy lemon balm - all the senses tickled.













In Stratford upon Avon, on Shakespeare's birthday each year, people parade through the streets wearing sprigs of rosemary in his memory (There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember, says Ophelia), and the whole town smells amazing.














There's a slight shimmer to the teardrops of High Flow acrylic dripping down the page.












And the scribbles and scratches and paint textures all add to the interest which comes from mixing your media in so many layers.

I hope you've enjoyed dipping in to these painty layers with me.  There are some more Words To Live By on the way shortly, and maybe those landscapes will put in an appearance too.  In the meantime have a great weekend (we're nearly there), and I'll see you soon.








Next to the larder, a door led out to our courtyard, which Mamma had kept filled with herbs. An ancient rosemary bush took up most of one side, and the air in summer was always full of bees. Sage, thyme, various kinds of mint, oregano, rocket, hyssop, lovage and basil grew in Mamma's collection of old terra-cotta pots. A fig tree was slowly pulling down the wall, and a tenacious, knotted olive tree had been struggling for years in the sunniest corner.
From Appetite by Philip Kazan

I'd like to share this at Art Journal Journey where they are looking for Words To Live By
I couldn't even count the number of different mediums used here, so I'd also like to play along at the Creative Artiste Blog where they are up to their 50th Anything Mixed Media Goes challenge