But while there's moonlight...

Hello all and welcome back!  A second helping of art journalling in 24 hours - it's almost like the good old days here at Words & Pictures.  When I look back I am so befuddled at how I managed almost daily postings, and sometimes multiple postings in a day!  Now, after the sparkling dewdrops on yesterday's early morning mushrooms at PaperArtsy (if you blinked, you may have missed them!), I'm back with some glints of moonlight.

I spent a happy hour and a half creating this page for the Anything With Eyes theme over at Art Journal Journey this month.

I promised myself I would join in at least once a month this year, but I wasn't sure where to go with this one until I spotted this moon face in one of the Idea-ology ephemera packs.

Suddenly, I was plunged back in to the magical moonlight of my Midsummer Day and Night's Dream - two gleaming moons in one month here at Words and Pictures, who'd have thought it?

















And I suppose I was also following on from the lavender stems on my rusty ATC into these purplish shades.

There are some of the same Lavender and Wisteria spatters here as on the ATC...













... and in fact one of the major colours used here is called Moonglow (not planned!).  And so these creative cycles we travel in continue to whirl us round.













The page is done in the Dina Wakley Media Journal, on one of the canvas sides, and started with the necessity of trying out my new Tim Holtz Decayed stencil with some texture paste.















Over that I put a coat of gesso, and then smeared on Distress Crayon in Pumice Stone and Shaded Lilac, before adding some of the Daniel Smith Moonglow watercolour paint stick...















..., and then doing a layer of Picket Fence Distress Crayon to highlight all that scrumptious texture, and adding that lovely spatter.












By this point, I knew that the moon would be taking centre stage.  Part of me wishes now that I'd given her a touch of lavender in the irises, but there again, it might have made her a little too eerie.













Then it was a question of sorting out the selection and arrangement of ephemera to provide the right setting for her...
















Some torn book page strips, of course.  I had intended to give them a wash of gesso, but I rather liked how the warm tone of the original colour echoed some of my chosen ephemera.














There's some vellum, letting other layers hover in view still.  And some elements have a light mauve tinge which echoes the background, so they were easy choices.













And I suppose hovering in the back of my head I always knew that I would be using this Chekhov quote from my PaperArtsy EAB02 set, Darkness & Light.













Chekhov's talking as a playwright, of course - don't spell everything out, let me feel it through the drama - but I think the thought holds true for visual arts too.














(Hmmm... that means I should probably write shorter blogposts and let the photos speak for themselves.  But then again the blog is called Words and Pictures so...!)
















These beautiful lavender wings belong not to butterflies, of course, but to moths - why else would they be fluttering around by moonlight?















Look how glorious when the sunlight (oops, moonbeams) hit them!

They're from the new Transparent Wings edition, where you get some coloured wings as well as clear ones.  And a tiny Idea-ology safety pin provides the body (rather enjoying that idea.)















That glint of moonlight on broken glass is captured with some shards of fractured glass.















These are from that well-known Swedish furniture store...













... and I think they're probably intended to go in a vase to hold flower stems or twigs in place.  I've a better use for them than that!
















There's lots of tangled thread layered in with the ephemera...













... which along with the butterfly wings adds extra detail and dimension...















... and draws the eye back to the original texture underlying everything.









I had planned to do a nice simple page that would be quick to make and blog about.  I can do simple(ish) - witness the mushrooms at PaperArtsy.  But when the creative juices start flowing, I'm not going to be the one to stop them.

And I'm so happy I didn't, because this has turned into one of my favourite journal pages ever.  Again, it's that thing of not being in charge but somehow channelling something, and then you just have to let it happen.






There's definitely an interconnectedness about the last few projects - elements, ideas and colours which have been recurring through them (and which carry on over into tomorrow's final project for Simon Says Stamp too).  So I hope you'll be able to join me for the continuing journey soon.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I hope you're all having a peaceful weekend (or whatever day you happen to be visiting!).

We are all like the bright moon, we still have our darker side.
Kahlil Gibran






I'd like to share this at Art Journal Journey for Gill's Anything With Eyes theme
And there are plenty of Textures here for them to enjoy at Country View Challenges
I'm going to make this my second Anything Goes entry for the Bleeding Art Challenge Blog
And it's also Anything Mixed Media Goes at the Creative Artiste Challenge Blog