Stripes of Strength

Hello all!  I'm so happy you're as excited about the latest collections of Eclectica³ Alison Bomber word stamps as I am.  Thank you for your lovely comments.  I'll be sharing some more details about my samples here soon, but for today I'm working with some words from an earlier set, EAB08 Strength & Courage.

I'm still on course to manage at least one entry each month to the Art Journal Journey challenge.  Erika's theme for September is Polka Dots, Stripes, Plaids or Patterns, so I've been getting stripy with this page.






I've also stuck to hues of blue-violet with my neutrals, so this page is just in time to fit in nicely to this week's Monochromatic theme at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge.














The background started with stripes of washi and tissue tape.















Over that, I added a soft wash of gesso and then applied stripes of DecoArt Crackle Paint with a palette knife.














The palette knife means the top line of the crackle paint is completely straight, but then I've smeared it downwards in each case to create more random, loosely shaped stripes.













The next step was to add some stripes of colour using my Daniel Smith Moonglow watercolour stick.  It goes on like hard crayon...













... but once you apply water with a brush, it blooms into the most glorious free-flowing pigment.

Funnily enough, this was the colour which informed last month's AJJ entry too, But while there's moonlight...












This page is considerably smaller than that one, though - it's in a journal which is 8.5 x 6 inches in size.

And the moon is involved this time around too - on this lovely Japanese washi tape.












Finally for the background... lots of spatter, both of the leftover Moonglow pigment that was on the craft mat, and of the new soft white from PaperArtsy, Cloud 9.














The stripes of tape provide somewhere for the two paper dolls to stand and sit.   Happily, there's a nice thick "bench" for the seated girl to perch on, and some sturdy crackled paving to support the one standing up.















I added some Pumice Stone shading around the two girls to bed them into the page.  And some wild thread adds movement and energy behind them.















Their bold expressions seem to me to work beautifully with the words.














The quote forms a whole new set of stripes, stripes of text, this time.














I used Stormy Sky and a wash of the Moonglow over the top to create the background, before stamping and embossing the words with Wow Vanilla White powder.













I always find it deeply moving that these powerful words come from a girl barely older than these two Paper Dolls, who never made it to her sixteenth birthday, yet somehow found the strength to endure hardships and horror almost beyond imagining.







The sequins capture glimmers of light and reflect them back at the viewer...

... those shafts of brilliance echoing the power of one's inner strength and courage.

I hope you like this strong, stripy page.  The words mattered a great deal to me on the day I was making it, and I came out of the craft room feeling a lot better than when I went in.  I hope you've found some time for restorative art this weekend.







For those who follow the dollshouse side of things, there's a fantastic new post to enjoy over at Cestina's Dollshouses today.

Stripes will always add that certain something.
Anthony T. Hincks

Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy.
Albert Einstein

I'd like to share this at Art Journal Journey where the theme is Polka Dots, Stripes, Plaid or Patterns
At the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge they would like us to work in Monochrome