Inspiration Wednesday - Aug 4, 2010

So, as you read a couple posts ago, I recently had the incredible privilege of spending an entire weekend with Donna Downey, and since then, have been on, like, creative CRACK.

No, really - my husband is seriously getting tired of me getting out of bed in the middle of the night to go downstairs to my craft room. Last night when I was complaining of being in pain, he had very little sympathy, citing my many late nights lately. "Yes, honey, but when I get that creative urge, I can't help it - I just can't sleep - I just have to go down and DO something with it!!" "Well all I'm saying is that when you don't get enough sleep, your body is going to pay for it."

Fast forward twenty minutes...

Me - "So honey, I had a few different ideas for over our bed, in between the curtains (that are basically a fake headboard, as there ARE no windows behind our bed, which was what HE said when he came home to find the curtains hung there in the first place). First, I was considering some sort of vinyl wall decal, like a chandelier or something, or maybe even vinyl frames, with or without frames. Second, some sort of canvas painting BY ME, of course. Or third, a set of four smaller canvases, each covered completely in a photo, but also with one letter so all together they spelled 'LOVE' in a 2x2 format. What do YOU think?" I hear chuckling in response. "Why are you laughing at me???" No response...just more chuckling. "No, seriously, honey, why are you laughing?"

Finally, I figure it out. It's 11:45 p.m. We've just had a discussion about me NOT staying up late to craft at night. "Oh no, honey, I'm not planning to do any of this TONIGHT...I'm just saying I have these IDEAS." He's still laughing.

I think it had something to do with the fact that he was ready to fall asleep and my creative mojo was just waking up. I'm not quite sure what it is about midnight, but for some reason, that's about the time my creative mojo seems to come alive. Maybe it's because that's when everyone else in the house is ASLEEP and I can actually have peace and quiet? Or when no one interrupts me? I don't know. At any rate, I woke up this morning, knowing it was Inspiration Wednesday, DETERMINED that I would get a page done in my journal done BEFORE midnight!!!! And not only did I get it done before midnight - I had it done before I even got the kids in BED!!! Go me!

I had a LOT of fun creating this page, even though there is also a LOT of truth behind what it says. Even though I've been doing a lot of creating lately, including even selling a piece of art (really? me? I still can't believe that!), I have a tremendous fear that I have no artistic talent. I am SUCH a perfectionist, and that has always impeded my ability to even START the creative process - which is why Donna Downey is SOOOO good for me!!! She colors outside the lines. She breaks all the rules. What rules? There ARE none! Scrapbook in chronological order? Forget it! Figure out what you're doing ahead of time? Why? Just start...and go from there! I'll admit, it's still hard for me to do that...but it's getting easier with each attempt.

When I started this page, I started with some happy colors - two of my favorites (one of which Donna kept talking about at the workshops - quinacrinodone magenta - and I probably totally spelled that wrong - but LOVE it!) and yellow ochre. It was a little TOO happy, given that I knew I wanted the page to be about my fear of failure in art, so I decided to add some dark purple drippage. I thinned some dark purple paint - but even the darkest purple paint I had wasn't dark enough, so I got an idea - and I added some "elegant eggplant" re-inker ink (Stampin' Up) to the mixture and that definitely did the trick - it darkened it and it thinned it some more. So the drippage was great - I still sprayed it with water, and then added some more at the top again, but it gave a great effect.

But then I felt like it was a little TOO dark and dreary...and earlier in the day, I had been playing with making some paper flowers ALA another Donna-style (Donna Salazar - I've decided all Donna's must be fantastically creative!) and had mixed up some homemade gold shimmer mist...so I spritzed some of that over the entire page, which gave a lovely effect.

I also ended up using a couple of those paper flowers on the page, one of which you can see here. This one is double layered - the bottom layer has a mixture of Tiger Lily Glimmer Mist and my homemade gold shimmer mist, and the top layer has a mixture of some homemade purple shimmer mist and some turquoise Glimmer mist.

This side view gives you a great view of just how shimmery the page actually is from the golden shimmer mist. You can also see a rhinestone from a rub-on/rhinestone combo.

I stamped a few butterflies in black Staz-on, because I thought they lent well to my message. How does that saying go - something about just when the caterpillar thinks things are the worst, he becomes a butterfly and learns to fly? I've always liked that. Anyway, I also stamped this other quote in the lower right hand corner - a Tim Holtz stamp - which I love!! And you can see the brown circle tag that a certain person got me hooked on. Ahem.

This is the second paper flower I created. The first one, up top, was made with music score pages. This one here was made from book text pages. Both were made in the same manner, using the tutorial on the website posted above. This one uses just the Tiger Lily Glimmer Mist and homemade purple shimmer mist.

A good view of the bottom half of the page. Oh - and you should know - just the thought of free-handing the writing was hard for me. I hate my handwriting, hate free handing stuff - so even that was a big step for me!! Stamping, flowers - those are easy. Free handed writing? Not so much. The white writing was done with a ...um...can't remember the name of it now and don't want to go downstairs and find out right now...marker. Slick writer? Is that it? Then for "FEAR," I didn't actually have a stamp that said "FEAR," nor did I have an alpha set, but I was able to just paint white paint onto the F of one word, the E of another, etc, drying in between each one, until the whole word was done. And then I outline "CREATING" with my india ink fountain pen (which I finally got to work right).

And a nice view of the top half of the page. I just love the shimmer on that flower, and you can see the little rub-on with rhinestones over on the left side of the page. (I have a slight addiction to both flowers and rub-ons.)

See? Close-up of the rub-on. Isn't that a cool mix of colors in the paint behind it? It makes me happy!

So, there you have it - my first official Inspiration Wednesday!