Saturday, November 27, 2010

Frida and New Eyes

As I've said many times before, one of the things that gives me the most pleasure is my participation in several collaborative art journals. This past week I completed pages for two:  Leanne's Frida Kahlo journal, and Sue's Journal of Dreams.

Leanne asked that we place an image of Frida somewhere she had actually been, so I chose her home in Mexico, Casa Azul.  And as a tribute to Frida's style, I have her riding a reptile.  (Riding a Reptile....good name for an indie band or a porno flick, huh?)

The backgrounds were done with the paper towels I put in the bottom of my spray box, so they have colorwash, glimmer mists, maya mists, perfect pearls mists, and homemade mists.  Waste not, want not (my fifth grade teacher was VERY big on proverbs, and for some reason, I've remembered just about all of them).

Frida herself came from a rubber stamp, stamped on watercolor paper, colored with Portfolios water soluble oil pastels, and then the clothes were pieced together from various leftover papers, fabrics, and ribbons.  She also has a necklace and matching earrings I made from annoyingly tiny beads.

The snake I drew freehand, and decorated with my version of pre-Columbian art, colored with markers, gel pens, and watercolors, and embellished with fabric and crystals.

Casa Azul is a photo I found on the internet.

When I sat down to work on Sue's JOD, I was (literally) up to my eyeballs in....well....eyedrops, having just had cataract surgery in both eyes.  Eyes were most definitely on my mind.  Images, I've always been drawn to (hence the vast number of eye stamps in my stash), and of course, the first three letters of my most oft used screen name.  Eileen, eyeleen, get it?  Not to mention, my mom always greets me with, "hi, ei."  

Not to digress too much; I just wanted to give a little background on where these pages came from.

Front:


The background was done on watercolor paper.  The first layer was a whole lot of spraying with various mists, then some tissue paper, ink, more spraying, rubber stamping, then stamping all the circles with gesso.  When dry, the gesso was colored with distress inks.  I used some vari-colored metallic threads to add some machine stitching.  Then some black crystal accents and a piece of optical glass finish it off.  All the stamps are either from Tim Holtz or Wendy Vecchi collections.

Back:

I sprayed the back page at the same time as I did the front, but left this side pretty much alone at that point (a little gesso, but no layers of tissue paper, ink, stamps, etc).

The eyeglasses came from a copyright free vintage image site, and I was tickled to find the quote, as my eye surgeon has most definitely given me new eyes.  I did the journaling with Sharpie water based poster paint pens (gold and black).

And, since I used machine stitching on the front, I gave this side a border of a zig zag stitch. 

Eye am pretty pleased with these pages.  (Sorry!  Eye couldn't resist!)




13 comments:

Angie Hall Haviland said...

BEAUTIFUL pages, Eileen!! Such vivid colors and fabulous detail!! I am so thrilled for you and your new eyes!! :)

Helen said...

Love these pages. I have new eyes too in the sense that I am adjusting to life wearing glasses, it seems to be taking a lot of getting used to!

Dorothy said...

Beautiful EIleen, just beautiful!!!

Anonymous said...

Absolutely beautiful pages... I love it.

Anonymous said...

ROFL....."EYE" Think they look AWESOME girl!!!!!!

Unknown said...

Hi Ei,
You are so clever and humerous with both your art and your blog!
Great quote on the new eyes, perfect for you! Again you are the master...or the Mistress of the layered backgrounds!
Can't wait to have Sue's book here to work in next!
Gina

Chrystal S said...

These are wonderful! You put so much work into them and I just love the bright colors and all of the detail. Thank you so much for sharing!

Mixed Media Martyr said...

Wonderful pages Eye-leen!! It was great to click on your image and see the page in my book up close. Love the texture from the paper towels!! Leanne.

Nancy said...

"Eye" think your pages are wonderful!!

Elaine Akers said...

Great pages like always, Eileen. Your eye pages and comments made me smile. Glad the surgery worked well for you, and that you are back to creating wonderful art.

Lori said...

You should be pleased, these are spectacular! Eye always love viewing your journal pages, so inspirational! Love them! he he
p.s. Yep, riding the reptile is definitely a porno flick.

Diann said...

How I enjoying coming to view your ART and you are always at your best when you are working in the journals of your friends! These pages are just wonderful. Best of luck with your eyes! Diann

Patzee said...

Eye, yi, yi, how do you do it? From Frida riding the snake to a Proust quote, you have created 2 magnificent pieces of art! So very clever. Glad your new eyes are serving you well!