I Dream in......white and gold

One of the very first collaborative art journals I got involved with, I Dream In Colors (IDIC for short, how clever we are), is coming to a close.  Nearly all have been completed and have either arrived back home or are nearly on their way.

For the past two days I've been working on pages for my dear friend Elena (who is also the ringleader of all these journal groups, and the magnificent host of our annual Keys4Art retreat) and I've been itching to do something in her chosen colors, white and gold.  Not until you do a project that is mainly white do you realize how many different shades of white there are.  Unless of course you work in the paint department at Home Depot.  Then I suppose you already know that.

As I'm one of the last to receive Elena's book, I've had over a year to collect items to include in my pages.  Not that I sat down with a plan.  I just gathered together everything I thought I might use and started cutting, ripping, gluing, sewing..... and here's the outcome:

The backgrounds on both pages were collaged from music sheets, dictionary pages and scrapbook papers which had all been distressed, inked, embossed and otherwise altered.  Since I knew I'd be journaling on the second page, I dry brushed some gesso over top so the text would show up better. 

I cut a bunch of flowers with Tim Holtz's tattered florals die.  I used gold tulle and white fabric with gold threads.  There is a little story behind that fabric.  It is leftover from a project I did for my BFF's wedding back in '96.  Her wedding colors were Elena's journal colors.  I like that.....adding a little bit of personal history to a journal page.

I found the face online and worked a lot on it with pastels and pencils.  The head is surrounded by some of the same die cut fabric, except for this "hair," I cut the petals apart and really tattered their edges with a distressing tool.  Although I did adhere all the fabric with fabric glue, I also went over everything with some machine stitching (not just to make sure it would all stay in place, but ever since I realized I could thread the machine, I look for excuses to use it!)

Other things in the color scheme I used:  white embossing powder and ink, gold ink, gold rub-n-buff, gold thread, white paint, white gesso, pearls, white gel pen, white and gold sharpie markers, gold ribbon.