inspiration perfection

last fall I discovered a UK artist whose work I fell in love with

Rebecca Louise Law

she works with dried flowers, hundreds of thousands of them, and makes the most breath-taking displays

I have always loved dried flowers... every summer there are bunches hanging upside down here and there,  inside the house and garage, drying for winter's enjoyment 

her work makes me want to rip out all the grass and just plant flowers

 and then along came the sketchbook prompt for Day 10... 

 "Steal Like An Artist"

in other words, use the work of someone you admire as a jumping off point for the making of your own

be inspired by it but don't copy

I struggled with this as I very much do not want to copy anyone though there are certainly times I see something in a piece of art that sparks an idea

{An interesting aside to this is something that has been happening to me more and more of late... I'll be scrolling through Instagram and see something amazingly brilliant - a twist or turn on the usual that is fresh, inventive and gets me all fired up... I grab my reading glasses to get a closer look at how they did it only to find out that what I thought I saw and what is actually on the screen are two very different things. It turns out my terrible eyesight has provided me with a brilliant way of being inspired and no theft involved!}

anyway, whilst casting about for who to "steal" from and not wanting to do this with anyone I actually know, I remembered Rebecca's work and thought I would choose an image I like and begin there...

ethereal, delicate, subtle in both form and colour, a beautiful play of light and shadow

inspiration perfection 

I began in the sketchbook, bright white smooth paper a perfect foundation

watercolour paint in purple and grey... lots of water... smooshing and scumbling away

fragments of lace painted in white and pale grey pressed on top

it didn't work very well until I started rolling the shaft of the paintbrush over the lace to really press the paint on to the paper

when that dried I took a floral stencil and scraped Golden brand Fibre Paste thickly over top, giving the look of plaster flowers and leaves trailing down the page

a good start with lots to look at and think about

today I took the page out of the sketchbook intending to cut it up but in the end I just placed it to the side and began to work on a separate sheet of acrylic paper - the texture of the paper resembles cloth and the softer white a perfect match for some other papers I had prepared 

diluted carbon black ink painted on vellum, a torn strip from a letter, the pieces of painted lace and a piece of either gesso or matte medium, or maybe even heavy-body acrylic paint... (more likely a combination of all three) that I had put onto parchment paper instead of a palette to use in something I was making; when I was cleaning up the next day I found the leftovers had dried and loosened from the parchment - it looked interesting so I kept it but wish I had written down somewhere what it was

I wanted something white with a branch-like texture so I found some very thin tissue paper, tore strips and layered them onto parchment paper using cmc as a glue, pushing the tissue paper here and there with a paint brush to form delicate ridges and lines

underneath the painted lace are threads I saved from when I tore and cut it, they are just dropped on here to scatter as they would

I though the piece second from the right above was too straight at the top and bottom edges so I tore it again

new, improved version below

much as I like the torn letter strip I thought it really didn't belong so I removed it, added another tissue strip on the right and extended that with a smaller piece of the dried mystery product

below, that small bit of mystery product on the lower right is now removed

I've tacked a few pieces in place with a dab from a glue stick and will attach everything in the coming days - it's a good start but the colour is missing

and although I looked at my painted inspiration piece whilst doing this I hadn't used any of it so I took the painted lace and dropped it on there to see how that looked

 I loved it

so much so that now the wheels are turning yet again and where I am with this today may not turn out to be where I stay