Blessed Samhain / Happy Hallowe'en

In case you hadn't noticed - I'm not very good at swedes/neeps/turnips/rutabaga*

*Delete as applicable.

It's a Steampunk-Hallow'en-Christmas-sort-of-thingie

The results of today's workshop at the Cubby Hole, with the talented Christine Costello.

The workshop title was 'A Steampunk Christmas Canvas', but somewhere along the way the airships and hot air balloons seem to have transformed into crows and ravens.

That's one of the joys of Cubby Hole workshops, everybody puts their own stamp onto things, so instead of half-a-dozen identical pieces there's a wide range of results, from delicate mermaids, through shabby-chic, to downright grungy!

Happy Hallowe'en!

How childish!

Yes, I'm still around - just not getting much time to create, and the pieces I have done can't be blogged yet as they are DT pieces for the Cubby Hole.

I came across this verse on t'internet and decided it would make a good journal page. It speaks to me of somebody remembering their childhood, so after laying down the background colours, I grabbed my brush and let my inner child out (not difficult, people keep telling me to grow up!)

I hope you are all well, and I'll hopefully be around soon to see what you've been doing on your blogs.

Jerusalem

My entry for the last Cubby Hole challenge which was "Green & Pleasant Land" - a reference to Blake's poem "And did those feet in ancient time". It is more commonly known as "Jerusalem", which is the version that was put to music by Parry.

Although officially "God save the Queen" is the anthem of the UK and it's constituent countries; Jerusalem is considered by many to be the unofficial national anthem of England. When sporting events feature the seperate countries, Wales has "Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau", Scotland has "Flower of Scotland", but we still get stuck with "God save the Queen", which is hardly inspiring. Oh well, maybe one day.

This was done with multi-layered image transfers onto canvas. The words and background colour are a copy of the preface to "Milton", a work by Blake where the words first appear, and were applied using gesso transfer. The Dark Satanic Mill was then applied over the top using PVA transfer.

Autumn splendour

Two weeks ago we had an altered book workshop at The Cubby Hole with the talented Christine Costello, her first ever workshop. The workshop was excellent, and full of the usual characters - although we were on our best behaviour as it was her first workshop. The resulting creations were a wonderful mix, and this is my take on the theme. It's taken two weeks to make it onto here as I kept adding bits to it. (There's several pics as I couldn't decide on a favourite).

The book is (was) "Eighteenth Century Europe", a somewhat dog-eared text book from an era gone by. The first step was to cut out a niche and then glue the pages together. There is also a slot for a drawer, but I decided to abandon that idea. Once all the cutting was complete the pages were glued together and a hole cut in the front cover.
Next a piece of 12x12 was covered in Dreamweaver embossing paste, various embossing powders and inks. Once dry, this was torn up and used to cover the outside, before adding more texture and layers. Remaining pieces were cuttlebugged to make leaves.

The inside was coloured with distress inks and metallics, and the edges painted with gold lustre. Since getting it home I've added the front cover image (Oak, Ash & Thorn from Third Coast RS) and clear embossed it, adding fibre and more texture as well; and also filled the niche with straw and autumn goodies. The Poem is "To Autumn" by Keats.

Why not?

My mojo seems to be making a slow comeback, although I seem to be short of crafty time and 'net access at the moment. To those who I owe comments, emails, etc. I'll answer sooner or later :)

This is a quick page that took about 3 days to complete, doing a little at a time.

Inspired by a couple of people I know who are glass-half-empty types. When the boss announces that we're going to the pub for lunch, they ask "Why?" instead of grabbing their coats and heading for the door.