Tag Archives: Adirondak Colorwash Spray

Remember the name of the place

Posted on by
6

Hello friends

I’ve been so busy lately and apologise for not responding to comments, I’ll rectify that soon I hope, I’ve just been soooooo busy.  You know going to work is such a huge inconvenience in my life, but it pays the mortgage so I shouldn’t really complain.

I am getting immersed in 21 Secrets and it’s fabulous – I feel like a kid in a sweet shop, there’s so much to choose from – it’s awesome 🙂  As soon as I can figure out how to put the badge on my blog I will do so, but for the time being it has me baffled.  I’m such a dunce sometimes.

Anyway this spread is a bit weird, visually I don’t really like it, it didn’t come out as I wanted, but nevertheless it has a deep personal significance to me.  The phrase is from a song by Yello.  The reason it is so important to me is that my husband has bipolar disorder (also known as manic depression) and there have been times when he has been very, very unwell.  Fortunately for the past few years, thanks to finally finding the right medication, things have been under control, he is not cured but things are so much better now.  When he was very ill there were times when I felt I was losing him but if I asked him that question it was kind of grounding for both of us.   The answer to the question is always ‘The Three Roses’.  I’ve no idea what it means in terms of the song, and we have never been to a place called The Three Roses.  Saying it can’t fix anything, but it’s a connection we can make through the mire of depression or craziness, or whatever.   Next to saying ‘I love you’ it’s probably the most important thing we can say to eachother.

Hope all is good in your world

Big love

AJ

The Second of the Colorwash messes

Posted on by
5

For this spread I used the Wild Plum and Cranberry sprays and the Papermania Birdsong cut paper as a stencil.  I really made a horrible mess on the page,  just a big purple splodge, nothing pretty about it at all.   So to try and retrieve it I cut some of the paper I had used as the stencil and collaged it on top.  The purple colour made me think of Purple Haze and Jimi Hendrix so I found a picture of Jimi and collaged it onto the page and I tore some pink tissue paper to collage over the top of that.  I used a really cheap, in fact it may have been free, foam craft stamp of a star, and then I wrote one of the verses from the song in white to finish it off.

To be honest in the whole journal I think visually, it’s my least favourite spread, but nevertheless it does say something important to and possibly about me…

… when I was 15 years old I saw Jimi Hendrix play live at the Isle of Wight Festival just a few weeks before his tragic death at the age of 27.  I was at that massive festival (about 65,000 people) on my own!  I think my brother, who was 17, and I lied to my parents and said we were going together, but of course he really didn’t want his baby sister hanging around and cramping his style.  So there I was wide eyed and innocent and all on my own.  My mum would have had a fit if she had known!  Anyway I came to no harm and I was close to the stage when Jimi was playing.   Always when I hear the opening riff of Purple Haze it takes me back to my youth.  Around about that time I met and fell in love with a boy, my soul mate – I still love him today.

The first of the Adirondak Colorwash messes ;-)

Posted on by
8

Hello friends

Hope everyone is well & happy.

A while back I bought 4 bottles of Adirondak Colourwah sprays – Lettuce, Expresso, Wild Plum and Cranberry.  I was so excited to use them, probably over-excited, but all that happened was that I created a big, big mess.  This is the first spread I created using the Colorwash sprays and I mainly used Lettuce and Expresso with a touch of Cranberry:

Still without any stencils I used some more precut paper,  this time it was cut with big swirls.  In the end I did quite like how the spread turned out, it has a kind of surreal feel to it which is why I put the quote “It started out like any ordinary day”  Have you ever had days like that when everything starts out normal but things just get stranger and stranger?  No! well maybe it’s just me then. 😉

It took a lot of work before I was even slightly happy with the pages, there are layers and layers of paint, paper, gesso and stamping.  I can’t remember where most of the collaged images came from –  this is the troube with creating pages and then not putting them online until some time later, if I was organised I would keep a note of how each spread was made as this would help me to learn, I could give credit to others where it’s due and explain my process, but if you knew me you would realise that’s never going to happen, because ‘organised’ is not an adjective anyone would use to describe me!

I do know where the image of the Cheshire cat came from though, it’s from the Graphic 45 Halloween in Wonderland Collection. I bought 2 sheets of that paper when I purchased the colorwash sprays.  I had to take a deep breath before I could bring myself to cut into that beautiful paper.  I’ve always loved the Alice books and the image fitted in with the surreal feel to the pages.

Big love

AJ