Weathering the Storm

Word Storm, Part II (Part 1, is here)

The thundering word storm rolled around her, flashes of lightning, lit up words here and there, illuminating them.The words swirled 'round and 'round, as the winds of the word storm lifted her up, carrying her high up into a tree. She lost consciousness then, as the word storm left her, just as quickly as it blew in, by dropping her gently into a large bird's nest.

The birds watched over her as she drifted in and out of sleep, while wild dreams of forgotten words, words of power, desire, magic and joy danced circles around her. She reached for them, as they whispered their secrets to her - she tried to hold onto them, begging them to stay with her. If only she could remember them when she awoke, she thought to herself - then she would have enough. Enough to carry her as far as she needed to go. But, like all dreams, the words faded in her memory, with the light of day...

Writing: 22,357. Which I hope to add still more to, before the day is out.

Life: Is good. Thank you, Judie, for reminding me of that with your post (click on the life link to read it), it's one of the few that I've caught on the fly, this week. Things have been somewhat hectic lately, even if I weren't doing the Nanowrimo-thingamajiggy, I think it would seem like an unusual week - there have been all sorts of things going on, with minor accidents, etc, but none of them as bad as they might have been, so, yes - life is good. Even though I haven't quite met my goal (tonight I should have 25,000, and so far, I don't), but at least I'm not too far behind. Not nearly as far behind as I am on blogging.

On December 1st, I think I'm just going to have a blog fest, where all I do that day, is just run around visiting everyone's blogs, and roll around in them all, soaking in all of your pictures and words, because I miss them all so much. But for now, I have to just be content with a quick little peek, here and there, and hope that you'll all forgive me.

Art: After the Storm. Mixed media, on 8-1/2x11 journal page. Sketched in the shapes of the girl and birds with pencil.  Smeared (I need a more technical sounding word for that technique - 'smeared' sounds so ick. Oh well, maybe one will turn up in the next word storm) - smudged (?) on stamp pad inks ("Distress Ink" brand, 'old paper' and 'vintage photo' stamp pads; 'Fabrico' brand peony purple; 'ink pad' brand royal blue; "Memories" brand acid-free 'rainbow' dye ink pad - tip: I remove the individual colors from the rainbow of colored stamp pads to use each color) smeared smudged stamped* (! - that one's better!) - stamped the royal blue and peony purple around for background color - oh, and a little of the cerulean blue from the Memories rainbow pad, too. Then, I smudged the color into the pencilled shapes of the birds - didn't use a black stamp pad, I generally prefer to mix my own when I have time (though if I"m in a hurry I would use it, and to be honest, tonight I probably would have, if I could have found it quickly) - but I used the purple, royal blue, and vintage photo colors to make black for the bird feathers. Next, schmeared color on the figure of the girl and on the pencilled-in nest, using first the 'old paper' color for nest and skin, then the cerulean (which has a touch of green in it, I think) for her dress, and the red from the rainbow stamp pad. I smudged all the color around a bit with some rubbing alcohol on a paper towel. Stamped on (just pressed the stamp pad directly on it) the newspaper with Distress Ink 'vintage photo' stamp pad, tore the paper into twiggy shapes, and glued them on with a glue stick - which makes a mess if you don't wait for the ink pad stamping to dry first, and of course, I didn't wait, and ended up with little pieces of torn up newspaper sticking to my hand, which looked lovely on top of the 8 colors of stamp pad inks all over my fingers. Thank heavens for whoever invented baby wipes. Last, I added details with aquarelle watercolor pencils on her face (tanned her skin up a bit, too) and added white gel pen to highlight around them all, and put some little swirlies in the air with it, here and there. It's kind of messy, but for a quick journal project, I think it worked out sort of okay, for the most part.

The end.

For now :-)

*Oops, apparently, not - just realized I'm not done yet. When I say 'stamped,' I'm not using a rubber stamp, but the stamp pad itself, just pressing it on repeatedly, sometimes flat against the paper, sometimes held at an angle for a straight line, or just the corner for little bits. Basically using the stamp pad sort of like a foam paint brush. This works pretty well for my journal pages, but since they don't handle a lot of moisture, if you use a lot of pressure, or use the alcohol-smearing technique, you might want to put something beneath the page, as the color can bleed through. Though, generally, I forget to do this, and just use whatever's bled through, as the background starting point for the next journal page, or collage over it.

There, I think I'm done now. :-)

Comments

[gemma]

How delightful! What a word storm...this is such a cute depiction of what you are going through. You have an uncanny gift with both words and art.
xx

[leah]

oh, i love this artwork!! it's beautiful!

[bella]

Wait, did you just say that you "think it worked out sort of ok?"
Girlfriend.. this is beautiful. I *wish* I could create something like this. I am inspired by your art. I'm so glad you detailed your step by step process because I'd like to try something like this.
Really beautiful work!!

[Angela]

Wonderful job! *HUGS*

[artzyjudie]

Um, I think you have invented an entire new art technique, and it came out beautiful. Love the picture. But smeared?? Well, I kinda like schmeered..oh well. I think you have to have some Cuervo for that. Is that part of your novel? I like it!

[somepinkflowers]

..ooh...

dropping her in a large birds nest!

perfect!

:-)

**smeared**
does not sound very technical
but,
we all know what you mean,
so it works, i think...

[Janet]

I think this is one of my favorites pieces of art that you've done! Love all the colors!! And thanks for the info about how you did it....and smeared sounds very technical to me!!

[MissKoolAid]

just FYI, your "stamped/smeared" technique is called the "direct to paper" technique. That's when you use the ink pad directly on your working surface to colour it.

Just a little tid bit of info I had to share.

[Paris Parfait]

Your art is fabulous and I appreciate the explanation of how you created the effects. I suspect that word storm swirling about is going to bring you all the tools you need to write that novel! xoxox

[tammy vitale]

Stamp pads - you use the actual stamp pads - this is marvelous! And oh do I love this picture. I love all the ravens that show up in pictures on these blogs - there are a lot of them - they belong to the Morrigan - a triple Celtic goddess (maiden, mother, crone)....wonderful for November days! And look how carefully they watch over the sleeping woman. Dosen't that make it all so safe and secure?!

[Lea]

Hi Tinker! One of the best things of being home... is that I can come visit. Your creating in word and image just touches me so deeply. Thank you for this rich beauty....

And thank you for the welcome home! I too am looking forward to taking a day and immersing myself in bloglandia!

[rochambeau]

That girl you created? She is me.

You are a beautiful soul Tinker.

[Pacian]

I have a sneaky suspicion you're going to do it this year, Tinker...