Getting Ready For Serenbe

I’m slowly getting ready for the art retreat at Serenbe this weekend.  My Memento Book pages are done, so I thought I would share a few of them.  They are all originals, front and back, but with a consistent theme.  I think they look a lot better in real life, since my new scanner and I are still not all that good of friends, but I’m happy with the pages.

Here they are in progress.  After the background was painted on a large sheet of watercolor paper, I cut it up into 5.5" pages.  I laid it out and started playing.  I really had no ideas about where this was going.

Background_in_progress

Progress2

While I was looking at the squares, the phrase "art is where my heart is" popped into my head.  I decided I needed big hearts.  I used some pages from an old ledger I have.  The pages are funny — they have a sort of blue tint and don’t really look old although the handwriting is beautiful and spidery.  I cut out free hand hearts and then doctored them with moonshadow inks and some splatters of white paint.

This is the difference between the original pages (the white/blue cast) and the more sepia tones after I tinted the hearts.

Progress

With the hearts in place, I pulled out the file with my favorite transparencies in it, some vintage images from Paper Whimsy.  I cut a few out roughly and put them down to see how they worked.

Progress3

They seemed to have the right feel, so I hunted through my transparency sheets to find an image for each of the 11 pages I was making.  I decided to overstamp the backgrounds with white text, stamped randomly.  I also added a stamped bee in the left hand-corner of the heart (for Serenbe).

Progress4

A little lace went onto the bottom of each page and I added tags with my original thought, "art is where my heart is."  I’m hoping the tag will peek out from the edge of the book just a bit.

Here are a few of the final pages, including the back.

Page1

Page2

Back

Posted in Art

7 thoughts on “Getting Ready For Serenbe

  1. I love the randomness of the background papers and the sepia hearts compliment the blue perfectly! The white splodges complete the look – great job Joyce! Hugs, Sue xxx

  2. Joyce, these are great and I love the colors you chose. Could you tell a bit more about the background, which I LOVE! Is it all paint? It sorta’ looks like it is applied with a spatula…or is it brushed? Did you use fluid or heavy body? It almost looks like varigated tissue papers collaged. It’s really beautiful.

  3. Joyce, your pages are wonderful! The colors and textures work perfectly with the hearts and PW images! Love ’em!
    (Where is Serenbe? I haven’t heard of it before.)
    hugs,
    jackie

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