B is for.......

BALLERINA. Yes I have just finished another page for my ABC art Journal/Altered Book. Am I allowed to say I am very very pleased with this one? Because I was so intrigued with the Lynn Perella 'painterly' technique I was challenged to use on the altered jigsaw swap, I decided to have a go with this journal page. I thought I would keep it pretty simple and have just repeated the same gorgeous image (from Itkupilly!!) with layers of acrylic, a bit of crayon, gel medium, gesso....

The thing is, I am basically a very simple soul at heart, and when I started off I had a lovely turquoisy blue painted page, which I stamped over in grey versamark to knock the colour back a bit and add a bit of texture. Then I placed the ballerinas etc and was actually quite happy with that - it was pretty!! Took me a week to start adding layers over the top. I am not sure what it is about my psyche but I am always reluctant to trash (OK alter) a lovely image. It seems kind of presumptious, an assertion that what you do with it might be better. Or maybe just different? I have to talk about this kind of stuff to those of you out in the ether as someone might understand what I mean, nobody here does lol. The point I am trying to make is that I find it very, very hard to do - but I'm glad I did, it's kind of liberating. There was a point about halfway through when I hated it, but after a while it all becomes rather interesting.......

Have I bored you enough now? The only bit I am not entirely happy with is the lettering, I was going for a kind of printing block style but didn't really think that one through, limited by the things I've got to use.....and it probably isn't really radical enough for a true Lynn Perella style. Still the nice thing about these pages is that I can always go back and add another layer (or two!!) if inspiration strikes. But for now, this will do.
The next letter is Z. Now whatever will I do for that?......