Art x 12 Book Collaboration-April

Hey friends! Time for month FOUR of the Art x 12 Book Collaboration and I guess I got a little behind on this one since it was due the first of May! Ugg and oy! Lots of stuff going on but I finally managed to sit down and work in this fabulous book by Donna Watson. (Check out her art!) Actually there are several artists pages ahead of mine that are absolutely spectacular but I will let them share their work or Donna can do the big reveal. Like all the books in this traveling collaboration, Donna’s book had a theme to it but until this past Friday, I hadn’t even looked inside to see what it was. Side detour here… I went to an estate sale the weekend before last, like I usually do, and found this cool book that was written entirely in Japanese.  Had no idea what I would use it for but I have a thing for foreign books so I bought it and put it away. Fast forward now to Donna’s book.  She had a small note tucked inside the front cover of her book. It was a poem written by Donna herself and it provided the inspiration for our art.  Ah, can you guess what it was? :). I was sooo happy! Ran and pulled out that little Japanese book and that was all it took to get me going.  Not sure if this is “Wabi Sabi” or not but this is what I came up with. …

Her note mentioned light and shadow, subdued colors, mark-making, a worn and weathered-look and Wabi Sabi.  Between the natural colors and the vintage materials, I hoped to make this happen. As always, I love to incorporate string into my projects. I love how it breaks up the rectangular-shapes. Dried paint brought two pieces of the string together.  Rae Missigman’s stencil “Repetition” added some “dots” to the substrate and I finished that side of the page with a message.

The cherry blossom and striped prints were a part of the book too so I made sure to incorporate them into my pages. (No book goes wasted, ever.) I continued with the cherry blossom design by drawing it out onto the blank substrate using a fine tip, permanent pen. The “Made in Japan” tags came off vintage millinery flowers, that I also hoard, I mean, collect. :). A few stitches here, mark makings there, and a claim number completed my page. Whoo hoo! Another book done and just in time to start the next one!

And now off to the post office to send this one to the next lucky recipient!

XO,

Debi