Circle of Life: Journal Page

I worked on these pages this weekend, shading the girl with Prisma colored pencils last night. Ever since Suzi Blu introduced me to Clear Gesso I use it as a base for my shading all the time. I do like the rough, gritty texture it gives. Lime green is my current obsession; don't know why. It pops out at me everywhere. Looking through my stash of fabrics and papers, it seems I have a lot of it!

Thought I'd do a little stitching on these pages. They seemed to want that. The verse is from an Elton John song, Circle of Life. If you click on the photo you can probably read it better. Another serendipitous event: I couldn't get circles out of my mind. I noticed them in everything: magazines, on TV, doodles, etc. So I started thinking about them. I'm doing more poetry writing and am working on a poem now about stages of life. So, the two came together: circles and life...circle of life, the song, etc.

I was able to use a few of my new toys: a dip pen and Dr. Ph. Martin's Gold ink. I first heard about the dip pen from Beryl Taylor in one of her books I was going through. I made a mental note that if I ever saw one I would like to try it. Well, Michael's (of all places) had one. So I picked it up. It takes a little getting used to but I may get the hang of it yet. I used the dip pen on the swirls in the girl's "hair". On the opposite page I used Stickles gold paint for the couple of swirls there.

I had this Batik fabric (with the perfect colors) that I've been wanting to incorporate into something so I thought I'd use it. And, not intentionally, I had just picked up some embroidery floss in a bunch of colors and among those were lime and raspberry. Hmm...must have been meant to be. :) Ooh, and I did get to use my Interference Green paint in her eyes. They are very shimmery even though it doesn't show up very well in the photo.

I found the metal button at JoAnn Fabrics. I loved the bronze girl and thought I'd be able to use her in something. When I clipped off the shank (which took some real effort!) it went sailing through the room. I still haven't found that little piece. But I was glad to finally get the smooth surface to adhere her better to the page.

I wanted to make her a little more abstract, with the hair and all. It gives more room to play. I used an old metal door handle in the shape of a swirl for a stamp and stamped that into a thick application of clear gesso. After it dried I then painted over the raised areas with the ink and the dip pen. I liked using the ink. It's really yummy...

So today I come full circle! Hopefully I can move on to some other fixation for my next page. And maybe the poem will come together now that I can concentrate on that without the circles distracting me. ;)