Hi and welcome. It's been an inky month for the current challenge at ARTastic. We have a fantastic inspiration piece to get creativity flowing.
Joshua Miels "Pretender"
I found this inspiration piece very striking and I loved the way the background was made up of free-form, flowing lines surrounding the image of the woman.
With my take on this, I decided to use a photo taken at Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, NSW.
I used heavy A3 watercolour paper for my background and used gesso to start building layers through a stencil. While it was wet it was spritzed with Dylusion Ink Sprays. These were quite vibrant and to tone them down IO re-gessoed through the stencil again, before adding black and red inks and manipulating the paper, as well as blowing on them, to allow them to run freely.
I also added some blue splashes to reflect some of the colours in the photo.
The faces and inspirational sentiment were stamped on tissue paper. The music tissue is a piece of Tim Holtz tissue wrap. For some reason, when I see mountains I always think of songs about mountains, particularly 'Climb Every Mountain' from the 'Sound of Music'.
I really love the way that tissue allows the underlayers to peep through.
On the back, I've added the Legend of the Three Sisters, There are a few different versions, but this is the one I like the best.
'In Australia, the mysterious Blue Mountains rise high above lush rainforests and deep valleys. In the area where lived the Gundungurra people there rises an outcrop topped by three rocky formations, known as The Three Sisters. This is the story of how they came to be there.
Long, long ago, the mystical land of Gondwana was beautiful, peaceful and untouched. In Gondwana there lived Tyawan, a Clever Man of the Gundungurra people. He had three daughters called Meenhi, Wimlah and Gunnedoo, whom he treasured above all else.
In a deep pool in a hole in the valley, there lived a Bunyip, a huge evil creature who loved to feast on human flesh, particularly that of young girls and women. Its cry was harsh and horrible and if you heard it, the only safe thing to do was run away as quickly as possible. Everyone feared the Bunyip.
If you needed to pass its hole, it was important to creep very quietly so that it was not disturbed. When Tyawan had to pass the hole, he would leave his daughters safely on the cliff above, behind a rocky wall- just in case!
One day when waving goodbye to his daughters, he descended the cliff steps down towards the path near the Bunyip's hole. While the girls were waiting and chatting on top of the cliff, a huge centipede suddenly appeared. Startled, Meenhi screamed, jumped up, picked up a stone and threw it at he centipede.
The Bunyip, angry at being awakened, roared and dragged himself through the split to see the terrified girls cowering in the ledge. His evil eye widened in delight at the feast before him.
Tyawan looked up and saw the Bunyip reaching for his daughters, so he pointed his magic bone at the girls and immediately turned them to stone so they would be safe there until the Bunyip had gone and then Tyawan would change them back to their former selves.
But the Bunyip, angered at being deprived of its prey, chased Tyawan through the forest and up the mountain where he found himself trapped. So Tyawan used his magic bone again and changed himself into a Lyre Bird and glided away. Everyone was safe. But then, in dismay, Tyawan realised he had dropped his bone whilst changing.
After the Bunyip had gone back to his deep, dark pool, Tyawan glided down to the forest floor and searched and searched for his magic bone.
There he can still be seen to this day in the shape of the Lyre Bird, scratching and searching the forest floors of the Blue Mountains, looking for his bone, calling to his daughters above and feeding on insects while he searches.
The Three Sisters stand silently watching him from their ledge, hoping and hoping that one day their father will find his magic bone and be able to turn them back to Aboriginal girls".
I hope you enjoyed reading this legend.
Please drop by ARTastic at:
http://artasticchallengeblog.blogspot.com.au/ to see what the rest of the team has done with this month's challenge. We'd love you to come and play.
Thank you for visiting and for your encouraging comments.
Cheers, Di
