Ars Longa Spread

There was more inspiration from my clematis pictures for another spread in my Sketchbook. This time I painted the background of both pages with Neocolor II wax pastel which are water-soluble so after scribbling all over the pages I went over it with a water brush. On the left the photo itself was added (I'm scavenging from nature here) and overstamped with a flourish stamp. These were coloured in with purple Neocolor outside the photograph. The text: "live in the present moment" (scavenged from a daily calendar) was glued on.

On the facing page I did another clear tape transfer of Michelangelo's David's head, scavenged from an advertisement. I've really fallen in love with this clear tape method. It first came to my notice in Tim Holtz's book Distressables and I had tried it out once or twice but my love affair only started properly when Lenna mentioned it in Tag Techniques swap. After doing the tags I wondered if I could try it out on a larger scale and yes, that worked wonderfully well and as I love transparencies this method has been added to my toolkit! By sheer co-incidence (or rather a great example of synchronicity!) the technique is also in the spotlight on the Gauche Alchemy site. The text on this page (Art longa, vita brevis, or roughly translated Art lasts a long time, while life is short) came from a rubber stamp and I've coloured in the words with purple again. The final touch came when I discovered I actually had a postage stamp featuring a clematis. Vita bella (or life is beautiful), well sometimes! David also acquired a sparkle in his eyes in the form of blue self-adhesive rhinestones.

Not much space left in this sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project, perhaps another 3 or 4 spreads and then it will be time to make the cover. I have already decided what to do there but am waiting till the book is full, in order to have exact measurements re the thickness. As you might expect from a quilter I'm going for a fabric cover!