Escape to Narnia - Inspired by Liz Borer

Hello to my very special followers and visitors to Magpieheaven. Thank you so much to all the lovely bloggers who stop by and leave such encouraging and heart-warming comments and who inspire me with their beautiful posts. I feel so very blessed in these wonderful new friends! Today I've been inspired by Liz Borer over at Paper Artsy! I can't imagine who wouldn't be - her work just leaves me speechless. I can't begin to emulate her exquisite creations, but her two projects sparked an idea of what I would like to do with a couple of little blocks of MDF I had.

Sorry about the shadows! They are little models of the doors Kevin is making (eternally!!!) for the Magpie Kitchen. I had been planning to turn these into some kind of diptych and looking at Liz's work, I thought 'I'll try out some of those techniques, but I'll adapt them to Christmas' and I'll play along with the Arty Inklings blog at the same time. Then the doors reminded me of a tiny wardrobe; a wardrobe made me think of 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' and well, I just had to make some doors into Narnia, didn't I?

I remember sitting entranced in my primary school class on a Friday afternoon in December with darkness and sleet outside the window while C. S. Lewis' fantasy worked its magic on my imagination. In the story, the children enter Narnia through a perfectly ordinary, rather dull wardrobe, but I decided to just suggest the world of Narnia on the doors - I turned things inside out, I suppose! The wonderful blues and Grunge Paste of Liz's first piece inspired me, but I also had a go at painting some textured branches, berries and winter leaves with Grunge Paste. Liz made this look so easy, but I have to say I found getting the consistency right and applying very, very difficult! More practice and study of Liz's post needed! Rather than creating the exquisite flowers Liz produced, I went for a more impressionistic look to suggest snowy boughs. I used Frescos in Snowflake, Antarctic, Lake Wanaka and a touch of South Pacific. I coloured the Grunge Paste with a hint of Antarctic. Followers and visitors may know that recently a collection of stamps I designed for a friend came to light in a clear-out. These cannot compare with the wonderful designs from the Paper Artsy artists; but I've had lots of fun using them after all this time. The two little trees in the centre panels are my designs like the winter princess I used on my snowy notebook. I suppose they are a little more Tolkein than Lewis, but the two men were both part of a club they named THE INKLINGS! The berries are coloured with Winter Berries Distress Ink to give just a little 'pop' of colour. I also used Shabby Blue Frantage and Distress Glitter and some Gesso to create a snowy feel to this land where it is always winter, but never Christmas. I should like to think this is a glimpse of Narnia when all that is about to change, especially as the intertwined trees have little faces and are coming to life again!

I added highlights and detail to my 'artwork' with a Posca pen in white and some White Fire Treasure Gold. I was inspired by Liz's wonderful techniques of blending and shading with Frescos. I attached my little doors with two hinges die cut from metal coated card and accented with little pearls. For this I used the hinges from the Paper Artsy Hardware1 die.

And what do we find when we open the wardrobe doors? This Paper Artsy stamp of an Edwardian schoolboy from 'Ink and the Dog', Schooldays Plate 1 reminded me of the young C. S. Lewis. As you probably know he lost his mother to cancer when he was a boy and he spent much of his childhood inhabiting imaginary lands. So many of his beautiful fantasies found their way into 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe', so that the dreams of a lonely and unhappy little boy became the material for a novel that would delight and enchant adults and children for over sixty years.

 I wanted to create the impression of young Clive looking out at a snowy world from his window. I embossed these snowflakes from Artistic Outpost 'Snowy Woods' with Wow white embossing powder. The background music notes are stamped in Wendy Vecchi Cornflower Blue and they are from a lovely Paper Artsy Eclectica plate 07 by Sara Naumann. The window is a Spell-binders die-cut considerably cut up and bent into shape. I used Darcy's suggestion from her pillow box and painted Nougat over Old Gold and Little Black Dress. I finished off with some twisted wire painted with Gesso with a tiny frantaged leaf.

I experimented with photographing my 'wardrobe' with the light behind it on my mantel-piece. My goal is to photograph an arrangement with a garland (not yet made), my mini easel and some tags in my vase - also not yet made. I should like to link this make to the Paper Artsy challenge this week and also to the Arty Inklings Challenge to create anything Christmas themed. Thank you so much for stopping by! Have a great and creative week!