Dragons' Dream - Red and a Flower

Hello and Welcome to Magpieheaven. Today I'm dreaming with the Dragons again. Thank you so much for starting January with such beautiful tags for Elizabeth's Turquoise and Bling Challenge. The Top 3 and Guest Designer will be announced soon. This fortnight it's the lovely Helen who has chosen the challenge of Red and a Flower. If you hop over to the Dragons' Dream TIO here, you will see the fabulous inspiration from the team. We'd love you to dream with us. All you need is to create a tag featuring red and a flower and at least one real stamp. Well , it's been so cold outside the Magpie's Nest that I thought using red - a colour I've been trying to craft with more lately - would be a wonderful way to warm up these winter days!

For my background I gessoed a jumbo tag with some book text randomly stuck over it.

 I then gave it a wash of Yellow Submarine PaperArtsy Fresco and went to town with some stencils in Cherry Red and Blood Orange.

I found one Peterloo flower in my stash and painted this with the same colour combo, curling the leaves around a pencil.

My technique was to keep layering stencils in these translucents, adding some stamping and circles created by dipping lids into little puddles of paint. I liked the way that my text still showed through. Adding Aged Green Frantage and some Copper Crackle Paste by Prima gave an aged feel. I was liking my warm background, but what could I add as my central image?

Something about the colours on the tag suggested vintage panto. I wanted to dig deep into my collection of rubber stamps to find an image I hadn't used for ages and I came upon this Lynne Perrella stamp, which I stamped onto a little MDF heart painted with Brown Shed, Tango, Yellow Submarine and Blood Orange Frescos. It's a phrenology head, but that ruff always makes it look like a sad clown to me! Although I found circus clowns frightening as a child, I was drawn to beautiful posters for Pierrot shows and Harlequinades I saw in books. In the bitter cold winter months nineteenth century audiences would enter the brightly coloured world of panto to watch the antics of Harlequin and Columbine and Columbine's greedy and miserly old father Pantaloon. I wished I could step back in time and watch the spectacle in the glimmering lights amid all that rich gilt and heavy red velvet drapery!

The sad clown tradition from the 'wise fools' of Shakespeare, through to Charlie Chaplin's little tramp presenting a flower to a beautiful girl implies that the best humour is mixed with pathos and there is a profound insight behind the folly of the clown. I love this Sara Nauman sentiment, which I selected to go with my phrenology clown!

Thank you so much for stopping by Magpieheaven today. Please do join with The Dragons and create a red flower tag. May your winter days be filled with warmth and love and humour!