A Friday Profile - Kim Dellow's Art it Friday

Hello and welcome to Magpieheaven! Once again it's Friday and now that means it's Art it Friday. If you don't know what that is yet, please do hop across to Kim's blog - you will not be disappointed! I've been having so much fun since I discovered Kim's challenge to link up faces we've created and to share the inspiration of the other portrait enthusiasts too! So far I've been playing with creating full face portraits to copy and then use on collage or peg dolls. Today, though, I wanted to have a go at creating a profile and incorporating this into a journal page. I began with the vintage book I've been sketching on lately.

After tearing out a page I gave it a wash of Snowflake paint by PaperArtsy and then worked over this with Inktense pencils to create shading on the face and a little 'found poetry' on my book text. I outlined the profile with a brush type black marker by Pitt Pens and a added some doodled curls with a fine, black Pilot pen.

I wanted to surround my profile portrait with butterflies, but not ones that looked too naturalistic. I stamped Darcy Wilkinson's lovely heart flower onto my book text with Black Archival ink and then cut out the heart-shaped petals, shading them with a blue inktense pencil. These were to embellish the portrait only and not to form part of the face, as Kim's rule is that we use our own art work only and no stencils or stamps on our faces.

For my background, I blended different PaperArtsy blues: Antarctic, Lake Wanaka, Smurf, China and Inky Pool. I stencilled with Sage, adding some 'Stencil Girl' birds and branches, brayered with Buff and Snowflake. I then dipped a lid into different puddles of colour to create bubble-like circles. The leaves are from a Darcy Wilkinson PaperArtsy Eclectica set and I stamped them in Guacamole, in places over my book text profile so that she was blended into the journal page.

I was happy with the way the profile occupied the space on the page and how the blend of Fresco Arcylics and Inktense pencils worked. I was pleased with the flower petal butterflies too, as I felt they added interest without being too distracting.

Here is one final close-up so that the found poetry is a bit more visible. This is my first attempt at this technique and I should definitely like to try it some more, This is really more of a Haiku than a conventional poem:
Imitation jewels of glass or paste,
Sapphire, sky-blue,
Shining.
True-lover's embroidery
Memorials...
Another mystery lady in my portrait gallery: who is she waiting for in her enchanted garden surrounded by birds and butterflies?
Thank You so much for dropping by today. I do hope, if you're not doing so already, you'll play around with creating some portraits of your own in the coming week. I've really enjoyed using the pages of my journal to do this. Have a wonderful, creative weekend everyone!