The Dream Angel Shows her Face on Friday!

Hello and welcome to Magpieheaven, Followers and Friends. I'm linking two blog posts to Kim Dellow's great link-up 'Show Your Face on Friday' today. Please do click here to find out all about the opportunity Kim gives those of us on a 'Portrait journey' to be inspired and to share our discoveries along the way. I have two projects to share, as I've been working on a canvas featuring one of my faces, but I also started a story featuring caricatures in the style of Tim Burton a few Fridays ago and I didn't want to leave the ending hanging in the air! 
This post features a new canvas. I had some of Sandra Evertson's beautiful Relics and Artifacts from Prima and I wanted to use them. Here is where the story begins - on my messy table!

I had been working on a brooch for my friend, Lizzy. The Relics and Artifacts were lying around and I experimented with painting them with some of the left over PaperArtsy Fresco paint from the brooch project (Granny Smith and Captain Peacock). I've cracked open the Treasure Gold too and played around with painting some vintage lace. It occurred to me that Sandra's heart relic would make a fabulous body and I wondered about a house-shaped head. I might come back to this idea when I have some more shapes cut out, but I decided against that plan for now and sought out a heart-shape. Meanwhile I grabbed a little box-canvas and set to work on it!

This is a background of Christmas paper napkins; white tissue with tiny glints and a very light wash of PaperArtsy Antarctic, Smurf and Inky Pool plus some Snowflake Fresco snowflakes made by dipping a cocktail stick in paint.

Now the next stage! I had so much fun combining the elements. It's often that in this stage of a process a story will come to me. A winter bird lady was forming out of the feathery snow and the blue twilight, but she needed to be in a little more than her underwear! I didn't stick anything down - I just had fun arranging and planning.

And here she is, arriving amid the snow, in a flurry of feathers - complete with lacy skirt! That magpie feather is a clue she has paid a visit to remind us at the Magpie's Nest that, although we dread the winter, it can be a beautiful season, one for stories and dreams, magic and fairy tales.

The feathers are from a Lynne Perrella PaperArtsy stamp used with Snowflake Fresco rather than ink. I wanted to give the impression of them seeming to dissolve into the snow.

I really like how, with a box-canvas, you can carry the background over the sides. My angel spreads her wings and her arms to embrace us and to give us the warmth of stories told by firelight. Thank you so much for stopping by Magpieheaven today and Thank You to Kim whose Show Your Face on Friday has introduced me to so many wonderful artists and helped me to spread my wings and fly into the world of faces!