Triptychs and Faces!

Welcome to Magpieheaven, Followers and Friends. Although I have been lucky enough to have a GD spot from time to time, it's been a little while since I added my link to the PaperArtsy blog and I've really had fun doing this after a little break. There is some amazing inspiration on the PaperArtsy blog here and so far Alison Bomber and Florence Adam have created two highly individual and inspiring triptychs for this fortnight's challenge that have fired me with enthusiasm! It's also Kim Dellow's 'Show Your Face on Friday' today, which is one of my favourite blogs so I'm adding this little face project to both PaperArtsy and Show Your Face. 
I loved the antique triptychs, some of them beautifully carved devotional pieces with a figure of a face as a focal feature, that Leandra included in her introduction to this fortnight's PaperArtsy Challenge, so the idea of a miniature creation with a hint of the Old Masters and maybe a festive feel, began to form in my mind. I began by drawing a face. I looked at work by artists like Raphael, Giotto and Leonardo; but obviously I'm not an accomplished enough artist to recreate their work: I just wanted to give the impression of something old and mysterious. This is what I came up with:

I didn't want to add hair. I just wanted to keep the portrait simple. I scanned my sketch, which I did in Pan Pastels, soft pencil and fine liner into my computer.

Here you can see the portrait reduced in Word to fit onto a little MDF house shape of approximately 2" x 1.5" and form the centre of these three pieces. I used the top layer of some paper napkins with birds on them to create the wings; some hands drawn by myself and some stamping from a Lynne Perrella set of stamps for the Latin inscriptions (008). I stamped these onto PaperArtsy Chatsworth paper. The roofs are copper foil sheets, embossed by hand and painted with Turquoise Fresco. In this picture I was just playing around with ideas, so not everything is glued into place.

Here the triptych has been given little windows cut from Lynne Perrella 033. I clear embossed black Archival over card, painted with Yellow Submarine, Tangerine Twist and Tango. The snow is Snowflake Fresco applied with the tip of a cocktail stick. I liked the idea of this mysterious angel landing somewhere on Earth in the midst of winter and hearing the sound of singing and the 'merry organ' from behind those lighted church windows. A celestial creature, hovering between heaven and earth, does this messenger from 'on high' feel just a little excluded from the festivities?

008 for the roof work with some more 033 for contrast...

Then - if we flip the triptych...

I wanted to create the impression on the reverse of an illuminated manuscript in miniature. The letters are from a Tim Holtz alphabet and they are stamped in white Fresco and clear embossed: the MDF pieces have been painted with Little Black Dress Fresco. Once again, I've combined collage from tissue napkins and stamping from LPC 008 and 033 on Chatsworth. Thank you so much for dropping by Magpieheaven today and taking a look at what I've been up to. I'm really looking forward to seeing the other triptychs this fortnight at PA. Have a lovely week, whether you're busy creating triptychs or practising creating portraits - or both!