Show Your Face on Friday - Daisy's Story.

Hello and welcome to Magpieheaven with Valentine's Day just around the corner! Once again I'm a little late to the party over at Kim Dellow's 'Show Your Face on Friday' blog; but if you look here you will see that you can link up portrait art to Kim's blog all week, even though she goes live on a Friday at 10.00 am. I've learned so much from Kim's blog and the contributors over the months that I've been linking up and I'd like to say a big Thank You to her for sharing her faces with us each week and making it possible for us to share and learn from each other too. If you haven't done so already, please do take a look at Kim's blog and find out more.
This week I've been working in my story journal again. I'm due to begin a story-telling and art course with the amazing Robin Laws at the beginning of March, so I've been flexing my story-telling muscles a bit before we begin. I was asked by an artist whose work I really admire, if I would create a miniature triptych for her which included at least one animal's face.

And Alphonse, the lute playing Tiger was born! He is much in demand at the court for his sweet and haunting compositions: love songs that transport the listeners to fairy kingdoms! This commission set me thinking that I don't look at animal faces nearly enough, so I made myself a Pinterest board of arty studies of cats' faces and I began to look closely at our cat, Daisy! This made her a little uncomfortable and she gave me some rather grumpy glances! Usually, though, Daisy has a gentle, faraway look in her eyes that suggests she might be meditating on days gone by and this plus a conversation with my son about Daisy's possible past lives inspired my journal spread.

I slapped lots of Gesso onto these pages in my old art book on Composition and Perspective, before stencilling and stamping and brayering. I then drew this portrait of Daisy in my little Shakespeare sonnet book before collaging her - and her rather special locket onto the page! The bodice of her dress has embroidered on it the galleon her beloved ship's cat sailed away in and depicts his guardian angel leading the way!

Daisy has had so many lives - way more than nine - so she has difficulty remembering them all. She needed the Magpie to lead her into the forest and help her to find that locket she lost nearly 500 years ago!

Remembering her lost love and his musical skills gives Daisy's spirit wings to fly back in time! I collaged a tiny copy of her face, scanned into the computer, onto a Tim Holtz tissue butterfly.

I've been thinking about Renaissance faces as well as exploring the world of miniature art at the Victoria and Albert on Friday. I'm still enjoying drawing on Crackle.

 And here are some portrait sketches I did in my little, altered book of sonnets.

This book is small enough to carry in my bag, so I can sketch anywhere with Inktense pencils and work on these quick and scrappy sketches some more when I return home.

Thank You so much for stopping by my blog today. I have been getting really behind with following and commenting on friend's blogs of late. I will try hard to get round to visiting and being inspired by you all soon, I hope. Have a lovely, creative weekend.