Show Your Face on Friday - Keeping a Journal

Hello and Welcome to Magpieheaven. Today I'm linking to Kim Dellow's Show Your Face on Friday. We're into February now so the focus is no longer on eyes primarily. This month we are free to link with any face art we like - as long as the face is one drawn by us. There is no compulsion to play along with the themes, of course, it's just a focus and a challenge. There are some really stimulating prompts coming up from talented 'facers' like June Walker, Gibby Frogett and Hazel Agnew Take a look a Kim's blog here if you would like to find out more. Kim has a link to some great face tutorials from herself, Clare Lloyd, Trish Latimer and Tracy Scott so do please check out this week's blog - it's fantastic!
I've been working in a new journal this week in preparation for a course I will begin in March about Art and Story-telling with Robin Laws. As you know, I love stories as much as Art and Crafting so this will be a great opportunity for me to learn more about both. I've altered an old book on perspective and composition. Drawing faces has become very important to me over the last two years, so the faces of characters, human and animal are going to feature in the pages of this journal.

I've used a mix of different media on this first spread: Gesso; PaperArtsy Fresco Paints both opaque and translucent in every shade from Smurf to Granny Smith; Inktense water colour blocks and collage of napkins, paper, book text and tea-bags! Everything stuck onto the spread is either re-cycled or scraps.

 I used mark-making with lids dipped into paint and some stamping as well as brayering - sometimes over scraps of lace. The magpie perched on the lady's finger was drawn on a Shakespeare sonnet and then cut out and added, while the lady listening intently to the story he has to tell was drawn straight onto the background.

That Magpie has quite a few tales to tell so he will be appearing throughout the journal. Here he has led the lady into an enchanted wood where Magpie sisters tell stories in the tree tops! Perhaps they should be named Magpie Sonnet Sisters, as each one wears a coat fashioned from a Shakespeare sonnet!

You might recognise the Magpie Sisters' faces as re-sized and slightly altered faces from my store of face scans.

It's probably not possible to see, but as well as the fragments of Shakespeare's sonnets on the Magpie Sister's coats, I've added some of  the narrative that will thread through this journal! I've often thought there must exist somewhere a wood like this one where all the precious objects and memories we think we lost can be found, nestling among the ferns; hidden under mossy stones or stored away for safe-keeping in a hollow tree stump. I hope your Friday is a really creative one and that the weekend will bring you refreshment and relaxation! Happy February Everyone!