It is time for the next challenge in Michelle Ward's Street Team Crusades. The challenge is to take inspiration from anything you chose (be it a product, an image, a process, a pattern on your china, etc), then by applying your own artistic take on it, make it your own. Like applying your unique 'artistic signature' to it!
Recently, I acquired a roll of vintage wallpaper on Ebay. I just love the pattern. The thin leaf branches, extending from the cabbage rose, are a silver metallic. Here, it is applied to the pages in my art journal, in it's regular form:
I dry brushed the pages with gesso, to allow a 'glimpse' of that vintage beauty to show through. Then I doodled my way into oblivion, to commemorate a book I was reading, Life Is A Verb, by Patty Digh. I captured the key ideas of the book in small capsules of their own. After filling the spread with decorative elements, using my black Pitt pen, I added watercolor to liven up the page. Finally, added some handwritten thoughts, inspired by the title, in the large frame segment on the right side of the spread.
If you look closely, you can see the 'shadow' of that underlying wallpaper pattern. It is now the mysterious foundation to an overall whole page. Without the wallpaper, the page would be fine...but with the wallpaper, another dimension is added to make it far more interesting.
When that wallpaper was manufactured, I imagine the designers believed it would be applied to some nice 1940-50's living room wall. Do you see it in your mind, at your grandparent's home? I did! I don't suppose they ever thought it would become the foundation of a crazy art journaler's page, in 2009.
Fooled them..... I made it my own!