Wednesday 16 March 2011

A Secret Garden

Hello everyone on a rather blustery day down South, although the sun is trying to peep out from behind the grey clouds. I hope you're all having a good week so far.
You may want to get a cuppa and a biscuit before you start reading as this post is rather long!
I have a little piece of art to show you which was the creative result of thinking about this week's Take A Word Challenge - Green - and what green actually means to me. I've decided on 3 things, the first being Spring when everything begins to green up after Winter, the second one is the ecological green and in particular recycling and the third thing is green in the sense of inexperienced which in this case I took to be a child.
I challenged myself to include all of these things and here is the finished piece:

The base of the piece is made from a piece of packaging and I painted it with green gold and olive acrylic paints and then stamped on a flourish design (My Paper World from The Craft Barn) with Olive Green Stazon ink. I then painted a strip of corrugated card saved from a file I bought with the same paints only I painted the olive first on this one for a different effect. The strip had 2 holes already punched in it so I tied on some ribbons recycled from clothing (the sort the shops put on to stop things falling off hangers).
The circular piece is made from a piece of circular packaging and had a hole in the middle but I covered this up. I made a circular piece of decorated paper using my Distress Ink Grunge Background Technique (link to tutorial on side bar) using Crushed Olive Distress ink and the same flourish stamp. I then cut out a further circle, embossed it with the Tim Holtz Texture Fade Damask folder and then sponged on Shabby Shutters Distress ink. I swiped the ink pad over the top of the raised areas to add a little contrast.
I stamped the Sleeping Boy image by La Blanche (now available from Sir Stampalot) with VersaFine Olympia Green ink, coloured just the roses and leaves with pencils and cut him out. I added the image to the circular panel with foam tape.
I finished off with some leaf sprays rescued from an old flower arrangement and a butterfly from my stash - not recycled but I think the pink on the wings nicely picks out the pink of the roses.

My piece of artwork is for the following challenges:
Take A Word - Green
Stampin' Royalty - Texturize

I've now got some not very good photos to show you of the visitor we had in our garden early this morning, eating the spilt bird food under the tree where the bird feeder is hanging. Not that unusual you might think, but we live one road back from the seafront!




The photos are not brilliant as I had to hang out of the bedroom window so as not to frighten the pheasant off before I could take some pics.

Thanks for looking and hope you enjoyed the photos.
Fliss xx

16 comments:

Valerie-Jael said...

Wow, Fliss, love your green creation, and all the lovely thoughts you have put into it. And the photos are fab, too! Have a good day, hugs, Valerie

Maggie said...

Beautiful creation and I love the shades of green, we have pheasants visit every day too they are so funny in their antics, miserable weather here very misty.

Maggie :-)

Zue said...

What a very beautiful design. I like the way the piece incorporates so many meanings of the word.The image is so sweet and I am impressed by your recycling...really that is all we need, packaging and we can play for ever!

Wonderful, Fliss...and it is soft and pretty too!
He is such a handome bird!!!!
Sue xx

SYLVIA-ANNE said...

What an achievement Fliss - to bring the three "green" elements together in one project - it really is stunning.
Love your bird photos too!
Hugs, Sylvia xxx

abby j said...

Beautiful GREEN piece...well done!!

cheryl said...

gosh hun,you have put some,great touches in your green project they work so well great pictures too,hugs cheryl xxxx

Vintage Milly said...

What a lovely piece of art work - those stamps are gorgeous aren't they? A pheasant - lucky you, those pics are fab especially that last one where he (I am supposing he is a he) is looking straight at you, beautiful bird,
hugs,
Em.x

Claire Phillips said...

Great project Fliss - I love that range of stamps - amazing detail! We have pheasants in our garden quite often - one flew at the window during lunch - gave us all - him included a shock! Cheers Claire x

Rosie said...

That's an interesting take on the challenge Fliss - a lot of thought went into it! Love the cocky pheasant!

Faye said...

Fliss, your art is beautiful. I love the background and I enlarged the pic as large as it would go so I could see all those wonderful details. And as for the pheasant, I had to read the above comments to really know what kind of bird it is. It looked like a tailless peacock to me. At any rate, he is gorgeous.

Traci Thiel said...

Fantastic! I love re-purposing items into art! For two years we had a pair of mallards that would visit our bird feeder every spring. It was awesome!

Anonymous said...

What a beautiful piece, & my favourite colour too!
Love your photos Fliss, cheeky pheasant! Perhaps he was on a day trip! Lol! xx

johanna said...

i wish i could ever see a pheasant in my garden! what a beautiful bird.
beautiful artwork, fliss!

Ozstuff said...

Your artpiece and your photos are stunning. I love your beautiful pheasant and am reminded of a trip to England where, in the countryside, I could hear the " pop-pop" of guns and was told that it was pheasant killing season. This is considered to be sport! The poor birds just stand there waiting for the next shot.
I enjoyed your thoughts on the three meanings of green - a great reminder.
I love your work and your blog thoughts. Thanks so much for taking part this week.

Georgeann Manning said...

love your use of all those elements! very pretty! Thanks for playing this weeks Stampin' Royalty Challenge!

Hands On said...

Very pretty. I like the vine going up the side. Thanks for playing with Stampin' Royalty this week.