Rising from the Mud

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"I rose from marsh mud
algae, equisetum, willows,
sweet green, noisy
birds and frogs."
― Lorine Niedecker

You may remember that last week I was struggling in mire, just digging myself deeper and deeper into the ooze.  I love, love, love, the color brown, but I'm discovering that when on paper or canvas it helps to create mud very easily.   Earthenmagic sent me a message about last weeks post and her insight was extremely beneficial.  Walk away and refocus intent.  I set my BOD aside and worked on playing with beautiful faces and copic markers. If you are interested to seeing them, they are on Flickr.  On a side note, my flickr gadget key code, blah, blah, blah quit working so I had to take it down.  *grrr*

I pulled out my Vol. I BOD to finish up that final page spread with tip in.  For some strange reason I started thinking about centerfolds.  I started sketching while watching the movie Due Date, HILARIOUS by the way.  My centerfold is sketched and all I need to do now is add some color!  I was left with a prepped tip in and I moved it forward a page and continued the doodles I had there on to the tip in.  Why didn't I think of that before!?  Doodling fun.  


I finally pulled Vol. II back out and just started removing the images I had attached from the front of the cover.  I really like the images I had chosen, very turn of the century botanical garden-esque.  I then reached for the gesso and had at it.  I even removed the binding tape from the spine and started over with a new piece "dyed" with watercolor.  The left image is the new Book of Days 2012 VOL.II.  The two right images are of the original cover & journal sleeve.  What do you think? What are your thoughts on my journal sleeve? Creepy or cool?

I want to thank Artistcellar for the FANTASTICALLY AWESOME rose window stencils and the Stewart Gill Byzantia paint.  This is my first use of Stewart Gill and the color is so Intense, love it.  Also, the watercolor effect of the window was inspired by Earthenmagic's Magic Tree.