Haunted Houses and chunky pages completed!!!

I have finally finished all that I need to do art-wise for the much anticipated event, Creative Soul Retreat 2009. It's only 4 short weeks away now and the excitement level is certainly building! The retreat is to be held in Melbourne which is on the other side of Australia from me and it's the state that is suffering those dreadful fires at the moment.



My thoughts drift often to the many thousands of people affected by the devastating fires that are still raging in Victoria. The death toll is expected to rise from the current 181 to possibly 300 and the wildlife numbers of deaths they surmise will be around 1 million. So hard to fathom those sorts of numbers in both human cost, infrastructure, livelihoods, homes and those poor animals. Australia's worst natural disaster has bought out the best in many people though with around $77 million raised through the red cross disaster appeal so far, an amazing amount in less than a week! Australians rock!!!


As a little arty extra for the retreat, most of us decided to take part in a swap. So I was sent some little chipboard houses, 1" x 3", and I'm happy to say they are now complete! What a wonderful feeling to put the last bits on the final one. I decided to do them all the same in a production line style as there were so many. I first used Glimmer Mist in Graphite, then Black Webbing spray, some Baroque German Scrap in black with some silver Rub'n'buff. I also did a shrink plastic piece for the front using a Zetti stamp on white shrink plastic then finally, on silver foil tape I used my metal letter stamping set and stamped BOO, then applied black acrylic paint and wiped it off so it settled just in the letters. Here's 5 of the houses....there were 50, yes...50 in total!!!

Some of us are also taking part in the book challenge for the Creative Soul Retreat, you can see other pages here. Debbi Baker was chosen to pick the theme for January and I was lucky enough to get to choose the theme for February. Debbi's choice was "Words". I'd recently read the new James Patterson book and there were some lines from a poem in there that struck a chord with me. I searched online for the full poem, it's entitled "Dirge Without Music" by Edna St Vincent Millay.

"Dirge Without Music"

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.

So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:

Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.

Crowned with lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.

A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.

The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled

Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.

More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave.
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.

I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

I used the last verse for my "Words" page, it resonated strongly with me as it describes how I felt about losing my Dad and my best friend in the space of 3 months late last year. We move on, but we still don't like it! The background is Rinse Aid Resist on canvas paper and the image is a transparency over paper that was painted with Lumiere paints - nice and shimmery.

"Words"...

Here is my "Birds" page again. I'd posted it before but decided after I made it that I wanted to make the pages bigger. My first thoughts were to do a chunky book 4" x 4" in size but eventually found that the book I wanted to use to make the book from is 6" x 6", so I had to fill it out a little more.

"Birds"...

My choice of theme for February was "Inspired By Song". I chose a song by another great Finnish band, The Rasmus (thanks Kathy for putting me on to them!). I did a gel medium/transparency transfer over the words to one of their songs "Not Like the Other Girls" and yes, I found it on youtube.

"Not Like the Other Girls"...

...and here's the song by The Rasmus, a beautifully haunting melody and wonderful lyrics.

Finally, here are the front and back covers. The front cover is texture paste with Golden Paints for colour and the back cover is a piece of scrapbook paper in colours that I loved so I tried to replicate it closely for the front cover with the paints. They match pretty closely in real life, not so much here. ;-(

Front cover...

Back cover...

I'd like to thank Mary Schweitzer for this award too! Mary does some amazing things with bits & bones and skulls....a woman after my own heart! (Probably quite literally!!!! just joking Mary....hahahahaha).