Arty Auntie: ARTFUL JOURNEYS - WEEK 15 "Found Poetry"

This week at Artful Journeys our prompt is to use FOUND POETRY on our journal spreads.

I love using "Found Poetry". And for those of you unfamiliar with this little art term, 'Found Poetry' is "poetry" or a quote or use of words you create using letters, words and phrases found in magazines or other printed matter.

For this spread, I used a combination of individual letters and two single words, along with a fantastic image of a lady symphony conductor that I snagged from an AARP magazine. She is the principle Conductor (Conductress?) of the St Louis Symphony Orchestra at 69 years young. This article was all about people in the workforce over the standard "retirement" age. Yay for her. I can relate to her all too well! hehe

Isn't she lovely? I was definitely inspired by the image of this woman and strength I see not only in her face, but by a fully confident aura around her. At first, I thought I might use the image as a silhouette in some fashion, but ultimately decided that SHE was just too powerful to cover with paint or to mask her out entirely.

I created my background using a yellow Derwent Inktense block and a baby wipe, using the side of the block and making wide swaths of color that I then wiped to smooth. Then, using the teal block, I added the border edge with the same method.

Following that I studied her and thought about my "found poetry" and what I wanted to say. I really wanted to embody the power I felt from this image, and decided on my "poetry" and set about going through my already clipped letters that I keep in a bead sorter. Not enough of the right fonts, so out came a huge pile of magazines and I clipped the remaining letters and got them applied to the page.

The sunflower images are stamped from a Hampton Art Stamps of 1998 called "Willowy Sunflower, stamped with Jet Black Staz On ink pad.

I then added some random black dots using black india ink and the dropper tip and called it done. Yes, I could have added a bunch more, but I wanted it to resonate the power of this lady and the "found poetry." I think it speaks exactly how I imagined...at least it speaks to me.

Here is a mandala I created very late on Thursday night before I went to bed. The house was quiet. The television was off. Just me and the dogs. Black Sakura Gelly pen with vibrant turquoise and orange Prismacolor pencil. In lieu of coloring the whole thing, I purposely left lots of white space, which I rarely do. It was so relaxing to focus on the lines and just let the image evolve organically. I needed that. And, I rather like how it turned out.