Mashup Wednesday

This is what my studio looks like mid creation -- paint everywhere, pens flying, bits of paper, dirty brushes...  And then I clean up, and try to restore the space to a semblance of order.  I decided that one way to "clean up" is to force myself to actually use whatever is remaining on my desk, rather than putting it away and just forgetting about it.  What would happen if I throw it all together and see what comes out?  So yesterday, I had what I'm going to call a "Mashup Wednesday."  

Here's what was on my desk and spilling out of my scrap box:  I casually arranged it on a two page spread in my journal:

 

Seeing this all together -- the greys, greens and pink, reminded me of a picture of three bottles that I had cut out of a magazine and hadn't found a way to use.  Here's part of the picture.  The colors are not ones I would usually combine: 

 

After taking a picture of my "composition," I removed the scraps from my page and scraped paint and gesso around with a credit card using Americana Foliage Green, Plaid Folk Art Hot Pink, and Accent Country Colors Liberty Blue.  I was inspired by this video by Roben-Marie, and this one by Nathalie Kalbach,  both of which were featured in this Web Round Up post yesterday from Balzer Designs:

 

After scraping and painting, I glued down my scraps approximating the original layout and a put a secret journaling flap in the middle:

 

I added some pieces of old book pages and tried to figure out what to do with some green dots I cut out of a tag I had painted last week:

 

It felt like it needed more graphics - so I added some flowers, a silhouette, and more boldly colored scraps:

 

 But now I had hardly any light spaces for writing, so I made some "clouds" out of torn envelopes for journaling:

 

I realized that my "secret" journaling flap wasn't so secret if it had a had "See Inside" arrow pointing right to it, so I added "do not" to the arrow (Sam, this means you!).  I also added the tops of the bottles on the top left of the right side of the page:

 

Sadly, the cute kitten and the rams faces disappeared, but I know they are there.  My next reaction was to add more flowers:

 and leaves and doodles, and Julie's punchinella stencil, and some writing, and voila, a page was born.  Don't know what the left hand side will be yet, but I'll share it when it's done. Outlining the bottles and adding stitching to the silhouette really made them pop.  Thanks Ronda for that tip!

 

I couldn't resist altering it a bit in Photoshop to make a birthday card:

 

It's so true that we need the company of others, as well as time to ourselves, to find balance.  Finding the perfect blend of stillness and activity, interacting outwardly and looking inwardly, the union of opposites, make for a balanced and happy life.  

My "takeaways" from my Mashup Wednesday:

1.  using up is a good way to clean up;

2.  using whatever's in front of you is a great way to discover color combinations outside of the usual repetoire;

3.  letting the materials make the plan is kind of fun;

4.  the "end product" often doesn't look like the beginning and that's fine.

If you decide to do a Mashup day, please let me know and leave a link to your work.  I'd love to see it.

UPDATE -- Forgiveness is obviously very much on my mind.  Here's a great (very short) video about it.  Don't know why Lama Marut is frozen in such a funny pose, but the video is very good!

Thank you so much for visiting! If you are so moved, please leave a comment. Hearing from you means the world to me.