Autumn: Home from the Sea

 Hello again! Hope you are all well and safe. Today I'm sharing a project I made because of a crazy idea in my head, lol. I saw Sunday Post Card Art's Ships theme last week and ideas began growing. And even though I couldn't possibly have finished it by their weekly deadline, I kept on thinking it through, collecting images, stamps, and papers, until I finally had to make it, past deadline or not. And, to be honest, I can still link it there as there is no hard and fast rule against it. So, I will!

Papers: thin scrap chipboard recycled for 4x6" base; Springhill card stock; Avery sticker paper; deli paper; DCWV Autumn Stack

Images: Gecko Galz collage sheet image of Urina, Greek Muse of Astronomy; Vectoria Designs digital celestial sky paper

Rubber Stamps:  BG/Hero Arts; Cornish Heritage Farms; Collage Stuff; IO; Artistic Outlook; Third Coast

Inks: Promarkers, Versafine Clair, Versamark, printer

Dies:  Lawn Fawn Stitched Clouds

Other:  Wink of Stella clear glitter gel; Sakura clear metallic gel pen; clear embossing powder

I plan to keep this piece of art, frame and hang it in my hallway along with the other 4x6" art I've made and want to keep. I did some research into aspects of my scenario and want to remember the fascinating stuff I learned, which I will whenever I walk by my art. I always give what I frame plenty of air-dry-cure time first, though. So this will be sitting out on a little easel for a few weeks. I use inexpensive MCS aluminum 4x6" frames with glass fronts that I buy on Amazon. So many frames will not fully accommodate a 4x6" piece. This frame has a very thin black lip perimeter that my art slips right into and if I don't use the enclosed chipboard shim, it accommodates a layered piece just fine. So far I haven't gotten any broken or chipped ones - fingers crossed that continues! (I hate returning stuff, but I will if I have to!)

This piece of art began innocently enough with the Ships theme and then when I spotted the painting of the woman holding a sextant in my Gecko Galz collage sheet inventory. I Google-image-searched it and discovered it was a 1992 painting of the ancient Greek Muse or Goddess of Astronomy, Urina. It was at that moment that my little journey down the learning rabbit hole began! (You can see the many other images of this Muse HERE.) 

I learned that ancient mariners aka ship captains used the constellations and stars of the night sky as their first GPS's. Makes perfect sense, just something I'd never focused on before. Every captain knew his astronomy! Plus, much like a devout Catholic calls on the saints to protect them, the sea captains of old called upon Urina to guide their journey and protect them! And, that like so many other parts of their lives before the advent of electricity, the earth's revolution around the sun dictated so much of life. Most seafarers returned home in Autumn, as you didn't want to be stuck out away anywhere in the Winter elements. And now you can see how I arrived at creating my little scene with stamping and paper collage. Gecko Galz's current theme is Autumn is Calling. It all serendipitously fit!  

My intent was to show a ship returning to home port, and show Urina sitting on a hill or bluff overlooking the homecoming as protector. I had a night sky showing the constellations and stars in a Vectoria Designs digital paper pack, so I printed that to use as my sky. As it had a few whimsical vintage pieces floating around in it (like the compass fob on the left), I added the stamped IO ship wheel on the right side. And I chose both the clouds die and the Basic Grey/Hero Arts ocean waves background stamp because I thought that all together it reminded me of a Winken, Blynken and Nod look, which I loved as a child. Very comforting and soothing. I stamped the waves with Versamark ink on white Springhill card stock and then heat-embossed with clear powder (why waste white powder?) I then took some Distress ink blue shades and sponged the embossed area. When that dried, I took a paper towel and rubbed the distress ink off the embossing. 

The ship is an Artistic Outpost stamp, colored with Promarkers and fussy-cut, as is everything except the ship's wheel which was stamped directly on the sky paper.. Urina is sitting on a tree stump which is an old Third Coast stamp. Bare branches of a tree jut out from behind her, a Collage Stuff tree stamp. The stone wall and colorfully-leafed tree behind it are old Cornish Heritage Farms stamps. A ground of autumn leaves was created by using some DCWV paper scraps. The computer-generated sentiment was printed out on Springhill card stock. I accented many of the stars in the sky with the Sakura gel pen and I brushed Wink of Stella across the ocean waves and on the cloud stitches and the moon at upper left that shows through the deli paper clouds. I then took permanent Starry Night Palette ink and ink-distressed the edges of my piece.

A note about the Spanish contemporary artist who painted the collage sheet image of Urina that I used: see  Jose' Luis Munoz Luque's collection of Greek Muse paintings from his The Muse and The Myth exhibition HERE. You can Google Sextant, Urina, Greek Muses, Ancient Naval Navigation, etc., just like I did to learn more.

Thanks for visiting me and allowing me to share my creativity. I hope you have a great weekend coming up. My prayers continue for all who were in the path of Hurricane Sally or are dealing with her remnants. As I type this, a tropical disturbance is churning in the Gulf to our south and is expected to give us 75 mph winds and rain by Sunday night. As much as I hated becoming the nag to my Mr. I'm Retired and Have the Lazy to Prove It husband, ever since our near miss with Laura I have pushed him to get our front year tree trimmed (Done!) and to buy plywood and clips for our windows (Done finally this week, but he has not yet cut it to fit the windows - he just got told to work on that tomorrow and be prepared to put them up on Saturday - HELLO WAKE UP). It's been like pulling teeth. When we lose that work ethic.... what can I say? Hard to get it back when you are close to 70! And at the same time, old frugal habits die hard. Our range vent hood motor quit and we ordered a new one that sat in the box for a month until I nagged enough. Then come to find out he should have hired someone to install it but he wanted to save a few dollars! It was a 5-hour torture of retrofit hell. OY!!!!! :-)

MY CHALLENGE PLAYLIST: 

1.  Gecko Galz September Customer Challenge: Autumn is Calling -- The woman at bottom right of my art piece is a collage sheet image from one of GG's October newsletter sheets. I'm not sure of the year. I thought it was 2017?

2.  Gecko Galz Facebook Challenge: Celebrate the Arrival of Autumn -- see #1 for image used

3.  Sunday Post Card Art: Ships

4.  Stamping Sensations September Challenge: The Great Outdoors -- Please see discussion in my post describing stamps used.

5.  Outlawz Twisted Thursdays 9/10-9/23: AG + Opt. Little Boy BLUE -- I've played the option!

6.  Time Out Challenge #170: Adventurous -- 

7.  Artistic Stamper Creative Team Challenge September: A Stitch in Time -- figuratively and literally! My artist post card is an homage to Greek mythology and ancient ship navigation history, and I also have die cut deli paper stitched clouds. Hand stamping with rubber stamps definitely happened as well. Please read post for the deets.

8.  Arty Divas Challenge #29: ATG

9.  Country View September Challenge: Complementary Colors -- Blue + Orange AND Purple + Yellow... the predominant shade of blue here is a blue-violet, so...

10.  Crafty Cardmakers #263: Use a Recycled Element -- my recycled element is my 4x6 chipboard base. It was originally packaging.

11. Aud Sentiments #260: AG+Sentiment

12. Crafty Creations #413: AAG

13. MAWTT #122: Create a Scene

14. TTCRD Week Beginning 15 Sept.: AAG

16. Try it on Tuesday: Use Your Scraps -- I used scraps of patterned paper, deli paper and card stock, also recycled chipboard for my card base.

17. Creative Fingers #193: AAG

18. The Three Muses: Vintage