Caw Humbug!

 Hey there, hope you are well. When it gets towards month's end, I always try to play a little in my art journals before hitting my design team work and card needs for the next month. Today I'm sharing another page completed in my Puns & Roses wordplay gluebook journal. I am also going to share a few photos of my supplies used as well as page process shots.

Ok, this one was a bit tough until I knew for sure where I was going with it. I mean, how do you combine a Halloween-like image with Christmas? I needed to use a spooky steampunk raven who is sitting on a Christmas jingle bell. Another challenge entrant had already beaten me to the obvious snarky comment the raven is obviously thinking, you ain't getting this bell, hahaha. So, what to do? Well, I remembered that Dickens tackled ghosts with Christmas in A Christmas Carol, so then my love of EA Poe took over and the bird became THE Raven and since he was acting so contrary, the BAH Humbug became CAW Humbug in my mind, and I had wordplay so I was off to get my Puns & Roses journal.

 

  

First, supplies: For this page I challenged myself to choose from what was in my Use-Up Inks box first before going to my other newer colorant supplies. Another constraint was that the other side of the page I worked on was bound on three sides by purple washi tape, so that meant that my page would be as well and had to have some purple. Luckily, I love purple so no problemo! Also pictured: my very old skool Quickutz Squeeze die cut tool that still works great to cut my title using QK Sophisticate font (I green-duct-taped the stand to the tool, nothing's broken) and the A Colorful Life stencils I used (Woodstock Girl and Bare Branches). I also used Promarkers, a gel pen and wax colored pencils.

  

Here are the Gecko Galz images I used. The raven is the image of the month at the Steampunk Challenge. Looking for something with a door for Art Journal Journey's challenge, I found the other image in my very large computer file of GG images we get free in GG blog posts. They were both given freely, so you are free to take but if you use please attribute to Gecko Galz. 

 

So, anyway, I had already printed out the raven in color as well as the highlight quote, die cut with a Spellbinders Art Deco Astoria labels die. I also hand-stamped an Artistic Outpost double door as similar as I had to the one in the drawing, for the raven to perch as he looks on. So in PSE, I created a file the size of my journal page adding the witch on the stairs image and on top of that and to the side, I pasted the words to Poe's The Raven poem, removed all color and printed the page onto a sheet of Avery letter size label paper. On left is my "mock up" using my elements next to the finished page. Kind of a before and after, lol. I actually think the before would have made a decent page without any coloring. But it would not have been as fun to make! 

  

Here's a process shot of all my elements after I got through inking and coloring them before assembly, and the base of my journal page that I prepped with purple, stone grey and black ink distressing. You can clearly see my stenciling on the page at left. I had used the Woodstock Girl stencil as a symbol of Poe's lost love Lenore, who plays prominently in the poem. The stencil has no eyes and I did not attempt to add any because she's a ghost or spirit. But, on the finished page, you can hardly make her out at all because the raven's head covers up her lips which is her only facial feature. That's okay, I know she is there, looking on, watching to see if the witch the raven has sent will bring her love to the door. Or something along those lines. I used my deco scissor to cut a craggy edge around the sticker sheet and on the door bottom before adhering them to my base page.

 

 

Here's some close-ups. You can click on any small pic you want to look at to bring up a larger one. I tried to outline all the iron railings with a silver metallic colored pencil. I used a Sakura red glitter gel pen on the Spells sign. You can see the heavy ink distressing on all edges except for the raven.

So here's the final view. I think I reconciled the Halloween / Christmas dichotomy of this with a clever title play on words and got another page in this journal done. Thanks for visiting me today and have a safe and crafty evening! xoxo

MY CHALLENGES PLAYLIST: 

Art Journal Journey December: When One Door Closes, Another One Opens

Gecko Galz December Steampunk Image Challenge

Stamplorations December Stencil Challenge: AG

Happy Little Stampers December Stencil Challenge: AG

My Time to Craft Christmas #25: Anything But a Card

Color It Create It Show It Off December: AG

ABMTTC #Dec/Jan: AAG

More Mixed Media December: AG Only

Through the Purple Haze #187: AG Only

Girlz Rebel Challenge #10: Color Combo, No Option This Time

I used all the colors except for the first on left (the blue green)

Happy Little Stampers December Christmas Challenge: AG Only

Girlz Creative Crafts #20: Christmas

Creative Sketchy Girls #67: Christmas/Winter/New Years Eve

Incy Wincy Designs Challenge: Color Swatch Only

I used the bottom two (purple and blue) and a pink