This spread in my 8 x 8" Dylusions art journal is nominally for
The Documented Life Project 2016 where the July theme remains:
Vote Yes - saying yes to new experiences.
The art challenge was to
add a border (and I definitely did that). I still had more quotations on the theme and the one I really wanted to use was by Vincent van Gogh: "
What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything".
As chance would have it I'm also reading a book about one of Van Gogh's paintings:
Landscape with Couple Walking and Crescent Moon, one of his
lesser known works now resident in Brazil. The writer Susan Fletcher was intrigued by it and developed her own ideas about who the woman was accompanying what is clearly Vincent himself. She concluded it might well have been Jeanne Trabuc, the wife
of the warden of the asylum at St. Paul-de-Mausole near Saint-Remy where Vincent spent time in 1889. I have included her portrait by Vincent van Gogh at bottom right.
Of course we will never know for sure if it is her in the painting of the walking couple but Susan Fletcher makes a good case in her book
Let Me Tell You About a Man I Knew,
and I am enjoying the read very much. So I made this spread with a bit (okay a lot!) of help from Vincent himself.
The background was done using the
L384 Ripple Effect stencil as well as the
L438 Stylized Fireworks one,
both by Stencilgirl Products. I also added some rubber stamping with French text. Then I added the border which used strips torn from a picture of Vincent's painting:
Garden with Flowers, Arles, July 1888.
I collaged on the couple from the painting that inspired the book as well as the Jeanne Trabuc portrait, and then sprayed on the white text (from
S261 Fridge Poetry stencil)
using Liquitex spray paint. I added more relevant words and the circles both from
S304 Text and Texture Discovery stencil.
I did a bit of outlining and called the pages done. It will be a great reminder of an enjoyable read.
