The January theme for Dress Up 2011 hosted by Angela of Sew Loquacious was Impressionism. I joined late, but loving Impressionism, I just had to create a dress, or as the title reads “three” dresses anyway. And I’m really wanting to create a fourth too! Eeep! We’ll see if I’m able to work it into things. I know it’s pretty predictable to choose Monet when you hear Impressionism. I admit that was my first choice, simply because I really love Monet’s work. But, when looking him up, I came upon another artist, who is alive and kicking. Or should that be alive and painting? In another dress you will see my inspiration, of her inspiration “Monet”, but I’m going to share the dresses in the order I created them.
The artist is Ginette Callaway, French born and living in the United States, she paints in every medium. Gotta love that. I cannot express enough how much some of her paintings move me. If I could have a mural of this painting taking up an entire wall in my house, I most definitely would. This one is entitled, “On the Way to Grandmas there is a Tree”. Oh what a tree to daydream beneath. Just looking at it makes me smile.
Laughter blooms.
Love grows.
Life breathes hope.
The way to Grandma’s house is always filled with enchantment!
I printed the inspiration piece out in quick draft mode, though I knew better but wanted to save ink, and I fear it showed a lot more blue than what is in the actual painting, but that’s ok. I still like what I came up with. I had some Flowersoft from a sale that I hadn’t used yet and thought this the perfect project to try it out on. I wanted the dress to have the airy, billowing, flowy feel of the tree as well as be something a beautiful young woman might wear in such a delightful environment. So, I picked out a scrap piece of decorative paper that had a lot of print on it in a deep magenta background. I quickly sketched out the frilly dress, and then I took my scissors to it and, clip, clip, clipped!
Out came the glue and 4 different blends of Flowersoft and the party began! I started with the body of the dress, using one mixture in most of the areas and the second in an effort to add a little bit of depth. Next came the ruffles, and I took the same approach with both a blue and a lavender mixture. (If you want the names, let me know. The jars are in my studio and I don’t know them off the top of my head.) A few shake, shake, shakes and a dress was born. Having the leaves, ground, and sky in the dress I knew it was important to ground it with a trunk. So I used Scribbles dimensional paint in Hot Chocolate (Hot chocolate, beautiful trees, and grandma’s house. It doesn’t get much better!) and created a sort of braid for the belt. A tiny flower stained with Twinkling H20’s and budded with a pale pink acrylic rhinestone finished off the ensemble.
I really enjoy the whimsy created by the Flowersoft. It’s so soft looking and yet so textural. I have to admit, that I’m kind of considering pulling out a small canvas and “painting” with it. I don’t think I have enough though. I’m going to have to try an alternative that I’ve read about on how to create my own and see if it really does have the same look. For I can just imagine how insanely cool a “painting” would be using only it or at the very least very strong hints of it.