Wednesday, May 5, 2021

Steampunk Background and Ephemera: Birds on a Wire

 

 


A big part of Steampunk is the background layer, It should be all ‘painterly and lots of texture. 

With this page, I decided to do Birds on a Wire.


 

I started with a page I had smeared gold paint on from an earlier project.  Then I pasted down an ink splotched sky, used some of my DIY Washi Tape to pin the bottom in place.  I added a little framed post card that came in a pack from a Scrapbook store I stopped in just to visit (NOT!!!).  


 

Next, I drew three little birds on corrugated cardboard and glued them down.   Next was to work around it all to do some texture stamping.  (Of course, I did not plan ahead). 

 

 



This page had a complex theme in that there are three things going on.  In the bottom right you see a person, a blackboard, a check mark and an x.  This speaks to my career in many far North (typically isolated fly-in communities) .  The lady on the left represents who I was during summers... and the birds?  The birds represent how I fly in and out of those communities, and they represent that wish and hope and dreams that summers would be fulfilling.  Notice that cage?  It is empty.  I always refused to feel the isolation, to feel trapped/caged in isolation for ten months with few fly-outs except grocery and appointment runs which was a quick fly out and fly back in.  The epiphany in this page, for me, was that I realize, these restrictions are not entirely different from those months so far up north that I was there and there I be.  I learned to deal with isolation..., maybe it is why I am at peace with these covid restrictions we have now. 

How are you dealing with the restrictions?  With the isolation of being behind a mask. I miss smiles.  I miss the banter at the check-out line.  Everyone is so serious now.  I move to my art to comfort self.

©Carol Desjarlais 5.5.21

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