2015 #1 Her Light Extends {by Alison Bomber}

2015 Theme 1: Fragile Papers

Hi everyone, Alison here from Words and Pictures, joining you this evening with a post on the theme of fragile papers. I use tissue paper and book pages a lot in my crafting, so this was right up my street.  I thought of doing some tissue-paper stamping to add to texture, like my December journalling page, but then I got a sneak peek at the new Lynne Perella stamps - wow! - and plans changed.  It had to be stained glass with candlelight shining through... 

I started by hacking a book to pieces.  It's okay, it's a fairly pulpy hardback bought at a charity shop, so I feel fine about it.  I measured the size of the stamp I was using and used a sharp craft knife to cut an aperture in the front cover to fit.  And then began the slow but necessary task of slicing out the internal pages to create my candle nook.

I stamped my stained glass window lady onto some of the Waxed Tissue in White using Jet Black Archival ink and heat set it.  She's from one of the new Lynne Perella plates which will be coming your way in February.

At this stage, I could actually quite happily have stopped - there's something very appealing to me about the monastic simplicity of this - the stamp alone is so beautiful - or even of the candle nook without the "glass" in place at all, but that's for another day!!

I used Inktense pencils to colour her as I wanted a strong hit of colour to try to capture that intensity of tinted glass.  You can really make the most of the fine detail of a stamp like this, and with the water stage you can also get some really subtle shading.

For the cover, I wanted the light to emanate out from the window, so once I'd selected, arranged and glued my metallic pieces - mainly Finnabair Mechanicals with a few extras thrown in - I started by covering the whole lot with white gesso, and then drew some black gesso in from the outer edges before starting to add colour with translucent Fresco Paints. The first stage was Limelight coming out from the centre, and next I brought Inky Pool in from the outside edges.

I then continued to layer in colours - pale from the inside, darker from the outside - highlighting and shading with the Limelight and Inky Pool plus Zesty Zing, Beach Hut and South Pacific.

And once that was working for me, I added further highlights to catch the light using Treasure Gold in White Gold and Aquamarine.  I used the Treasure Gold on the page edges too, to create the look of aged, gilded book pages.

The words in the Ornate Plate form the other main inspiration behind the whole piece, along with the Lynne Perella stamp.  Illa lucem extendebat is Latin for "her light extends", and the phrase has been beautifully set to music by Helen Chadwick (the composer not the artist).  I was singing it in my head throughout the process.

Obviously, this would be a lot safer if you used a battery tealight - I shan't be leaving this one burning without being in close attendance!  You could try the simple b&w version if you don't fancy the colouring; or if you don't want to do the book carving you could simply cut an aperture in a tag and create your tissue paper window that way.  In any case, I hope you'll be inspired to play with tissue-paper-stamping and light, and with the graduating light to shade of the paintwork.  Thanks so much for stopping by today - it's always fantastic to hear what you think.  See you again soon!  Alison xx

Oh Alison, what a wonderful way to use this stamp as a lit-up niche! And you have blended the Fresco paints so marvellously well for your Finnabair inspired cover. I much prefer to use paints this way on the layered bellies, you have so much more control than a spray, and the specific and controlled use of Treasure Gold to carefully to highlight the texture of the embellishments is the PERFECT way to accent. you have done a truly beautiful piece here, thank-you so much!

We would love you to join in with challenge #1: Fragile Papers. If you are inspired by any of our guests who have blogged on this topic over this fortnight, then please join in and link up your creativity HERE. 

All links go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. This link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Jan 18th 2015, winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.