Take two serviettes

okay I'll cop to it
I'm obsessive about a great number of things
most of which you probably know about :
animals
china
fibre
fabric
yarn
pencils
pens
paint
buttons
books
magazines
storage solutions for all the above ... plastic tubs, bags, boxes, folders, binders

and the one that perhaps you don't know about because I strive mightily to keep it under control

I'm a paper products junkie

... notebooks, journals, sketchbooks, notepads, stationery - and I really have to restrain myself from adding to my enormous stash of interesting photos

so I was thrilled when I found an article in the latest Cloth, Paper, Scissors written by mixed media artist Sharon Tomlinson


that advocated using interesting printed paper napkins/serviettes as the base for mixed media pieces

ooooh goody - permission to go buy some pretty serviettes
and a small cheap primed canvas

I have no desire to copy Sharon's unique and quirky style.
It's hers
but there was definitely something that resonated with that idea of those flimsy tissue images that caused me to haul out the file that contains all the ephemera found amongst my late mum's stuff and which I have no good reason to keep but I did anyway ... like a letter written on half-a-dozen sheets of the lightest of wartime issue 'on-active-service' paper from mum's BFF Mavis.

so
the serviettes were separated to harvest that top layer and adhered to the canvas
then cheap gold acrylic paint [ so cheap that there's very little actual pigment and it gives a lovely soft burnished look if applied with a very light hand and rubbed back repeatedly]
then the letter
more bits of serviette
more paint - sort of pewterish this time
a white monoprint from a feather to echo the images on the serviette and to reinforce the idea of transience and impermanence

at this point I did print some words in strategic spots but have since painted and stuck over them

pretty but lacking focus

so then a 'sewing woman' cut from a card to anchor that bottom left corner
a layer of pine green brushed on and sponged off


then dark blue
and finally the gold again to soften and lighten the blue and blend the whole

I'm still not sure if it's finished - my feeling is that yes it is - but in any case I'll live with it for a while now.
How do you know when something is complete ?

Mum has been gone since 1994, her BFF, Mavis, died of cancer in 1965, and yet here is this chatty note written in the midst of huge conflict over 60 years ago still surviving.

Through the lens of memory, all summers are golden