Something Slightly New

 A new challenge caught my eye and I have completed the first three which happen to be A, B, and C. If you are interested in checking out the challenge on YouTube, it is titled abcjlc. The "jlc" stands for Jodi Lewis Challenge.

There are three prompts plus a bonus prompt for each new challenge. All the prompts will begin with the letter of that challenge. The prompt is optional or it can be substituted for one of the other prompts.

The prompts for A Challenge are: asymmetrical, accordion, acetate, and artist.

I started with the bonus because I had this copy of Seated Harlequin by Pablo Picasso. I cut away the background leaving just the figure and the table and I also tore out the signature which I applied on the left side just above the blue bricks. I thought the ruffles on the neckline and cuff could be considered as an accordion pleat but just to be sure I covered that prompt, I added a small piece of pleated paper and glued it to the table top. That could pass as a napkin or a book laid open with the pages sticking up. When I started looking for background papers I came across the leaves that are in faded shades of green. The bluish green paper was torn from a magazine to use for a testing sheet for black splatters. I had saved it to use again and this seemed like the place to do that. The blue bricks were also taken from a magazine. The stars satisfy the asymmetrical  prompt. One slip up here. I love the leaves so much that my brain shut down and it was only after I had everything glued in place that I realized the leaves were cut from vellum and the prompt asked for acetate. Oops! Too late to change and I really didn't want to start over. 

As I'm sure you noticed, I have not come up with a solution for the curving and bending of the paper as it dries. Pressing the project during drying is not really doing the trick and the thickness of the base does not seem to make a difference either. I have also tried applying glue to both sides of the paper but so far none of those things are working for me. I am open for suggestions.

Challenge B had fairly easy prompts except for the bonus prompt. It just didn't seem to fit with the other three. But, hey, that's part of the challenge. So for B, we have button, bird, ballet, and the bonus; brown paper bag.

When I read the prompts I immediately knew I had to use the figure from a children's book that my daughter gave me to use for just this kind of thing. There was a two page spread of this little girl in 16 different poses. I chose to use the two that would be the most realistic of a girl seeing herself in the mirror. The one problem was that each figure had her eyes looking in a different direction. There were two where her arms were up over her head so that determined which two I would use. The eyes I fixed by cutting the eyes from another figure in the book and overlapping them on the eyes of the figure in the mirror. I covered the girl in the mirror with frosted vellum only to realize I had intended to put a "B" on the front of her white top. Darn! (I ended up sticking the "B" in the bottom right corner.

My plan was to cut a bird from a music book but there really was not room to make this work so I settled on the bird in the upper right corner. The button I looped with a tiny pink ribbon meant to replicate the laces on her ballet slippers. That left the paper bag. I tried various things and finally just cut a scalloped edge and applied it to sides of the project. The top of the mirror frame had a little blank space that was off white and looked odd so I covered that with rhinestones. That led to a few more rhinestones scattered on the background paper. My sister suggested using the words on the card.

And now for the letter C. The prompts are: crow, crayon, crossword, and collage.

My first idea was to use a scarecrow as the focal point. But after some consideration and not much luck with the scarecrow idea, I dug a little deeper into things I didn't know I had. I found some keys I had taken from an old typewriter and decided to use some of them for the crossword prompt. For the crayon I took the wrapper from a black crayon, glued it to a random piece of cardstock and drizzled some melted crayon over it. The bird, that I'm calling a crow, is mounted on a dictionary page that does define the word crow as well as crow flies. This along with the word crow in the crossword should cover that prompt. The bonus prompt was automatically covered by making this collage.

My biggest struggle with all three of the challenges is getting the various pieces attached exactly where I want them to be. I have not found an adhesive that I would say is my go-to. My experience so far is that there is very little wiggle room once the two surfaces touch each other. Too much glue and they easily slip just enough to make things like a dictionary page uneven. I am hoping that with more practice I can improve on this process.

D is a doozie! Three of the prompts are technical and only one prompt is an object. No starting point in mind for that one yet.