Riding a Kismet Moment

 

Have you ever experienced a Kismet Moment?  You know, when a little rush of adrenaline bleeds through your veins like an ink splat on a wet watercolor paper and whispers that the tiny scrap you just picked up off the floor is the perfect shade of blue to make your journal page sing anthems of joy kind of moment. (Ok, that was a really long sentence...). They don’t happen very often for me, probably because I have a tendency to overthink most things, which in turn stifles any opportunity for a kismet moment to actually happen.  So when one does it’s cause to celebrate.  I recently had one of those experiences and I have to say, it felt pretty damn good!  

As a member of Gwen Lafleur’s Artist Tribe, I had the pleasure of playing with two of her newest Paper Artsy Rubber Stamp Collections,  ELG-13 Botanical Illustrations and ELG-14 Frames .  

I love working small, so I knew I wanted to use these stamps as focal points in a mixed media collage - as big fish in a little pond so they say.  But first I took them for a test drive in my art journal.  Here’s how those pages ultimately turned out.

Journal page with an embossed frame (Emerald Creek’s BoHo Blends EP in Saffron) and a flower stamped on a sticky note on burned paper. 

A second test drive with one of the flowers from the botanical set (I changed the scale and interpreted it as a tree) that was stamped with watercolors onto old Japanese block printed  paper and then stitched into my art journal. 

 

My last sample.  This one features one of the flowers from the Botanical set stamped with watercolors then stitched.  I used the leaf stamp in the frame and added  more watercolor “trees” stamped on rice paper in the background.

I hadn’t settled on a main project until a Kismet Moment clobbered me.... I was carrying a stack of cyanotypes fresh off the drying rack and tripped over a stack of old collage fodder books waiting patiently to be put away.   The cyanotypes spilled out of my hands and the books scattered all over the floor.  Feeling rather foolish, (and praying my husband hadn’t seen me) I looked around and that’s when inspiration revealed itself to me; a beautiful Bengali book lay at my feet with a pile of cyanotypes splayed across its cover.  The color palette whispered in my ear.  It was a kismet moment that my camera unfortunately missed.....  

A recreation of the Kismet moment my camera missed!

I am drawn to the colors and  lines of the book’s cover as well as the beautiful script contained within. While I believe this book to be Bengali, titled Nightingale,  even Google translate has not been able to help me find anything more about it.  It was missing many pages when I picked it up at a thrift store. 

And these two 6x6 panels are what the voice in my head led me to create...

The base of the first panel is a cyanotype with hand written paper from an old accounting ledger on top.  I surrounded the focal point of the print with one of the Stamps from the Frame set atop layered fussy cut stamped leaves.  As a finishing touch I used the same Frame stamp to embellish the sides of the panel.

Tipping the Scale by Jill McDowell

The second panel also started with a cyanotype but this time I added the beautiful script from the pages of my Bengali book and a mini collage.  The mini was created on a base of Khadi Paper with stamped leaves and a layered doorway on top.  I made the door by stamping one of the frames onto watercolor paper, cutting out the opening, and setting it onto the back of corrugated cardboard.  Then I highlighted the door with an embossed section of another one of the frames in the set.  I used  Emerald Creek’s BoHo Blends Embossing Powder in Paprika.

 

There are so many ways to use these stamp sets.  What will you create?  Please share what you do.  I’d love to see it.  I appreciate that you took some time to hang out with me today.  

Just one more plug, but it’s an important one. Please shop small and support your local craft store.  A big shout out to The Papercraft Clubhouse in Westbrook, CT., my local craft supply store.  Tracie carries Carries Gwen’s design in her shop and online.  Check her out!

Stay Safe and Stay Well!  Jill