Thursday, July 23, 2015

Diva Challenge #227 & Made by Joey #70

Tropicana, Fescu & Cack
ATC watercolor wash, Rapidograph fine liner & Caran d'ache watercolor pencils

It was a relaxing morning at the cafe today. After a lovely visit from a dear friend and playing tourist in my hometown for a few days, I'm getting back to my routine.
Today's challenge was put forth by the Diva's guest blogger, Lee Darter CZT. We were asked what came to mind when thinking of the circus and given a set of patterns to utilize.
I'm not a fan of traditional circus but I love Cirque du Soleil. I have a background in theatrical costume design and I remember how influenced and inspired I was by the magical characters and acrobats and of course, the colors and hand painted costumes.
I had previously made up a bunch of these painted ATC's, and at the risk of being redundant, I continue to use them here. The colors of this particular ATC felt perfectly "Cirque" to me.
"Cack" brought to mind decorative swirling umbrellas handled in stylized movement by elegant and fluid acrobats-"Fescu", emerging through the forced perspective arches of "Tropicana".
This was such a fun challenge~thank you Lee!
"Girdy" Monotangle

The watercolor background for this ATC was inspired by rust. I have a bunch of inspiration saved here on my Pinterest page. Rust is beautiful. I have to say that "Girdy" is not a pattern I particularly like, but after looking at the other submissions I was inspired. "Industrial" came to mind, which made me pick up this rusty ATC. The idea to create the look of flexible piping (I have no idea what that stuff is called) came midway through the tile when I realized that I didn't want to fill the vertical lines with solid black.

Thank you for stopping by and big, big thanks to those who take the time to leave comments. They always brighten my day.

14 comments:

  1. I enjoy the splashes of colour :) Lovely tiles!

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  2. Brilliant use of color and rhythm.

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  3. Lovely paper and I especially like the last one.

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  4. Great tiles, I especially like the rusty Girdy one.

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    1. Thanks Jai! The Girdy tile worked out much better than I anticipated.

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  5. I like your background colors on both (will have to try a watercolor wash - inspiration!) Your Gridy has a nice flow to it and I like the open "pipes" better than solid I think. Very nice!

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    1. Thanks Lynne! There are some good you tube videos on water color washes and I did a progression "How to" a couple of posts ago. I'm kinda hooked on the watercolor tiles now.

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  6. Love your lovely circus tile!
    You made Girdy look very special, beautiful!

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  7. and many thanks to you Kate. I love Tropicana.

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