Violets aren't blue ~ Eclectic Ellapu Challenge

I made a most interesting discovery about my art when faced with this week's Purple Team challenge at Eclectic Ellapu. Our wonderful DT member, Purple,set the challenge which is for the focus to be butterflies + shades of purple + one or more of the following :brads, buttons, bling, ribbon. Now for my discovery...in my absolute ton of supplies, I have very little purple. I have no idea why that is. I like purple, I just don't use it. I had one purple Neocolor II crayon in my bin of 42 colours. I have no purple Inktense blocks or pencils and only one purple Distress ink...no markers, stains, papers...nothing, nada. That, my friends, is about to change.

I started my journal spread by gessoing both pages. Then I took my lonely little purple Neocolor II and scribbled it across the pages spreading the colour with water. Next, I loaded some purple watercolour from my palette (it came with it...I didn't buy it) and heavily painted it on the left page. Then I closed the pages together and smushed it with my hands to spread the colour and create lots of texture. It also created lights and darks to make up for my lack of purpleness...purple-tude...whatever.

Next Dusty Concord Distress ink was applied to the pages through the Dylusions Letter Jumble stencil, TCW's Mini Chevron and Confetti stencils. White gesso was pounced through TCW's Mini Punchinella stencil with a scruffy brush. The checkerboard stamp was inked with Dusty Concord and applied randomly on both pages.

The images with the exception of the butterflies come from a collage sheet from Tumble Fish Studios (Deviant Art). They were fussy cut, edged with my purple Big Brush pen (Ha! Found it!) and adhered to the background. A white doily was adhered behind Violet and her wings so that she would be more visible. She's no Shrinking Violet!! The large butterfly with the Stickles body is an Etsy image from Picky Chicken and the other butterflies were internet images. The small double layered butterfly with scissors for its body is cut with a Martha Stewart punch.

The zigzag trims were from my stash (who knew they were there?) and had white paint pen dots applied. The purple ink dripping from the paintbrush is Dylusions Crushed Grape ink spray which was dripped onto the brush and page and allowed to run.

To complete the spread, three paper flowers, sent in a RAK from my friend, Paulette (Thank you!), were adhered to the bottom right corner. Threaded buttons were added to the centers and Dusty Concord Distress ink was applied to the page edges. A final outlining of everything with a purple coloured pencil and I called it done. And it left me wondering where purple has been all my life!

Thanks for visiting today and sharing in my discoveries. I always appreciate your company but I have to ask you...do you use a lot of purple? Inquiring minds want to know. Be sure to pop by the Eclectic Ellapu blog to see the rest of the challenge inspiration makes from the DT...and that would be the Purple Team...lol.

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie