Send in the Clowns ~ Eclectic Ellapu Purple Challenge

Wahoo! It's a new challenge for the Purple Team at Eclectic Ellapu and it's my turn to set the challenge. I always find that so fun because I get to see how my tiny idea gets translated into all of this cool art. The challenge I set for this week is called Inspired by a Song. Think of a song, one you like or just an ear worm that burrows into your head and stays there, and use it as an inspiration for your project. Be sure to let us know the title of the song in your post because it makes it so much more fun.

The song I chose, oddly enough, is Send in the Clowns which is a very old song sung by Peggy Lee...way back in the day. The reason why it's an odd choice for me is that usually I am terrified of clowns. I mean I (and my husband and sister) could tell you stories...I digress. The exception to that is those wonderful French clowns, sometimes called Harlequins or Pierrots. For some reason, they don't creep me out and give me shivers like other clowns do. I find them sweet and touching with wonderful stories to tell. So when I saw these three charming images from Rick St. Dennis, I knew I wanted to play with them and this was the song that seemed to fit. They are hauntingly touching...how does he do that?

I started out gessoing the two page spread in my altered dictionary, making sure to leave the word and definition unaltered. Then, using Matte medium, I joined those two pages to the ones next to them for strength because mixed media can be hard on single pages. Next I layered three colours of Neocolor II watercolour crayon in scribbled stripes across the page and used water on a wide brush to activate and blend the colour. To intensify the hues at the edges, I applied Gelatos in the same three tones using a wet finger to blend.

I brushed some gesso on the bottom of a flipflop and stamped it in two directions to make the crosshatching. More gesso was pounced through Dylusions  dotted flowers stencil. Black gesso was pounced through TCW's Mini Chevron Arrows stencil. Both Memento Love Letter and Peanut Brittle inks were applied through TCW's Mini Tile Texture stencil using a make-up wedge. Jet Black Archival ink was stamped randomly on the spread using a TH script stamp.

The fabulous clowns were coloured with Prismacolor pencils and fussy cut leaving a narrow border of white around each. The pompoms were emphasized with Black Diamond Stickles. The Pierrots were then mounted on black punched circles and adhered to the background. I love that parts of them are coming off of the circles almost like spotlights. It seems more playful and Cirque de Soleil-ish.

MFT's Harlequin border die was used to cut the diamonds. The horizontal ones were left intact but the vertical one was cut apart to place then point to point. Four different fonts were used for the message. Three are stickers and the word clowns is made using Idea-ology AlphaParts in Ransom font.

After checking out the page to see what it needed, more gesso marks were made with the side of a gift card, with a splatter stamp, and with a bottle top and watered down black gesso. Three music note brads were added to the pages to play up the song theme. Doodling with a black pen and edging the pages with Black Big Brush pen were the final touches.

Thanks so much for joining me today. You have made the clowns and me very happy. Those are tears of joy they are shedding. Be sure to check out the Eclectic Ellapu blog to see what the rest of my fabulous Purple teammates have created  for my "Inspired by a Song" challenge. Not only is it worth the trip but you might just come away with the urge to play along with us on this challenge.

I am entering this project in the following challenges:
Left of Center Creative Challenges ~ #14  No designer paper
Bloggers Challenge ~ Backgrounds
Digitally Sweet Challenges ~ #53 Anything Goes
Crafter's Cafe Challenge ~ #28 No designer paper
Crafting by Designs ~ Anything Goes
Creative Belli Challenge ~ #178 Use yellow/orange/red plus older embellies (letter stickers)

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie