Friday 20 February 2009

The Tears of Africa -Deco Pages

I foolishly entered a Deco swap not really knowing what it was - I thought it was Art Deco.

I was a bit shocked when I found out last week that it was a bit like a Circle Journal - but instead of sending on the book - you just send your two pages. There are six in a group and each has a different theme.

These are the pages I have made for the theme 'Africa'

I thought about it quite a bit - and decided to do an 'historical' Africa


I have called it the 'Tears of Africa' because of all the continent's hardship over hundreds of years. The pages are 6"x6" so quite large for me!

The stamped wording as the background is about 'flying away' and escaping. The centre panel is a stamped image which I enlarged and painted and gilded with gold - although it is hard to see the gold earring and border patterns. The blood red embossed border represents all the bloodshed from the slave trade, and fighting etc over hundreds of years. The paper I coloured with oranges, browns, and black.

Right hand page is the same colour as the left - its just looks different because of the angle.
Again it has the wet embossed blood red border. The map on the continent I embossed with UTEE and let it run down the map to represent tears. - You can't really see it here but it is looks really wet and realistic in the naked eye.

The stamped trees are those gorgeous ones you often see in photographs of African plains - with the orange background of sunset. The postcard I stamped several times on paper and collaged it onto the page. It looks lovely under light (well I think so) because some of it is black embossed; the scarab beetles are too and look quite real. The egg shaped disc on the left is collaged on and painted gold and embossed so really shines. The postcard is collaged on too - some of it embossed and primarily painted gold. This represents Egypt - and the tomb raiders.

For some reason, when I think of Africa it makes me feel sad because of it's history of being plundered, the fighting, the pyramids being raided, the poverty and hunger.

I think too much I know! It's just a bit of art!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

These are fabulous Lottie, I love the images and colours!

Anonymous said...

what a beautiful but thought provoking piece.

Suse said...

oh wow Lottie, these are just fabulous - wonderful colours, and you have put so much thought into this theme and injected real life into the pages.

Momiji said...

this is amazing! so much thought gone into it..a beautiful piece..

Anonymous said...

That is stunning, love the title and the thoughts behind it - inspired. Love the colours, so appropriate to the continent.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Claireabelle said...

Stunning work Lottie, i love the fact that every element represents some piece of Africa.
Fabulous work
xx

Jo Capper-Sandon said...

oh wow....this is so beautiful. Love the thoughts behind it too...makes such a difference to any artwork. The composition is perfect and the colours are stunning. I think this has to be your most successful piece of artwork to date as it all works so well together.....fabulous.

Angelnorth said...

Beautiful piece of work Lottie, so much detail. The colours are so rich and evocative and the effect of the running UTEE is fabulous. I don't think you think too much: this looks like an emotional response to a subject to me and that's what art and creativity is all about - great job!