July Dress-up Challenge: Submission

Although I haven't yet completed my June Dress-up Challenge, July's solution came to me in spark of inspiration and just had to be completed first.  I didn't do any research for this project, relying on Angela's sample images and description, as well as my memory of early American works being flat, two dimensional, figurative and stilted.  These adjectives may sound derogatory, but I assure you, they are merely descriptive.

Here are a few example pictures I googled AFTER finishing the project.

 

  

I've been playing around recently with ripped paper color mandalas for my Tending to the Pilot Light adult creative sessions and realized it was the perfect medium for the challenge.

I started with a straight-forward dark to light piece, then played with letting the orange paper show through with the second mandala and got really excited with the third one which led me to the inspiration for the July Dress-up challenge.

 The third mandala is made with a center of cobalt blues from a photography magazine advertisement (pre-digital) for photo filters, bits of New Yorker text and an outside circle composed of black and white photos of musicians and Arabic scientists.  The idea that the reconstruction and composition of these pieces could hold hidden meaning got me really jazzed!

This spring, being the pack-rat opportunist that I am, when departing the annual Lawrence Book Fair, with my arms full of maps, I spotted a table full of little US Constitution pamphlets.  They were free.  Need I say more? You know I took home a handful, not sure what they would become, but quite confident they would come in handy!  So, the outside of the pamphlet had a reproduction of the original text in tiny blue script.. so beautiful:

Thank you Dennis Moore, who ever you are, and best wishes to you too!

Here's my submission for Sew Locquacious' July Dress-up Challenge

This picture is a close-up of the background, made from torn up black art paper given to me by my lovely friend Anne.

I'm particularly proud of how I captured the folds of the looped-up apron by using different shades of snow from a winter 1987 article about Yellowstone National Park in National Geographic!

However, when looking at these faces closeup, they're kinda creepy! It is really hard to paint details on a face smaller than a dime!

Here's a closeup of the cobalt blue paper and the beautiful Constitution script forming the overdress.

She's looking a little French, but back then, Revolution was all the Rave!

Here you can see a little detail of the larger "We the People" script used for her bodice.. again with the creepy eyes!

Did you notice the Red White and Blue of their aprons and underskirt? A tip of the hat to the Fourth of July, which I hope is a safe and relaxing holiday for you all (my US readers at least!)

So, from one project to another, inspiration flows, gets stuck in an eddy and finds its way to the light again.

Thanks for reading, and check back at Sew Loquacious to see all the great submissions for the year!