H is for Hockey

You know how sometimes you have a vague idea for a page, a layout, a canvas, a piece of jewellery, whatever.....and in your mind it really works....

And when you actually MAKE it, it looks crap :)

I have had SO many of those.

I am deleriously happy to report that for once, this one has gone the other way. It has turned out even better than I imagined it, and I am a chuffed chipmunk :)

This is the (let me count on my fingers, A...B...C...D...E...F...G...H...) 8th entry in my A-Z journal, a new entry every fortnight, where I choose a word for each letter of the alphabet that sums me up. Something for me to look back on in years to come and remember all the things that defined me in 2008. I've never really been one for the whole "book of me" thing (too shy), but this concept I can work with.

Anyway - H - had to be hockey, really, didn't it :)

The background of this page was made from bits of pages from Powerplay magazine - which is kind of the UK equivalent of the Hockey News. I made sure you could see SWINDON WILDCATS clearly up in the top left hand corner ;)

The torn snippets were glued onto the page with soft gel medium. Once the medium was dry I made a red stripe across the background by putting parallel strips of masking tape across the page and applying red chalk ink direct-to-paper between the tapes.

Then I used an old credit card to spread a thin layer of gesso over the top of the papers and red stripe (the centre line), and once that was dry I sprayed the whole page with a suspension of pearl and interference blue perfect pearls in water. That gave the page the look and feel of a game-ready ice surface. To finish the effect off I added some skate scratches into the "ice", by swiping the edge of the old credit card into pale blue metallic lumiere paint, and stonewashed dye ink, and then dragging the card along the surface of the page at varying angles.

The overlying silhouette of the hockey player was made with the stencil I cut earlier (see previous blog post). I blended purple, blue and black distress inks through the stencil, with cut and dry foam. I love the way the skate scratches show through the silhouette.

And as for the general sentiment of the page? This game means SO much to me. It gives me every emotion from euphoria through to utter despondency and despair. I HATE the off season. Roll on September!!!!