Open Your Eyes and See!

Servus and welcome to my little creative spot!

The first half of our May challenge over at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges is over and our mid-month reminder post is up to provide you with more Steampunk inspiration and to invite you to join in (if you haven't done so already)!

This month's challenge theme is "Eyes Tested!" - so goggles, monocles, eye charts, dolls eyes, winking eyes, mechanical eyes, blue, green or brown or any other kind of eyes you can think of with a creative crafty project are very likely to be seen more often around these days. ;)

My project today may seem rather likely at first sight, but it really turned out to be very meaningful to me during the creative process. Sometimes my projects take me on a journey instead of the other way round.

Since I was a girl I have been watching the world around me closely. I was a rather quiet and shy girl and instead of throwing myself out there I spent a lot of time watching and taking a close look at the people around me and their behaviour. Learning about the mechanisms of communication and which actions lead to which reactions was important for me as a young girl (as I wanted to be able to make others as happy as possible) - and I haven't stopped looking closely ever since (even if I do it for different reasons now) - be it human behaviour or artwork or nature.

So my art journaling card for today is my very personal message (and also reminder to myself) as I believe that if we all looked a bit closer (also at ourselves) before acting or talking, we could often spare others and ourselves disappointment and hurt. But looking closely takes time - and time is what we feel we haven't got nowadays. So we rush forward. So I know that this is easier said than done.

I used some G45 paper as a background. The gears and calculations stamps I used to create more depth are from Carabelle Studio. The observing eye and test glasses are Tim Holtz stamps.

The glasses were stamped onto acetate using black StazOn ink. Once that had dried I painted the backside of the image using a white Sharpie.

The acetate was fixed to the card using four brads. But before I fixed it I scraped on some white Gesso and Viva Rusty Paper with a palette knife.

The stamped observing eye was coloured using a watercolouring pencil and fine tip brush. I also used it for shading in some of the elements on my journal page.

For a finish I added some white here and there to make some of the elements pop from the page. I love my white Sharpie pen! ;)

There was an eye chart on the background paper, but I got carried away and almost covered it up completely...lol. But sometimes a textured background is a good starting point - even though hardly any of its details will be visible once the project is finished.

As this is a journal page that tells more about me than I had consciously intended to, seeing the finished result is rather moving for me. Maybe you know those finished pieces of art that are like a mirror that shows a different you -  a "you" you tend to forget about or that you do not like staring back at you as it touches a sore spot in you. Well, that journal card is one of those mirrors - and - how appropriate for a mid-month-reminder-post - a reminiscence too.

Well, after that load of rather unexpected emotional blurb I would love to invite you to hop over to SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenge blog to take a look at the makes of my teamies, who have prepared another bundle of inspiration for you.

And of course I hope you will play along and enter a project soon!
Thanks for stopping by (and for listening too ;)

Hugs and happy crafting,

Claudia xxx