Swimming against the tide...

Wow it's May already!!!

Blessed and Joyful Beltane to all :D

So it is time for my MAY journal page for

  Darcy's Calendar Challenge 2015

My May page had the fabulously flamboyant Rod Stewart on it ..in the perfect shirt for this moths challenge

1. Leave part of original image showing.

2. make marks by scratching or stamping into thick gesso or similar substance.

3. Include an image relevant to your star sign. 

Well I am Pisces...so I instantly went back to one of my fave Soul Food classes of 2014, when Roberta Laliberte (aka Prairie Faerie) showed us how to paint Koi in relief.

I used her original image and copied just one fish over Rod'd shirt.

 Next I filled in around it with white gesso...

 I added a translucent layer of "Tiger lily" orange pearlescent paint(Martha Stewart) to make my fishy shimmer...

And then started laying on thick swooshes of gesso...

 and scratching in texture for underwater plant life.

 While this was drying, I added some darker weeds with marine blue acrylic ink and a straw...

 Now building more dimension by adding colour to the gesso...

 and white highlights to the raised lines on the Koi.

 (and a few speckles)

 Now the verse from Poe's "The Lake"...

 I felt this rather fitting, as though I swim alone, wherever I go, I try to build a garden :D

Tiny sprouting plants made with Darcy's Stamp

 ...and just a close up of yummy overlappings :D

I knw this may seem a rather quiet page for me lol, but dark deep water is all about the quiet. 

Time to contemplate the garden.

Enjoy :D XXX