Working in Joan's Houses Journal - AAJS4 - Lisa

I finished my entry in Joan's lovely Houses journal... and then realised I'd forgotten to take progress pics.  Oh well!

Joan's brief was that the journal page had to feature a house somewhere, so that was pretty easy!  I've been playing with teabag art a lot, so decided I wanted to incorporate this into my spread.  My sky is watercoloured, but everything else is collaged teabags.

I have a few friends and family keeping their teabags for me, so have a mixture of black tea, raspberry tea and chamomile tea bags.  I had always thought that the raspberry teabags would look the best, as they're a beautiful pinky colour, but funnily enough they seem to go purpley-blue when you glue them down!  

Some of the teabags were watercoloured before I added them, and some left au naturale.  I actually think that the brown bags look really interesting; especially the ones that have little spots of mould on them (which is what can happen if you don't let them dry out properly...!)

So here are my houses, based very loosely on the Painted Ladies from San Francisco.  I drew the houses first with Micron pens so it would be easier to cut out the shapes.  I have to say I really didn't like some of the colours that came out, but they looked a lot better after going over them again when dry with a Micron.

For the left hand side of the page, I drew a valley, also tea-bagged, and looked for some inspirational words about houses, not homes - remembering there is a difference!

I couldn't really find a quote, lyric or poem that I liked, so decided I'd have to come up with something myself.  I'll call it a poem, and since my faux calligraphy is not great, here's what it says!

A house, solid, sturdy & strong

A haven, a sanctuary, a fort

A yearning when far away

A slow release of breath

A quiet satisfaction

When home is in sight

Love lives here.

And here's a pic of the whole spread.  I hope you like it Joan, I really enjoyed working in it!

Cheers, Lisa xx