Roz's Art Deco Journal

I remember as a teenager my Nanna talking about the time in which she lived, she was born in 1919. The first thing that comes to mind is when she told me about how the ladies would wear their hair, she specifically mentioned "the kiss curls". Since receiving Roz's journal, it's been a fascinating researching fashion styles, architecture, decor etc..., what an era it was, so rich and glamorous, even those who preferred to remain humble in their approach to fashion and decor in this time, still portrayed an essence of glamour, it is no wonder that this era remains to this day absolutely relevant.

I began with small sketches:

Once I settled on the sketches, I began to choose colours and mediums to fill them in with. I used mixed media: Jane Davenport's power pastels and alcohol markers, and a mix between a fountain pen and thin black liner for the details.

I tested out alcohol marker colours.  After finishing these ladies (you'll see them in more detail in the following pictures), I decided I needed a centrepiece, this part I found a little difficult to think about, I knew I wanted something different, I thought of Picasso.

These two faces work a practice run, I came across this image on Pinterest, I decided to put my own twist on it. The body fussy cut I obtained from Jane Davenport's paper pad. I didn't want the body to be perfectly fussy cut, because my vision for this centrepiece was a kind of off-kilter/Picasso expectation. I decided I wasn't happy with the face, so I drew another one.

Next, I decided on placement, I brought different embellishments and materials in and out of the design to decide on what I liked best. Oh, and also: I used Liquitex Professional Gesso on top of the pages, waited for the pages to dry and then chose these two acrylic colours to help the images and surrounding embellishments stand out.

In this picture, there are a couple of embellishments that I didn't end up using, I decided to go with something else, seen in the next photo.

I wanted to see what it looked like in black and white.

And the end result. I wanted to make sure I included patterns and writing style from the era as well. I also added brass cornerings to each end of the pattern; as you can see I have also added various other elements that I thought might illuminate all the pieces of the Art Deco puzzle.

Thank you so much Roz, for the opportunity you have given to contribute to your journal, I had so much fun xo