Hi everyone!
This is Karen, back with another Mixed Media project. This month's project was inspired by Carissa Paige's Life Book lesson about home.
I grew up in Istanbul, Turkey and all of my family is still back there, and I consider it my home. But I moved to the United States when I was 17 and have now been here over 23 years. My husband is American and I have two boys. So I consider the US my home as well. Sometimes, neither feels like home. Sometimes, both feel like home. Most of the time, it's confusing.
So I decided to make a project about how I need to remember that home is not necessarily a place.
I grabbed a bunch of my Mixed Bags from both Jubilee and Just Sayin' and emptied them on my table. I took a photo of me and my sister from when I was a kid and one with my husband and boys now. I honestly didn't know what I was going to do but I told myself not to overthink it and just start picking things that spoke to me and glue them down.
There was no rhyme or reason to my process. I just went on until I thought I had enough. This is where I stopped.
I didn't worry too much about the colors because I already knew I was going to paint all over the page. I still had no plan at this point except that I knew I was going to draw an earth. So I went to Google and wrote "globe" and pulled up image results.
I looked at the one with the yellow in it and drew outline of the shapes as best I could. I didn't over-worry. I wanted the idea to be clear but it didn't have to be geographically accurate. I drew right in the middle of my page with my Stabilo All pencil.
I then painted the oceans blue and while it was drying, I painted the outside of the globe with orange and yellows.
I feel the need to note that I still didn't really have a plan for how this was all going to come together and I wasn't crazy about what I was seeing so far. But I kept going because I knew it always works out in the end. I added in the green and brown to my earth. I put one more layer of yellows on the outside and I knew I was going to eventually journal all over this page so I added some white with a palette knife. Then I wrote out my title. I ended up with this:
Title says: Home is where the people you love are.
Here's the left side:
and the right side:
Had I thought this through some more, I would have put my sister and I on the right page and my boys on the left one since that's where the US is. And I probably would not have drawn the globe right through my son's
face. But, alas, I didn't plan this page, I just went with it.
What I love is that the collage pieces are sticking out here and there and definitely giving a feeling to the page. And also adding a lot of texture:
even subtle ones:
So there we are. It all came together in the end. And it's a great reminder that, when confused, home is where people I love are and my home is all over the world as the people I love are spread throughout the world.
