All that we see or seem - art journal page

My inspiration for this journal page was the challenge at Simon says stamp and show: backgrounds.  Well at least the start of this page, but then it got away from me and it became something completely different.

Which is ok, but I won't be entering it in the challenge, since it was all about stamped backgrounds. I did however start off with a stamped background =), but I'm afraid this is not very visible anymore.

It actually started with a reddish background made with soft pastels. Over this I had dabbed red pearlescent acrylic paint over a stencil, a home made diamond pattern. I then stamped floral stamps over it with plum archival ink.

I didn't like the look of that at all, so I put some gesso over it in an irregular wash. I then added some blue-green wash, followed by more stamping, this time in black archival ink, with some text stamps and another gesso wash.

If you look very closely, you can see the red, green and even the text stamps in the background.

I added another gesso white wash and the picture of the moon with the Jules Verne space capsule in his eye. Just because I like that picture and I love Jules Verne. I stuck some washi tape down and did some stamping with the undersides of paint bottles and caps, dipped in white gesso. Love the circles that they make. Added some more gesso around the image and journalled on the page. Stamped a few dragon flies, because I love dragon flies and because I wanted to stay with the stamping theme and then sprayed with a home made acrylic spray over some stencils. 

Added some clear emossing powder to the corners, because I love how that looks and feels and, since I wasn't paying attention, blew embossing powder all over my desk. I'll be sweeping embossing powder from my desk for days to come.

When cleaning the embossing powder from amongst the things on my desk, I ran across a tiny picture of a raven. So I drew a raven, first in a plain HB pencil and then, since I felt this wasn't dark enough, in black acrylic paint.

I think it came out fairly good. The bird did immediately spark thoughts about Edgar Allan Poe, so off I went, looking for Poe quotes. I found 2 qoutes by him that I loved, but felt only one fitted this page and my mood at the moment. "All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream." I love that sentance. It's something I have thought many times, though not as eloquently and poetically formulated =).

I snipped the letters from all sorts of papers, newspapers and magazines and stuck them to the page. It took a very long time, trying to find all the letters.

I think my next project should be something to store and collect seperate letters aphabetically, so I can find them easily when I need them. Not sure yet about the how though...so if you have any ideas, please let me know.

Anyway, I hope you liked my little surreal page and thank you for watching.