Mix It Monthly - Picasso meets vintage

Last week I didn't do very much in my art journal. I did start a page on sunday evening. Continued with it on monday and then put it all away. Didn't touch it all again till thursday when I remembered the challenge over at Mix It Monthly for may/june. The prompt was yellow vintage girl goes Picasso. This sparked something with me and I went looking for some picasso inspiration and some vintage inspiration. Fliddled around a bit with that and ended up with this.

Which is not at all how I started the page.

I actually started out with some collaging on the page.

Journaled all over it and then did some doodling. Nothing fancy, just some flowers and a butterfly.

Then put it away, because I couldn't figure out what I wanted with the page.  On monday evening I picked my art journal up again and apparently I wasn't feeling very happy, as I covered my butterfly and flowers up with some green paint and scratched all over it.

I did feel better though, after doing that. I don't believe the page agreed...

So I put it away again untill thursday when I thought of the Mix it up Picasso challenge. Now I'm afraid I may not have read Piarom's promt very well. I did incorporate the two pictures she gave, but I used them more as an inspiration.

The first picture I used as inspiration for the vintage time period. I had this picture of a vintage lady and I liked the colors.

I then found this painting by Picasso, that I liked very much. Nice and warm colors and the green, well there was already a lot of green on my page. (I hope it's alright to show the picture, but I believe it is in the public domain)

I didn't feel like printing and then painting over Piarom's second picture and as my mind was set on painting and not collaging I skipped that step.

I used the lady's face and angle, but the pose from the left figure in Picasso's painting. I also used the colors in the Picasso painting as a guide for my page.

Started out with outlining her in white stabilo pencil.

Added some soft yellow and shading with a black stabilo pencil and soft pastels.

Detailed it a bit more with orange, brown and black acrylic paint.

Felt it needed more yellow to stay closer to the prompt and because she was still too soft. I mixed my green with yellow as well, so I used a lot of yellow paint. Made her a bit more picassoy, well I gave it a shot...

I love the texture of the page with all those layers. Almost leathery.

  

Added a quote from Picasso that I felt was appropriate to what I was doing.

And ended up with a page that I do and don't like. When I look at it with a forgiving eye, I like it. When I look at it with the eyes of the perfectionist that lives within me, not so much. Now I could fiddle on with it for many, many more hours, but as I need to learn how to let go, I will call it a day and post it here. Posting it means it's done, go and do something else. Leave well enough alone. So that's what I did, it's not perfect, but it got me going again and washed away some of the dust of my life.

Thank you all for watching and I hope you like my Picasso meets vintage mixer =).

Also linking this to:

• Creative Every DayCheck-In: June 3 - 9
• Art Journal Every Day: May Dailies