Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Blackout Poetry 101

I've been teaching a workshops in my hometown of Grand Forks, North Dakota for a few years now and I've got one coming up at the Grand Forks Public Library. In honor of National Poetry Month, I'm teaching a mixed media blackout poetry class! 

Not familiar with blackout poetry? Essentially, you create a "poem" by blacking out words on a book page, leaving behind a specific selection of words. 

Here are some examples of my blackout poetry, which I also pair with artwork: 

RISE




LIMITLESS AND STRONG



WILD FOLK



So how do you go about finding a blackout poem? It can be a little more challenging than you'd believe. I'm going to break it down into simple steps. 

STEP 1: FIND A BOOK




I did say simple, right? 

When I first began creating blackout poetry artwork, I thought I'd go through every single page in the Odyssey and create a poem per page - sort of an epic tribute to a, well... epic poem. :) 

But it quickly became apparent that. not every page holds a poem (or at least not a poem that appeals to me, personally). 

Which brings me to 


STEP 2: FIND AN INTERESTING PHRASE ON A PAGE AND CIRCLE IT LIGHTLY IN PENCIL


I found the phrase "than a woman who imagines" and circled it lightly (more on that later) in pencil. Most of my artwork involves strong, female-centric themes, so I was specifically drawn to that phrase. 

STEP 3: START BUILDING YOUR POEM
Once you have your phrase, start building your poem by looking for other things that might complete the phrase or sentence. It's important as you're looking that you skim over the words and don't read full sentences of the book, or you'll start to get really sidetracked, really fast (at least if you're me). 

As I was building this poem, I thought, for a woman who imagines WHAT? and built "than a woman who imagines herself and all womankind" 

and all womankind WHAT?

Later on the page I found the word "wondrous". 

STEP 4: KEEP ADDING WORDS
AND ERASE WHERE NECESSARY


So. I had the latter part of my poem built "Than a woman who imagines herself and all womankind wondrous" but I had nothing to start my poem. I thought maybe I could build something along the lines of "There is nothing stronger than a woman who imagines herself and all womankind wondrous".

When you're working with a book page, however,
not all the words you're hoping for are going to
magically appear on the page

So I came across the words "the voice of" but that didn't pair with "than a woman who". To pair it correctly I need to erase the "than" from my phrase. Now I had something that worked "the voice of a woman who". 


As I searched for verbs that could begin my phrase, I found three and lightly circled them. "raising" "fighting" and "raised". 

Then, I looked for my bridge and found "with" which told me that I knew I needed to go with "fighting" because it was the only word that made sense. 

STEP 5: ERASE ALL UNNECESSARY WORDS AND HEAVILY BOX IN YOUR FINAL POEM

 My final poem reads "Fighting with the voice of a woman who imagines herself and all womankind wondrous". 

Pretty marvelous huh? 

Poems can be short or long. They can span the whole page or just part of it - the creativity is yours. 

For those here who are taking my class and finding this intimidating - have no fear! I will have a selection of poems for you to choose from, if you don't want to create your own. :) 

Happy creating!


Sunday, April 7, 2019

Clean and Simple Rainbow Watercolor Card + PRIZES



Water water everywhere - at least here in Grand Forks. We're getting some super high river crests and I'm very thankful for the flood wall our city built nearly 20 years ago because tomorrow they have to close down bridges! 




But spring is also a time for celebrating because this winter brought historic snowfalls - the 3rd snowiest winter on record! 



At STAMPlorations, we have a Spring Fling hop going on  and today we are giving away a stamp set of your choice from the Bee's Knees line.  For my card, I decided to make a rainbow in reminder of the light at the end of the tunnel. 




I stamped a rainbow from the Wonderful Life stamp set and colored it in with Dina Wakely Scribble Sticks. 



If you've never used Scribble Sticks - they are awesome! You can go over them with a little bit of water and they create these vibrant, gorgeous colors. 



I stamped a sentiment from the same set below it, and then also added three little rows of watercolored rainbow strips. 

Perfectly Springy - there are still 5 whole days of the Spring Fling with a brand new prize EVERY day! So come play along!!

I'm going to link this up to AAA Cards - Made in Minutes challenge (23 minutes! - a record for me!) and CAS on Sunday - Spring challenge.

Monday, April 1, 2019

It's Springtime Flingtime + Prizes

Hello Friendly Friends!
It's springtime, and around these parts where it often gets to -35, that is DEFINITELY something to celebrate! 


STAMPlorations is ringing in all things flowers and bunnies and color - oh my! with a Spring Fling celebration filled with 12 days of prizes and bold inspiration. You're not going to want to miss it! 



For my card, I pulled out some of the brightest colors I had in my stash and got to work. 



I embossed this gorgeous flower mandala from the Bloomfull STAMP club set, using clear embossing powder. 

To use the words "zen" and "relaxing" would be an understatement. It was so much fun watching this image come to pretty life with each drop of the Color Burst watercolors. 



I used the thanks word die and cut out the word in a bright pink and then added a second layer of just white to really make it pop. 



I'm playing along in the Paper Players challenge and used a die-cut, embossing, and floral elements for their tic-tac-toe board. I'm also playing in the Cardz 4 Galz Flora or Fauna challenge. 




I am in LOVE with this big ol' springy mandala and maaaaaaay have made 3 more of these cards. :) 

Now hop on over and get to playing! These prizes are serious and every single designer has some gorgeous inspiration for you. 

PSSSTTTT if you're looking to do some spring shopping, everything in the STAMPlorations store is an additional 15% off using code STAMPGIRLBECCA