Jeudi Journal - Tabs

This week I did not find it an easy quote to portray - "My brain has too many tabs open" - something I can relate to quite often but to put it down pictorially???  However,  I  found the perfect head - one which very rarely gets used because I don't know how to use her.  But more on her later.

I had a page already sprayed with Dylusion Inks, Funky Fuchsia and Tangerine Dream, so I decided to go with that as my background and rather than add things like stencils and stamping to the background which I normally do I added die-cuts.  I have so many leaves, mushrooms, flowers etc cut out but never tend to use them so here was my opportunity.  

I made up a tree using a mushroom stem that was lying about for the trunk and added some leaves for the top of it.  Then came some peculiar leaf type things at the bottom for a bit of grass type foliage.  Next came some mushrooms, the ones with writing all over them that never get used, so I coloured them red and painted the spots black.  Think I prefer them that way but next time I might leave the spots white.

Next I found a fawn that had been cut off the top of a head (yes, a head) and it fit beautifully on top of the mushrooms but I decided to give it a bed fella and as Art Journal Journey is featuring "hearts" this month I put a couple of hearts above them.  Afterall they do look like a young couple of fawns in love don't you think?

Whilst rummaging around in my die cut shapes I found a bird that says 'always' on its body, "go on" I said to myself, "put that on the tree".  The words "this way - that way" also found their way on the top of the page (to cover some black that had seeped from another page really) and, "perfect!" a hand pointed the way to them.

Now to the head.....  This lady has her head in her hands which to me makes her perfect for the quote. So she had the swirls she normally wears cut off and I made her some new ones.  Now I needed to put various things on her swirls which, you have guessed, were her "thoughts".  

To begin with I searched Google images for a variety of mathematical symbols and having printed some out, plus a bit of Kanji and some Greek I was disappointed to find that the printer had not given me the stark black and white I wanted.  What was I going to do?

Well, I realised I had a Chinese story book so that took care of the kanji, what else?  In my search through the great big box of rubbish I save I found some sheet music, a dictionary page, a Chinese newspaper (from buying something in Chinatown, LA years ago), a map, and some foreign or old English script (it's so tiny that I cannot quite decide).  Hurrah.

So carefully drawing around the shape I already had drawn and cutting each one out I had my "Tabs" ready to put on her head.  I carefully stuck each of them down in turn, going around the outside of the shape with a thick black marker.

I have never spent so long on a page for ages, but I must admit I enjoyed it - oh and I drew a border around through a stencil of Dyan's too.  So this is my very Dylusional page.

When I finished this page yesterday I thought it was for next week and I was a week in advance.  On waking up this morning I had a dreadful thought, which was right, I had not done my post for this week and it was, indeed, the one about 'open tabs'.  So it was out with the computer, a quick scan of the page and a write up.  Almost half the day is gone and I am posting my Jeudi Journal at last.