Time Flies

I will apologize up front for the very long post.  I think the later it gets, the wordier I get.  Enjoy the pictures! 

The Funkie Junkie is sponsoring Compendium of Curiosities 3, Challenge 8, and Tim Holtz himself, along with his business manager, Mario are giving away a goodie package as well, so be sure to play along.There's some great inspiration at CC3 at Studio L3 to help you get your creative juices flowing. For this challenge,  you must try Tim's technique found on page 58 in his Compendium of Curiosities Vol. 3 and include it on your project.

A Vintage Journey  is hosting a challenge, and the theme is Time Flies.  They would like to see a strong Tim Holtz influence in our work. (I think it goes without saying I was very much influenced and inspired by Tim; his work, his products, and even his prizes.)  Country View Crafts is generously offering a voucher from their store as a prize. There is a tremendous amount of inspiration at A Vintage Journey by the talented team of Creative Guides.

Speaking of  inspiration, Country View Challenges inspires us to use words on our make this month, and they, too will be giving away a prize from the generous Country View Crafts on-line store. Be sure to check out all the great design team inspiration.

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Scratched Up invites us to get grungy and embrace imperfection. The design team has provided us with some great inspiration to get grungy and Simon Says Stamp is offering a very generous prize to a lucky winner.

So I gave Tim's Faded Layers technique (on page 58 of his book) a try, and after many attempts to get it just right, I realized to just embrace imperfection. This is the one I chose to use on my project.  Even though other attempts had better results, the colors on this one worked the best for my piece in the long run. (This is why it's called a "challenge", after all.) I mustn't tell what products I used, because that would give his technique away.  The rules at CC3 state we should work from our own books, and not give away the technique out of respect to Tim. Let's just say I followed his directions and products to the letter.

You can really see the faded layers before I added my poem.

I decided to make a canvas, and gave quite a bit of thought as to how to interpret time flying besides the obvious.  So many great ideas had already been used, and I wanted something a little different for my canvas.  One of the first things that comes to mind when I think of how fast time goes by is, of course, how quickly my kids mature.  But then I thought how fast the calendar pages seem to be flying off the calendar, and I knew that's what I wanted to go with.  But how to portray that on canvas?  So I had a look around the Internet, and found this great poem by Dr. Suess, whose writing style I adore.  This speaks volumes!  I printed this out on my computer, glued it on chip board for stability, distressed  (used Distress Inks) and cut each word out.  I adhered the words to the Faded Layers background I made and cut using one of Tim's dies.

Looks a little busy with the words!

I applied gesso to the blank (ugh!) canvas and let that dry. I tried to get a little wood grain texture look with the gesso, but it didn't look much like wood, so I gave another of Tim's Vol. 3 techniques a try.  I used Distress Inks, embossing powder, stencils (some are Tim's) and  Distress paint for my background. I added bits of Tissue tape and deli paper and tissue which I stamped using Tim's stamps (Stamper's Anonymous).

I stamped some images randomly directly on the background.  Some I had to doctor a little with Sharpie pen, because even though I used Archival Ink, some ink did not show well, because of the textured/embossed areas.

Please make special note of the Tissue Wrap defining "time" to the right of the Faded Layers piece. I was a lucky winner of some of Tim's  goodies on his blog earlier this summer, and Mario wrapped my prize in this paper. (Save and USE everything!) (Stamps credits: Stamper's Anonymous, Nature's Blessings, Stampa Rosa, and Sandy Lion.)

I mounted the Faded Layers panel on thick chipboard before adhering to make it pop off the background.

I used Tim's clock face and calendar pages from his  Lost and Found Paper Stash.  I used my Distressing Tool on two of the calendar pages, then inked them with Distress Ink to grunge them up.  I spritzed the two "used" calendar pages, crumpled them, then smoothed and rolled them before gluing them on my piece.  I used Tim's Tiny Attacher to staple the "un-used"calendar which was then glued to the background.
.

I also used Tim's weathered clock die and grunge board to make the large clock and  painted it with Distress Paints and a dab of metallic green acrylic paint from my stash. I added a lot of bits from my stash as well as Tim's Idea-ology pieces.  I have a tin full of  tiny clock parts (I save everything!!!) and  I glued  some on shown in the photo above
.

 I didn't have any decent wings for my Sands of Time thingy (can't recall what that is called right now-timer????), so I stamped Tim's bat wings (symbolic for me) on heavy card stock, cut them out, edged in black and glued them to the (?) timer which I had altered with some alcohol ink.

There are a few tongue in cheek symbolism's used here that I feel I need to explain other than the obvious birds, clocks and wings.  The major one is having the calendar pages "flying off",  and the December calendar page between May and June.  Like Dr. Suess says "December is here before it's June".  Another is the little day/nighttime watch face I found in my junk, referencing "It's night before it's afternoon".  The Suess-meister had such a way with WORDS!!!

The wood grain technique I did showed up well here.

 Then there's the rabbit  holding a pocket watch (Alice in Wonderland; "I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date!". Since I didn't get a good ink impression, I used a  shiny pocket watch charm I had in my junk drawer. I tried distressing it with alcohol inks, but then added Tim's  Rock Candy Crackle Paint which ate the inks away. Learned a BUNCH from making this canvas! I think I need to attend Creative Chemistry!). I'm still trying to figure out what that white thing in the photo is (below). I'm thinking it is the underside of one of the links, and the light caught it . It does not show up in person.

One use of symbolism that is personal  to me is the use of a standard clock face within one using Roman numerals, since I always have trouble reading Roman numerals.  The bat wings are symbolic to me--I seem to mark my time by the coming and going of Halloween, much like others do with Christmas-- "Wow, only 3 more months 'til Halloween;  can you believe how time flies?".

I continued my design around the edges of the canvas as well.   

I'm quite pleased with how my little salute to the passage of time turned out. There's much I would do differently, and I learned a lot. Here's the whole 8 x 10 canvas. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did creating it . My how time flies when I'm playing with my stamps and inks in the closet!! It seems it's night before it's afternoon. 

Taken in Ott light

Taken in two kinds of light--Ott light and incandescent light.

Thank you for taking a look.  I really appreciate all your comments--it encourages me to try new things in my creative journey.   

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:
Simon Says Stamp Scratched Up
A vintage Journey #12 Time Flies
Studio L3 Compendium of Curiosities 3 Challenge 8 Faded Layers
Country View Challenges Word Play
Update:  oops!  It was a couple of late nights/early morning under my belt when I posted this; I meant to also enter this in (if I'm allowed to do that) Simply Create Too #67 Old/Vintage and Inspiration Journal Everything Goes.