Pretty Words

These are the pages that I made for Heather in my Mixed Media Madams group. Her theme was "the wisdom of books". These took me a long time to come up with and make because I just adore books! I finally found the poem and the image online though and they all came together. Here is an explanation of what they mean to me:

The background is a page from a vintage-ish dictionery and is printed over with the color (from a digital scrapbook paper image). The dictionery is the first book that I loved because my father would always tell me to "look it up" when I asked about a words' meaning. Her wings are from a different dictionery. They symbolize how words and books can give you wings - they have me, anyways! On one wing the word is "Trade Wind". This is meaningful in two different ways. First, that the word reminds me of adventures and books are always an adventure for me! Second, trading books at used book stores is always a fun thing to do! I have spent countless hours among the dusty tomes searching for something interesting and new.

The books on her head symbolize how I am always thinking of books and how I always have a book with me no matter where I go! The image of the girl I just thought was beautiful and I love how her hands are holding the book in a reverent manner. Also, the coloring of her reminded me of the illuminated manuscripts I have been priviledged to see in museums. The bees come from the poem on the other page.


The poem on this page I found while searching for the word "words". I thought it perfectly illustrates how words can be put together to form a picture in the readers mind. I also loved how she talked about bees in the end and how she liked words that were "honied...gilded and sticky, with a little sting". I believe that every single word in a language can be used in a positive or a negative way depending on how you use it. So there really are no "bad" words - just bad (or negative) ways of using them.

The decoration on this page - the flower and the bees - are simple and I did that so the observer would focus on the poem. The flower also symbolizes how books "make you grow". And the bees, as stated early, refer to her statement that words, like bees, come with both sweetness and little bit of sting.

Below is an image of the pages together and how they will show in her book. After I finally finished stressing about what I wanted to do for this theme, they came together really quickly - in just a day, actually! And I am actually thinking of making myself one of these collages on a large canvas for our home! It's the first time I have wanted to do that with my art, so I guess I must like it! I hope that Heather, the librarian, feels the same! :)