No Matter What

   A while ago I was told about the The House of Bears blog and it is wonderful!

   One of the first things I read on there was a challenge - The Bears November challenge - 'Your Cubhood favourites'.

I began to think about my favourite books when I was a child and there are so many...then I read the rules again and it said.............

    "Choose the book that you remember best, or the one you remember reading to your own cubs"...Well, now I know the perfect book...It is called 'No Matter What' - By Debi Gliori

     Years before I had my children I was in a bookshop one day and saw this children's book (I have no idea why I was looking at children's books!) Something about it appealed to me, so I picked it up....began to read......and began to cry.

     For me it is a very emotional book - as you might have guessed. Even now when I am reading it, tears come into my eyes, but it always makes me smile.

     I will tell you a bit about the story - For those of you who already know it, you can scroll down!

    Small Fox is having a very bad day and is being very grumpy. 

"Nobody loves me at all" 

Small's mother knows this is not true and is determined to prove it. 

She reassures Small that she will always love him, no matter what.

    But Small wants to know more - 

         "Does love wear out, does it break or bend. Can you fix it, stick it, does it mend?"

    Large replies "I just know I'll love you forever"

    Small said "But what about when we are dead and gone....

Would you love me then?...does love go on?"

    I adore the last part of the book where Large explains about love -

      Look at the stars -how they shine and glow

      but some of those stars died a long time ago

      Still they shine in the evening skies

      Love, like starlight never dies.

I love reading this to my children and it echos what I always tell them "I will always love you, no matter what" Whatever they say or do, whatever happens....I will never stop loving them.

     So this is what I came up with for the challenge. I had printed up some photos on plain paper (to test our printer - which is very temperamental) and they didn't come out very well - bit too dark and slightly orangey! I didn't want to waste them so I tried doing some image transfer with Modge podge glue on cotton material. The result was actually quite good and formed the basis for this project.

    I used watercolour paint in yellow and blue so it resembles the cover of the book. I copied the stars that are on the cover of the book (I hope copyright issue won't be a factor here!) and applied the photo after writing the words in ink. 

      Then I used Gathered Twigs DI around the edges of the paper....here is where things began to go slightly wrong......I don't have the work mat and so found it difficult to apply the ink without going directly to the paper. So I found it very difficult to get the shading right. Also the watercolour paper didn't seem to work too well with the blending tool. I found it wasn't as smooth as other paper/card I had worked with - or perhaps this was because it had already been painted on.....I am a bit clueless as to what caused the problems....

    Suddenly there was too much brown and it looked too harsh...the ink was going on the paper, but not blending. I remembered my SIL saying that the inks are water soluble so I got some scrunched up wet tissue and began dabbing at the paper....suddenly the brown got paler and everything became slightly vintage-y...distressed, shabby looking......AHA!!!! now we are going in the right direction!

    Bit of scribbling with watercolour pencils and I think I am done......I quite like it and I think my children will too. I don't know what to do with it at the moment though - It didn't really start of as anything definite. I might frame it for my children's playroom or it might become a scrapbook page.

    Do I like it? Well, it isn't the best thing I have ever done and I might not try and use DI inks with watercolours again. However, the reason for making it means a lot to me and I know I will always treasure it.....No matter what!

     

     I am entering this in the following challenges -

    The Bears' November Challenge - 'Your Cubhood favourites'.
    Anything goes challenge blog   -  Stitching - (Real or Faux)
    artistic inspirations challenge blog - Anything goes
    Creative card crew - Challenge 24 - Anything goes
    mygrafico crafts challenge - Challenge 140 - Anything goes
    Anything but a card - Stitching