October 28, 2022 Janine O'Rourke

A requiem for Summer by LOUISE CROSBIE

The end of September and the first few days of October is a funny time of year here in Scotland. It’s sometimes warm and sunny but, as night comes in, the temperature drops fast.

There are a few flowers still holding on in the garden but the Rowan tree has begun to share its berries and it’s leaves are changing and, in some places, even falling.

I love this part. It’s a chance to say farewell to summer. It’s slowly dying off and turning from vibrant pinks, blues and yellows, to more rusty deeper tones.

I wanted to make a project reflecting the cross over. “A requiem to summer”. With decaying strawberries and fading flowers. With the Autumn leaves pushing their way through.

And to make sure everything is done correctly according to nature, that summer doesn’t stay longer than it’s time or Autumn doesn’t take over too soon, I’ve added a little fairy. She resides over the changes of the seasons. She keeps order.

Ok, I have a bit of a fanciful imagination. I can not deny it. 😂

But here it is regardless.

My little “Requiem for Summer” altered cabinet.

I’ve used a selection of paper flowers from 49 and Market. It doesn’t matter which ones or what colour as they get mostly covered in white gesso before I started adding my autumnal colours. So I used odds and ends. Last in a packet or the ones I splattered paint or ink on by mistake.

And I’ve built a composition with them along with some dusty attic chipboard leaves and some Finnabair metal leaves.

I also added three plastic strawberries made by Prima that I got hold of a while back.

Once the leaves, flowers and strawberries were glued into place I added some resin moths then, when it dried, I painted everything with white gesso.

It’s important to remember that paper flowers like to fall apart when they get wet so do a light layer of gesso, dry it well then do another layer dry it and so on. When they are all covered in gesso and have had time to dry, they will stay in place quite well.

The next step was to build up colour using acrylic paint. I’ve actually made a video of most of the process which you can find on my YouTube (link will appear after the supply list .)

It all started out looking bright and pink and clean but then I went back over it with the autumn tones.

My strawberries are not how I wanted them. They were inspired by a Finnabair class but I haven’t gone back to that class to check out how she painted her strawberries. It’s been too long since I watched the class so mine don’t have the same pink tone that has just begun to decay that Anna had on hers. (I must go check it out again).

My finishing touches came from adding lots of lovely rust paste. And that’s it. My Requiem to Summer.

Thanks for looking.

Firstly, the video link.

https://youtu.be/IDQ8gCBYC84

Supply list:

Paper flowers: The shop has a wide range of paper flowers by 49 and Market, Green Tarra, Prima etc. Simply follow the link and choose your own favourites.

Dusty Attic: Autumn Leaves#2

Metal leaves: Finnabair Woodland leaves, Finnabair Rusty Monstera

Silicon mould: FInnabair Nocturnal insects

Heavy Gesso (white)

Heavy body gel

Liquid acrylic paint: Carmine, burnt Sienna, Ochre, Magenta, Coral,

Mica Powder: Golden Hour, Vintage rose

Finnabair Effect paste: Crushed ice, Red rust

DecoArt: Glamour dust (Glitter)

Aleene's Tacky Glue

Idea-Ology Paper dolls (I don't think this is the set I used but there are some lovely fair candidates among them)
Idea-Ology chipboard quotes