Caesar and China

Things have been rather slow for me these past couple of weeks. In this illness, there are valleys and hills and it's been a valley for me lately. Not much energy, some fibromyalgia, and a lot of lying around. Keeping the bigger picture is key, all in all I am further along than I was a year ago, and I hope that means that I will be even further a year from now. July marks two years since the symptoms of ME/CFS started to manifest themselves. I hope and pray that I am over the halfway mark. If not, then I will continue to learn and adapt and be thankful for all that I do have!


Art wise, I completed two ATCs for a couple of swaps on Swap-bot. One is a swap I host which is a series based on the history behind the names of the months of the year. July was named for Julius Caesar. From his name, all of the future emperors took their title, putting the word Caesar in front of their own names. Down through history, the word Caesar found its way into other languages to mean king, ruler or emperor such as Kaiser or Czar.

His statue, or bust, is very a common image; I just added some life to it! Hollywood portrays him as blond, but since he was Italian, I gave him black hair. He is often portrayed with a laurel wreath, hence the leaves. The background is a wallpaper scrap altered with Metallic pens, image altered with watercolor, Micron pens and color pencils and distressed inks. Brad, jewelry finding and Gold Leaf pen added.

Another group swap is a series featuring different countries in Asia. We've been to Japan, Turkey and this time it's China. I did an ATC earlier and thought I might use that, but I wanted to play some more, so I designed this one:

 

I did a tape transfer of old Chinese fabric print and laid it over stamped Chinese characters; I also used distressed ink, tiny washers (Tim Holtz), black embroidery floss and ribbon, metallic pen, a vase rubber stamp, red eyelet, and a jewelry finding.  I wanted to do more art work, but just didn't have the energy. Maybe tomorrow!!

Oh, and some fun news! I had submitted a piece for the GC #57 Wings Challenge  at Gingersnap Creations and it will be showcased on the Gingersnap Creations Yahoo Group  for a week as the Home Page Artist. Yay! 

That puts a smile on my face!