Thursday, June 12, 2008

Crusade #21 - Gravestone rubbing attempt and a fun outing!

Michelle Wards Green Pepper Press Street Team monthly project is doing wax rubbings. Click the banner below to go to her site if you want to find out more...

The idea of going to a cemetery to get rubbings sounded interesting to me. After all this would be something that's certainly isn't an ordinary thing to do in the course of a day and I get thrilled when out of the ordinary happens! SO Bryce and I set out for the adventure! We gathered paper and couldn't find the crayons so settled on pastels. After getting to the cemetery I discovered I didn't put the paper in the van! But I did have an insert from the newspaper we could use...We have a little old cemetery close by that I thought would be a good one to find older stones to get some good rubbings from. It was such a pretty afternoon and being in the cemetery really was quite relaxing and peaceful. The neat and unexpected thing was that Bryce and I had the opportunity to talk about dieing. This is quite a big subject for a little guy of 4 yrs. But it is a very important thing to talk about at what ever age. Death is made out to be so scary in out society and can be such a paralyzing fear to so many people.



The stone I picked had a deco looking flower design on it. Bryce was my photographer. He's really good at getting the perfect shot too! "Grandma, just sit right here and I'll shoot from over here", were his instructions..He's a natural!


The rubbing turned out to be a dud! But after I fixed it up digitally with borders I think it looks kinda neat! I was disappointed that I didn't get a good rubbing though...I guess pastels aren't the best choice to use for this.



BUT!

That evening I went to the class I started at our local Center for the Arts and guess what technique we played with was!



RUBBINGS! :-)

so I got some good rubbings accomplished that day and I ended up with a neat piece of art!

I also used large bubble wrap and some corrugated card board to print some more texture with acrylics over the crayon rubbings... You can click on the picture to see a larger view if you'd like.
Have a great hair day! Becci



10 comments:

michelle ward said...

Wow! I was about to ask if Bryce was taking the photos and then you answered - bravo to him! LOVE that last piece, especially when you said to click on for detail. It's luscious!!! How fun to have a day in the graveyard, and cool that it's nearby. Happy to hear your tried a rubbing there...and then - spreading the love by doing rubbings with your group! Thanks for sharing with the team Becci.

Maj said...

That's right Becci, rub away! ;)
Your example is great!

Kim Mailhot said...

What a sweet adventure you had with your grandson that day. You are one cool grandmother !And he is a great budding photographer !

The piece you did in your class is great - I loved looking at the close-up and seeing all the wonderful textures ! Nice job!
Cheers,
Kim

Ingrid Dijkers said...

Love the experimentation that you did. Your rubbing from the grave yard ended up coming out teriffic even if it's not what you planned. Nice blog.
best-
Ingrid

inge said...

hello Becci,
I haven't done graveyardrubbing yet, it seems you are not allowed in every country to do it, but I don't know here in Belgium... We have beautiful old cemetries in our country. I must try it one day.

I'm glad you could talk with your grandson about dying. Children are mostly not really afraid of "death" , I think the adults make them afraid of it. Since I've seen my father die, I'm not really afraid of death anymore : it was so serene and peacefull. It just the parting that's so painful.

I hope my death will be like his, but not yet ! I want to live long cause I still want to do so much !

I like the layers in your piece : I enlarged it but still didn't figure out how you all did it !

greetings
Inge ( from Belgium)

Anonymous said...

Wonderful post, Becci! So much going on -- an adventure with your talented grandson (brava to you for encouraging his creativity), an important heart-to-heart talk, experimenting with a new technique, and the final, delicious product. It's better than television!

Lorraine said...

your blog header is very gravestone looking!!ha ha!! great that you got your grandchild involved love your final one..I love printing with bubble wrap too for the texture..thanks for your great comments on my blog

Anonymous said...

nice art excursion and photos of it - and the last piece is like mrs Ward said: luscious!!! :-)

Anonymous said...

Becci - wonderful rubbings. Isn't it great when the planets align and we are have reinforcement? Bryce is a great photographer!

Rosie said...

Oh Becci - that's a fab example - love the colours and textures! Bryce is so sweet and it's great that you explored the subject of dying with him already... Kids are really quite fearless, aren't they? Bravo!