Happy Father's Day

I did this little collage for my husband for Father's Day. I was playing with some ideas from the collage exercises in the book "Taking Flight: Inspiration and Techniques to give your Creative Spirit Wings." While my husband was making my work table a few weeks ago, I asked him to cut me out this heart shape. I didn't know what I was going to put on it until I thought of the e e cummings Poem "I carry your heart" which I first heard in the movie "In Her Shoes" read by Cameron Diaz. It almost made me cry when she read it on the screen and it's how I feel about my husband.

I did this with some things that I had, a clipping from Hoofbeats magazine since he drives trotters/pacers...I put a little photo of a teapot and a coffee cup for all those times we like to just sit together and just have that "cup of." I put a little "X O" that I clipped out of a magazine for hugs and kisses. I also used a piece of tissue paper with birds and nests and birdhouse all over it because birds are something we enjoy plus the symbolism of birds in Native American culture has a meaning for us. You can't see all of it but it's there...the heart was cut out from those paper doilie hearts...I had painted the doilie pink and was pressing it on the work to see if I could get the imprint in pink.

I had to get my daughter to pose her hands for me so I could see how they would look. I was going to use the big doilie heart but it didn't look right, so I cut it down and made it a little heart which worked much better.

I added some touches with ink and pastel. And I wrote the "I carry your heart with me" with a buff colored pastel stick. To hold the pastel down, I sprayed it with matte UV fixative. Not happy about the matte, but I could always respray with a glossy one. I fastened eyelet screws and wire to the back for hanging.

I gave it to my husband this morning and of course he loves it.