It’s December! Which means there will be a lot of festivities going on in the real world as well as in blog land… But first: let’s talk inspiration!

A couple of years ago I took an art course at a local arts and crafts school. One of the classes involved drawing/painting (mostly still life) with different kinds of media. I kind of enjoyed the drawing and painting of given objects and people, but what I really, really loved was an exercise that the teacher gave us to kill the time left at the end of a session.

She would pull out a big box of post cards and let each of the students choose one to act as a starting point for a new project. There were post cards of (famous) paintings, photographs, sculptures and I think there were even some of architecture in there.

Some of the students were really picky about which one to choose. I just tended to grab a handful and chose one which had elements I could work with: colours, a theme, a motive… anything really! And then I let colour, theme, motive take me where it would take me. Just writing about it now, makes me want to grab a post card and get to work. It’s that powerful!

So, when Riikka and I discussed what our next challenge was going to be, I remembered the exercise and how much I loved doing it. Riikka chose Johannes Vermeer’s Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid for us to work with.

Scrapbooking with a particular painting in mind isn’t the same as drawing with a particular painting in mind though. At first my interest was drawn by the flooring in the painting: my kitchen floor has black and white checkered tiles. And then I looked closely at the colours Vermeer used: green, cream, red, blue, grey, browns. What else did I see: curtains, stained glass, a maid, a painting… a piece of paper on the floor? Oh yes, the letter. Must be a hard letter to write…

And then I knew what my subject was going to be!

OK, so I guess this probably isn’t what you might expect from a page inspired by a famous painter like Vermeer… It’s nothing remotely like 17th century painting! But there is cream, grey, red and blue in there. And there are handwritten words, a little bit of ink and the patterned paper reminds me of (chevron parquet) flooring…

The journaling is on two tags, tucked away in the glassine and paper bags. I used washi tape available through Teippitarha and HEMA and the alphabet stamps are by myStampBOX. The patterned paper came from the Amy Tangerine’s Ready Set Go collection by American Crafts.

You can take a look at Riikka’s inspired art on her blog and while your there be sure to open the first window of the Creative Christmas Calendar!!!