your wings

This is a project I am working on for my own art journal, and I'm having so much fun doing it, I thought I would share.

Gather up five or six sheets of pretty paper. You may want them to be color coordinated, or you can choose multi-colored. You might want to rip pages out of magazines. It doesn't matter what the paper is as long as you can write on it.

You are going to rip a series of "feathers" from the paper about ½ inch wide and 2 ½ inches long. There are several ways to do it. I use an emery board because I like the curved end. I am using several different colors and type of paper for my wings. For some of the papers, I will trace the shape on the back of the paper or cut it out. Afterwards, I use border shears to give it a deckle type edge. On other papers you can put the emery board down and rip around it. Finally, some I trace the design and then use a q-tip to dampen around the line, and then rip out. Be careful with this though as some colored paper do not use waterproof dye.

These should NOT be perfect. Each one should be a little different as real feathers are.

You will need about 40 "feathers". On each one, write a word or goal you would like to accomplish. Some examples are:

Courage
Strength
Stand beneath the Eiffel Tower
Get an article published

Whatever they are, write something down on each wing. I have mine in gold so that the words sort of blend and glisten without being really obvious. You might want to incorporate the words into the design and just use white paper with black ink. Write on the end of the feather that is rounded. That will be the outside edge. As you layer the feathers to create the wings, only the tips will show on the outside.

The final step is to put the wings together. I am using my art journal for this putting the wings on facing pages so that when you open the pages the wings appear to spread. The final, most inside layer, will need to be shorter, so keep this in mind as you write.

You can layer the colors together or progress from dark to light (or visa versa) or mix them all together. There is no right or wrong!

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