What Color is Your Grandmother? Mine is Cherry Cobbler Red.....

"Loveliest of women! heaven is in thy soul,

Beauty and virtue shine forever round thee,

Bright'ning each other! Thou art all divine!"

Addison - Cato. Act III Sc.2

I recently bought a wonderful book entitled Visual Chronicles by Linda Woods and Karen Dinino. It is a wonderful guide to creating art journals. I was really inspired by creating a personal palette as described on pages 12 and 13 of the book. You start with a person, someone important in your life. You think of what colors come to mind when you think of that person. You write down their name, color or colors associated with them as well as emotions or patterns. This will serve as inspiration for journal prompts that trigger memories. There is much more to this exercise than I am describing here, I would recommend checking out the book for full details. I decided to create my personal palette on paint chips. I went to a local home center and picked out the exact color chips with perfect names on them for my palette, using the back for my notations.

When I saw the Cherry Cobbler Red chip my Grandmother instantly came to mind. A new visual journal page was born. The next day I popped into one of my favorite flea markets and found a few sheets of vintage wrapping paper in a bundle for $1.00! I bought the bundle for just one piece of paper, it has a silver-blue background, sprinkled with little white dots, and tiny bunches of cherries on it. It was the perfect paper to build my page on. A few little lines kept rattling around in my head for several days until I finally sat down to release them. The result was a poem about my Grandmother, which I entitled:
What Color is Your Grandmother?

To create the two page spread I used gel medium to adhere the wrapping paper to my book pages. I used a paint chip, some lace edging and ribbon, a bit of the wrapping paper, glue, and a permanent marker to create a mini apron and adhered it to the page. Next I typed up the poem, printed it out, and trimmed it to an 8 in. x 8 in. square. Using a simple fold I turned it into a pop-open element. I glued a piece of thin cardboard to the front and back squares. I used two pieces of wrapping paper and rick rack to dress up the front of the poem pop-open. I adhered twine to the back of the piece before attaching it to the other page. I tied the twine across the piece to keep it from flapping open. For the edges of the poem I layered several colors of chalks to soften the white paper, sealing it with a spray fixative, and then added a tiny piece of wrapping paper mounted on a piece of the cardboard as a decorative embellishment. I finished off the page by adding the poems title with various stamps in red and black ink, and a few pictures of my Grandmother in her signature red apron.





So I leave you with this question:

What Color is Your Grandmother?
Mine is Cherry Cobbler Red
The color of her apron that she daily puts about her head.
She gathers up the strings, and ties them in a bow,
My Grandmother's signature Red bib apron is in place come rain, shine, or snow.
I'd know that she's my Granny if you stood her in a line,
She'd be the one with sun-kissed skin and laughing blue eyes,
The one with the flaming Red apron, she would be mine!
She'd be the one that's jolly, merry, and light of heart,
But it'd be her Cherry Cobbler Red apron that would set her quite apart.
Her apron it is soft and it never seems to fade,
It's always there about her, to come to her aid.
A lifted hem can shoo a chicken back into its coop,
It can dry off dish-pan hands after feeding our large troop.
It can dab the tear of a grandchild that has fallen and skinned a knee,
It can play peek-a-boo with a babe that's wee.
It can be borrowed and turned into a super hero cape,
And it can be snuggled into, as a soothing escape.
It can be serviceable to cook and clean and such,
But it would just be a plain old apron without my Granny's touch.
So what color is your Grandmother?
Mine is Cherry Cobble Red ,
It's the color of her apron that she daily puts about her head.

Photos: 1. My beloved Grandmother 2. My Altered Art Journal