Hopscotch!

The next page I’ve done for Astrid’s Round Robin Challenge is for Astrid herself.

Her theme was ‘Children of a Bygone Age’ and she didn’t mind which colours were used so long as they were vintage.

I saw an illustration of two little girls in a library book on how to draw which I thought would make a great focal point for this page. Rather than draw them myself though I photocopied the images - I don’t think my drawings would have resembled anything like two girls! It looked to me as though they were playing together and the idea of hopscotch was formed. I know hopscotch is still played today - in fact I was having a game with my 7 year old niece the other week - although my hopping about on one foot is not what it used to be - lol! So although it is still played today, I regard the game of hopscotch to be of a bygone age much like skipping and playing with two tennis balls up a wall - anyone remember the rhyme “Matthew Mark, Luke and John, next door neighbour carry on ... next door neighbour’s got the flu, so I’ll leave it up to you….” My little niece hasn’t quite got the hang of this game yet - but I still enjoy it! (What must my neighbours think - lol)

Anyway back to journal page. I started off by dividing the page into two and lightly chalked in blue for the sky and grey for the pavement. I pencilled in the hopscotch squares - (the perspective is not brilliant, but I did say I couldn’t draw) then covered the whole thing with a single layer of tissue paper with bleached beeswax. The railings are an image transfer directly onto the wax - using a photocopied image and applying it with nail polish remover (with acetone). Although the transfer is a little sketchy in some places I like the overall effect and think it adds to the vintage feel of the page.

I coloured in the two little girls and adhered them to the page with more wax. (I should have coated them with some gel medium first as the railings have come through onto their faces unfortunately). I printed off the dictionary definition of hopscotch onto some tracing paper and applied that with more wax.

Finally, I coloured around the edges with some oil pastels to give it an old, vintage feel. I hope Astrid likes it.