ELUSIVE BUTTERFLY

A few weeks ago I stumbled apon a tv programme called 'Hollywood Me', featuring the fabulous Martyn Lawrence Bullard, interior designer to the stars.  Since then, I have watched a few episodes as I love seeing what impact he can make when he does 'makeovers' to 'ordinary' British homes. He often uses unusual wallpapers.  In one episode he used some fantastic wallpaper covered in butterflies (from the stylised to the photographic) with shadows so that they looked 3D, as if they were flying off the wall.

This inspired me to do a collage/assemblage using butterflies.  As often happens, when I start a theme, song lyrics popped into my head and guided the development of the work -  "across my dreams, with nets of wonder, I chase the bright elusive butterfly of love".   The song is Elusive Butterfly written by Bob Lind and the cover version that I remember is by Val Doonican.

I used a box frame, wooden letters, bits of wood and various butterflies taken from recycled cards, mobiles, napkins etc.  I worked in my layered method for the collaged background, using muted tones as the song was written early in the morning.  I printed out the lyrics and put them as the first layer but by the end not many words were visible, so I stuck a copy onto a recess on the back of the frame. I also had a 3D butterfly which came in a 'box of bugs' from the zoo. The colours were not quite right and I wanted to change the slightly 'plastic' look so I used alcohol inks, gesso and silver acrylic.  I also splattered the silver all over with an old toothbrush. 

'Elusive Butterfly'  mixed media assemblage/collage (34cms x 30cms)