Wordplay 3: Cover

When I opened the wordplay envelope from Blair at the beginning of July, I was really excited to see the word she chose was cover.  There are so many possible interpretations and the first one that jumped into my mind was covers, as in bed covers.  Quickly followed by, "Oh crap.  I just made a quilt."  Strike that idea.  The remainder of my initial thoughts were phrases:  under cover and cover me, both of which have a strong police, spy connection.  It got me thinking that maybe I was watching a bit too much Law and Order.  Hmmm.

A few weeks later, I found myself thinking more about this word.  I worked it round and round in my head and on paper.  I can't tell you how many times I wrote the word and sketched ideas.  I thought about a photography project/flip book, but as my deadline drew closer, I knew that I needed something with more depth, something that I was more excited about.  My original thoughts kept coming back and so I embraced them.

I chose to work with "cover me", but not in the guns drawn, police crashing through a door sense.  It came to me one night when I made my rounds through the house before bed.  I turned off the lights downstairs, climbed to the second floor and went into Kate's room to turn off the night light and sneak a kiss before traveling across the hall to do the same for Jane.  There she was, curled up in a ball, cold from the overhead fan, but completely uncovered.  I pulled her sheet and blanket up and there it was:  cover.

I like that I was able to take this one word and use it for inspiration for my piece and in my process, too.  I layered, or covered, many parts of this piece with another material hoping to get a bit of dimension even though the base is watercolor paper.  I am very happy with how it turned out.  I know I will explore this more - I already have another idea how to use this word.  Luckily, I have another willing model.

Thanks Blair for joining us for this round of wordplay.  I am anxious to see what Tracy and Emily come up with.  When they post their projects, you can read about them on their blogs or visit our flickr group.  It's always amazing to me how we interpret one word in such different ways.  The next word has already arrived in my mail box.  I haven't opened it yet - I'm excited by a whole new round of possibilities.

And if I told you that Heather Smith Jones sent it, wouldn't you be excited too?