Out of Africa - Movie Challenge

Hello lovelies! I made a collage for the new challenge over at the Rubber Dance blog. The theme of the challenge is to make something inspired by a movie.

I'll admit that it took me a while to pick a movie, but my love for elephants lead me to choose 'Out of Africa', an American movie from 1995, starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep. The movie was loosely based on the autobiographical book 'Out of Africa' by Danish author Karen Blixen, published in 1937.

I made the sunset background first, using Distress Oxides and a makeup sponge. I had masked a circle where the sun would be and coloured it in with Oxides after making the sky. There are some purple looking mountains in the back, painted with ink. I drew the tree by hand. The bird stamps I used are seagulls, so I added some feathers and adjusted the beaks a bit in an attempt to make them look like eagles. I stamped the elephants over the background and coloured them in with black ink, as I just wanted their silhouettes against the sunset. I adjuested the tusks of the left elephant with a black pen to make the two elephants look slightly different.

This is what the elephant stamp looks like.

It's easy to turn any stamp into a silhouette!

Some details:

 

I used a page from an old Danish book, since Karen Blixen was a Danish writer. 

She lived in Kenya, a British crown colony at the time, hence the British postal stamp.

Karen's husband was from Sweden - luckily I had a Swedish postal stamp.

I didn't have any postal stamps from Kenya, so I found some photos online and printed them out.

The Lion was stamped on a book page ... I don't know whether Karen Blixen made any sketches of African animals, 

but I imagine it would look something like this.

The African pattern in the back is also an internet photo that I printed out for my collage.

 

Karen Blixen wrote a lot of letters while she lived in Africa,

perhaps she sent some postcards as well .... 

I stamped the postcard with Distress inks and sprayed it with water

to make the ink seep for a vintage look. I also crumbled it up 

and added some ink here and there.

So there it is,

Out of Africa:

Stamps used (all from Rubber Dance):

Elephant and Lion from African Animals

Seagulls from A little Birdie

Vintage Postcard

Which movie would you pick, if you were to make something inspired by one?

Would you like to join our challenge?

You have until midnight CET on November 30th.

See you there! Maybe? ;-)

I want to end my post today by sharing this quote. I've printed it out and hung it up in my studio, as a gentle reminder in case I should forget .... (Feel free to do the same - I made it using a copyright free image of a torn book page. Print out and decorate if you wish!).

 

"Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, 

and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever."

Thanks for looking!