HAPPY BIRTHDAY COMLODGE!
May. 8th, 2014 02:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
red_satin_doll
LJ's notification system has been painfully on-again, off-again, hence my recent resolution to send birthday greetings directly by PM's, but it seems to be "on again" for the time being and I couldn't resist sending a little Spuffy love to the lady who has gifted me many hours of interesting, intelligent and funny conversations and so many lovely artworks, including Winged Buffy and "The One with Wings"; "Like Mother, Like Daughter" (Joyce and Buffy); "One Girl to Save the World"; "Prophecy Girl"; Buffy and Tara friendship banners "The Hurt Inside" and "Talk to Me" for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
clockwork_hart1's equally lovely fic of the same name; and that's not even touching the surface of all her Spike and Spuffy artworks, Spike/Dru, her astonishing Illyria banners, her Photoshop tutorials and....well, if you're reading this you probably know her and her work quite well already. But there's always something I miss. Every one reminding me of the importance of perfect practice makes perfect, as she said to me recently. Talent and skill don't fall out of the sky like magic; they have to be worked at and earned.
(Oh, and she's a marvelous writer too, as it happens.)
Recently I made some Spuffy icons from After Life withcomlodge in mind for a ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
slayerstillness challenge focusing on negative space. I didn't submit them and have been squirreling them away for "the right moment". There's no time better.
1)
2) 
3) 
4) 
Snaggable as always, give proper credit please.
clockwork_hart1's equally lovely fic of the same name; and that's not even touching the surface of all her Spike and Spuffy artworks, Spike/Dru, her astonishing Illyria banners, her Photoshop tutorials and....well, if you're reading this you probably know her and her work quite well already. But there's always something I miss. Every one reminding me of the importance of perfect practice makes perfect, as she said to me recently. Talent and skill don't fall out of the sky like magic; they have to be worked at and earned.(Oh, and she's a marvelous writer too, as it happens.)
Recently I made some Spuffy icons from After Life with
comlodge in mind for a slayerstillness challenge focusing on negative space. I didn't submit them and have been squirreling them away for "the right moment". There's no time better.1)
2) 3) 4) Snaggable as always, give proper credit please.
These were some of my first experiments with the "splash" function in Photobucket. (My personal favorite is probably #3.) #1 was meant to focus on the "negative space" by keeping ther color on the rug in the background, then eventually I reversed the color. It whispers "Joyce" to me, for surely Joyce picked it out and bought it, and the negative space in Buffy's life when she lost her mother. It links the two of them together, not just because they shared strong bonds with their mothers and Spike's friendships with the Summers women; but also in the way Buffy's loss was echoed by negative space in Spike's life created when Buffy died. Buffy is back in body, but still a "ghost", still more absence than presence; and Joyce can never return except in memory. There is still much work to do to fill the negative spaces, and in the end, maybe the holes can never be refilled in quite the same way. They can be ignored or acknowledged; we try to set everything back the way it was, or we can acknowledge that growth and new life can come from the damage of freshly-turned soil.
Which perhaps is why I reversed the coloring back to Buffy and Spike in the end rather than the rug - their hands and faces - focusing on life rather than death, on the flowers rather than the soil. Or maybe I'm enough of a romantic, after all. It's a moment of care and astonishing tenderness, and Joyce's presence is everywhere. Spike is at his best when he's most connected to Mater, the Mother Principle, never more so than here and in Touched; he goes wrong when he loses touch with that and tries to be the demon, the patriarch, tries to become what Angel taught him to be and what William never was. In this scene and in later in Touched, I dare say that he is doing what Joyce would have wanted, taking care of her brave but damaged little girl, keeping a promise to a lady.
We can write ten thousand h/c fics and I doubt they could hold as much power as this single image of two fascinating characters, played by two incredible actors with amazing chemistry at the top of their game.
Happy Birthday, Janice.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2014-05-08 06:59 pm (UTC)Gabrielle
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Date: 2014-05-08 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-08 07:17 pm (UTC)And Janice's artwork is so beautiful, too!
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Date: 2014-05-08 08:39 pm (UTC)Every time I go to her journal I find myself saying "How did I miss this one?"
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Date: 2014-05-08 07:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-08 09:37 pm (UTC)Or the big artwork, I don't know how call these works half of the times.
Maybe we need to have a poll or contest on the subject? Because I really dislike the word banner being used for every piece of fanart that isn't an icon or assigned a "task" (podfic cover, etc)
I love the pink shade you chose.
Thank you! I was actually trying to replicate the lavender tone of some of the icons but couldn't remember how I got that tone (as usual); I had a brighter, red-orange tone so I cooled it down with the color-balance button in PB and ended up with the peach-pink foreground and the cooler blue background; I think the two colors balance each other nicely.
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Date: 2014-05-08 10:01 pm (UTC)I have no doubt that Janice will be thrilled.
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Date: 2014-05-08 10:18 pm (UTC)She's one of the people who really encouraged me that it was ok to talk about making artwork, talk about the process; and provides an example of really doing something every day.
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Date: 2014-05-08 11:41 pm (UTC)(and yes, mom, I'm getting back to doing my homework!)
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Date: 2014-05-09 02:46 am (UTC)from your studies, ok?)
Thursday, May 8th
Date: 2014-05-09 03:43 am (UTC)Thursday, May 8th
Date: 2014-05-09 03:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-09 10:09 am (UTC)Thank you for this. It's lovely. :D
PS I love that last icon - so writes the story of that scene, the story of the journey of both Spike and Buffy. Such a simple scene, such power and your treatment drives us straight to it - the power, the emotion, the bonding, the revelation of two lost souls. Well done! :D
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Date: 2014-05-09 10:32 am (UTC)Thank you so much for this. Lovely, perfect banner, spot on meta and I lvoe that last icon - the color is just perfect to emphasise the story of that scene. It is all about them, about them coming to a journey towards each other, still far apart, but the start of an understanding.
Thank you for the lovely wishes and the extremley kind words. I so enjoy our chats about the show and other things. I do miss my LJ family and will try to get back here. Just some messy family stuff on top of finding a new direction in my RL. Aghh.
I had a lovely day and this is one more lovely part of it. :D
Oh, and clap hands for signing this!
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Date: 2014-05-09 12:39 pm (UTC)It's right here in the thread as an anonymous comment, I just had to "unscreen" it. (I think everyone's done that - I did once, and I've gotten better about catching myself. Lack of icons is a tip-off.)
Happy birthday! I'm so glad you like it, thank you for your kind words! I wish banner was better (I see the flaws) but I wanted something to go with the icons, something simple.
I thought you might like icon#4 especially! - that's part of the fun for me of working with icons as "series". Sometimes it's just me playing with colors and effects, but this time it was definitely very symbolic and felt like a natural progression....the rest of the world doesn't exist in that one very brief moment.
Such a simple scene, such power and your treatment drives us straight to it - the power, the emotion, the bonding, the revelation of two lost souls.
It is all about them, about them coming to a journey towards each other, still far apart, but the start of an understanding.
Oh yes - and now you're giving me chills. Beautifully said. I'm glad this worked for you; I'm so shy of letting that part of myself out to play sometimes. So you seal approval means a lot, my Mistress.
I do have more Spuffy icons I want to bring out to play and was going to do more here but even "short posts" take me forever, so I thought I'd roll them out a little at a time. Something to look forward to!
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Date: 2014-05-10 10:25 pm (UTC)Looking forward to further posts. :D
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Date: 2014-05-09 11:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-09 12:25 pm (UTC)And thank you for your kind words!
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Date: 2014-05-10 02:49 pm (UTC)Love your insightful thoughts about Spuffy and your icons, the gaping neg space bridged by their hands is perfect. <3
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Date: 2014-05-11 01:18 am (UTC)