Midweek flashback: A 60 year old slide
A trip to England in the 1960s paired with digital mixed media bits and pieces
THE BIG OE
New Zealanders love to travel. Probably because we are stuck on the edge of the world and in the past it felt like a LONG way from where everything was happening. We even have a name for the rite of passage which is the long ‘working holiday’ trip to England (usually) which so many people make as soon as they have saved up enough for the fare. We call it the big O.E (“overseas experience”).
In my mother-in-law’s day it was by boat, with the journey taking weeks. She had her OE all planned out, but not long before she was due to sail her friend dropped out. So her mother put an ad in the Catholic Weekly newsletter for a ‘nice young girl’ looking for a travel companion, and they found someone who lived in a far distant town who was keen.
Once in England, they found work and my mother-in-law set about dutifully visiting distant relatives. The page at the top features a scanned slide from one of the many boxes she gave us. I love the contrast of shy young woman and her older distant cousin, still dressed in the style of the 1930s, hat and all.
The colours were a perfect match for the “Natura” set of digital creative assets, right down to the touches of black (the collaged house and the black seedheads) that reflect my MIL’s modern black ‘slacks’.
The design of the page is very ‘loose’ but if you look you can see a visual triangle there. And a second one as well, with those black elements:
And a bonus page with a definitely-not-60-year-old photo! I was surprised how the colours in the ‘Natura’ Collection work with so many photos. This is me on the trip to Spain and France when I was travelling with my neighbours, helping care for their disabled daughter (hence the sign on the table!). The design of this one was the very easy clustering of paint behind the photo then lots of layered elements.
Here are some more examples from me, and also from Merethe, Sucali and Cristina:
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