Suffragettes 100 Years

Hi Jannet here today, it is 100 years since the suffragettes won some women in the UK the right to vote. I wanted to pay tribute to these brave women with this collage picture.

In 1908 the suffragettes choose the colour scheme of purple for loyalty and dignity, white for purity, and green for hope. I used the chipboard backing from a paper pad as my canvas. I brushed  it with Gesso, to give it a better surface for painting. After diagonally applying some masking tape, I painted Olive Waistcoat to the top left. While it was still wet I pressed crumpled up copy paper onto it. This left lots of crease marks and textures.  For the purple I mixed  Wimberry Pie with a dot of Stroke Of Midnight, and painted the remaining canvas as previously.When dry I removed the tape.

I added some colour to Elsie, and made her a hat with some wide green ribbon. I also wrapped her in a little purple shawl, fastened with a ”Votes For Women” brooch.

As part of the Suffragettes sustained campaign they smashed store windows. I wanted to somehow represent  this in the picture. I decided to use a square of Memory glass and adhered some torn pieces of  plastic around it, to try and give the look of smashing glass.

I used chipboard letters to spell out 100 Years, and painted them in  Pantry White followed by crackle glaze. 

This postcard is of The Holloway Banner which has the embroidered names of eighty Suffragettes who were on hunger strike in Holloway  Prison, London. I cut out  their names and put them on my picture along with a picture which I had  cut from a card “March of the woman” by Ethel Smyth. The cards and brooch are from the Museum of London who are holding a Suffragette exhibition.

This Picture Collage is dedicated with love, and gratitude to all of those very brave Suffragettes.

Elsie