Art Journaling spread 'Bon Voyage'

Hello All,

Just a quick one today to share an art journaling page. I created the background using left over paint and paper towels used to clean stencils. Next I played around, layering some bits and pieces of my own creation and some ephemera recently sent to me. The whole feel of it came across as sunny and carefree and as I was going through my found text (text I cut out from magazines etc) I came across 'bon voyage' which fitted nicely. It was all working well together but definitely missing something. To finish it I added the girl using the magazine technique mentioned on a recent post. Sat looking at it now it makes me want to run off to somewhere sunny rather than sitting in England in the rain. Especially as everything is kicking off over here with the referendum resulting in the vote to leave the EU (I voted remain) Yep I would rather be elsewhere right about now that's for sure!

Painting From Nature

Hello All,

On Friday I handed over my latest commission and it was well received; it was lovely to see her reaction. Letting go of paintings when you have been working on them for so long is sometimes hard but when you see how much they are appreciated it makes up for it.
Lately I seem to have lost my art mojo and haven't been doing a great deal other than the odd art journaling page. With this commission completed though I am starting to feel inspired to get some more painting done. My youngest daughter goes to school in September and although I will miss her terribly I want to take the opportunity to paint a lot more, get some more commissions and possibly (if i'm lucky) a few exhibitions!

This weekend I came across a stone I picked up in an old copper mine a while back. I loved it for its colours, textures and the flecks of glitter throughout it. I have been meaning to paint it and so decided to have a go on a small A5 canvas:

Here is where I got to so far. I think I am matching the colours quite well but need to work on adding depth and texture. Back at Uni I used nature as my inspiration quite a lot and it is nice to get back to that for a bit! This might inspire a bit of a series perhaps, mounted with the stones beside them?! who knows. I will continue to work on it and see how I go.

Bye for now! xxx

Quick Portrait Technique

Hello All,

Today I wanted to share a quick technique that I like to use when I want to paint a portrait but haven't a lot of time. I quite often want to add a face or figure to my art journaling pages and although I do usually do these from scratch sometimes I haven't a lot of time or might just be feeling lazy. When I feel like this I use magazines to help me out. I find a nice magazine image and stick it down onto my page, paint over this with clear gesso and ta ta I have a template to paint over. (I usually use acrylics to do this)

If you want to start learning how to paint portraits or if you just need that little helping hand to get started this is a great technique. Here is one I did at the weekend:

It is a really effective way of getting a portrait on to your page and I love the results I get. 

I hope you have a go to!

Bye for now xxx

Holiday Journaling

Hello All,

I'm back from a rather rainy week in France. Rain and mist and heavy cloud all week but regardless we had a good time, still found plenty to do and ate plenty of cheese and croissants. I managed to practice my french (I have been learning for a year or so) and the little 17th century thatched cottage we were staying in was really lovely.

Another plus due to the weather was I had time to sit inside and do a bit of journaling:

The background is gouache with paper towels to create texture and stencils in copper paint. The portrait is of my daughter, taken from one of the holiday snaps. She looked so happy and content and that is how we all felt really despite the rain. I also started another page but didn't get past the background:

This is a section of it. I used wax paper, inks and gouache to create the texture. I will have to find time to finish this one off but I am off again this weekend to a Jive convention in Southport. Non stop dancing awaits and hopefully I will also find inspiration for some more paintings. I want to get back into creating some more canvasses!

Bye for now xxx