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

A bit of pondering

Hello All!

I decided to take a break from commisions and do some journaling for myself. I recently received some new Dylusion paints which I see a lot at the mo on many you tube vids and although it is not easy to get over here in the UK, I decided to get some to see how good they are.

I have to say I can see why people like them, the colours are really vivid and they go on really smoothly! I have already ordered some more colours! Also in this page I used wax paper with some gelli printing on it and my new color pep smoothy crayons. The text I did with a new stencilgirl stencil called 'verbage'

The theme of the page came as I went on, I was overthinking some aspects of my life, which was only leading me to panic and worry. This page ended up being about that and helping me to stop. Think and ponder by all means but do not dwell on things!

Bye for now! xx

Art Journaling Workshop 11th July 2015

Hello All,

On Saturday I delivered the 3rd of 4 workshops. This one was titled 'A Word About Me' I demonstrated a woven paper background and we also created a textile and wax paper pocket containing a word about me and some little bead embellishments. Here is my sample page:

Here are some photos from the session.

 

Anna's

Becky's

Susan's

Jill's

Jill decided to turn hers into a book cover which I love, It inspired me to use the technique on some of my journal covers. It is a little fiddly to do but looks great once its painted. It is quite a simple layout for me but I liked the background and wanted to showcase that.

One more workshop to go for this season, really enjoying it!

Monthly Challenge

Hello all!

Off sick still, well I went in to work but they sent me home again. I decided to do my monthly challenge since I am stuck at home and have the time. The monthly challenge this month is 'Tonal pages'  Creating a tonal page using a colour that you wouldn't normally use and using as many mediums in that colour as possible.

I generally steer clear of monotone, I like using a lot of colour in my work, so I decided to give it a try and here is the result:

I used stencils, stickers, sprays, washi tape, collage. gesso, stamps, oil and soft pastel, wax paper and black and white pens. I am really chuffed how it came out actually! I may be using monotone again!

See you soon xx

Workshop Session 4th July 2015

Hello All!,

This session was titled 'Time Capsule' and the idea was to create time capsule letters. An idea inspired by the artist Jenn Garmen. The group wrote letters to their future selves and decorated an envelope to contain this using whatever mixed media their chose.

For the background I demonstrated a wax resist using wax paper and ink sprays and we also rubbed ink pads over the used wax paper and added this to create layers. Here is a little video I made demonstrating these techniques.

The group finished their pages by adding titles, further collage, paint etc and stuck in their time capsule letters with a date on which to open them in the future. Here a few pictures of their work.

Anna's page

Helen's first ever page!

Maxine's page

Time Capsule

Hi All,

So I finished planning my workshop taking place on 4th July at the Sharrowvale School of Art in Sheffield and for this session I am using an idea from the wonderful Jenn Garman. If you don't know Jenn's work, it's fantastic, you can check it out here http://jenngarman.com/.

In this session I will be demonstrating some of the techniques I have been playing around with lately using wax paper, and creating time capsule letters.

Here is a sneaky peek at my sample page.

Experimenting!

Hello All,

Busy busy busy lately and feeling really inspired at the mo. I have so many ideas I don't know where to start. In planning my latest workshops I decided to have a go experimenting with some wax paper. I have meant to do this for ages so I decided that if I had a go and it went well I would use it for one of the sessions. Wax paper is not really that easy to get hold of in the UK. It certainly isn't in every supermarket so I decided to just get some off the internet.

I really enjoyed the results so far, although I think I have only just scratched the surface. Here is a little ICAD I made with some of the results.

I also made a little video of this one;

I am still working on a little video of the experiments themselves, so should be able to post this in a few days.

I have also ordered some new equipment including some Brushos which I am really excited about and can't wait to start experimenting with these too! Busy Busy! See you soon xx