Cloth, Paper, Scissors Readers Challenge

Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine's recent Reader Challenge was entitled 'Supportive Art'.  The challenge was to use a bra within your artwork and is in support of fighting breast cancer.  I meant to check the blog on Monday when the list went live and completely forgot!  Just checked now and it was sooooooooooo exciting to see my name there

I'm only giving hints of what I did, I'm not sure how much I can share pre-publication!

I also just received the preview of my article in July 2012's Art Journaling magazine.  All in all a very exciting day!

BiG doodles

Whilst blog hopping the other night I came across Catherine Scanlon's blog Art from the Heart and noted that she had a class just about to start that sounded right up my street!  I've been working for a while now on transferring my art journal work onto a larger canvas and any help and advice I can get is gratefully received!

The first class was on Friday and involved lots of large scale doodling.

I worked on A2 size paper with a very large, chunkie Sharpie.  At first my brain was getting in the way and trying too hard but then I realised that all I needed to do was play with lines, just like I play with paint and stamps and stencils in my journal.

So this was just a wandering line, with a few added circles before I then went back and added some more weight to one of the lines.  When I got this out to photograph I spotted a rabbit - can you see him too?

I used my whole arm to make these dramatic shapes, which look plant like to me, with a base of pebbles.

I wasn't keen on this doodle at first, but after I added the leaf like doodles it started to 'grow on me' (sorry, couldn't resist that pun!)#

I was enjoying making these connected circular shapes and this one brought to mind shells, seaweed and pebbles on the seashore.

After my doodling session, which lasted about 15 - 20mins, I got out a recent Amazon purchase entitled 'Expressive Drawing' by Steven Aimone.  The author discusses the fact that not all drawing needs to be an accurate copy of something but that it can be about "internal realities - feelings, imagination, fantasies, dreams, the spirit".  The first exercise in the book is all about the "simple pleasure of making marks on paper" and doodling on big sheets of paper!

So I've decided to do these activities alongside those set by Catherine.  I'll need to head down to the DIY shop though for paper, I couldn't believe the prices at HobbyCraft yesterday, and I need to practice BiG!!!

SDC 53: Stampotique ATC

I made this ATC last week but some muppet unplugged our cable (in the box at the top of the road) for the phone and tv on Friday and the engineer didn't get it sorted 'til Mon eve.  The Stampotique designers challenge caught my eye as 1) I've not made an ATC for aaaaaaaaaaages, and 2) this stamp has been waiting to be used for months.  I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to use it, it's such fun!

I stamped the moon and stars on a separate piece of painted paper and added them to my stamped image on the blue ATC.

And then I couldn't resist my sewing machine for a bit more texture!