finally started making my Christmas cards!!

I bought this little Starbird from Art from the Heart in plenty of time to make my Christmas cards but I always end up making them 'on demand' or after I've finished work for the holidays.

It's partly because I need that adrenalin rush to get my act together, and partly because I'm so busy at work at this time of year that I just don't have the energy.

I love CAS cards at Christmas, and also love to add a little bit of stitching.  The washi tape is from hobbycraft and I coloured the bird with derwent inktense pencils.  I also made myself a little tag :)

Happy Christmas everyone!!!

drawing with scissors PDCC147

 How have I not cottoned on to this idea before?  I get too precise and 'tight' when I'm drawing with conventional materials which is one of the reasons I love drawing with my sewing machine!  To add that dimension to this page though meant doing it on separate paper then adding it to the page so I just thought, "why not cut out shapes and add black ink around the edges instead?!"  Voila!

This journal page, and a tag, emerged from this week's colour combo over at the Play Date Cafe.  It's an unusual colour combo that I know I'd never have discovered myself, which is why I love these challenges!

And isn't that bird stunning?! (although my daughter says he looks like a pigeon - an artistic one though!)

 That 'evergreen' varies depending on which screen I'm using to view the image but I stuck with the labelled colours of evergreen, olive, smoke (grey) and cherry blossom.  Having happily unearthed my Dylusion sprays I started with my favourite ink of all time, the grey one!

 ...followed by some olive green watercolour straight from the tube.  I added some water and let it run then squidged it with a piece of paper over the top which produced a lovely secondary piece!

 A bit of stencilling next with the pink (an acrylic dabber) through some card cut with Tim Holtz' typeset die but what to do for a main image?

I was going to add some large letters so had a little nosy along the bookshelf for some inspiration.  I came across my Lotta Jansdotter book (LoVe her designs!)

... and spotted some nice shapes that I could cut out.  I didn't draw them first, just went straight in with the scissors before spraying them pink, and creating another nice effect on separate paper!

I added some stamped text and am very happy with the result!  Can't believe I'm finally feeling like I'm back in the 'flow' as it were, only to go back to work next week!

Finally (sorry, long post!), I made a tag with some of the background paper created during the making of this page!

And here it is alongside the inspiration image.  I added a couple more stamens as it made me think of lilies, a flower I LoVe.

Thanks so much for taking the time to visit!

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!!!

Kate Crane - a mini journaling inspiration!

Saturday saw my good friend Chris and I heading up to Art from the Heart, Harrogate to take this class from Kate Crane:

It's aaaaaaaaages since I took a class so I was really excited.  I love little books and have been really keen to get journaling in some, but for some reason I find it really hard.  I can happily journal on small tags, or decorate tiny squares or envelopes, but adding paint to small pages throws me!  I LoVe the colours Kate uses on her pages, well, everything about them to be honest!  They're always STuNNiNG!

I'm usually a baby wipe girl, slapping the paint on my page; Kate had us paint with a paintbrush over gessoed pages.  I HaTe gesso!  And probably for the same reason most people like it - I don't like things to move once I've put the paint down, and I know how paint etc is going to behave on paper, gesso makes it behave differently.  

I do LoVe the pages I made on the day though, and as well as learning a different way of adding the paint to the page I challenged myself to work in a different way.

 It was also great to meet people from blogland,

http://patacake-patcrafts.blogspot.com/2011/08/mini-journalling-at-afth.html

http://gezzybscraftybits.blogspot.com/2011/08/well-i-promised-my-next-post-would-be.html

http://craftyshe.blogspot.com/2011/08/birthday-weekend.html

http://gotpaintinmyhair.blogspot.com/2011/08/fabulous-weekend.html

http://flutterbycrafter.blogspot.com/2011/08/warning-contains-scenes-of-sexual.html#comments

 and not forgetting those without blogs, and to share in Sheila's birthday cake :)  

I've worked on a couple more pages since the workshop - thanks so much for the inspiration, and for a great workshop Kate! I'm getting there I think, although I still don't get the nice, distinct areas of colour like you do ;)

unfinished; meant to try NoT working across a double paged spread in class

and forgot,  so had a go here

no gesso; bit busy this page; little tag book in bottom RH corner

is covering up a picture I added last night and didn't like!

in the style of Sarah Ahearn Bellamere by train

I treated myself to this beautiful book just before I went away.  I LoVe the way Sarah Ahearn uses snippets of collage and colour, and also her use of white space.  One of the activities in her book is mini scrapping using what comes to hand from a collection of papers in a box. I found this really hard on holiday but gave it another go whilst away again this last week.  We celebrated our twentieth wedding anniversary this week by taking a steam ride from York to Scarborough, first class no less!!

On the return journey I got out my scrapping kit again and had a go at some mini pages:

I might still add to these pages, I might not, but I'm pleased with the progress I'm making.  My friend Chris and I are going up to Harrogate on Saturday for a workshop with Kate Crane, again working on mini pages - hmm, I see a pattern forming ;)

new badges at the play date cafe

Paul B may never forgive me for this but hey!  I wanted to let you know that we've had a makeover at The Play Date Cafe and Paul very kindly made us a load of new badges :)  Aren't they funky?  Thanks Paul, they really are great :)

I'm teaching Art Journaling 3 at The Cubby Hole, Crewe today which I taught last week at The Stamp Attic.  We'll be making those 'pants books' again lol!

Lorraine, Helen, Joan

Penny, Carol, Lorraine

Joan, Sylvia, Kay

There will be even more inky yumminess later in the week as the wonderful, gorgeous, fantastic Dyan Reaveley is sending me some of her new water-based dye inks :)  I can't wait!!!

finally caught up...Dina Wakely workshops

Sue and I had a real treat earlier this month.....we went up to Art from the Heart in Harrogate where Dina Wakely was teaching two days of workshops.

I've been keeping my eye on Dina's blog for a while as I love her use of 'white space' on the page, as well as her splodgy, inky, splattery effects.  

Dina was working in the most enormous book (full of yummy paper :)  )

Day One saw us exploring masks, and thinking about image placement on the page.  It was great to use masks that I wouldn't normally try...stars and flowers are usually my choice of image, but I love how the lady (she did have a name, Betty probably!!) turned out.

The people on the workshop were a great bunch and it was amazing to see how we all started with the same prompts yet produced such different work.

We were kept thoroughly entertained, and the snacks also kept us laughing!!!

On the way in to Art from the Heart we met Milliande (centre of photo below), whose online videos on art journalling I've watched.  [do check them out, I think they are brilliant!]

We discovered we were all staying in the same place so hooked up later for dinner and a good chat, with time later to share our journals.

[sorry for the poor photo, it was a bit dark in the room; thought it was worth sharing the piccie anyway]

Milliande had some gorgeous pages in her journal and showed us some she'd done for her January 'page a day'.

Day 2 involved a change of seat, a change of name [i just fancied being labelled differently so I was 'Alice', Sue was 'Fred', and we certainly weren't short of other cheeky girls to join in the fun :) ] and lots of layering.

We were very definitely the noisy end of the table, which surprised Dyan, she'd got the impression from my blog and the lovely things people say about me that I was quiet!!!! ;)

Er, no, not when I'm happy!  And throwing myself into my artwork

I felt like Harry Potter giving my page a good old splattering!! [Only when he holds a stick like this it's to conjure up a magic spell]. 

 

I love the layered piece I made that morning.  Milliande concentrated on making a piece in her journal with 'white space', and succeeded wonderfully [sorry I didn't get a piccie of it] and even used peeloffs  to great effect!

Actually, there was a distinct lack of peeloffs in this workshop, we had to bring our own ;) lol  Not that I could persuade Sue to use hers!!!  I do love the colours she used in this piece.

 I played with embedding objects...

before focusing on leaving a 'white space' on a page.  This is still unfinished, but I'm pleased with it so far.

As the workshop was over by about 4pm, we decided to continue back at the Premier Inn.  This is a bit difficult to do in one of their rooms as there is limited space, but sweet talking the lady at the reception desk (or putting your foot in it, which is what I did - fancy mentioning paint!!!) meant we got to play in the meeting room.

We set out our 'stuff'', then worked on each other's journals for a timed ten minutes at a time, before moving onto the next one.  My camera battery gave out at this point so Milliande took the piccies.  It was a fabulous experience, and I love my resulting page :)

Day three saw us travelling back down the motorway after a sneaky visit to Harrogate for brunch.  And look who came in after us!!!  Great minds and all that!!