Arts and Faith Weekend, February 2014

For those of you who are regular readers of my blog, you'll have noticed that I have been combining my Christian faith and my art journaling a lot more recently.

I have been a part of the Arts & Faith Network of the Chester Diocese for a while now, since their 'Breathing Space' event a couple of years ago, and I'll be teaching at their next event in February next year [see details below]

"Building on the success of its previous workshop days, the Arts & Faith Network is extending its ‘Breathing Space’ format to a weekend for Candlemas, entitled ‘Light Work’ on 1st/2nd February 2014, at Foxhill Conference Centre, Frodsham.

The weekend offers an opportunity to work with local Christian artists and teachers [I'm one of them!!!], including Guest Speaker, sculptor Stephen Broadbent, as well as worship and prayer with an accent on creativity, and time to relax and chill out, maybe with a wintry walk in the grounds. Workshop activities offer a choice of creative writing, and singing, alongside a range of hands-on art activities [including art journaling!]"

And the best news?

There is no charge for this event.

Residential places are limited, so prompt booking is advised. Some day places are available.
For further details and booking information please contact Jane Hood: email jane.hood@chester.anglican.org, or telephone 01928 718834 ext 257.

Teaching journal play, and a Christmas song

At the end of October I taught a journaling class to a group of fabulous people, some of whom I'd met at New Wine this summer.  It was an amazing day.

There was a huge range of experience amongst the group of fifteen - some people didn't consider themselves 'crafty' at all, others brought yummy stencils and inks along with them as they were already confident 'crafters'.  Art journaling was new to almost everyone.

Unfortunately I only took a couple of photos.  I get so caught up in teaching I forget to take them!!

I'm sure I've said this before, but one of the things I love about teaching is seeing people move from being fearful of the paint, the white page etc, to having a great time just playing, and discovering how free-ing and relaxing this is.

We all started with an A3 piece of paper which we folded into a little book then journaled on each page.  I worked on a few pages as samples for the day, adding in extra pages and tags [by the way, that coloured 'ribbon' was white, I just sprayed it with Dylusions to get the colour I wanted - much easier than taking lots of different coloured ribbons to a workshop!!]

I still have some pages left to work on... 

...but I've been mad busy at work and I think I'm using all my creative juices up in the classroom!  I've just finished a sheep costume and a spider costume for the song we're singing as part of the nativity play.  Yes, a spider, I'm sure there must have been spiders in the stable.  I wrote new words to Blondie/One Direction's song 'One way or another'

[WARNING: linking these lyrics to the tune may cause that tune to stay in your head for a looooooooooooooooooooooong time!!]

Down in, in the stable

Who will we see there

with baby Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus?

Down in, in the stable

Who will we see there

with baby Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus? (rpt numerous times!!)

Donkey, spider and cat

Dog, mouse, sheep and a rat

Let's see who's around!

Down in, in the stable

Who will we see there

with baby Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus?  etc

Last year I put new words to Mamma Mia, which has taken some matching, but I'm pleased with the result, especially since we can sign a lot of this song easily!!

a little book

 I wanted to make a little journal as a gift for someone and a large tag in my tag box caught my eye!

I smooshed paint, stenciled and stamped both sides of the tag, which I'd pre-folded ..

... and after adding some 'shrooms', discovered that I'd put them on upside down.  Hmm, make a backwards book or ...???

I trimmed the end of the tag, added some sari ribbon and stitched it onto the other end of the tag!

Now the book has additional texture :)

I used pamphlet stitch to add the pages inside, and a ribbon long enough to tie around the book to keep it closed.

All in all a very happy couple of hours, and a gift in the post to a friend.  Hope you've had a lovely evening and have time for some creative craftiness this weekend.

Stampotique Two Sticks 6006 by Jill Penney and Daniel Torrente

Stampotique Giant Shroom 3009 by Jo Capper-Sandon

Stampotique Mushroom Group 3010 by Jo Capper-Sandon

Stampotique Tall Word Collage  7167 by Amy Wilson Wellenstein

Crafters Workshop Stencil Cornflowers TCW 375 by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer

Stampotique Challenge 122: fabric or lace

I couldn't not enter this challenge!  I love adding snippets of fabric or lace to tags in particular.   They add that extra bit of texture.  The tag was one I'd mopped up some black soot distress ink on so I darkened it a bit with some black dylusions spray, and added some texture by flicking water (and mopping it off) and stamping my favourite, favourite, favourite text stamp (Stampotique Journey Collage).

I then stamped Stampotique Moon Garden on the tag, paper pieced the moon and added stitching along the stamped lines of the image.  The girl looks a bit odd but I love how the moon flowers look!

I ended up with gold stars on the tag, when I would have preferred silver.  Couldn't find the silver, until a day after making the tag!!  Actually though, I quite like the warmth the gold brings!

Stampotique Designers Challenge 122: Fabric or Lace

step by step art journal page

I thought it might be fun to take step by step photos of the journal page and share them here.

I've been thinking about doing a page with leaves on for a while now and was recently given a set of leaf stamps.

I decided it might be fun to use these, although they don't lend themselves to an autumn theme, which might have been fun.  I love the colours at this time of year.

First step was to tidy my desk, then I stamped up the leaves to see how they stamped and what they looked like inked up...

I've always loved both ferns and ivy, and have plenty of both in my garden, but decided that today I'd go with the ivy leaves as a theme for my page.

I sprayed a selection of green inks...

...then pressed a stencil down onto the wet ink.  This gave some subtle texture to the page and I thought it might be nice to stamp some text over the stencil in some areas.

I could only find one green dye ink pad, so made a mental note to add a dark green to my shopping basket next time I'm buying craft supplies.  I stamped the text on scrap paper to see the ink was the right shade and decided to go with it.

I like using unmounted rubber stamps to apply patches of pattern to a page - you can curve them slightly to add randomly shaped areas of texture.

After lifting off the stencil there was quite a bit of ink left on it so I turned it over and used a baby wipe to wipe the ink back onto the page, dabbing small areas too.

Et voila!  I liked that, but now what?

Time to pause, dunk my biscuit in my tea and think about how I'd add the leaves to my page.

I'd wiped some ink from my stencil onto the scrap paper I'd stamped on earlier so decided to cut out the ivy leaf....

... and I was able to make some more green paper up quickly by wiping over the oversprayed ink with a wet baby wipe.

The leaves looked good but needed something more so ...

... I stamped some directly onto the page.  Then came a bit of an 'eeek' moment, when I didn't like how the leaves were sitting together.

A few deep breathes later and I decided they looked ok and they just needed some depth.

A quick look amongst my newly tidied pens etc and I easily put my hands on a charcoal pencil and added some shading under the leaves.

What I couldn't lay my hands on was my blending tool, but a cotton bud did the trick just as well, smudging the charcoal to create shadows.

I fancied adding some curly tendrils but didn't want to spoil the page so decided to blot away some ink through a stencil to see if I liked the design.  I was tempted to draw through the stencil with a green pen.

I did like it, but changed my mind about the pen.  I rarely clean my stencils which means I often add unintentional colours to my pages... and today was no different.  I loved the browny orange hints and continued deliberately adding them around the page.

Happy journaling everyone!!

a waddle of penguins

Well, you learn a new thing everyday!  I googled the collective term for a group of penguins and discovered that there is no generally accepted term, but that
"At the 4^th International Penguin Conference in Chile in September 2000, it was agreed by penguin researchers that they would try to refer to a group of penguins on the land as a "waddle" of penguins and a group in the water as a "raft" of penguins. We hope that these collective nouns will become widely accepted in the near future."

http://www.adelie.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/FAQs/collective_name.htm

Don't you just love that there was even a penguin conference?!!!  I love penguins.  I would love to see them in their natural habitat one day, and have decided New Zealand is the place to go - they have little blue ones!! (also sometimes known as fairy penguins).  Until that time I make do with visits to the zoo and things like my favourite mugs

Crafty Individuals had made some of 'Alice Palace's' drawings into stamps and after seeing her puffin I wrote and asked if she'd done any penguins.  She had, and promptly contacted CI to suggest penguins stamps...

... and now I have a set  :)  I was going to give them coloured tummies, as in the design on my Anna Wright mug above, but the journal page I made was too busy so I'll save that idea for another day.

Instead I added them to a page in my little paperback journal, including stars (by Stampotique) and some home made bunting, all in true Alice Palace style!

Inspired by ...

.. a new journal, and a challenge!

I've been struggling a bit with my journal recently.  Mainly because working in a larger format I'm trying to create my own main images for the pages as I have few stamps big enough, and I also want to stretch myself and practise my drawing skills.  Sometimes, though, it's good to get back in your comfort zone.

So I decided to respond to Stampotique's 2014 design team call (my stamps are organised by theme EXCEPT for my Stampotique ones, I keep them altogether as I love them so much and they co-ordinate with each other so well) and got out one of my favourite stamps - Mushroom Group

Earlier this week I sewed some bunting for school and enjoyed it so much I decided I wanted to do something 'textiley' with my Stampotique stamps.  After stamping on some white felt, just with a black versamark as it's just a guide, I used a needle felting tool to add some wool before outlining the mushrooms on the sewing machine

I trimmed them, added some stamping and some distress ink to a tag then sewed on the mushrooms.

I googled 'mushroom quotes' and discovered this one,

"I am a mushroom on whom the dew of heaven drops now and then"

John Ford

so put my tag in the typewriter and added it.

Then I used some diamond glaze to add drops of 'dew' to the tag, to the top of the largest mushroom and to adhere the tiny beads.

Not ready to stop I reached for a small journal and found one I bought a long while ago that looks like a paperback book (possibly purchased from Waterstones)

Inside I used more distress ink and added some stamping and stenciling...

I LoVe this size of this journal, and it contains great paper so I'll definitely be using it some more :)

Oh happy days :)

Stampotique's design call finishes tomorrow so there's still time to apply.  I thought I'd apply as Stampotique images are my 'go to' stamps and I love how I can use them for collage, in textile work, on my journal pages, on tags...  They make me happy!!!  Stampotique ask you to describe your style - hmm, not sure what mine is - 'eclectic' springs to mind!!  I love the challenge of being on a design team - it keeps you producing work on a regular basis, encourages you to visit many blogs (as you leave comments re challenges), and brings new friends .... so fingers crossed!!  It's been a while now since I was on the Play Date Cafe design team.  I've been a guest artist for the Artistic Stamper and been published in Art Journaling, Somerset Studio and Stampers Sampler.