For some reason, this year I have been feeling particularly uninspired when it comes to making cards. The start of the year is always a tricky time creatively, but it does seem to be lingering, at least for actual card-making. I am more than happy colouring or doing a bit of mixed media or even… Continue reading Watercolour rose
And here are the final four images I created for the Spring Square-a-thon. I really enjoyed doing something so far out of my usual comfort zone. If you missed any of the earlier paintings, you can catch up using the Square-a-thon tag. #13 Once Upon a Memory Created with: acrylic paints I had a couple… Continue reading Square-a-thon challenge #13–16
Week two of the "Typography" theme saw the arrival of the first of the year's guest teachers: Athanasia Papantoniou (blog, YouTube). This was an interesting layout to create. I am rubbish at leaving white space on pages, especially as much as this; the best I normally manage is to have some colour everywhere and then… Continue reading Wanderlust: create good art
I had printed out the gerbera image in preparation for a previous Daily Marker colouring challenge and it had been lurking in the pile of printed digi stamps ever since. I didn’t colour it with the intention of making a Mother’s Day card, but I was so happy with it once it was finished that… Continue reading Mother’s Day gerbera
Four more paintings and only one that really didn't work out how I wanted it to. #9 An Epic Adventure Created with: acrylic paint I was definitely showing my age with my answer to the prompt “an epic adventure” — well, technically I was showing my other half’s age as it was his suggestion. I… Continue reading Squareathon challenge #9–12
I was originally planning to do one blog post per theme for the Wanderlust 2019 class rather than doing one for each week's lesson. Because it's a commercial class, it wouldn't be fair to have detailed write-ups, so I thought I'd just do a quick round-up for each theme with a single picture of each… Continue reading Wanderlust: searching
Valentine’s Day take 2. After the slight misjudgement in the choice of design for my original card, I had to come up with a replacement. Luckily, Valentine’s Day fell in the middle of the latest Daily Marker colouring challenge, so I had other images to choose from, including this skull with the heart eyepatch. Now,… Continue reading Skull and crossbones
Another mix of paintings that I really love and some that could be improved. It's all a good learning experience though. #5 Secret Sunsets Created with: acrylic paints For this prompt, I figured that a sunset that no-one had seen in person was about as secret as you can get. It's based on a NASA… Continue reading Square-a-thon challenge #5–8
After completing the rule of thirds piece, I moved on to the next bonus lesson in Wanderlust 2019: "Beautiful Backgrounds". This covered ten different ways of applying colour and texture to a page to create a background that could then be built on with other elements. I ended up with eleven backgrounds; I tried one… Continue reading Wanderlust: beautiful backgrounds
Valentine’s Day (yes I know it was almost two months ago, shush) and apparently this time I took it a bit too weird. Now, I know this is a bit of a dark image, but it amused me and I didn’t think it was too extreme. Apparently, I was wrong. Some people on Instagram loved… Continue reading Love you to pieces
I occasionally take part in challenges. I always do the Daily Marker colouring challenge, which is a nice simple "just colour something" type of challenge. And every now and then I'll take part in random one-off challenges if the theme interests me. But I have never participated in a challenge that has prompts. I think… Continue reading Square-a-thon challenge #1–4
As I mentioned back in January, I signed up for Wanderlust 2019. The idea of being exposed to all the different themes, styles and teachers really appealed to me. And I started off well, working through the background material and bonus lessons before the first of the themes. One of the lessons was on composition;… Continue reading Wanderlust: rule of thirds
I've been feeling rather uninspired when it comes to making cards this year. I've enjoyed colouring images, but coming up with layouts that I like has been a struggle, and it's doubly hard when it's a birthday card for a fifteen-year-old boy... Originally I was going to do a card with a footballer on it… Continue reading Ratty Birthday
Crafty Rat 