Series: Collage exploration #5 This was most definitely fun to make. Hard work at times and not a quick process, but I love the result. This "layer and tear" décollage piece was inspire by a technique in the Project Collage book. I lost count of how many layers of magazine papers I glued to base… Continue reading Collage exploration #5
The third piece based on one of my photos and another possible submission for the Twitter Art Exhibit. I love textures and details, both natural and man-made, and so these layers of road markings and mendings caught my eye when I was out for a walk. As with the previous postcards, I've continued using this… Continue reading Road markings
Series: Collage exploration #4 After I'd made the third one of these with no direction other than the papers in front of me, I decided that it might be useful to have some external inspiration. I already have a copy of The Collage Ideas Book — breaking my usual rule of "only fiction on Kindle",… Continue reading Collage exploration #4
The second painting based on one of my photos, and another possible submission for the Twitter Art Exhibit. As well as using it as motivation to work from some of my photos, I also thought it would be a good opportunity to play with different media. I used watercolour paint and coloured pencils on the… Continue reading White fence
Series: Collage exploration #3 Before it got lost in the stash of papers again, I thought I ought to make something with the die-cut butterfly outline I'd started with on the last mini collage. The previous collages have been mostly made of pages taken from magazines, for this one I primarily picked papers that I… Continue reading Collage exploration #3
I’ve been meaning to make some art based on my photographs and I finally got around to it. Part of my motivation was being reminded about the Twitter Art Exhibit: it's an annual art show with artists of all calibres donating postcard-sized art which is then sold in aid of a particular charity. I have… Continue reading Tree gazing
Series: Collage exploration #2 This one was going to have a butterfly on it. The first thing that caught my eye was a scrap of paper that had the outline of a butterfly where one had been die-cut for another project, and I thought that could make an interesting negative space element. But as I… Continue reading Collage exploration #2
Series: Collage exploration #1 Ages ago I bought some pre-cut mounts in three different sizes and, while I've used a handful of the larger two sizes, I've been stumped for a use for the smallest ones. The outer dimensions are a reasonable 5″×7″ but a 1″ border means that the aperture is only 3″×5″ and… Continue reading Collage exploration #1
This workshop — True North Star — used to be offered as a standalone class by Laly Mille, though it's now only included in one of her longer classes. It was also one of the bonuses with Wanderlust 2021 and that's how I came to make this. And one of these days I will managed… Continue reading Star-gazing hare
I often use collage as a base layer in mixed media pieces, but it's rare that it's visible, other than as texture, by the time I've finished. In recent months, I've had this underlying curiosity about using collage as the main form rather than just a starting point. So, when I saw some discarded papers… Continue reading Scrap collage
When I did the watercolour rose page for Wanderlust earlier this year, I had a spare rose left over and no idea what to do with it. It ended up floating around my craft room for ages and every time I came across it I would have another think about what I could do with… Continue reading Pink rose
I was tidying up a bit and found three strips of paper left over from another project (from cutting the paper into squares for the Woodland abstracts). Rather than put them away and continue tidying, I turned them into this abstract triptych with acrylic paint, alcohol and gilding flakes. The tidying still isn’t finished… Apologies… Continue reading Green & gold abstracts
I have two sets of the Pebeo decorative paints so, when I made the oak leaf canvas with the Prisme paints, I made another one with the Pebeo Moon set. This time I created a horse chestnut leaf and built the contour lines around that shape. Again, I was limited to the six colours in… Continue reading Horse chestnut leaf canvas
Like so many things, these 5"×5" mini canvases have been sitting in my stash for quite some time. Waiting, I suppose, for me to come up with the right idea and the confidence in my abilities to commit something to canvas rather than paper. Well, thinking like that is why they hadn't been used yet,… Continue reading Oak leaf canvas
I showed you the final results from taking Judy Woods free stARTs class last week, and I thought it might be interesting to see how one of the paintings developed from start to finish. The class was very much an exercise in letting go and trusting in the process; we only knew what that day's… Continue reading Woodland abstracts – oak
Crafty Rat 