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
Series: Wanderlust 2021 #36 Another piece inspired by Kate Crane, this year's Wanderlust guest host. I do enjoy her way of building up backgrounds with layers of brushed paint and mark-making. The vast majority of the Wanderlust teachers work on double-page spreads in their art journals; I prefer to work on single pages and so… Continue reading Wanderlust: home on a hill
The only plan I had when I started this was to use up the bits of paper left over from cutting out the warm-up pieces, especially the butterfly outline. I stuck all the pieces down without too much thought — other than the positioning of the butterfly — I just wanted to get some texture… Continue reading Jungle butterfly
Series: Wanderlust 2021 #35 I suppose I could have created a single page with all of these on, many people did just that with their versions, but the intention was for these to be used as quick sketches to warm-up and get in the right frame of mind for creating, and very much not as… Continue reading Wanderlust: warm-up
Series: Wanderlust 2021 #34 I am going to start by saying that I like this. I like the sketchy drawings. I like the way the soft pastel colours blend on the page. And I love that little splotch of pink watercolour on the right-hand side. The starting point for this piece was to create a… Continue reading Wanderlust: pastel flowers
The last instalment of twinchies created for the Mindful Art Studio Inchie Challenge. Twelve days of creating two-inch-square artworks in response to a prompt word. These are all created as ink drawings coloured with watercolours. The pen I used was a Winsor & Newton fineliner and the watercolours were a mix of Derwent Graphitint and… Continue reading Inchie Challenge 2021 #10–12
Crafty Rat 