I'm not really sure why I make these Christmas decorations —the Swedish stars, the honeycomb bauble, and this German bell. There are only the two of us here and we've never done much in the way of decorating at Christmas. They take up precious space but I can't bring myself to throw them out; I've… Continue reading Quick play: German bell
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
This was another of those interesting images that caught my eye in the regular Pinterest email and so I grabbed some brown paper and glue and had a quick play. If I'd sat down and thought about it, I could have worked out how the honeycomb pom-pom was made. And reading the blog post did… Continue reading Quick play: honeycomb bauble
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
Helen Hiebert is a papercraft artist, and one of the things she is very good at is paper weaving. She even runs a "Weave through Winter" course which looks fascinating, but wasn't right for me this year. Back in December, though, she did a free Winter Solstice Lantern Zoom Workshop (now on YouTube) which I… Continue reading Quick play: woven paper lanterns
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
This was another of those things that caught my eye in the regular "we think you'll like this" Pinterest email. I was curious about the folding mechanism in the same way that pop-up cards fascinate me, though this was a lot simpler than most of the paper mechanics I see (go have a look at… Continue reading Quick play: circular folding rooms
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
Amazingly I got this Valentine card made well in time and wasn't rushing around at the last minute trying to come up with an idea like I often am. Rather than do the usual Copic colouring, I decided to keep to a simple graphic design and use the opportunity to play with some techniques instead.… Continue reading Black ice Valentine
Copic markers: dragon - green - YG03, YG17, B34dragon - blue - B97, B95, B93, B32seed - E55, E53, E50, G21sky - B000, B00, B01, B12clouds - W00, W1 Supplies: digital stamps:Lee Holland Art - make a wish dragonpaper and card:Neenah solar white 216gsm This image was coloured in July 2020 and finally given a… Continue reading Just coloured: dragon on dandelion seed
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
I set the bar high for making cards for my other half's niece when I made the kitty Christmas card, so I was having problems coming up with a good enough idea for her birthday card. Then I realised it was her thirtieth and I had to do something different. I had found some cute… Continue reading Thirty cats
Crafty Rat 