I was sorting through various journals and sketchbooks scattered around my room, dividing them into ones that are full, ones that have never been used, and ones that are somewhere in the middle. It was in one of the last group that I found this piece — the only piece I made from one of… Continue reading Gilded leaf postcard
Series: Wanderlust 2021 #08 This was a lesson in three parts demonstrating some of the different ways you can balance collage and paint in mixed media art journal projects. The first is pure collage, no paint at all. There are areas of this that I really like but the overall effect is a little busy… Continue reading Wanderlust: collage 3 ways
I've been thinking about it for a while and have decided that now would be a good time to start posting some of my stash of coloured images on the blog. I'm not making so many cards these days — too many already in the stash — but I do still enjoy sitting down and… Continue reading Just coloured: Aurora belle of the ball
Series: Wanderlust 2021 #07 The previous mandalas I've made have been quite precise, with all the colouring done carefully inside the lines. The aim with this one was to be much looser and relaxed, to the extent that the initial long petal shapes were painted before the outlines were drawn. It goes against my instincts… Continue reading Wanderlust: mandala
Series: Wanderlust 2021 #06 It took me a while to get started on this lesson. I have plenty of papers that can be used for collage and even a small supply of ephemera that has accumulated over the years — though, as with adding words to art journals, I do prefer elements to have some… Continue reading Wanderlust: Rocket
This is the first card I've made this year. I should have done another early in January but I had neither the energy nor the inspiration — I shall have to make her a random "just because" card at some point to make up for missing her birthday. I still have quite a stack of… Continue reading Orange poppy
Series: Artful Academy 2020 journal #13 It would have been easy to have chosen Christmas as the subject for the last art journal page of the year, but I like to avoid the obvious option so I chose to make a Solstice page instead. After the painterly Boundaries page, I changed the style up by… Continue reading Artful Academy journal – December
Series: Wanderlust 2021 #05 This is the second bonus lesson from Kate Crane and this is the one that really let me make use of the backgrounds I'd made for a bonus lesson from Wanderlust 2019. Those backgrounds had been made with the idea that they would become the basis for journal pages, but I… Continue reading Wanderlust – junk journal
Series: Artful Academy 2020 journal #12 The prompt I chose for this page was boundaries. Walls, fences, hedges, doors and gates have always interested me. Even here, in a very urban environment, the sheer variety in the walls and fences separating the houses from the pavements just on a single road is remarkable. Boundaries are… Continue reading Artful Academy journal – November
Series: Wanderlust 2021 #04 This one definitely falls into the category of art journal rather than art. There are plenty of things that, individually, I like about it, but as a whole, it is missing a lot of contrast and my attempts to add shading around some elements helped but didn't fix the problem. The… Continue reading Wanderlust: dandelion
A self-portrait from 2005 — I really never liked taking photos of me... So, Wanderlust week three's reflections lesson was a literal one: take a selfie and paint a self-portrait. And... that's not going to happen. At least not now. I do want to have a go at creating a vaguely realistic portrait and I… Continue reading Self-portrait problems
Series: Wanderlust 2021 #03 Along with the weekly classes, Wanderlust also has a handful of bonus lessons from some of the guest instructors — absolutely none of which I got around to before the main course started. So, after finishing the garden of wishes lesson, I thought I'd have a quick look and see if… Continue reading Wanderlust: scribbly tiles
Series: Wanderlust 2021 #02 This was one of the lessons I was most looking forward to and to have it come so early in the course was a super motivational bonus — no abandoning everything after the first week... I love Laly Mille's style and, while the soft, romantic feel is not necessarily what I… Continue reading Wanderlust: garden of wishes
Series: Wanderlust 2021 #01 On a bit of a whim, I signed up for Wanderlust 2021 last September. I took part in Wanderlust 2019 and got about half-way through before losing focus so I hadn't planned on doing it again. But then I started getting the early bird offers and thought "why not?". After all… Continue reading Wanderlust: shells
Series: Artful Academy 2020 journal #11 Just as I got all caught up with the free art journalling challenge from Artful Academy, the rest of the year's lessons were cancelled. 2020 messed with everyone's plans and the last three months' prompts were another small thing that fell by the wayside. After a brief moment of… Continue reading Artful Academy journal – October
Crafty Rat 