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: 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: 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
The final project from the Artful Academy Visible Image Mini Collection. This tag was inspired by the lesson from Veerle Moreels; I've always liked Veerle's style and borrowed a design from her for some of last year's Christmas cards. [Previous projects from this class include butterflies, Stampbord owls, a dragonfly and a hummingbird.] There are… Continue reading Artful Academy butterfly tag
Another project from the Artful Academy Visible Image Mini Collection. This tag was inspired by the lesson from Katy Leitch, the founder of Artful Academy. [Previous lessons include butterflies, Stampbord owls, and hummingbird.] It was a pretty straightforward creation; the only problem I had was when the acrylic paint started to dry quicker than I… Continue reading Artful Academy dragonfly tag
Series: Artful Academy 2020 journal #10 I finally caught up with the monthly journal prompts, finishing September's "Mystical" page only a few days after the lesson went online. The tutor went with a fairy motif, but I'd used that for my July "story" page and I didn't want to repeat myself in a journal that… Continue reading Artful Academy journal – September
Remember the hummingbird that took me so long to turn into something I was happy with? Well, this is another project from that class: the Artful Academy Visible Image Mini Collection. This was inspired by the lesson from Lisa Taggart and it took me almost as long to make as the hummingbird, but only because… Continue reading Artful Academy butterflies
Series: Artful Academy 2020 journal #9 Unlike all the previous months which had a single prompt word, August's tutor used the theme of "recycle" but also used "grateful" as a separate prompt word. I decided to keep it simple and stick with just "recycle". I went literal with the design, basing it off the Recycle… Continue reading Artful Academy journal – August
Series: Artful Academy 2020 journal #8 July's theme for the Artful Academy Art Journalling Challenge 2020 was "story". These are the sort of prompts that give me the most trouble — "think of a story that inspires you to use as inspiration for your art journal page" — now, I love reading fiction, but I… Continue reading Artful Academy journal – July
Series: Artful Academy 2020 journal #7 I like the background — made with my ivy stencil and layers of paint and pen — and I like the foreground. They just really don't belong together. Maybe if I'd made the background more green than blue, using the complementary colour of red, it would have been better.… Continue reading Artful Academy journal – June
Series: Artful Academy 2020 journal #5 Prompts that are abstract concepts rarely provoke an instant idea for me; I either go blank or completely overthink it. The only thing I can practically do is go away, do something else, and let my brain ponder it in the background... To be fair, I do that with… Continue reading Artful Academy journal – April
I've only used Stampbord once before, to create an alcohol ink butterfly. That is still one of my favourite things and it lives on a shelf in my room. (There is a small element of "how do you store small things without losing them" as well, but it's mostly because it makes me smile.) Do… Continue reading Stampbord owls
Series: Artful Academy 2020 journal #4 The theme for March was home and it was time to get the stencils out again. I'm following the themes and the basic techniques used, but varying some of the elements and ideas in each lesson: there is no point (for me) in just recreating what the instructor demonstrates,… Continue reading Artful Academy journal – March
Series: Artful Academy 2020 journal #3 The prompt for February was "music" and, for this one, the instructor used sprays to build up the background with some printed lyrics providing the focal point. This provided me with two challenges. I am not a huge fan of sprays. Most of the craft sprays are either not… Continue reading Artful Academy journal – February
Series: Artful Academy 2020 journal #2 After creating the cover for my Artful Academy class journal, I was determined to do my best to keep up with the monthly challenge. Each month has a prompt word — January's was "list" — and a video of one of the tutors making their journal page as inspiration.… Continue reading Artful Academy journal – January
Crafty Rat 