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 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
Oak leaves I don't do people in my art, and while I love animals I am not drawn to representing them either, still life rarely moves me. Instead I tend to focus on nature and landscape, details, and, more recently, abstracts. But it's hard to know where to start with an abstract sometimes and harder… Continue reading Woodland abstracts
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
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
Series: Wanderlust 2021 #33 I'm being a bit more selective over which lessons I do at the moment and I nearly skipped this one because of the drips. Me and drips don't really get on, they always seem like a good idea but then look either too messy or too contrived if I've tried too… Continue reading Wanderlust: flowing rainbow
Series: Wanderlust 2021 #32 One of the favourite pieces I made during Wanderlust 2019 was in the inspired by an artist theme where we had to draw influences from two artists. Similarly, this piece draws on another artist's style, but it won't be counting in my favourites from this year. The idea was to look… Continue reading Wanderlust: colourful landscape
Series: Wanderlust 2021 #31 I very nearly didn't do this lesson; this is another one from the Wanderlust guest host Kate Crane and the foundation process is quite similar to that used in the Found Poetry page I made earlier in the year. But, I enjoyed making that one so I decided to do this… Continue reading Wanderlust: painted texture
Series: Wanderlust 2021 #30 A new theme and this time it's texture. I love a bit of texture with my mixed media so this theme should be perfect for me. Though I am being a bit more selective (picky!) at the moment so I've only actually completed two of the four classes and, to be… Continue reading Wanderlust: leaf in texture
Series: Wanderlust 2021 #29 A few weeks ago, as we were approaching half way through the Wanderlust year, a survey about the course dropped into my inbox. Filling it in got me to thinking about how I was feeling about doing it this year and looking back at the projects I completed when I did… Continue reading Wanderlust: tag booklet
Series: Wanderlust 2021 #28 I am really bad at practising things, or, more specifically, I really hate doing the same thing over and again. If something goes wrong with a project, I will have to do it differently the next time. I have coloured the same stamps more than once on occasion, but I will… Continue reading Wanderlust: watercolour rose
Series: Wanderlust 2021 #27 A new theme: boundaries. This time Kasia was asking us to think about the boundaries in our art — the ones we have overcome, the ones we want to overcome, and the ones we choose to set for ourselves. The biggest boundary I have overcome in the last few years is… Continue reading Wanderlust: there are no words
Series: Wanderlust 2021 #26 Some of the Wanderlust lessons can be a bit formulaic — start with collage, add paint, stencilling, focal point, more paint — but so far they've all allowed for a lot of interpretation and adaptation and the teachers all have numerous other techniques and strategies in their own work. This week's… Continue reading Wanderlust: out of chaos
Series: Wanderlust 2021 #25 I'm not a huge fan of using words in my art but I keep giving it a go in its various forms just in case something clicks with me. However, I did enjoy the process of creating this poem — take random pages from random books, cut out phrases that appeal,… Continue reading Wanderlust: found poetry
Crafty Rat 