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 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
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
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 #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
The last of the stripy art cards and, in fact, the last of the art cards in this clear-up batch. As with the crossing stripes art card, this was a case of creating the stripy piece, gluing it to the art card and then figuring out what to do next. I started by drawing swirly… Continue reading Art card: Stripes & Oil
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
Yes. They do look like googly eyes. No. That wasn't the intention. But, yes, it does amuse me 🙂 More thin strips of card. This is a great way to use up those odd offcuts of patterned or painted papers and makes an interesting, more individual, alternative to using patterned paper straight out of a… Continue reading Art card: Stripes & Circles
The only problem with making art out of the odds and ends left from other projects and experiments is that it can be hard to identify some of the components. The pink is obviously left over from playing with alcohol ink, but I'm not sure about the brown — I think it's a scrap from… Continue reading Art card: Crossing Stripes
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
This started out as a piece of card with some drywall tape stuck to it. I had these flowers which were an offcut from last year's Mother's Day card andI knew I wanted to use them on this art card, but they needed some more contrast. Several thin layers of paint gave me the sort… Continue reading Art card: Bleeding Hearts
Crafty Rat 