Series: Wanderlust 2021 #12 Planned serendipity seems like a bit of an oxymoron, but Carolyn's class is a blank-page-block breaker that creates the conditions for something interesting and unplanned to happen. The starting point is to pick a few (she suggests five) supplies without considering how they'll be used. I grabbed some acrylic paints that… Continue reading Wanderlust: planned serendipity
Series: Wanderlust 2021 #11 A new theme this week and new themes always start with a class from the host, Kasia Avery. Unlike the detailed, real-time, step-by-step classes, these ones are more of an introduction to the theme with a chat from Kasia and a speeded-up video of her interpretation. The hope is that it… Continue reading Wanderlust: woodpecker
Series: Wanderlust 2021 #10 When I started doing mixed media, I started collecting things. A variety of paints, pencils, powders and other ways of making marks and laying down colour. Then there are all the papers, patterned and plain, old books and maps, and digital versions of vintage papers ready to print out. And that's… Continue reading Wanderlust: collection of ideas
Series: Wanderlust 2021 #09 The idea behind this week's Wanderlust Ephemera lesson was to make it personal. The most obvious way to do this is to use personal photos. I spent some time looking through family photos and pondered using either one of me as a child or one of my mum from before I… Continue reading Wanderlust: make it personal
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
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
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: 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
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
Alongside creating the abstract landscapes and this canvas, Laly Mille also wanted us to start to identify our art language — the colours, mark-making, textures, materials, formats and compositions that resonate. I'm starting to get a feel for the colours I like working with and texture is definitely something that is important to me. Mark-making… Continue reading Artist Soul canvas
At the end of October, Laly Mille ran The Artist Soul online retreat, a short course packed with inspiration for creating abstract artworks. I am a fan of Laly's art style and have created a couple of pieces based on classes she has run before: river and rocks from Wanderlust 2019 and the more recent… Continue reading Artist Soul abstract landscapes
How long do you keep working on a piece before admitting defeat? Before accepting that it's not going to work out how you want. Or do you never give up, do you think that's pretty much anything — as long as you haven't spilled a tin of paint over it — is redeemable? There are… Continue reading Hummingbird
Crafty Rat 