The combination of feeling utterly uninspired and also wanting to avoid a repeat of last year's slightly misjudged Valentine card design left me in a bit of a quandary as to what to do for this Valentine's day. Doing nothing was definitely not an option. I remembered that I had a couple of robot picture… Continue reading Valentine robot
The guest instructor for week three of the Wanderlust "inspired by another artist" theme was Tanyalee Kahler (website, Instagram). A severe lack of energy means that I have done very little creative work over the last couple of months; if it didn't have to be done (like the two birthday cards), then it didn't get done.… Continue reading Delaunay-Holdsworth
And we were back with Anneliese Bates (Instagram) for the last week of the Wanderlust "floral" theme. I'd seen people mention using glue guns to create stencils before but the technique never made it anywhere near the top of my "things I must try" list. Although I have managed to shake off the worst of… Continue reading Textured flowers
And we're back with Anneliese Bates (Instagram) for the last week of the Wanderlust "steampunk" theme. I had put off doing the steampunk lessons because, after having a quick look, I realised that most of them were going to be more time-consuming than the average art journal page. Not only that, but I would have… Continue reading Wanderlust: steampunk palette
The guest instructor for week two of the Wanderlust "floral" theme was Shawn Petite (website, Instagram, YouTube). I love Shawn's work and regularly watch her YouTube videos, especially the Sunday Inspiration ones. Lovely textured layers of collage papers, modelling paste and acrylic paint all come together to create a wonderfully weathered background for the flowers.… Continue reading Wanderlust: serenity flowers
The first week of the Wanderlust "floral" theme and, as usual, we started with the organiser Kasia Avery (website, Instagram). In an ultimately vain attempt to avoid constantly running behind on the class schedule, I decided to temporarily skip the steampunk theme which has some quite time-consuming lessons in it and jump to the Floral… Continue reading Wanderlust: inky flowers
Because I just didn't have enough to keep me occupied catching up with the Wanderlust classes, I decided to take Kasia Avery's 3 day Daily Emotions Challenge. The decision was driven by curiosity more than anything else. I love the art side of art journalling, but I've always shied away from the journalling part of… Continue reading Daily Emotions journal
This was the last lesson of the Wanderlust "rivers" theme and we were back with Kasia Avery (website, Instagram). I was working out of order here. I'd put off starting this lesson because it felt like it was going to take a while to do. Rather than just a single page in an art journal,… Continue reading Wanderlust: concertina flow
The last week of the Wanderlust "Patterns" theme and we're back with the organiser Kasia Avery (website, Instagram). It was too much to hope that there wouldn't be any more faces... and as for creating an "abstract self-portrait", well, it's only my determination to have a go at all of the Wanderlust lessons that meant… Continue reading Wanderlust: pattern portrait
The guest instructor for week three of the Wanderlust "Patterns" theme was Kellee Wynne Conrad (website, Instagram). Kellee's lesson was inspired by traditional tile patterns and the first thing we had to do was create our own. I've done a little bit of stamp carving before — including making the swallow stamp for my "two… Continue reading Wanderlust: doorway patterns
The instructor for week two of the Wanderlust "Patterns" theme was Eliza Trojanowska (website, Instagram). I always have a problem with the projects that tell you to make something meaningful to you. That is a sure-fire way to get my inner cynic going and, at the same time, set me into full-on over-thinking mode. Meaning… Continue reading Wanderlust: journal boxes
The fifth theme of the Wanderlust year is "Patterns" and, as usual, we're starting off with inspiration from the organiser: Kasia Avery (website, Instagram). This project introduced the theme of patterns in the most straightforward way: paint some squares in flat colour and then create different patterns on each of them. I was in need… Continue reading Wanderlust: hexagon patterns
The instructor for the third week of the "Rivers" theme is Laly Mille, a French mixed media artist (website, Instagram). Now, this is a finished page that I love. This is built up of so many layers that I can't begin to describe the steps required to create it. And there were a few points… Continue reading Wanderlust: river & rocks
The second week of the "Rivers" theme and this lesson was led by another new instructor: Clare Etheridge (blog, Instagram). The most fun part of this lesson has to be creating the collage papers to use in it first. I mean, I do have a small stash of papers already, but it was nice to… Continue reading Wanderlust: collage river
The third theme of the Wanderlust year was "Rivers" and we started off with inspiration from the organiser: Kasia Avery (blog, Instagram). I like rivers, and water in general, and everywhere I've lived has had a river nearby, but they've never played a particularly meaningful part in my life. I never went sailing or fishing… Continue reading Wanderlust: two rivers
Crafty Rat 