Wanderlust : Make a wish

Wanderlust Week 4 with Shay Michelle. As well as making wishes for the year ahead, our teacher encouraged us to play with many different textures. The watercolour and salt backgrounds along with modeling paste through a stencil are fun techniques which I was happy to revisit

I decided that texture for me always means adding fibre and stitch. I had already started this tag and it worked well with my colours this week

Fun to work on separate pages and after adding extra glitter and stitch, I was able to glue them into my journal.

My word of the year is SHINE - the glitter and star symbolise that for me without the need for extra words.

Wanderlust : Celebrate your reflection

Wanderlust Week 3 with Kasia Avery. Two lessons from Kasia this month. This one was about creating a half-realistic self-portrait in a painterly style and focusing on the process rather than the end result. This turned out to be a lesson and a half! 

I love painting faces, but the idea of doing a realistic self-portrait is very intimidating. I was grateful that I did this lesson after my latest journal jam face which loosened me up for using a more painterly style. I have learned to love the Stabilo All pencil to sketch faces and then blend with water so I used that this time.

Then I added my paints. Although I didn't follow Kasia's instructions to use lots of paint layers on my face, I felt fairly happy that it looked like a combination of her inspiration and my own artistic voice. It doesn't look at all like me but I loved the process and it had personal meaning...

And then I looked at it the next day and I kept thinking she looked like an old lady and a complete stranger. I wasn't happy with the proportions of the eyes or the mouth and I decided to change them. Luckily having not sealed the Stabilo originally I was able to use a baby wipe to remove a lot!

The minute I did that I had second thoughts and I had to do a LOT of reworking of the entire face. I lost all joy in the process and was wishing I hadn't touched it. But I persisted, and as I kept working, and reworking, and then went back to using the techniques I love, eventually a face emerged that was better than the last.

This still doesn't look like me, but it feels more youthful, softer and kinder. I could re-work it again - the eyes aren't perfect - but see that word Release? I think I've got as much out of this lesson as is possible before it tips from learning and self-kindness into frustration. Hopefully when I look at her tomorrow I'll still like her. I'm putting her out into the world now.

I am so glad that I am doing these weekly lessons in a journal devoted to this year-long class : it's a smaller size than my main journal so I feel like I will be able to manage to complete each lesson on time and because it's just for these lessons I feel more willing to take risks because I'm just trying out techniques. And now I'm ready to turn the page and eagerly await next week's lesson. 

Journal Jam

Another Journal Jam that I could do live :-) I love arting alongside Effy Wild in Canada. Her 2pm afternoon is my 8am the next day. Watch the unedited replay HERE.

Add some tape I have some old rolls of tape which is cream and I've been using as a good layer in a background. I use gel medium to make sure it sticks properly.

Mix your own colour Effy chose to use Iridescent Fine Gold Bright with Carbon Black to create an antique gold colour and I decided to follow that since I love metallics and have never tried that colour. Brayered on and I filled in round the outer edges with my brush

Draw a face Yay! She will hopefully sit nicely next to my last journal girl.

Scribble Scribbly writing with a pitt pen

Glaze I used Golden brand transparent high flow acrylics for my glazes. No idea why she has blue hair!

Love Hearts My own hand carved stamp on some collage paper I made almost a year ago - I love using little pieces of it in my art.

Least favourite colour I needed to add some colour to my background so decided to add another glaze. I don't use red very often and usually it's blue toned if I do use it. When I reached for my transparent napthol red light it wasn't even opened so clearly a least favourite colour! I like the effect - perhaps I'll use red more often...

White pen This  became Effy's last prompt and led into the tending/finishing stage for her, but I obviously had more to do. When I added her skin tones I took the opportunity to move her eyes further apart, and did some other coloured pencil detailing on her face.

I wasn't able to keep up to art along in real time all the way through this week, but I loved her so much I finished her later in the day ♥ Has also loosened me up for doing this week's self-portrait Wanderlust lesson so that's a bonus.