Wanderlust : a desire to do everything

Wanderlust Week 8 with Renee Mueller. This week we're exploring Ephemera as a way of collecting ideas. Although Renee's lesson was very different from my style in many ways, she included stitch and texture, and shared a quote by Claude Monet that I resonated with. I decided to print it on some scrapbook paper that is muted but in my style and happily the printing of it fit perfectly with the pattern of metallic silver dots. 

I 💜 using stencils, modeling paste, stamping, hand stitching, machine stitching, combining paper with stitch with fabric, using sheet music and words, experimenting - like these hexagon shapes inspired by last week's tag but I tried them with paper

I also love layers and texture, and fibre and lace, and postage stamps. I would never have created this spread without Renee's lesson and am loving the weekly challenge of this course, working with different ideas that make me think about how I create.

52 Tags : Week 8

I'm participating in Anne Brooke's weekly challenge on Youtube #52tagshannemade. Week 8 : French knots, bullion knots and pistil stitch. I saw an opportunity to use paper again this week. I used a piece torn from a lovely old garden book. The words inspired my thread colour choices and I couldn't resist adding some beads too.

Scroll through all of my 52 tags HERE.

A Year of Mary : Wild and precious life

I shared a warm up lesson for this class HERE, and have finally managed to complete January's offering. Working with Mary Oliver's poem The Summer Day which contains perhaps her most famous quote.

I really love the sketched version before all the colour is added

Tombow markers and iridescent medium for the roses

Effy demonstrated tombow markers for the face as well, but I prefer to use acrylics, clear gesso, and then blended pencils.  

I think this could be lovely as a card and I could add different found words so remembered to take a photo before I added my quote

Very happy with how she turned out

Effy's version is on her blog HERE. And recently I saw this on FB which I think is too good not to share : 

Effy Wild is doing "A Year of Mary" as a monthly lesson exclusively on her Patreon at the $5 (speed painting) or $10 (full length tutorial and PDF) per month levels. Lessons are released mid-month. See all my art from this class HERE. 

52 Tags : Week 7

I'm participating in Anne Brooke's weekly challenge on Youtube #52tagshannemade. Week 7 : Hexis. Cool technique - the Youtube link is Anne demonstrating the technique for the week. 

Scroll through all of my 52 tags HERE.

Wanderlust : Making Ephemera personal

Wanderlust Week 7 with Kate Crane. Kate's a guest host for 2021 so we'll be seeing more than one lesson from her - thankful for that. Thoroughly enjoyed this lesson from the gatherings, to including a colour palette right on my page, to seeing this spread come to life. Personal touches include use of favourite stencils 

Adding handmade stamps to sheet music to create some unique circular elements

I'm a kiwi girl so like to include elements from New Zealand, and I adore using found words

The photo is of my mother, the lace is her grandmother's, and I love to include stitch where I can

I really enjoy book pages and sheet music in the background still being able to be seen through layers. Very happy with this spread

52 Tags : Week 6

I'm participating in Anne Brooke's weekly challenge on Youtube #52tagshannemade. Week 6 : A bevy of buttons. Inspired as well by Anne using a piece of vintage quilt for her background I got a piece of fabric and stitched it to a piece of batting for my base. 

Thinking about how to stitch buttons on in different ways, where to arrange them on the base, and what colour thread to use. 

So much fun from a simple idea 💜

Scroll through all of my 52 tags HERE.

Wanderlust : Collage-ology

Wanderlust Week 6 with Kristin Peterson. This month's theme is ephemera and this week's lesson was introduced as a collage and texture adventure. I decided to approach this week by writing down the steps of her third demonstration video and then use them as though I was pulling prompts as we do for journal jam.

Layer collage (using Kristin's Helpful Hints) Happily, I glued the wrong side of my old magazine page and found a great heading to start the page. I protected the words with a layer of gel medium so I should be able to wipe off future layers that cover too much.

Layer first paint layers and add drippage by adding water

Drip and move fluid acrylic/ink

Add tape (she used masking tape for extra texture) I adore this pink tapa washi tape and had peeled it off another project so was great to be able to use it. 

White paint 

Dylusions spray

Drips of fluid acrylic/ink I used white ink splatter since the white paint was pretty much covered by the dylusions spray layer. 

Sponge colour through a background stencil Used one of my favourite stencils

Add drippage with black and other black around the page Instead of doing the drippage, and wanting to add more collage I decided to use black thread to create a tag. 

I also added the triangle stencil in the border and some black ink pad smooshed on some of the edges

Let dry completely and consider how to finish. Calm the page down with stencils. I was happy that I'd added enough stencils but decided more black would help unify the page so found a butterfly for an added collage element, and some found words to finish.

This was a really fun spread playing with all the things I love

Free inspirations for February

A few Free art inspirations available this month. Laura Horn has created a 5 day free challenge HERE. 

While the challenge ends on the 14 Feb, you will have access to the content until the 2 March 2021.

And in case you missed enrolling first time around, The Painted Paper Project is available again HERE. 

Shared again for Valentine's Day, this Kindness Project, with the simple message of SPREAD JOY, has thousands of creatives making “heart bundles” to share with others. Featuring a number of artists, the doors are open to new sign-ups for a limited time.

And if you're looking for an extra challenge to make art every day, you can still join the 100 Day Project. It seems very daunting to me with an already packed schedule but Roben-Marie Smith shares her tips and tricks HERE if you're keen. She's doing #100daysofswatchesmyway. Check out her Instagram feed here to see them

I'm actually tempted to try joining a couple of my fav instagrammers for #100daysofcollagefodder. It was Wendy from Willa Wanders who had this idea - check out her stories on her Instagram. Follow her College Fodder account HERE or her Willa account for highlights.

You can find Megan Whisner-Quinlan HERE and more specifically #megsfodder2021

I am tempted by this as a way to follow-up and expansion on my Stitched Elements for art journals which I shared in July last year. 

I'll let you know if I join in....

52 Tags : Week 5

I'm participating in Anne Brooke's weekly challenge on Youtube #52tagshannemade. Week 5 : Kisses. Incorporating a cross from strips of fabric and then adding X stitching. I gathered pretty blush pink and neutrals. 

I liked the combination of paper and fabric for my Week 4 tag so I decided to repeat that idea but in a different way. This time the paper is some doily from my gel printing session with alcohol inks here and I used a heart design stitch on my machine to attach the fabric. It doesn't show much in the end, but it's an extra fun addition.

The thread is Artificial silk for crochet or knitting. Chunky and with a pretty sheen.

I just love this close-up of all the delicious texture

Scroll through all of my 52 tags HERE.

January review

I have been blessed with having the whole of January off because I work at a school in New Zealand. Today I began Term One with the first of a couple of teacher only days and the children will start their school year on Wednesday. I am the school librarian, work 10 hours a week in the office, and I also hope to be teaching quilt making again in the second half of the year. I love my job but I have adored this time to rest and to have plenty of creative time. I don't know if I've ever been more productive and I feel back to my normal energy levels  again which is fantastic.  

Going forward, I'll obviously have less time to create. I am going to try and do my weekly Wanderlust lessons on the weekend as they are released, 

and gather my tag supplies so I can do my stitching for the weekly 52 Tags challenge on an evening early in the week to share with you regularly mid-week. 

So you should still see me blogging at least a couple of times during the week, and hopefully at least once more as I participate in some other online classes and personal projects that don't have the weekly deadline.

Last year I tried creating a book a month. I created a concertina/accordian book form earlier this month, and have now decided that I'm going to try and do a book for each season this year. This is the start of my Summer book - will hopefully be able to share it finished around the end of February. 

I don't think I shared these 2 birthday cards created earlier this month.

I've had a bit of fun with colour recently. I've been mixing of some of my gorgeous Pebeo Iridescents inspired by this YouTube Joggles video. These were my samples - so pretty. 

I was also inspired by Laly Mille to take my pastels out of their boxes and put them in bowls on my desk for easy access and inspiration. These are soft pastels, oil pastels and my Neocolor II's

Strathmore have announced their free online workshops for 2021. 

They start in March. I have added this to my link to free online artful classes which you can always find below my profile in the right side bar.

I hope we are all able to fit creativity into our February. Talk to you again soon.