52 Tags : Week 13. First quarter check in

I'm participating in Anne Brooke's weekly Tag challenge. You can view her demo each week on Youtube #52tagshannemade. Week 13 : Layers (of gold). Anne gathered thread, little safety pins, scraps of fabric, small piece of lace - all in a yellow/gold theme for their Spring weather. Gold is also appropriate for me heading into Autumn and the gorgeous sunshine we are still enjoying {when it's not raining!}

I had lot more I could have added, but concentrated on colour and texture this time, using a combination of hand stitching and machine. 

We are a quarter of the way through this year and this challenge! Here's what I've done so far.

Loving this weekly focus

Wanderlust : Embrace the process

This was our last lesson for March on our theme of Serendipity : Week 12 with Mary Beth Shaw aka Stencil Girl. Our first lesson was to create 'parts' - We created serendipitous colour layers with tissue

I've bought a cheap silicone spatula from KMart to use for gluing - no more brushes being ruined. I just wipe it clean with a baby wipe or damp cloth between uses. 

Then I made little assemblages for collage fodder - I enjoy adding stitching to many of these.

Some learnings or good reminders : always art with paper beneath to get interesting pieces from bleed through or using up paint = lovely serendipitous pieces. 

Pull layers of paper serviettes apart easily using a piece of tape on each outer edge (seems so obvious but I never thought of it!)

Next up to create our journal spread. As Mary Beth suggested, I pulled out bits in a limited colour palette. First layers of collage from the underpapers

then more collage, including tissue layers, and paint. I've also started using old neutral scrap book papers for my underpaper. Hopefully I'll use them more with my own marks of colour added.

Mary Beth's style is very much about embracing the process of art journaling and to keep going until you are happy. I did just that and forgot to take process photos so that's a good sign that I had fun.

52 Tags : Week 12

I'm participating in Anne Brooke's weekly Tag challenge. You can view her demo each week on Youtube #52tagshannemade. Week 12 : Blanket stitch. I began by opening my drawer of batiks and being immediately attracted by the gorgeous turquoise. I started stitching and really enjoyed overlapping my stitches. It quickly felt like the ocean to me so I added beads and sari ribbon trim to complete the effect

52 Tags : Week 11

I'm participating in Anne Brooke's weekly Tag challenge. You can view her demo each week on Youtube #52tagshannemade. Week 11 : Rings. Anne suggested using a plain background  and perhaps a little lace to show off your stitched rings. I went completely against her advice and used some silk from my stash which was already embroidered with circles. I decided that more was more! I had a couple of key rings and was lucky to be able to raid my husband's supply of washers - metal and rubber. They actually looked really fun just laid on the blank tag

The stitching took a little longer this week but well worth the result I think. It's quite heavy but I love the dimension especially as seen in that top photo

Wanderlust : Planned serendipity

Wanderlust Week 10 was with Carolyn Dube. Carolyn is very free and playful with her art. Kasia called her the queen of serendipity (our theme for March). Find her blog HERE and  her FREE Permission to play workshop HERE - a cardboard art journal. 

Our brief was learning how to plan serendipity by creating the groundwork for it. This class was all about finding the connections between your chosen supplies. We were challenged to pick 5 supplies and see where they took us. "If you create the fertile ground, those random serendipitous moments will appear". I didn't get a chance to play with that lesson last week and watched our new Week 11 offerings with Kiala Givehand and also a bonus from Kasia Avery answering some questions from class participants. All 3 lessons have come together to create this spread. 

Kiala was getting us to think about our memories and experiences as fodder for our art journal - seeing the magic in the mundane. Kasia gave us some ideas about gathering inspiration and how to choose a limited colour palette that relates to your subject to help translate real-life inspiration into art (she has just uploaded this to YouTube!). I began by writing down my story for these pages as suggested by Kiala and then chose my colours : gold, red, orange, violet to signify sexuality, blood, wisdom, spirituality; Celebrating and honouring one of my stories as a woman.

Then I gathered my other supplies as suggested by Carolyn. 

First layers using my colours to cover my writing

The rest of the elements came together without too much effort.  

I'm very pleased with the layers of meaning embedded in this spread and really happy that serendipity led me to combine these lessons. 

Gelli journal to collage fodder

In January 2019 I took a wonderful class with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer called Gelli journals. I had purchased it on an early-bird special price and was so glad I did. I learned a lot and created a whole journal with gelli printed papers inside and you can see those prints HERE. 

I created this journal to take away for our dream Hawaiian holiday, and I did create a few pages there. But then it sat until October 2020 before I created another page which I don't think I ever shared with you since I thought it would be the first of many...but I've not touched it since.

I do love the look of this, but I feel no desire to finish the journal so I am repurposing these inky papers for collage fodder. 

No guilt about not finishing this 'project' as a gelli journal - it served its purpose for my learning and I feel very excited by this stack of gelli goodness now in my paper stash. I have torn my Hawaiian pages out and they are now stored with my written journal pages as part of my memories. And the fun has already begun....I used a piece for my most recent tag - perfect colours ready-made ♥ You can see the paper 2nd from the top in the stack of materials and at the top of the tag

And I've created these lovely bits so far having fun with some simple stamping and stencil outlining

- loving that once you cut out you can get serendipitous loveliness on the 'back' and that if you cut in one continuous line you have some other opportunities left on the page

Definitely going to be more of this kind of play in my future. Very satisfying to repurpose an unfinished project into exciting new possibilities. Get great collage fodder inspiration HERE and HERE and HERE and I've created a new label for my posts on the blog for this topic HERE.

52 Tags : Week 10

I'm participating in Anne Brooke's weekly Tag challenge. You can view her demo each week on Youtube #52tagshannemade. Week 10 : Suffolk puff and lace trim. Very happy that I can use another lovely piece of my stash of lace that I inherited from my great grandmother but started a bit blocked by the Suffolk puff (known here as a Yo Yo) which is just not my style. Determined to make it work and thought that pink and yellow would be happy together. Breakthrough when I thought of using the puff as a flower bloom. 

Using stitches learned earlier in the challenge. That lace though ♥

Scroll through all of my 52 tags HERE.

Free online inspirations for March

We are so lucky to live in this world of online access to teaching designed to inspire our creativity. These are free online lessons available from this month. 

Strathmore Workshop 1 has begun this month :  Watercolour and Gouache

There's a 2021 Sketchbook revival event beginning March 18th. All the info HERE.

It runs live for 2 weeks and available to watch until April 18th. I always sign up to these since even if only a couple of artists inspire it makes it worthwhile. If you sign up now you get a free lesson with Kiala Givehand to make this book - a combination of accordian covers and simple pamphlet stitching

Jeanne Oliver has a number of free offerings. Go HERE to find all of them including her most recent offering of Face mapping with Pam Carriker

Free writing with Sabrina Ward Harrison HERE

Paint your dream life with Stephanie Lee HERE

Did you know that Ranger have a blog of tutorials by various artists using their products? I'm in love with Megan Whisner Quinlan's art and techniques at present. She has an IGTV channel where she has some lovely demonstrations. Some of her projects feature on the Ranger blog with photos accompanying written instruction 

and you can find her on the Stencil Girl blog. She also has a youtube channel.

Remember I keep a list of free online art classes that are available in an ongoing way HERE (always linked right under my profile). Hope you are enjoying a happy and creatively inspired March.

Wanderlust : Serendipity

Wanderlust Week 9 with Kasia Avery. The first lesson of the month is always with our host as we move to a new monthly theme. March's theme is Serendipity : building your intuitive art practice to help you focus on the process rather than the result. Joy in the process is a big part of why I create so I'm sure I'm going to love the offerings this month. Kasia's lesson focused on responding to what is happening on the page right here right now, rather than planning anything too far ahead. Her lesson looked like this : 

I almost didn't do it....I had a bit of a slump in creativity this past week. But today I decided I'd have a go and would just start with pink and silvery grey and focus on whether I could include a collaged face and use more white on the page. As I searched for a face and gathered some paper, serendipity immediately took me in a different direction than even that small idea and I found myself working with a figure and roses.

I love this softness and was very careful that I didn't overwork this spread. The ultimate in serendipity for me is found words ♥ Although I didn't succeed in using more white on my page, I am very happy with how this turned out.

52 Tags : Week 9

I'm participating in Anne Brooke's weekly Tag challenge. You can view her demo each week on Youtube #52tagshannemade. Week 9 : Bits, pieces and a gift. An opportunity to use, treasure and display a gift from a friend. 

I'm having a bit of a lull on the creative mojo front. It's great to have this weekly challenge that I'm still excited by because it means I'm still creating every week.

Scroll through all of my 52 tags HERE.