Wanderlust : The art of painterliness

Gosh it's been a month since I posted a Wanderlust lesson! When I was prepping a page in my large art journal with black gesso for a recent A Year of Mary lesson, I decided to also prep a spread in my smaller Wanderlust journal for a lesson with Kate Crane on the theme of Texture. Kate shared texture in a painterly style using larger brushes and all sorts of found texture tools. This lesson was about being loose and free in your art journaling, with a focus on making marks, and creating lots of layers. Plus she adds stitched embellishments which are always a winner in my book. All that = loved this lesson.  

It's been dreary weather here this past weekend and we can't go anywhere cos of lockdown so I've been making the most of creative time. So grateful I have art in my life to escape into and to replenish me. See all my other posts about this class HERE.

A Year of Mary : Pay attention

I love Effy Wild's "A Year of Mary" monthly lessons and am having a bit of a catch-up. I've been picking my lessons using a random number generator. It's time for August's lesson and Effy used Autumnal colours but encouraged us to use colours that are reflective of our situation. We are still officially in Winter here in New Zealand but are being blessed with some gorgeous days of sunshine to hint at Spring....also my Magnolia is starting to bloom which always makes me want to use pink. 

This was a layered technique using glazes or washes of colour over white doodles. I used white ink for mine and they faded into my watercolour background.

But I love the look with my glazes added over the top - these paints are fluid acrylics and for this technique I just used a few drops of colour with water added to give more transparency

I took a photo of her to use as a print on future cards before I added the quote

And here's the finished spread - I was thrilled to find the gold rub-on letters in my stash.

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 34

I'm participating in Anne Brooke's weekly Tag challenge. You can view her demo each week on Youtube #52tagshannemade. Week 34 : A lovely cuppa. This was a really cool challenge and a chance for me to mix things up again - I love using paper and fabric together. 

The "tea bag" tag is a New Zealand stamp and that together with the butterfly and button are the only bits hand stitched this time. I began by gluing a tea bag to some coffee bean scrapbook paper.

I fused the fabric cup and steam to the paper before machine stitching the layers together. Glued the coffee bean paper background to the tag right at the end. Very appropriate - drinking lots of coffee, fruit tea, and the occasional glass of wine during this lockdown. This link will take you to all of my posts about this challenge.

52 Tags : one for Anne

I'm very grateful to be able to participate in Anne Brooke's weekly Tag challenge. You can view her demo each week on Youtube #52tagshannemade. She lives in the UK and I live in New Zealand, and yet I can still learn from her. She is so generous providing a free weekly lesson on Youtube that when she issued the challenge at our half way point to send her a tag, I knew I wanted to do it. At the end of my school holidays I finally decided what I'd do and I posted her tag off early August. Decided to leave sharing here until I knew it had arrived over there. Very happy to see her post this photo over the weekend 

I decided that I'd repeat my tag from Week 5 : Kisses since I am loving this challenge so much. Here's my original tag and my gatherings for Anne's one. 

I made my base first and it's not exactly the same as my tag, but is a fraternal twin ♥

Here's her tag with my card of thanks. 

This link will take you to all of my posts about this challenge.

A Year of Mary : Keep some room in your heart

I love Effy Wild's "A Year of Mary" monthly lessons and have been rationing them out to make them last. So far I've done January, February and May. I can't believe it's been so long since I completed a lesson! Since it's Lockdown in New Zealand, I thought a bit of Mary and Effy might help 💜 The lessons are all so beautiful that I couldn't choose, and used a random number generator to pick my next one. For July's lesson we're working again with the Mary Oliver's poem Evidence. Last time we worked with kindness & mischief, but this time it's "Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable." We're in unimaginable times. I'm keeping room in my heart for love, for kindness, for empathy, and for gratitude. I am counting my blessings that I am in a bubble with people I love and that we can work from home. 

We began with a black gessoed background and metallic watercolours.

I suspect there will be more of these lessons to share in the near future...See all my art from this class HERE. 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.

52 Tags : Week 33

I'm participating in Anne Brooke's weekly Tag challenge. You can view her demo each week on Youtube #52tagshannemade. Week 33 : Little Flags. Began this tag on Monday night and the key represented the weekend of celebrating our eldest son's 21st. By midnight Tuesday, New Zealand had unexpectedly entered Lockdown so now the key symbolises 2 things.

This was a fun challenge which enabled me to use these cute wee wooden pegs on a piece of string to attach my flags. We are working from home and happy in our bubble. Anxiously awaiting news of more cases and whether we'll be moving down levels next week. I hope you are safe. So grateful that we were able to celebrate with Jacob and his close friends and family last Saturday night. This is my lovely family - before you ask, my sons are 6'7'"and 6'3" respectively. The younger one is still growing. 

And this is the wonderfully creative cake made by Sweet As Kisses Cakes - highly recommended. It tasted as good as it looks   

This link will take you to all of my posts about the tag challenge. 

52 Tags : Week 32

I'm participating in Anne Brooke's weekly Tag challenge. You can view her demo each week on Youtube #52tagshannemade. Week 32 : Daisy stitch. Lovely tag to do and very happy to be able to include my usual sari ribbon, a piece of inherited lace, and those sweet wee metal beads from my stash. I usually like to work in threes but I only had two and I think it works.

This tag reminds me of Spring. We are getting closer. This link will take you to all of my posts about this challenge.

Fodder Challenge

I hadn't done as much as I'd hoped from the free Fodder Challenge class during my holidays, so I decided to concentrate this past week on completing the lessons I was really drawn to before access finished yesterday. I shared some paper dolls HERE that I made inspired by Megan Whisner Quinlan

and really want to create more of these. A lovely art friend loaned me her face stamps so I've now created a fodder stash for future use for dolls on cardstock

And then created these stencil faces for use in my art journal - love these on large print book paper, and of course with stencils you get double value with faces going both ways depending which side you pounce the paint through

Rebecca Chapman shared how she paints sticker sheets and then creates collages. See a quick reel on her Insta HERE. I have been meaning to buy sticker sheets since I joined The Painted Project and saw Sandi Keene make lovely watercolour stickers. These are my take.  I used dylusions spray in the background and then various botanical stencils with acrylic and metallic paints. Excited to try using the Kraft stickers later...

Note to self - may have been easier to peel off the round stickers to keep on plastic for future use instead of the border... 

Wendy Solganik (Willa Wanders) shared her wonderful process for creating tags from a master sheet. You can take this class now for US$20 HERE. These are Willa's tags

I did my own version of a 'master sheet' using a limited palette (paua colours) over  different types of paper. Left to right : book paper, black card stock, lavender card stock. Some will become tags, and some will just be used for collage papers.

I've loved doing this, and I can't wait for October and this year-long collaborative experience with 12 teachers that make me excited. 

You can sign up HERE. Price now US$187 and registrations close August 31 with class starting 1st October. I was gifted money for my birthday and enrolled last month. There are already some lessons up in the classroom to start getting organised. Might see you there. 

P.S. DeeDee Catron is keeping a record of where content from the original challenge can now be accessed. She said she'll update as teachers share in different places. Find that HERE.

52 Tags : Week 31

I'm participating in Anne Brooke's weekly Tag challenge. You can view her demo each week on Youtube #52tagshannemade. Week 31 : Bring on the bling ♥ Anne was inspired to use lots of bits of gold. I love stars and had been gifted this double-layered silver butterfly some time ago. Used a bit of batting behind this one so soft to stitch through. Useful reminders of techniques like using a seed bead to attach sequins. And a perfect opportunity to use metallic thread in my machine to attach some of my beloved sari ribbon and that very blingy gold ribbon at the base.

This link will take you to all of my posts about this challenge.

Birthday cards

I've been creating another batch of bases for cards working with collage and colour on watercolour paper. This is really good fun to create base papers that can later be used as collage fodder - you could do this on book paper, sheet music, magazine pages, maps... if you can think of a paper you could add these layers.

Stencil details added then trimmed down ready for further embellishment.

One turned into Tag 24

Here are some turned into cards already gifted - I love to add stitch so I always decorate my feature card and then stitch it on at the end. 

And I recently used another for a paper doll

Really looking forward to using the rest.

Back to work today for me. Happy August to you - hope the sun is shining where you are.