New Free classes and inspirations

There are a few new free offerings that you might like to explore - I know I will be. 

Francisca Nunes has created a class to celebrate her move to the Teachable Platform. Fragments - find out about the class and sign up HERE. It started today and as far as I can tell has no end date....

You may have read about or done the 100 day project. It starts this year on Feb 22nd. I don't feel like I can manage it, but Wendy Solganik has just posted about how she and some other Fodder School teachers are going to do 100 days of using fodder - I will be following on Instagram to get inspiration for using all the wonderful collage papers and other elements I've been creating in Fodder School.  

As well as Wendy, other Fodder School teachers participating in this are Karen Elaine, Megan Quinlan, Tiffany Sharpe, Ricki Midbrod, Jane Chipp and Rebecca Chapman. I do enjoy their work so I'm excited to get inspired. 

Laly Mille has created a 4 day workshop 3-10 March. It begins the first weekend of March. Reserve your place HERE. She says Art Journal Dreams is all about creative self-care. In this online retreat, you're invited to take time for YOU while creating in your art journal.

I've done a number of workshops with Laly over the years, and I always learn something new or get inspired to try something more in my work. If you haven't done it already, I highly recommend her free workshop about supplies - go HERE for that. 

I hope there's something there to get you creatively inspired in the weeks ahead 

January Fodder School : Part 2

Our January lessons for Fodder School were with Liz Constable of Book Art Studios. As always, the lessons released at the beginning of the month are to make the fodder, and the second (released mid-month) are to use the fodder. I shared all my paper and fabric making and her free tag project in this Part 1 post. As well as the excellent teaching by Liz, there were bonus lessons from other teachers so before I looked at the portfolio project, I couldn't resist one more printing session. I wanted to try out some different surfaces and techniques from bonus sessions. 

I altered metal washers with grungy colour

More tags 

Had a play with lutradur which worked out very nicely. It's a spun bonded synthetic fabric which is slightly translucent and doesn't fray. I have quite a lot that people give me from wrapping gifted flowers. This was just white. 

And made some dark darks

Then I combined all my printing sessions into the piles you see below : on the left are my textures of paper doilies, corrugated card, tags and envelopes. Middle is fabric, round tags, coloured metal washers and small scraps. Right is darks, mediums and light coloured papers. 

Our first lesson on using this fodder was to create clusters. We were encouraged to use our sewing machines - and these are my first stitched clusters and strings

And this, finally, is my version of the main project - an imperfect portfolio. I am so happy with how it turned out. 

Front cover above and back cover below

Open the front cover

And then unfold to the right

Let's unpack from left to right

Liz had the idea of a permanent collection roll within the portfolio. This is my cluster collection 

and these are my paper samples

And below is the open back view of the portfolio

And to finish - view from the top 

You can still join us in Fodder School and/or Liz has a class and a book where you can explore some of these techniques (although this project and some of the techniques are unique to Fodder school). I've ordered my own copy to support this wonderful teacher. I know there'll be more joyful learning within.

January Review

I looove my long Summer holiday from mid-December to late January : long sunshine hours, swims, lots of social catch-ups and a time of high creative energy for me. So here's what I've been up to creatively this month. Birthday cards for January friends

I do prefer to create in batches - even 2 at a time is fun and you can try different variations. 

Sad to have to create a couple of bereavement cards

My husband asked me to make him a bookmark. I can't decide which side I prefer...

I had lots of fun in Fodder School 2 with Liz Constable - first making fodder

and then using it to create my To Adventure tag book (link includes video flip through)

and then was inspired by more bonus lessons to make some more fodder using different surfaces 

Then made some clusters and strings

I've been so busy making extra fodder I haven't quite got to making my Imperfect Porfolio, but I'm sure I'll be sharing that soon and I know I'll be playing with these techniques long after January is finished. While I am trying to be more sustainable this year and use what I have, I know when I see supplies I need. One of my criteria is to be able to support artists that I love so I have ordered Liz Constable's latest book (available Feb 2023 - currently you can pre-order) - she is a fabulous teacher and I'm sure there'll be more fun in here to support more play from the techniques I learned in Fodder School this month.

I bought Megan Quinlan's class Journal into Your Art in October last year and it re-inspired my monthly journal practice in November and December. I had decided not to continue with a monthly journal practice, but by the middle of January I was missing documenting and writing to support good self-care. This time I've made a proper JIYA journal as per class instructions. You can see more about this journal HERE in my previous post. 

I promised I'd share more progress photos in my monthly review, and I'm excited to say that my stencils by Leaca Young arrived yesterday on 31st January! (I ordered them 11th January so that's not bad from Alaska to New Zealand) 

I thought they would be fabulous in my JIYA journal and I was right! I have only had one little play with them so far using only black paint and a cosmetic sponge. 

These are the large faces straight in my journal

This lovely soft version is cleaning the stencil off into the gaps with a baby wipe

And this is the top stencil done on paper and collaged in

Medium sized face to show difference in size directly in my journal

And then I tried it on paper to make a paper doll. And had to try the small paper dolls with collaged dresses

I can't wait to have more time with these. 

Every year, I think it would be great to have a small stitching project to take to my Monday night quilt group. In my post thinking about my creativity for 2023, I talked about Roxy's Journal of Stitchery for 2023 which is a themed large snippet roll called "Down the garden path". I promised I'd share if it became a project I love and it has 💚 The project began on the first Wednesday (Italian time zone) of January and there will be a new video each Wednesday (Thursday in NZ) from Rachel and Sarah with new prompts being announced every 2 weeks until June. You can still join in. See all videos on YouTube here. I decided to use a gorgeous green leafy batik for my background, and I want to include mixed media elements as well. I am keeping it small so I stand a chance of completing this alongside my other projects. Here's what January looked like. 

That turned out to be a very long post. So great to have so much to share with you. I am back to normal hours at work now but hopefully with the long daylight hours of Summer I'll still have time to be creatively busy. I'll keep sharing my main projects on this blog but please check out my Instagram or FB artist page for more regular updates of my projects in progress.