May Review

As is usual at this time of year, I feel the effects of Autumn/Winter and recognise I am not as productive at this time. Instead of getting frustrated with myself, I have accepted that I haven't as much to share in this review but I've managed some small lovely pieces.

#52cards2024 : to create a card that reflects the past week (ending Sunday). I must include stitch, the colour turquoise and a word. 5 cards again for the past month.

I post details about the inspiration for these on my Facebook Artist's page. 

Last month's tutor in Fodder School 3 was Susanne Randers. I had been looking forward to her lessons and this is what came out of them so far. Creating fodder : 

Creating art cards from the fodder. My last weekly art card for the month was created as part of this project. 

I am working on the portfolio to house these but I don't want to rush it. If I delay posting I'll be able to include other art from Fodder School 3 and share some cards I make inspired by June's teacher Sarah Gardner. 

Also happening in June, Tam is running her gorgeous Kaleidoscope course for the 5th and final year

Sign up HERE for more info and the free taster week which starts 17 June.

Hopefully more to share in my June review. I post a little more regularly on my Instagram and Facebook Artist's page...depending on the season 💜

April Review and May free class inspiration

We are in the throes of Autumn, and I could feel myself becoming less motivated since daylight savings has ended and it is getting colder and the days are getting shorter. In previous years I have had a break from posting, but now I realise creativity is also seasonal, and it is good for me to look back on past projects and to recognise my own patterns of actively creating vs filling my inspiration bucket. It makes me happy when I see other people posting their art, so hopefully I can do the same for someone else. 

If nothing else happens each month, I am still enjoying my weekly challenge of #52cards2024 : to create a card that reflects the past week (ending Sunday). I must include stitch, the colour turquoise and a word. When I posted my March cards, I didn't realise until a couple of days later that we were quarter of the way through the year! So here are the first 13 cards together

These are my April cards : 

I post details about these weekly on my Facebook Artist's page, and thought I would share here that 2 of these were directly inspired by excellent free lessons this month.

Brooke Henry was the inspiration for this weekly art card

And I enjoyed watching Laly Mille's free Flower flow lessons and did this page of messy flower doodles 

one of which appeared on this weekly art card

I've also had the opportunity to share my mixed media love at work. Towards the end of our school term, all staff had to offer a 2 hour session for students to enrol in something they'd never done before. The sessions were called "Be Brave" and I had 20 students in my session. I taught them how to create an arty junk journal using recycled cardboard and various papers with a simple 3 hole pamphlet stitch. We also talked about how art is a great way to have fun, learn new things, and to support yourself when you are anxious or under stress, especially through writing or using good positive quotes to get the self-talk right in their head eg. I am Brave, I can do hard things. I took examples of my work to inspire them to fill their journals and it was an awesome session. This is an example of one of the student junk journals. 

We will repeat this opportunity for a different group of students each term this year.

The last 2 weeks of April have been school holidays where I made less art than I expected, but had many lovely social outings and reconnecting with friends. In the studio I've been doing a lot of watching classes and thinking. I've been reminding myself that creativity doesn't show up unless you're actually spending some time creating every day. If between projects or not motivated, do the thing you know you can do. Flip through some of your own work for inspiration...sort some supplies - I realised I didn't have enough messy black papers so did a bunch.

If you haven't done this before, be inspired by Roben-Marie Smith or Brooke Henry on Youtube.

Take some colouring to do when visiting a friend for a playday - these still need extra marks but that will come when I get them into a journal

Find a sweet face and add coloured pencil and doodles, glue on a pretty paper, enjoy the process

I'm excited that our Fodder School teacher for May is Susanne Randers. I have been waiting for her lessons to drop...There are also plenty of free online opportunities available in May. Even if I just watch, I don't think it's a waste of time since ideas are sparked and you never know when inspiration is going to spark action 💜 

Roben-Marie Smith is offering a Nest Fest. 12 Days. 12 Teachers. 12 Art Mediums. Each video available for 24 hours. Runs May 8-19. Go HERE to enrol. 

You can also join Messy May - a series of free daily-ish inspirations and prompts.

Looks fun! More info and sign up HERE.

And Birgit Koopsen is doing her annual gel printing challenge. She has amazing colour sense as well as mad gelli printing skills - read about and sign up for this challenge here on her instagram.

 Hopefully we can all get inspired to make some art in May. Can't wait to see what happens.

March review

Happy Easter ♥ I've had another productive month and am happy to share this review for your inspiration and mine. I really love having this monthly record to look back upon.  I am still going strong with my weekly project #52cards2024 : to create a card that reflects the past week (ending Sunday). I must include stitch, the colour turquoise and a word.These are my March cards : there were 5 Sundays this month.

This month's tutor in Fodder School 3 was Shay Michelle. I managed to experiment again with modeling paste through a stencil which I haven't done for a while - love the look of these but that was all that I was inspired enough to try this month.

Grateful this class is lifetime access so I can come back to this when the mood takes me, and it did provide me with a focus for one of my weekly cards.

Monthly journaling in my JIYA Journal created from Megan Quinlan's class supported by Wendy's lettering class. Only a couple of spreads this month, but better than nothing! 

I've decided it's too much when I'm working full time to try and work in more than one journal, so this month I concentrated on my Summer Journal. While I didn't quite make my hoped-for deadline of the Autumn Equinox on 20th March, I did manage to finish it by the end of the month! 

There is more evidence of my lettering practice here. See spreads I completed in December here,  February here, and these are March :

See everything in the flip-through video

I love the satisfaction of holding a completed journal 💙

New Supplies : Gloss sprays by Ranger (ordered from Ribbon Rose) I've been wanting these for ages so got myself some favourite colours to try out. 

And first play with a couple of colours : 

They seemed to work better on the old book page and soaked in with less effects on the cheap watercolour paper. Megan Quinlan has an excellent video here on YouTube with tips and tricks for using them including cleaning up and making sure your nozzles don't clog up! More experimentation needed.

Fav free inspiration this month - the exhibitions of Paul Dibble and Boro embroidery at our local art gallery (if you are local this is on for a while). 

Paul Dibble is a renowned New Zealand sculptor of Bronze. He passed away at the end of last year, and since he was local, our city has many of his wonderful works. These are huia birds (now extinct) and a kowhai flower - cast bronze and gold leaf.

Favourite reads this month : 

And a pet update - the kittens and puppy are growing and becoming friends. Definitely still a lot of hard work, but we have lots of joyful moments too.

April contains 2 weeks of school holidays so I look forward to sharing more art, especially in the second half of the month. I post more regularly on my Instagram and Facebook Artist's page.