February review

Back to school last month and trying to make the most of the long daylight hours of Summer to be creatively busy. If you've not been here before I work at a private school as part-time librarian and part-time office administrator. I think I have the best job in the world and I get great holidays 💜 It's been a really busy first month back at school, so less finished than what I would have liked, but I always appreciate writing these posts to remind myself of all that I actually get done. One of the lessons that I seem to have to re-learn every so often is to just start...

I was in need of some more card bases - I will finish them with words and whatever else takes my fancy when occasions arise. 

Progress on my stitched "Down the garden path" roll. February's prompts were Vegetable garden and Garden shed. My garden shed began with dyed fabrics from a class I took last month and that cut out of a chicken. I like how my shed looks beside my vegie patch and I don't care about scale or perfect stitching. It makes me smile.

If you want to join in, all the prompts are on YouTube Here.

I've been continuing to work in my JIYA Journal created from Megan Quinlan's class. These are my spreads completed last month

Liz Constable's latest book arrived, autographed inside and wrapped in gorgeous paper made by her with a little extra envelope. 

It is a fabulous addition to my learning from Fodder School lessons last month. Run and order yours now. So good to support an artist living in New Zealand - she posts internationally. And I finally completed my Imperfect Portfolio project inspired by Liz's January lessons - see lots of photos HERE. 

We've all felt a bit short-changed with our February weather - not our usual summer in New Zealand. Everything crossed that March is a delight and Autumn is a late starter. We've had a fabulous day for the 1st of the month. Daylight savings doesn't finish until 2nd April so I'm living on summer time until then. 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.

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.