One Collage Challenge [Wanderlust 2016]

My Wanderlust journey has wandered off track recently… it has been a long time since I have checked in at each of the stops, and as the year draws to a close I thought I’d better check when I lost access to the class! Sigh of relief – I have a little longer to browse and save what I want to keep.

But in the meantime, I caught up with the One Collage Challenge. Every fortnight or so we were given a step, to take no more than 5 minutes, to build up a final collage. Prompts ranged from ‘add dots’, to ‘cover your page with a stamped image’, and the penultimate one – cover your whole page with gesso or acrylic paint.

Now collage isn’t really my thing – so the step by step was a good process. I didn’t really like what was developing, but that final unifying coat of gesso blended it all together into what turned out to be quite a pleasing piece of art.

Here’s a quick video showing each of the steps, and the impact they had on the building piece:

 

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Art Journal Page: Illuminating Letters

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The next art journal session in The Studio is on Monday, and this morning I’m prepping my samples. We’re going to attempt to create an illuminated letter. I’ve put together instructions for a basic Celtic arched lettering, but this is my take on a more Gothic Celtic style of illuminated lettering.

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Art Journal: Modelling Paste Cover [Wanderlust Wk18]

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I’ve jumped a few weeks in my Wanderlust 2016 course – I do aim to go back and catch up, but Andy Skinner was the tutor for this week’s activity, and I just had to get grungy! I transformed the front cover of my latest (A5) journal using his techniques and I’m delighted with the results. I think it looks like embossed leather, and with the soft touch varnish from DecoArt, it even feels like leather. The trickiest thing I found was getting a uniform thickness of modelling paste, so I’ll be working on that the next time I try it.

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Art Journal Page: One Word [Wanderlust]

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In the first Wanderlust class of the year, we were prompted to use just one word on our pages – and yesterday, I was so tired. Poor sleep, recovering from a cold and a wet grey day all got poured into this art journal spread. Building on the learning gleaned from the first pick a stick challenge, I layered and layered, and am actually rather pleased with the result, as grey and drab as it is!

It’s the first time I’m working in a spiral bound art journal – this one is a Daler-Rowney Cachet Artist’s Mixed Media, A5 sized, 30 page, 250g/m2. The paper is wonderful to work on, didn’t buckle under the wet media or bend with dry acrylic and basically took everything I threw at it. There’s just one issue – the spiral bound spine: those pesky wires. I’m sticking with the book for the Wanderlust classes, but will be looking for stitch bound journals in the future.

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Art Journal Page: Pick A Stick Challenge [January]

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Gah! It’s so frustrating when you write a blog post and then there’s a glitch and it’s gone and even the saved drafts don’t seem to exist any more… so for the second time of writing:

During the week I was invited by an online friend I got to know through the Creative Chemistry 101 classes a few years ago to join a new art journaling challenge group she was organising. The Pick A Stick Challenge Group on Facebook is open to anyone who would like to join in and is an active art journaler. The premise is simple: each month, ten sticks are drawn at random from a pot of prompts covering media, styles and techniques. The only other stipulation is that you layer your page in the order the sticks are drawn. That is where the process becomes a little more tricky!

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Rusting An MDF Chalkboard

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I’m still beavering away in the studio making items to sell at the church Christmas Fayre. Yesterday I used what I had learnt at Andy Skinner’s workshop I attended last weekend to create a faux rusted enamel frame and stand for this MDF chalkboard. As it happens, I actually prefer the back – some of the paint had seeped under and the ‘chips’ appear much more organic against the gesso undercoat:

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Mixed media sketchbook cover

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This is another sample for my ‘Finnabair-inspired Sketchbook Cover’ workshop in July (booking details here). It features moulded polyurethane pieces (crafting chemistry at its best), lots of black gesso, Viva Decor Inka Gold, Silks acrylic glazes and an awful lot of dry brushing over Dreamweaver texture paste through a stencil. Microbeads by Finnabair/Prima Marketing, adhered with matt multi-medium. There are still places available on the workshop if you’d like to come and get guidance on making your own.

 

Book Review: Art Journal Kickstarter

In the first of what I hope to be regular book reviews, I’d like to offer my thoughts on:

ArtJournalKickstarter

Art Journal Kickstarter: Pages and Prompts to Energize Your Art Journals (2015)
Kristy Conlin (ed.). North Light Books. 144pp.

First off, it’s good to find a book on art journaling that doesn’t regurgitate the various way of working with mixed media in a book. This one is illustrated with  ‘back-to-back journal pages’, each accompanied with a Q&A summary with the artist. The questions tend to follow a pro forma – what was your inspiration; which mixed media artists inspire you; what interesting or unique techniques did you apply to this work. Alongside these ‘interviews’ are quotes and sayings that are more than suitable to include in your own work, or to stimulate creative juices. There are also some gems, suggesting the artist was less than impressed with the interview questions – such as describing art journaling as their ‘yoga mat’.

There are 99 contributing artists, resulting in a true variety of styles, subjects and techniques. Just about every mixed media technique is covered, including watercolour, collage, image transfer, acrylics, stamping and inks. It’s also nice to see carefully assembled pages alongside cathartic explosions of emotion, exploring the range of uses of an art journal from experimenting with materials through diarising one’s day to illustrated quotes and expressions. There are also various sizes and types of journal leaving the reader no excuse when trying to find a suitable book to work in.

The illustrations are in rich colour (as they need to be) and aren’t annoyingly cropped to fit the page. This does result in loss of detail on some of the larger spreads, but this doesn’t detract from the overall impact of the featured journal page. Each image is also accompanied by a short summary of materials used, which is often enough to work out the techniques used if this isn’t included in the Q&A section.

If one were to follow up all the artists who have inspired, many months could be lost online – and would be a great way of using the book as a further reference for art journaling inspiration. The advice to other art journal makers are pretty much of a muchness: it’s your book, your own artistic expression, and don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise, including yourself. This in turn does lead to the implied rule: don’t compare your own pages to those featured in the book – that’s not what it’s for!

One other thing I noted – certainly less than 10%, and may be even just 5% of the featured artists are male based on the names. Is this because few men journal, or are less likely to submit work for publication, or some other reason? I’d love to follow one piece of advice given, which was to form a group to journal with – so if you’re a male art journaler, please get in touch!

Am I glad I bought it:
Yes, definitely.

Who’s it for:
Someone already used to working in mixed media, looking for inspiration.

Estimated time spent reading:
Three to four hours – a fascinating insight into the artists, as well as the art.

Overall rating: 5/5

 

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Artist’s Palette Assemblage

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This project started several years ago as an impromptu challenge with another crafting artist – it’s had bits and pieces done to it in between other projects, but with my altered art demonstration day today at Coleman’s Craft Warehouse, it seemed the perfect time to get it finished and on display!

Made with a Tim Holtz Configurations box, a free wooden palette and various bits and bobs gleaned at pound shops I’ve tried to include both colour, texture and materials used by an artist. Now all I have to do is find somewhere to put it!

Workshop news… new workshop added

 

Here are two examples of my ‘bottle cap memories’ mixed media frame that you will be able to create in my new workshop on Saturday 7th September, 10am-3pm at my studio. Booking is available online via the workshops link, or email me if you’d like more information.