Art Journaling: using gesso and sprays

Posted on 30th April 2015 by Neil

For next Monday’s art journaling session at The Studio, we’ll be playing with gesso. This is one of my sample pages, using both ‘normal’ gesso and the Finnabair Art Basics heavy body gesso to get some texture, as well as faded colour onto my pages. There’s also some never-been-used action here, with the IndigoBlu ‘Beautiful Mind’ stamps and the Stampendous ‘Marks’ stamps by Nathalie Kalbach. The lettering is freehand, first painted with the gesso, tidied and augmented with broad Signo white pigment pen and then outlined in Sakura Jelly Roll Gloss Black.

If you’d like to join one of my Art Journaling Sessions at The Studio, details are here. You can also get details of the sessions using the link on the sidebar or under the Workshops tab at the top of the page.

Mixed media sketchbook cover

Posted on 28th April 2015 by Neil

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.

So what did you do today?

Posted on 23rd April 2015 by Neil

It’s the perennial question – ‘what did you do today?’ And alongside that, ‘what’s a mixed media artist?’ Well, today, both can be answered with – I drew lots and lots of short lines. And when I say lots, I probably mean thousands. What possessed me to work at the scale I did, I don’t know, but I suspect the 12×12″ page size, the Crafter’s Workshop stencil and the Signo pens all came together. And I’m delighted with the results. And I have writer’s cramp!

Never Been Used: more in my art journal…

Posted on 31st March 2015 by Neil

I’m still trying to get a new trend going – tagging a post where I’ve used something that hasn’t previously been used by me as #nbu – never been used. One problem is finding time to do it myself! It’s part of my determination that nothing comes into my studio that I don’t then use in some way…. perhaps a rather weak way of justifying the purchase in the first place! Anyway, I finally did something last night with my Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous stamp set ‘Remnants’ (CMS130):

What I did at the weekend…

Posted on 30th March 2015 by Neil

This gorgeous bird started out as a £1 plain brass charm at the start of Saturday morning. It’s only 7x5cm in size, but had the dimples ready for the cloisonné effect additions of Stickles Glue (Stardust, Peacock & Lagoon), Juniper Liquid Pearls and some Glossy Accents. So by the end of Sunday, this was the final result. I need to make sure I get to the rest of them, so I’m staying quiet as to where I found it!

I also completed two more art journal pages – another for my Carabelle Studio stamps demo, and the second featuring new stamps from Tim Holtz. This page had several layers of paint and distress stains to start, and then I augmented it with the ‘Pretty Like A Flower’ stamp, with distress markers. It’s the first time I’ve used PanPastels to tone down a background, fixing with a quick hairspray. Which by the way causes archival ink to swim about, so the gesso layer got thicker to cover that learning moment…

Iridescent watercolours really make the embossed butterfly zing – but beware when drying the previous page – the embossing remelts and distresses both the artist and the facing page somewhat!

Beauty in Simplicity: art journal page

Posted on 28th March 2015 by Neil

Now that I’ve finished my latest quilt, it’s back to sample making showing off the Carabelle Studio stamps I will be ~~playing with~~ demonstrating at Daisy’s Jewels and Crafts on Saturday 11th April (10am – 4pm). Featured today are ‘Envolée de Papillons’, ‘Background Papillons’, ‘Papillion Grunge’, Collage Texte et Négatif’ and the XXL size ‘Négatif et Papillons’.

The page features lots and lots of layers of distress inks, acrylics, scraped gesso, and Wendy Vecchi Archival Inks, as well as Tim Holtz life quotes and tissue tape.

Arts in Worship: Sermon Sketchnotes

Posted on 23rd March 2015 by Neil

I recently got hold of a copy of Mike Rohde’s ‘The Sketchnote Handbook: the illustrated guide to visual notetaking’. It reminded me that notes can be fun, and that linear format notes tend not to be that exciting – either in the writing or indeed the review. I’m always looking for ways to stay awake in church (it’s the sleep disorder and meds I’m on, not a side effect of the service!) and thought I’d give the principles a go. Here are four examples, in date order, from my first go at the process to yesterday’s sermon notes. I say ‘first go’ – I’ve been used to note taking, and doodling in the margins, as well as adding illustrations to mind maps over the years… this is the first time I’ve combined all of them into one method of notetaking.

[Completed during the sermon, in a Moleskine Pocket Plain Notebook with Lamy Safari fountain pen, fine nib with Noodler’s Bulletproof black ink]

Art Journal Pages: with Carabelle Studio Stamps

Posted on 19th March 2015 by Neil

Here are some more previews of projects I will be demonstrating at Daisy’s Jewels and Crafts in April. I’ve created a couple of art journal pages using Carabelle Studio‘s ‘Steampunk Man Portrait’ ‘Steampunk: Machine à remoter le temps’ with ‘Collage Texte et Négatif’. The second page features ‘The here and now’. And the third features Birgit Koopsen’s ‘Leafs’.

Art Journaling – Inverse Silhouettes (2)

Posted on 3rd March 2015 by Neil

We had fun last night with inverse silhouettes at my Art Journaling Session here at The Studio. There was a little bit of apprehension at painting over a perfectly good background, and then ooohs and ahhhs as the colours started to zing against the black. Here’s another of my examples from last night:

I think the background is Distress Paint using the spritz and splat method on a non-stick craft sheet. The white is brushed acrylic ink, with Signo broad white pigment pen over the top, and the yellow centres and daisy shadows are Sharpies. I’ve also added a bit of shading at the top of the circles to suggest a drop shadow under the black layer with a water-soluble black pencil smudged out with a water brush.

I was also reminded of several other pieces I did back in 2013 using a similar technique – the post is here.

Continue reading →

Art Journaling – Inverse Silhouettes

Posted on 28th February 2015 by Neil

Those of you who happen to lead projects or workshops, or lessons, or sermons, may have the same reaction as me to the question ‘what are we doing next time?’. There’s the moment of panic – ‘I’ve not even thought about it’; then there’s the moment of ‘shall I make something up?’. Then there’s the next thought: ‘I really must get a lesson plan together’. All of which then gets summarised into the quintessential reply: ‘It’s a surprise.’

So it was at the end of my last art journaling session a month ago. Since then, a little planning has happened, and I’ve come up with the project for Monday’s session: inverse silhouettes. Here’s a couple of examples I’ve done this week: