Available to purchase
Laser cut: A6 notebooks

Posted on 19th May 2019 by Neil

Often, it’s the designing that takes the longest time to do when working on a new project. In this case, it was researching the Scottish Gaelic text for the first notebook, making sure what I wanted it to say really was ‘right’. The notebook has laser cut birch plywood front and back, 1.5mm thick. The Celtic knot is cut out and has a red page behind which isn’t very obvious in the pic. You’ll have to take my word for it that it is a rather effective technique. The text is quite heavily engraved which gives a dark burn that won’t rub off.

The second notebook builds on my A7 notebooks and features one of my hand-drawn mandalas. This took a fair while to engrave as I used a 340 lines per inch resolution for a crisp image.

Art Journal
Laser cut: A7 notebooks

Posted on 8th May 2019 by Neil

These are A7 kraft covered notebooks with laser-etched designs using my own mandalas. It took a little experimentation to get the right settings dialled in, so the gold covered one is a bit of a botch. I engraved it with too low a setting, so there was a small etch, but no colour. I painted it with gold acrylic, dried it and then tried all sorts of techniques to colour the etched areas only. There was scraped acrylic paint (messy and didn’t stay put), antiquing cream (the same) and finally, I went back to a golden oldie which I haven’t used in a long while – tar/bitumen. This settled nicely in the grooves (though not entirely uniformly) and polished off the top surfaces. I like the aged look.

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3D Projects
Laser cut: Christmas Lanterns

Posted on 6th May 2019 by Neil

I mentioned that I’d been working on some Christmas projects after hearing that I have been given a table at a very popular craft fair in November. Here are six MDF Christmas lanterns for tealights – they are 10cm cubed and will contain a glass tealight holder. I had a fair bit of brain ache when working out what would work without bits dropping out if they weren’t connected to anything else. I obviously got it right as nothing is missing, and I was chuffed to cut each design correctly on the first go.

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Art Journal
More Bible Journaling

Posted on 29th April 2019 by Neil

In between creating Christmas lanterns (post to follow), I have had some time to do some more Bible journaling. In readiness for next month’s Bible journaling session, I’ve been looking at using colour palettes. I’ve used design-seeds.com as my source – there are oodles of prepared palettes to choose from along with the inspiration photos.

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Jewellery
Laser cut: Engraved wooden tree decoration

Posted on 25th April 2019 by Neil

I’ve had a bit of a creative funk recently – I had little direction to work in and consequently, things have been a little quiet in the Studio. That changed this week with my application for a large local Christmas Fayre being successful. I know, I know, it’s only April and I’ve started on Christmas prep – but that’s how competitive getting a table was since the invites came out in March.

So, the laser cutter has been blazing away with a couple of new designs. The first uses a disc designed to be a wooden earring. At 5cm diameter, it seems to be a little large for that, but I thought it would complement my other wooden tree decorations. A quick bit of design and hanging an amethyst coloured heart bead created this:

The trickiest part is hanging the heart. This was originally planned to be a star, but I didn’t have any suitable beads to hand – I think the heart works just as well.

Art Journal
Bible Journaling: five more examples

Posted on 26th March 2019 by Neil

Here are five more Bible journaling illustrations, complete with a free downloadable outline. I’ve been getting in some practice with watercolour pencils as my next Bible journaling session will be featuring them. Another version of watercolour is using studio safe solvents to move around the wax carrier for the Polychromos pencils, giving much the same effect (though waterproof of course). The solvent is less likely to swell the paper fibres compared to water and is my preferred technique, though the effect is less translucent than watercolour.

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Art Journal
Art Journal Page: Bleeding Tissue

Posted on 19th March 2019 by Neil

I’m on a roll this week – two things shared and it’s only Tuesday. My next art journaling session will feature ‘bleeding tissue paper’. For the uninitiated, this isn’t the type of tissue paper you’d use for gift wrapping as when it gets wet, it bleeds colour. The final result is similar to using watercolours. It tends to be a bit random, so those that like precise will be struggling! Oh, and what was in my head didn’t reach the page – I meant to write a ‘splash’ of colour. I couldn’t work out a way of changing it, so it is what it is.

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Original Designs
Mandalas

Posted on 18th March 2019 by Neil

I’ve noticed recently that on drawing lines, such as writing or outlining, I’ve had a noticeable (though very minor) intention tremor. Now, this may be medication side effects, but I decided it was more likely to be lack of practice and a resultant deterioration in fine motor control. Noticing it in the first place may be due to my perfectionism as well! As a result, I’ve started drawing mandalas using my fountain pen, both for their repetitiveness/meditative process and for retraining my fine motor muscles. Here are the results so far, in date order. I’m pleased to report that after just six to seven hours of drawing over eight days, the tremor has all but gone.

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Art Journal
Bible Journaling: more examples

Posted on 27th February 2019 by Neil

I’ve been creating some new Bible journaling this week. I’ve also been trying out some different art materials – more info after the gallery.

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Art Journal
Art Journal Page: #PASC0219

Posted on 20th February 2019 by Neil

It’s time to share my submission to the February Pick-A-Stick Challenge #PASC0219. I’m working in my very first art journal started in 2011. There are lots of spreads where I was playing with backgrounds and which had never been ‘finished’.

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