Altered Art
Altered Art: Etched Brush Pots

Happy New Year! I have a new year intention (I don’t do resolutions, too much pressure) to have a studio clear out and tidy up. As a first step, I decided to replace my water pots for use in classes. Inexpensive Ikea smoked glasses caught my eye – stable and weighty, perfect! Of course, I couldn’t just leave them unadorned…

A little work on some typography, vinyl cutting on my Silhouette and a generous dollop of Armor Etch and my etched brush pots are complete. One features a caution symbol and ‘contains paint’, specifically targeted at one of my studio guests who can mistake her glass of water for the painty water pot. Another has the steps required for cleaning a brush. The third has all the words I could find in the thesaurus connected with cleaning a brush. And the fourth has phrases playing around with the whole brush pot concept, such as ‘clean brush, cloudy water’ and ‘colours in suspense’.

Bearing this in mind, tidying the studio is going to take forever if at each point I have an idea I then implement, making a mess in the process…

Continue reading

Tangle Patterns
Tangle Pattern: Arrers #5

There’s quite a wealth of potential in making repeating patterns with block arrows it seems… here’s another in my series. Again, it’s not technically a zentangle pattern as it breaks just about every one of the ‘rules’. It’s a great space filler though as a tangle pattern for your zentangle inspired art pieces.

 

For more tangle patterns, and to see the others in the Arrers series, check out my tangle patterns gallery. You can also order a book of my first 100 or so patterns from there. Continue reading

Original Designs
Tangle Patterns: Arrers #4

My pen has been busy on paper, and there are three more patterns on their way using block arrows as their basis. These do depart from the zentangle ‘rules’ about tangle patterns, but I still reckon they are worth using. I am slightly biased though… Here’s the next tangle pattern in my series:

Arrers 4 tangle pattern

This is a BOGOF design – two motifs are melded together. Either would work on their own as a repeating pattern with no problem. I’ve drawn the sample en pointe as I think it looks better.

Continue reading

TV appearances
TV: That’s Crafty! One Day Special Continues

The That’s Crafty! One Day Special continues into its second day… It’s more accurately termed a 24-hour special, but that’s me being my normal pedantic self. I’m on your viewing screens again today at 9am and hopefully at 1pm and 5pm (apparently the latter two slots will be subject to previous sales thresholds being met). Do tune in to Hochanda (Freeview 85 (all shows), Sky 663 or online at hochanda.com) and feel free to pass on a message or question by emailing studio@hochanda.com.

Here are today’s demos:

Continue reading

TV appearances
TV: That’s Crafty! One Day Special

I’m live on your viewing screens today at 6pm and 8pm, showcasing the latest That’s Crafty! products. I’m demonstrating the One Day Special featuring stencils, texture paste and greyboard panels ready for your mixed media artwork. The bundle also includes a cracking set of texture stamps.

Find the shows on Hochanda (Freeview 85 (6pm only), Sky 663, or online at hochanda.com). You can watch again via their website and scroll back to show dates on the TV schedule page.

These are the projects I will be demonstrating in today’s shows:

Continue reading

Art Journal
Bible Journaling: Psalm 136, Psalm 139:14

It’s still busy at The Studio, as there’s a That’s Crafty! One Day Special on Hochanda on 8th/9th December. That means I have six hours of live TV to prepare for – samples, show prep and lots of mental rehearsal! There are moments, though, where drying time gives me the chance to have a bit of ‘me’ time – and I’ve done a couple more Bible journal pieces. I have a couple of favourite verses from the psalms – Psalm 139:14 is one. The opposite side is the refrain in Psalm 136, used for page balance.

Psalm 136 - Psalm 140

I experimented with a different medium for this double spread. By using [amazon_textlink asin=’B000PD3M8E’ text=’Derwent Inktense’ template=’ProductLink’ store=’themanicstamp-21′ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=’991cfa48-d2a1-11e7-a146-679050d7348b’] pencils on clear gesso/matte medium mix, you can direct the concentrated colour and use a dilute wash to create the background. For those unfamiliar with Inktense pencils/blocks, they are a richly pigmented colour pencil, which when wetted on or off the page become more vividly saturated and easy to blend. Once wetted and then dried they become waterproof – so much so they can be used to dye fabric too.

I topped off the text with some Stickles glitter glue to add a little glitz.
Continue reading

Original Designs
Tangle Pattern: Arrers #1

I’ve been playing, designing three new tangle patterns in the process based on the archetypal block arrow. The first tangle pattern is a simple cross pattern – the next two are a little more complex. As always, shading does make quite a difference to the finished design.

 Arrers #1 tangle pattern

Arrer (plural arrers) [ar-ur] noun
Slang. Arrow, dart

Continue reading

Art Journal
Bible Journaling: Isaiah 61 & 63

Whilst some things I am making, that I can’t tell you about yet (but it has something to do with upcoming TV appearances), are drying, I have started to dabble again with doing some art journaling in my NIV journaling bible. I turned to these passages in Isaiah and picked out a couple of verses to concentrate on. Today I had a little experimentation with things to seal the page to prevent bleed through.

Isaiah 61 & 63

For the left side, I used a wiped-on layer of matte multi-medium, heat dried. For the right, I didn’t prep the page at all. Add some pigment inks for background colour, and watch them slide right off the multi-medium… it just has no tooth at all. It did, however, seal the page very nicely and not too much bulk added. I got around it by applying some ink, drying with the heat tool and then reapplying the ink. I sealed the pigment in with a spray fixative before using a Posca pen to add the text.

Continue reading