Art Journal
Art Journal Page: Humility

Posted on 5th April 2016 by Neil

As one Studio regular remarked last night: ‘you’re doing a lot of art journal pages recently’… She’d been away for a couple of months and hadn’t heard the news that I’m soon to be demonstrating on Hochanda TV channel. This week’s task is to pull together a supplies list for Sam (one of the channel’s buyers) so she can get some stock sorted and book me in for my first shows.

Last night, at The Studio’s monthly art journal session, we were carving our own stamps and developing patterns. I decided to do one too and carved the inverse of one of the stamps I’d previously done to demo the technique. Here’s the page that developed in between showing a first-timer how to build a background, and of course making the refreshments 😉

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3D Projects
Altered Art: The Key to Creativity

Posted on 29th March 2016 by Neil

One of my Tuesday night regulars, Hilary, brought amongst a whole stash of other things two sets of greyboard keys and fobs. ‘Can you think of anything you can do with these?’, she asked. This is what I came up and finished this morning.

The key is textured with sand texture paste, and then layered with fluid acrylics following Andy Skinner’s industrial paint recipe I learnt last year. The tag was sealed with black gesso. I cut a smaller oval and painted that gold, and two layers of black card were cut on the Silhouette Cameo and layered together before the top layer was dampened and hammered loudly and long to create the texture. Once everything was dry, it was all glued together and two coats of thick gloss spray varnish completed the look. I’m impressed with the triple thick glaze spray – it really helps the hammered card look more like a hammered metal enamel finish.

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Art Journal
Art Journal Page: Eat Dessert

Posted on 28th March 2016 by Neil

Today’s page marks a landmark in my art journaling – it’s the final spread in my very first complete journal. I have at least four journals on the go at any time, but this is the first to be filled since I started journaling back in 2011. I wanted to play with different layers, working on making the text stand out and the background to support, but not over power it. Choosing media by its opacity helped me achieve this outcome: transparent Cobalt Blue Hue allowed some of the paper white to show through the underpainting, whilst the semi-transparent Phthalo Blue provided the background to the text, printed in opaque white gesso. Spritzing with the mister and adding visual texture with stamps brought everything together.

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Art Journal
Art Journal Page: Easter Roses

Posted on 27th March 2016 by Neil

Like Christmas, Easter has a real meaning to me that far surpasses chocolate eggs and fluffy bunnies. I started this page without really knowing where it would end up. I had a wonderful magazine photo of roses which I really wanted to use, so in that went. After colouring the facing page and adding a gesso vignette, I searched online for a longer piece of text than a trite quote extolling the ‘romance’ of the flower.

I stumbled on this poem, which I’ve not come across before, by George Eliot. Nothing trite or romantic here as she explores the colour, thorns and fragrance in a stunning metaphor so in keeping with the true Easter story:

I went to gather roses and twine them in a ring,
For I would make a posy, a posy for the King.

I got an hundred roses, the loveliest there be,
From the white rose vine and the pink rose bush and from the red rose tree.

But when I took my posy and laid it at His feet
I found He had His roses a million times more sweet.

There was a scarlet blossom upon each foot and hand,
And a great pink rose bloomed from His side for the healing of the land.

Now of this fair and awful King there is this marvel told,
That He wears a crown of linked thorns instead of one of gold.

Where there are thorns are roses, and I saw a line of red,
A little wreath of roses around His radiant head.

A red rose is His Sacred Heart, a white rose is His face,
And His breath has turned the barren world to a rich and flowery place.

He is the Rose of Sharon, His gardener am I,
And I shall drink His fragrance in Heaven when I die.

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Art Journal
Art Journal Page: Nature

Posted on 23rd March 2016 by Neil

In between planting out onion sets, garlic and shallots at the allotment, teaching scrapbook layouts, supervising a learner crocheting and making tea for the landscape gardeners, I slipped in an art journal page! It just goes to show that if you aim to do a page a day – you can. Just! I wanted to try my inverse silhouette technique with something other than black ink, and I think it worked really well 🙂

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Art Journal
Art Journal Page: The Old Apothecary [Pick A Stick Challenge]

Posted on 22nd March 2016 by Neil

I have taken a couple of hours this morning to tackle this month’s Pick A Stick Challenge: ten journal techniques are pulled at random and have to be completed in order of the draw. This layout wasn’t planned at the outset, and developed a theme as I went, featuring my Old Apothecary assemblage. I’ve crammed in several different techniques, including stamps I’ve carved based on my own tangle patterns. I also remembered to film a time lapse video of the process.

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Art Journal
Art Journal Page: Excellence

Posted on 21st March 2016 by Neil

Next month’s art journal session at The Studio (Mon 4th April, 7:30pm) is all about pattern development. We’ll be carving our own stamps from Speedball Speedy-Carve before stamping with paint or ink to create our personal and unique designs on our pages. I’ve taken three of my tangle pattern designs to make my stamps: Curly Braces Too, Flared and Circo. And in the process I discovered a new way of using tangle patterns: layering them. Something to explore further in drawn work I think!

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Art Journal
Art Journal Page: Zen

Posted on 19th March 2016 by Neil

Well this layout has taken pretty much all day, aside from occasional breaks to make tea for the landscape gardeners laying my greenhouse base. I had this background waiting for something over the top – in fact since I printed it using this technique in 2011. I’d also blended a thin layer of Dylusions Paint over the top to help seal it. A new set of alphabet stencils also arrived yesterday afternoon, so that’s where the zen started, continued with the hand-drawn flowers (following some of the examples in the FloraBunda book), and then coloured with glazes.

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Art Journal
Art Journal Page: Negativity vs Creativity

Posted on 18th March 2016 by Neil

It’s perhaps not surprising that over the next few weeks you’re likely to see more art journaling than normal – after all, I’m going to need to practice what I’ll be ~~preaching~~ teaching. It’s also not surprising that with the ups and downs of Wednesday’s changes to my working life that not a lot of creating got done (by me that is, there was plenty of creating being done in the Studio by guests!). I started this page last night, using acrylics to create the water splashed background, before adding bubble wrap dots and embossing the white areas this morning and adding the text. What a release to the negativity, and the creativity is back 🙂

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About me
Art Journaling Live On TV

Posted on 15th March 2016 by Neil

After a successful screen test today, I have been asked to demonstrate art journaling on Hochanda – the Home of Craft, Hobbies and Art – available on Sky 663, Freeview 39 (6am-9pm) and Freest 817 or online at hochanda.com. I should be on a screen near you by the end of May.

It’s a very exciting opportunity, and I look forward to showing viewers how to make a blank page into a mixed media marvel, and how then to take those techniques back to card making and scrapbooking and forward to home decor and 3D pieces.

Now you know why I’ve been working so hard on my art journaling projects recently! Just a quick preview for those that haven’t yet seen my work…

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