Apparently, World Cardmaking Day is held every first Saturday of October and is dedicated to those that prefer to make cards rather than buy them. In honour of this, the latest challenge at Less is More is to make a CAS card on the theme of friendship. I made the following card, and I’m not sure I like it! I think that the blue shading around the top and bottom of the rose detracts from the clean and simple aesthetic.
The first Monday of the month sees my monthly art journal evening at the Studio, and next week the theme is ‘never been used’. I’ve asked studio guests to bring something from their crafty stash that they have never used, and we’ll be incorporating them into our beautiful art journal pages.
In prepping my sample for the session, I came across an embarrassment of unused kit deep in folders, drawers and baskets. I think I will need to do more of these! I know I’m not alone, so what do you think – anyone fancy a ‘never been used’ challenge blog?
Here’s my show page, worked in my very first art journal from 2011 on a background that I’d not yet used:
I’m still trying to master the one-stroke folk art style roses. This was another practice page… and I did some brush-stroked text too.
For this layout:
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.
I’ve just been reviewing my myriad pictures and realised I hadn’t posted my favourite painting of the session so far – it was completed before half term. We worked relatively large scale (I think this was on A3 size paper) and were encouraged to be free in our movements with the brushes. It’s painted with watersoluble inks, resisted by oil pastel outlines and highlights, and I moved the inks around after application by flooding areas with water. A bit of thinned PVA adds shine, as well as more ink movement. I think the result is rather abstract, very free, and still resembles the rose bead I was using as a reference!
