Quick Journal play

Hello everyone, how are you all? This is a quick post to share a journal page I created last night, well I started it last night! I've added a few photos of the stages, and I'll list the products at the bottom. Keep creative! X  

   

 

Watercolour paper with a wash of blue and green.

 

 

Drew my features.

 

 

Using water soluble pencils and a water brush I coloured everything in.

 

 

To complete I added a little stamping with Olive ink and a hand carved stamp, I inked the edges in Brown and wrote a few words.

 

What I used

Prima: watercolour pad 8x8, watercolour paints Decantant pies, 

Dewent: Inktense Pencils

Uniball eye fine -black

Ranger Distress Ink walnut stain, water brush

Sable round brush #10

 

See you all soon

Hugs xxx

 

 

 

Heart

Good morning to all of you, and Happy Monday! I know some of you will probably be getting ready for work as you don't get today off, but hopefully the day moves swiftly for you so you can get home and rest. I am one of the lucky ones who doesn't work bank holidays so today I'm off to the Craft and Design show at Hyde Hall.  Before I go, I wanted to share this heart I made to enter the Paper Artsy Challenge whoes theme is Beads Charms and Dangles. I thought this was an excellent challenge and as I need more jewellery it's easy a perfect challenge.  

  I created the heart and bead out of Paper Clay. Once I got my shape of the heart I pressed a cog stencil into the soft clay which gave a good impression. I then left them to dry for a few days.    Once completely dry I sanded the heart down to smooth it off and then painted it with Finnabair Alchemy Mettalic paint in several colours. I did the same for the bead! I wrapped the heart in soft wire including a few glass beads and secured at the back. I assembelled the necklace and hung it on some ribbon and string mixed together.    Here's some pics

The challenge runs for another week so you have plenty of time to enter.

 

I'll see you all soon

Take care as always

Hugs xxx

Fabulous day teaching!

Morning everyone, I'm still floating from yesterday's class! Everyone created such brilliant pieces I was blown away! I was teaching my usual Journal Class at Birds in the Barn Marks Tey, and this month we were using a technique I call Boxed In.  

This is my sample I used to inspire the class

 Although everyone likes a good chat and a laugh sometimes I have to get them to concentrate lol.

 

 

And here are the finished pieces

 

 

 

 

 

 

There you go, have 9 stunning pages. 

My next class is 24/9/16, to book please contact Birds In the Barn  01206 211099

Take care as always 

Hugs xxx

 

 

 

Celebrations and a Quick Journal Play

Hello everyone, thanks for popping in. I'm soooo excited, today I got my 100th follower! 100 of you fabulous people have followed my blog. I'm blown away! Thank you all, it means so much me. Before I forget, welcome to my new new follower. I hope you enjoy seeing what I create. To celebrate, I am going to organise a little thank you, to one of you picked randomly. I'll post all the details tomorrow, so watch this space.   Okay, so now onto my journal page, which is in my small Dylusions Journal. I must admit that I am not a fan of these journals. I rarely find they can handle the amount of water and paint I use, without tearing, and warping. I do love the different sizes, and how strong the covers are. I have already started planning what I will do on the covers, but that's a long, way away. I will use them up, but then look for a different ones. Suggestions welcome!  

  Here's my page, Fresco Acrylic paint for the flowers and stems - Lavender, Snow Flake and Granny Smith. Infusions - Black Night and Violet Storms. Pearl Glaze, all from Paper Arsty. 

 

Hope you like it!

Take care as always

Hugs xx

A Journal Page with Dangles

Hello everyone, I have another journal page to share using JOFY 45-46 which is her new release for Paper Artsy. I've taken them down a different route this time. I do hope you I've it. I'm also going to enter it into the challenge at Paper Artsy whoes them is Beads Charms and Dangles.   

    I will also be teaching this page at Birds in the Barn in Marks Tey this Saturday, we only have one place left so hurry and book with the shop if you want to see how I made this page.

Take care for now

Hugs xx

Journal page

Hello everyone, I hope you are all well, and enjoying the summer. We are having a heat wave at the moment here in Essex, although not sure why they call it that, this is summer, and I remember summers as a girl and they were hot. Anyway it has been very hot, and when I don't have to do anything it's lovely but as soon as I move, I start to glow. Lol! Please do keep safe and make sure you drink plenty, as we had a level 3 alert today at work. If you can stay out of the Sun between 12-3pm and keep as cool as you can. The elderly and young are most vulnerable.        

Okay,  on with my journal page, which is inspired by this months challenge, in the wanderlust online class I'm doing. For obvious reasons I cannot give you the details but the materials I used I will list at the bottom.   

  

 Golden:              heavy bodied Matte Medium, Fibre paste 

 Paper Artsy:       Grunge Paste, JOFY mini 49, 50 

 Dina Wakley:      Media Line heavy bodied Acrylic Paint,  

 Prima:                Texture brushes (designed by Finnabair), colorbloom sprays 

 My own stamps, and craft stash.

Well there you have it. Anther page in my large Dylusions journal. 

 

I hope you can pop back soon, as I'm teaching on Saturday and hope to share the sample page over the weekend. For all of you off at the weekend enjoy! 

Take care as always

Hugs xxx

 

                             

On the Beach

Hello everyone, today I'm sharing my second inspiration piece for this months challenge at Country View Crafts. There are lots more inspirations on the blog.  

 The background was created using different ink sprays; the blue and yellow are from Shimmerz and the white I'd DecoArt. I sprayed then let it drip moving the page back and forth to move the the ink.

 

 

I started to add my elements, choosing to use black ink as I wanted to retain the black and white look. I wanted to create a ghostly look, to represent a time gone by, when people flocked to the coasts in England, reaping the benefits of sea air and sunshine. Even though I know the lady laying down is technically not right, I love the effect it has.

 

 

The stamps are from Oxford Impressions. I created a more vintage look by scratching into the paint and then adding distress ink.

 

To finish I added a sentiment

I do hope you have been inspired to play along,

Take care for now

Hugs cx

 

 

New face

Morning everyone, just a quick post from me today to share this huge new face, I created on an A3 mixed media paper. 

 

As you may remember I have been experimenting with different types of watercolour paints over the last few months especially with backgrounds and using it in mixed media pieces. I have been asked several times how I created my backgrounds so have planned a video to show how, which I will share once completed. However, for this background I used infusion activated with water and dried quickly to retain the the pattens of the colour.

 

I started with my ink drawing, I let her unfold herself onto the canvas with no reference photo. I prefer this way as the personality shows itself better than using a photo. Although I am using reference photos more when I see an expression I want to capture.    

I started to lay in some colour, I spritzed my canvas first, as with all watercolour painting you need the surface wet to allow the paint movement. If you use the paint on a dry surface it is sucked up with very little movement until more water is added. I will show some experiments with watercolours on my video. I also use Sable Brushes as these are my fav, I use quite large brushes the face was a size 10 round. It gives lots of coverage but has a nice tip for more detailed work.

 

Around the face you can see the infusions from Paper Artsy, i love these little clouds of colour, bursting out in every direction. For the face I used Prima Watercolour set called Decatent Pies, lovely paints but this set doesn't have basic primary colours so if starting out with colours I would recommend a basic colour set. However these little tins will take some more half pans so you could add any colours you can't live without. I like the tin as it unfolds has two areas to mix your paint, it's also a good size to take out especially using a waterbrush. 

 

I continued to add more colour building up the layers of colour until satisfied. The last few months are my only time with water colours so I'm no expert, and can only share my experience as I'm also self taught. So my work is all trial and error.   You can see below that I've blended in the background using the the brush and some watercolour paint. I balance the composition by adding some darker hues in the bottom right. My style is quite loose both with the drawing and painting and I love this illustrative style of working.

 

 

To finish I added some black pencil to areas to strengthen the lines which helped to bring the image forward.

 

I hope you like this little tutorial, I plan to do more in depth tutorials on the blog so pop back and see what I'm up to.

Take Care for Now, 

Hugs xx

Cogmatic

Hello everyone, Welcome to some new people who have just joined. Feel free to leave comments, I enjoy reading them; I also enjoy receiving suggestions and would love to know if you have any questions. Okay, so over to the post! About 18 months ago I designed this face. I wanted to have something with an unusual element and this is what I came up with.  

  As a first draft this was okay, but I wanted to develop it further, originally I was asked to design it for use on stencils and so redrew it on the iPad using the original as reference. 

 

And I used them both as a reference for this mixed media creation in my large Dylusions journal. 

     

I started by using Grunge Paste from Paper Artsy scraped onto the page and then using the large circle from EEA03  stamped into the grunge paste. I added more texture by using one of the segment stamps with script in the paste too. Once dry I added several coats of Shimmerz Sprays and let dry.  

 

Once I was happy with the background I started to add the face using black Acrylic ink.

 

Once I got here I left it for a while then worked on her eyes turning them green using Prismacolor pencils. I also realised by the time I'd finished it was dark so didn't take anymore photos of the whole page but you get the idea lol. I'll take one later and add it the page.

 

I think it's the first time I've stamped into paste before, always make sure you spritz the stamp with water first, it helps the release.

 

Take good care of yourselves and I'll see you soon 

Hugs Xxx

 

In the Garden

Morning everyone thanks for popping in today as I have a journal page using new stamps from Jo Firth-Young JOFY 45, 46 for Paper Artsy. I loved these as soon as I saw them. I like stamps with lots of area for me to colour, and in particular flowers. Those that know me know my two loves are faces and flowers, so these new stamps were just my cup of tea.  

 

Here's some pics of how I created this page.

 

 

This is an 8x8 watercolour pad from Prima, it take water and colour well at first, but it doesn't stand up to all I throw at it and will break down. I spritzed the page first and then added my colours - I love Ecoline watercolours! I let each colour spread and then dried it before the next colour. I respeated this with each colour, and once satisfied, I spritzed and flicked water to create the little puddles and runs, left it for a bit then mopped it up and dried the page.

 

 

I stamped the design and started to build up the colours using Water Soluble Pencils, a mix of Prima and Inktense. 

 

 

The large flowers were also stamped onto Smoothy Card from PA then stuck on. I did this because I wanted the colour to be true? I finished with a sentiment (sorry I don't who by). I used white enamel from Ranger for the dots and small circles which I loved as it add real diamention to them.

 

I do love the stamps and have lots of ideas so do pop back to see what else I come up with.

Take care as always

Hugs xxx