What have I been up to?

 This past year has been strange for the whole world. Some of my arty friends around the globe have not been creative at all and others have become extra creative during these stressful times. I have fallen into the latter category and kept myself very busy. 

I intended to do a lot more journaling and painting last year so signed up for Paint your Heart and Soul at the end of 2019. It was a year long weekly art course starting in January. I have done about 30 or so lessons so far and thoroughly enjoyed getting back into painting. Access continues so I will complete the rest of the class during this year. These are some of the paintings I have photographed so far. 

As always click on the photos to see them larger.

 As you can see there was a large variety of techniques, mediums and subjects in the course. It was well worth the money to join. The link is https://olgafurmanart.com/ if you wish to sign up for this year. 

During our lockdown stage I also decided to join the Textile Artist Stitch Challenge so I had stitching to do at night. It was 6 weeks of lessons from some UK textile artists. These are the lessons I did.

Week 1 was to use a simple stitch 4 ways. I did 2 other examples of this exercise after being inspired by other people doing the challenge.

Week 2 was a textile collage. I chose to use items from my stash for this exercise. Again I did an extra collage. 

Week 3 was an outline stitching exercise and the subject matter was an eye. I thought drawing and stitching one eye was not an interesting topic so I used one of my bird photos and stitched that instead. 

Week 4 was to make a couching sampler using a simple shape like a circle. I chose to use a leaf shape but did both sides of the leaf differently.

Week 5 was to make a shadow outline of a stick. I nearly didn't do this one as the stick idea was odd to me. I found an interesting stick so chose to do it but made it more arty with a border.

I loved the way it turned out and while stitching this picture I got an idea to do the next one when I saw my threads on the table in front of me. 

This is my favourite piece from the challenge.

Week 6 was a stitched folk art design. I did two versions, the first one was completed with hand stitching then machine stitched on top.

The second one was machine stitched first then hand embroidery was added later. 

The final extra week was to use straight lines to make curves.

It was an inspiring challenge and because it was only for 7 weeks it was a good distraction in the early stages of COVID19. The first week suggested using linen to stitch on so you could use the lines to make your sample neat. I decided that I was never going to cross stitch again so I might as well use those precious materials I had saved since the 80s. I was glad they were finally being used. I did all the exercises the same size so I could put them into a book. 

 

The cover was a tissue paper print of one of my watercolour flower paintings.

The inside front cover was a gelatin print on hessian (burlap) I did many years ago. I added stitching in the blank areas of the print.

The inside back cover has paper clay that was stamped and when dry, painted. I added both machine and hand stitching. 

The back cover is a piece of glossy cardstock that I painted with metallic acrylics for an art journal project. The glossy layer peeled off the cardboard as it dried so it was like a painted film. At the time it was a disaster but I saved the top layer as it looked interesting and now it has found a home in my textile art. 

 

In an unexpected way this simple challenge has changed my approach to my art. After using those saved linens for this challenge I decided to clean out my sewing room. I went through every cupboard and  box, donating most of my fabrics to charity. I only saved a few of the ones I thought I would use as I don't intend on dressmaking very often. Quite a few fabrics seemed dated anyway so I would never have used them. I also found a lot of items that I had forgotten about. 

 

After reorganising I started to use items from my stash to make textile art. Now I have done 2 and a half different projects using only items from my stash. A lot of saved items are finally finding new arty homes. More on that will follow in future posts. I will also be sharing a lot of painted or drawn art as well. I told you I had kept busy!

 

Stay safe and creative wherever you are in the world.

Painting patterned trees

The lead up to Christmas for me is a very busy time. I spend a couple of days cooking so I can spend the next couple of days entertaining and enjoying the company of my guests. I like to spend the day after Christmas relaxing and winding down from all that activity.  That usually means sitting down all day to rest my tired feet and painting a new picture for our next year's calendar. I have a perpetual calendar with a blank spot above so I can put a different picture there each year. I like to try something new, either from a book or workshop.

Earlier this year I bought the Painting Patterned Trees video download from Artist's Network.   If you wait for one of their sales you can get a good bargain, I paid half price. The video has lots of information and is very easy to follow.

It is acrylics on canvas with a bit of pen work. The acrylics are very fluid and a different technique to how I normally use them. I love how this project turned out and will probably do more of this type of work in my journal. I think any subject would look good with a bit of doodling on it.

Some of the last journal pages for this year.

These are the final pages for my year long journal.

 Week 42 is quite a simple page. I used acrylic paint for the background then added gesso stamped circles. I was in the mood for some doodles so I added the quote and then doodled the night away. It was fun to do.

 Week 43 was a fast page. I had previously glued paper napkins to the background so I used 2 stencils for apply paint. When it was dry I used a gold pen to add a quote.

 Week 44 is a collage over a blue painted background. I colored the rainbow with pencils to make it bolder.

 Week 45 is a collage from painted papers. I already had the flower petals cut out so that was the start of the idea for this one.

 Week 46 is yet another collage. I didn't know I had done so many collages this year. I painted all the leaves with one stroke of paint and outlined them.

 Week 47 was an attempt to be a little more free with my style but it is still a fairly neat and tidy design.

Week 48 was inspired by a picture I saw in a magazine. I just loved the black background that made the colors pop. It too has a lot of doodles. 

Week 49 is a workshop I bought from the Cloth Paper Scissors website. It was called Spirograph designs mixed media.

Week 50 is another collage but this one uses a grid format. I did each part of the grid separately and then stitched them all together on my page. I really love this one and can see I will do more things like this in the future.

I hope you enjoy these shared pages. My next blog post will be a brief demo of a doodle page and then I will share the video of how to put these pages together.

Art journalling is one of my year long projects.

This year I have become very involved with my textile group, teaching and working on the committee side of things so it has kept me busy. I have been creating art but not posting so now that my lessons have finished you can expect a lot more sharing from me.

I have been keeping up with my commitment to the Colour me positive challenge and have created a journal page a week. This year I have been experimenting with a lot of different techniques in my journal and as I look through the 30 pages created so far I can see a definite style is there in each technique. I always seem to do neat, graphic style work with simple backgrounds.

 Week 21- Gratitude. I collaged on deli papers that had been previously printed then I carved some stamps and used them to start this uneven grid style page. The stars, heart in a square and square star are all stamps I made. The rest of the page is drawn and coloured with paint pens. 

Week 22 - Creativity. I used a white wax crayon to draw the houses then filled them with india inks and let them blend together. It was a really fast, fun technique and I love the finished effect. 
 

 Week 23 - Attitude. I was cleaning up and found some cut outs I did for an older journal so I used them to make this simple page. The background is tissue paper and paint.

 Week 24 - What soothes your soul? For me it has to be music that has the most effect on my moods. There is nothing like putting a great song on really loud and singing along. It always makes a dark day brighter. I cut the words from scrapbooking papers and glued them to a previously painted background.

 Week 25 - This week I used the quote supplied and the extra challenge to create a silhouette. I still struggle when it comes to drawing the side profile.

Week 26 - Learning new things. The prompt this week was very appropriate for me as I spent the week away at a textile art retreat learning new things. I made a simple page about the retreat that was Fibres West. I will shortly do a post about the work we did there.

Creating with paper

I have been trying to keep up with the Colour me Positive art journal challenge this year and so far its working out well. I haven't been good at posting them here but I have been busy. 

 Week 14 - This page uses that crayon technique we all learned as kids. I used a white wax crayon to do the drawing and blue for the writing then sprayed over them with some dye sprays. I used watercolors to fill in the flowers and leaves. It was a quick page. 

Week 15 - This page was using the peeled paint technique on the word life. First you paint your image with acrylic paint then when it is dry you spread on some Vaseline or Aloe Vera gel in a few areas. You paint over the top with more acrylics, trying not to smear the gel underneath. When it is mostly dry wipe off the excess paint to reveal the color underneath. The word balance was done with crackle paint, something I haven't used for years. I like the way it looks on the page so I will probably use it more often now.

Week 16 - I wanted to do a doodle page so I could just sit and draw with the one good arm. It was fun to do but not something I would do often.

Week 17 - This week I wanted to make a 3D page so I used foil tape to make the blue door and embossed card to make the red door. It was a lot of fun doing something completely different. I am using this journal as a way to experiment with different techniques and ideas.

Week 18 - I had fun making a collage using previously printed papers this week. I think this page would make a great textile piece so you may see a similar design in the future.

Week 19 - Another mixed media page. I used embossing and paper piecing to make the background and clock. I did get a little carried away with the spattering but it is hard to stop once you get going.

Week 20 - I wanted to use silhouettes this week so I created a background for them using the insides of business envelopes glued to the page. I used the window for the quote and then used ink to stamp the circles for a grungy look. I used stamps for the flowers but also added drawing with a Pitt pen to add extra stems and grass. It is quite a messy page compared to the majority of my work which tends to be fairly neat. I love trying different styles because it stops artist block creeping in.

Several of these journal pages would be great inspiration for textiles. I can imagine week 14, 18 and 20 as fabric images and maybe some of my earlier pages too. That is one of the reasons I keep journalling, I can work out ideas on paper and use them to plan future textile works.

Everything you do has the potential for further exploration. If you are suffering a little artist's block I suggest you go back through your own work and pick a piece that you can see another idea in. Go ahead and develop your new piece using the old one to inspire you. It may be the technique you used, the colors or how they sit next to each other, the image or the composition. It may even be a piece that you think needs improvement and you want to redo it. Go ahead and get creating.

Colour me positive

I have been doing a bit of art journaling for the Colour me Positive challenge at Lulu art. The link is in the sidebar if you want to get more details of the challenge. There is a weekly prize offered for one of the people who upload their creations to Facebook.  I have been enjoying doing more art journaling again.

Week 5 - The challenge this week was a funny quote about body image. I chose this quote because I recently lost a lot of weight and body image has been on my mind often. I used small stickers I had painted previously for embellishments over printed papers. It was a very quick page to do. 

 Week 6 - Acrylics for background and underpainting hands, then stamped texture (blue). I used coloured pencils to add the detail to the painted hands and feet.

 Week 7 - I made a patchwork of painted papers for his shell then stitched them together on my machine. The sky was painted then covered with plastic wrap and left to dry to create the texture. The path is painted tissue paper.

 Week 8 - I wanted to add a flap to my page this week so I could show one of my early portraits compared to a newer one. I got a little carried away with the white pen. The two faces were printed photos of previous work that I glued in.

 
This shows the opened page. I used acrylic paint, some rub ons and a lot of white pen.