Wild Art Summer wrap up.

This week is the end of the Wild Art Summer class. The last few lessons I did are:

This lesson was a watercolor of sunhats on stands. I wasn't inspired by them so I did one of the summer photos I took earlier in the class. I love Iced Chocolates in summer. 

 

This page is almost entirely paper pieced with a little shading added with pencils. It was a bit different for me but I really like it. 

Sandcastles for me have to have a little sea weed and shells decoration.  I used tissue paper and fiber paste on different towers to add variety to the textures. Painted with acrylics. 

A garden angel project. The brown wall is a new feature in my front garden so I included that on my page.  I really love the way this page turned out. 

A quick paper and acrylics page inspired by the teacher's sketches. 

The final lesson where I so of went along with the class. The birdbath is done in pen and watercolor. 

I had some extra pages in my journal so I filled them my ideas of summer. This one is watercolor.

 I didn't like the final class project called bloomers so I did beach shacks instead. It is paper pieced, shaded with pencil and an acrylic background.

I don't think you can have a summer themed journal and not put ice creams in there. 

My final page for my summer journal. I used some home made paper to do the hammock with a strip of funky wool along the side for a fringe. The background is the ink sprays and acrylics. 

It was during this class and another one I was taking with Jane Davenport that I realised that it is fine to do the classes in your own style. Sometimes I struggled with getting pages done because I was trying to do the same as the teacher.  When I let that go and did things that inspired me I had no problems at all. 

I also noticed that after doing several classes with the same teacher I sort of feel like the classes become very similar. Eventually you are not learning anything new and it is time to seek other things to do. I have reached that point with a lot of the classes I am in now. I will finish them because I don't like to have unfinished work nagging my brain but I am not signing up for more lessons at the moment.

Wild Art Summer

I have been doing a new online class called Wild Art Summer. It is a continuation of the Wild Art series that I have been doing. I like it because it encourages sketching, a skill I have been working on for a while now.

 

Before the class began we were given a challenge to draw a porch swing. I sketched mine in the garden because I couldn't figure out how to draw a porch background.

 

 The first lesson was to draw a mud room.  I added a lot of things that I am interested in like my art bag, camera, gardening things, needlework. The view through the front door shows my letterbox and two magpies who were coming to visit frequently.

We were tasked with drawing a girl with flowers in her hair.  This is acrylics and is close to the original class project. It is on a little block of wood. 

 I used internet photos to sketch some wildflowers and coloured them with watercolour.

Vintage trailers were the first lesson of the outdoors week. 

 I love doing these type of mixed media pages the most.

I found this quote when I was looking for the one I used above so I made it into a journal page. I gessoed the page then used sprays for the background. The rest is watercolours and pen. 

A pair of seagulls showing a change of perspective.  Acrylics over gesso.

 Watercolour on gesso technique. I didn't like the way the watercolour was on gesso so I will not do that again. I prefer watercolour paper so the colour can bleed more.

Watercolour and pen. We were practising our writing. I have developed my own style over the past year. 

 

 Black acrylic and white pens.  An imitation of chalk board art, trying out more writing styles.

My market stall sketch ended up at the beach. It is more like my idea of summer than a farmers market that was in the lesson.  

The Art of Wild Abandonment

Last year when I was going a little online workshop mad I signed up for the the-art-of-wild-abandoment-workshop. At the time my right arm was only just out of plaster and I found it a little tiring to complete so I stopped doing the lessons. I have recently gone back and finished the class. It was a lot of fun and really helped me with sketching, a skill I am trying to develop.  I am sharing the work I did for the class. We started off with sketches that I watercoloured and then moved onto mixed media.

 If you think you can't draw then this class will teach you how to get started. 

Radishes are such an interesting and yet easy subject to learn with. 

I got to use some of my stash of scrap paper for this one.

This page is one of my favourite art journal pages I have done so far. I love being inspired by great teachers who encourage individuality. Junelle, who teaches the class, comes up with so many ideas that I can't help thinking of experimenting with some of them.

More collage using unusual materials.

Scrap paper again. Love the use of collage on art journal pages.

A mixed media nest using strips of paper. I stuck a couple of rolled fabric flowers on the nest along with one I made with paper.

The last page I did for the class using paintbrushes as the subject. Inspiration just streams out of watching the videos and listening to Junelle. I have almost filled the journal I made for this class and it is my favourite to look through. I am usually a neat artist and this class really helped me achieve the more painterly look that I like. I am already signed up for Wild Art 2 but am probably going to put that on hold until after the latest class I signed up for. It is Junelle's summer class wild-art-summer oh-yes . I just can't help myself when I find an artist that I admire and love to learn from.