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.

Colour me Positive 2018

I had good intentions to do another year with the Colour Me Positive challenge in 2018. I started out well but as I had to support my daughter with an extremely serious health battle for the first half of the year my interest in keeping up with the art journaling faded away. I will share the pages I did complete here.

  

Week 1: I stencilled gesso onto my page and when it was dry painted it purple and added copper highlights with metallic paste. It is a simple and fast page. 

 Week 2: I used coloured pencils to draw the eye on a background that had been painted then some wiped off before drying. My journal was made from old scrapbook paper that had a thin layer of gesso spread on it with a credit card.  You can still see some of the printed paper through the blue paint.

Week 3: I used a die cut machine to punch butterflies out of left over scraps of painted papers. After they were glued to the page I outlined them to be more visible. 

Week 4: I wanted this page to be focused on the words so I kept it simple. I used a stencil for the lettering on a previously painted paper that was glued in. I then doodled around the painted areas on the page. I did add some more paint in some areas to make them darker. 

Week 5: I had this picture of a vintage lady that I wanted to use so the rest of the page is done using vintage style papers. A little brown ink around the edge of shapes makes everything look old and work together.  

Week 6: This page was an experiment. I traced the sunflowers from another journal page I had drawn onto tissue paper. I then crumpled the tissue and glued it to this double page. While it was wet I sprayed on the blue and green background. When it was dry I used watercolours to paint the flowers and added the insects. 

Week 8: I don't know why I didn't do week 7. This background was randomly made using a credit card to spread three colours around the page. When it was dry I could see a fox face so I added more paint to enhance the face I could see. It is all done in acrylics. 

 Week 9: I got some new watercolours and decided to test them out on this page. Sometimes simple and quick means you get more done.

 Week 10: I wanted to try a masking technique when stencilling. You can see where I placed a circle of paper before using gesso to stencil a pattern over the whole page. When you remove the stencil the circle lifts away too and there is a smooth area to write in. The page was quickly coloured using dye sprays.

Week 11: I wanted to doodle one evening so this page was made. I used a lot of scrap papers and a few collage pictures to make the squares then doodled and wrote on all of them. I love working with grids because it is easy to make a lot of small things and then put them together to make a large piece.

Week 12: This was the last page I did for the year and the last page in this journal. I used perforated paper for the background. It is meant to be used for cross stitch and was in my stash. I wrote out the quote then added a simple border. It was coloured with standard markers.

 The cover of my hand made journal has a picture that I saved from a Flavia calendar. I love her style of art.

The back cover is a collage of some torn. previously painted, paper strips. When it was dry I added the doodles.

The inside front cover was zentangled. Sometimes I just want to sit and draw or doodle. I find it relaxing.

This zentangled page is the inside back cover of the book. That was the end of this challenge for me. I still journal a lot but now I try ideas from the many art books I own. I have decided to stop looking at them and actually do the exercises from the books. It is a fun way to learn new things.

Doing my own thing

I am continuing with the Colour me positive challenge but doing it my own way. I always seem to get stuck for ideas if I use someone else's quotes so I usually choose my own quote for inspiration. Sometimes I pick my own theme too.

 Week 27 - the one you love. This week I was pressed for time so I kept it super simple.

 Week 28 - Glitter. I was looking at my colored pencils on my desk and thought I hadn't used them for a while so they became the inspiration for this week's page. I used 'Ice Stickles' for my glitter. At least that way it stays on the page and not on me.

 Week 29 - This weeks prompt was not for me so I did this quote that has been on my pin up board for a while. Sometimes I come across a quote that speaks to me and I save it so I can put it on a page. I wanted to add some mixed media tags so I made them and used my die cutting machine to cut out hearts and butterflies for a papercraft style page.

 Week 30 - I love this quote by Walt Disney. When I used my pencils a couple of weeks ago I forgot how nice it is to use them.  I wanted to do more coloring so this week I made a coloring page then colored it in.

This is the page I drew. If you want to download it for yourself just click on the image to make it larger and right click then save the picture to your computer. You can then print it out onto any type of paper you want and color it your own way. 

 Week 31 - No prompt this week so I drew some of the items that were on my sketching table. I usually sketch while watching tv with my husband in the evening. I collaged on the hearts and flowers for added interest. It was a fun page to do. I am still surprised that I can draw things that I thought would have been impossible ten years ago. Practice really does make you a better artist.

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.

A new year has begun...almost a month ago

I have been away for longer than I thought. I was creative but have not spent much time online. I did some dressmaking (too boring to share) and a few other textiles and art journaling. Today I will share the art journal pages.

This year I wanted to do more painting so I decided to do the Lulu Art colour me positive challenge. It is one page a week using the quotes provided or not.

This first page was a quick one to do. I looked around my desk and found the daisy on paper towel that was made when I was painting on fabric and the paint bled through. I made a background to suit and wrote the quote on washi tape strips I had stuck down.

Kylie (owner of Lulu) also now gave us a list of Daily prompts to use if we want. I decided to randomly choose 3 of those prompts to make my pages. I like having directions about what I need to do on a page because it focuses my thoughts and don't get a blank page block.  My prompts were: watercolor with salt, use your left hand to start and use circles. I drew my circles with my left hand then did the watercolor.

This page was drawn without lifting my pen off the page then colored in with watercolors. I also made it distressed looking by flicking paint everywhere, even on myself! The prompts I used were: draw a single continuous line all over the page, make credit card flowers and distressed or vintage look.
 

My final share for today was this page where I used the quote provided. I also used three of the daily prompts that Lulu Art have provided: Orange, use glitter on a page, and print out the words with a favorite font. It is hard to see the glitter but it is those white dots.