Inspired by Challenges

Since the beginning of this year I have been inspired by so many challenges and classes. Although I haven’t necessarily completed all the prompts and suggestions, I’ve found that having so much inspiration has enabled me to maintain a much more consistent artistic practice. I have been making art every day – and am definitely feeling the benefits.

I’ve been working in a number of different journals and have been playing with lots of different styles.

This first piece was inspired by Effy’s Book of Days theme for the month of January. The background is a created with lots of layers of acrylic paint, then I added the bird and the lettering as collaged cutouts which I created using tombow pens. I like the subtle contrast to the bold colours of the background this creates. I wrote the quotation using a dip pen and indian ink.

“Transformation” is my interpretation of Tam’s lesson from Radiant 2. I used Tombow pens to colour the lady and the phoenix and watercolour paint for the background. I added the text digitally after scanning the completed spread.

Moving on to challenges – I thought I’d try to include some male faces in my responses to the 29 Faces challenge this year – this is my first four. I’m really loving using oil pastels for the faces.

Finally, as a result of following the Journal 52 group on Facebook, although I haven’t got around to journalling any of those prompts, I was inspired by Sarah Trump’s work and checked out her blog posts. As a result I discovered the “Together We Letter” challenge by @lissletters on Instagram. This is my response to the prompts for the first four days – so much fun!

Coming Home!

After my travels over at Face of Love, I’ve decided to return to Artimess to continue my messy exploration of all things creative.

Since I completed my Wreck this Journal book I’ve been through a slightly more structured phase in my creativity, but I’ve decided it’s time I came home to Artimess and started having fun again!

I signed up for Tamara Laporte’s Life Book Course back in January and have been joining in rather haphazardly throughout the year. Last week’s lesson by Connie Hozvicka from Dirty Footprints Studio caught my imagination. The picture above is my interpretation of the lesson. Created on watercolour paper (2 x A4 sheets), using glossy gel medium as a base to build texture followed by lots of layers of acrylic paint to add depth and more texture. I had great fun creating this – thank you Connie!