Celebration Journey!

I have finally finished part two of Life Book Week 1! I had so much fun creating this – thank you Tam for such a great lesson! I chose an aeroplane as my mode of travel as I have have only just got my passport and have never yet flown. I intend to take my first flight in 2013!

I created my background using watercolour paint and rock salt, then added a collage of the plane, which I coloured using neocolour crayons, combined with a picture of me. I created the flowers using circles punched from old magazines then added the details using a uniball eye pen and watercolour pencils. Having already stuck the plane to the page, I then decided I wanted some buildings behind it! Nothing like planning for getting things in the right order! I photocopied a book drew the buildings using the uniball eye pen, then coloured them using watercolour pencils. Then I had to cut them to fit round the plane! Next came the clouds, using the uniball pen and white gesso, and the sun using the uniball pen, yellow acrylic and neocolour crayons. Lastly I added the text digitally after scanning.

Phew! All done just in time to start Week 2. Roll it on!

Scary Stuff!

Yesterday I got the fright of my life. I was totally absorbed in capturing this shot when a dog barked right behind me. What made it worse was that I was precariously perched on the edge of the cliff path, and I suffer from a fear of heights! This was the result.

Not being one to waste anything, I set about playing blending games with this image.

What do you think?

Altered Railings!

Yesterday’s photo shoot for this picture took place on a road bridge through some railings. Needless to say I took pictures of the railings, and although they didn’t feature in the day’s picture, I thought they’d be fun to play blending with.

Do you like the result?

Life Book 2013!

Yes! – the first Life Book class for 2013 is up and is not disappointing. As always – Tam gives such excellent value for money. This weeks lesson has two parts to it! This is my interpretation of the first part.

I created the background using neocolour crayons, then drew my Fairy Art Mother in pencil and coloured her using more neocolour crayons. I liked the way she looked on the page so rather than adding my text to the physical page, I added it digitally after scanning her.

I’m off to get on with the main project now – see you later!

Rose Blend

I’ve decided to try and take a photo every day this year to improve my photography. Yesterday I took a photo of my Christmas roses, but you know me … I can’t help but play blending games with my photos!

I just love the way it turned out! What do you think? You can see all of the originals here.

Expansion!

Do you remember the new stencils I got just before Christmas? I found a small tub of Light Moulding Paste and decided to see how it worked with the stencils.

I applied the moulding paste through the stencil then painted it with metallic acrylic paint when it was dry. I just love the texture that resulted! I’ll definitely be asking for a big tub of moulding paste for my birthday later in the month 🙂

After scanning the image, I thought it would make a great background for my word of the year for 2013 – Expansion. I didn’t get round to choosing a word for last year with all the upheaval of travelling, but it’s something I do like to do. Have you chosen a word for your New Year?

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had as good a holiday as I did. I’m busy now catching up and getting ready for the new year! Part of my preparations included completing this free workbook from Susannah Conway. It really is my type of workbook with lots of space for drawing and doodling!

This is my response to her instruction to “Sketch out the shape of 2013 in an ideal world”.

I haven’t had time to do any artwork since we got back from our family visits – but don’t worry – I’ll be playing very soon. I’m getting very bad withdrawal symptoms! Meantime let me wish you all a Very Happy New Year with this photo taken a few minutes from our house on our return.

Happy Christmas!

Ink Blots and Stars

I treated myself to a set of drawing inks a while ago and created this background with them.

I played around with it a bit to give it a bit more depth and have used it a few times already, including on the inside cover of my new notebook.

But you know me – never miss a chance to do a bit of blending, so when I made this star image on my iPad, I thought I’d just have a go and see what happened.

I added it to the ink blots, did a lot of copying and blending …

… and ended up with this! What do you think?

New Notebook

Once or twice a year I make myself a new notebook. My notebooks are a cross between a diary, an art journal, a planner, a message book and a reference book. Basically, everything I do every day is recorded in some way, shape, or form in my notebook. Because I’m a visual person, I like my pages to be different colours and unlined so that I have freedom to use the pages any way that suits what I’m doing. Today I made myself a new notebook as my old one has only 18 pages left!

It took a little longer than usual as I had trouble finding the right grade of chipboard to be thick enough for the covers but thin enough to fit into my binding machine. I made one set of covers before realising that they were just a tad too thick! Luckily I had enough material to make two sets of covers!

What you can’t see from the photo is the diversity of the pages. I used 13 different colours of paper (including black and white) and made up 12 segments of the colours giving me a total of 156 pages!

Now that it’s finished, I can’t wait to start using it!