Collage Lady

As you may have noticed, I’ve got very behind with my Life Book 2013 classes. So I thought this week was time to rectify the situation and try to catch up a little! Rather than go back to where I got stuck, I thought I’d start with this weeks lesson from Joann Loftus and then move backwards in time!

I created the background using 3 layers of journaling, white gesso, an acrylic paint wash and a variety of stencils. Joann gave us the template for the lady silhouette which I covered in a collage of torn magazine images and stuck to the background using sticky pads. I added die-cut butterflies coloured using Twinkling H2O’s and a silver marker pen and added highlights and shadows using white paint pens and Pitt Artist pens. I really enjoyed the lesson and love how my lady turned out!

Another Mandala

I so enjoyed making Guada’s mandala the other day that I thought I’d have a go at another one.

I used the same template just joined the lines up differently. all the techniques were the same as before – neocolour background, Rapidograph pen and Inktense Pencil lines and shading, but the result is so different. I’m looking forward to starting Guada’s free course on the 8th October!

Guada’s Mandalas

I love Guada’s mandalas, and so was thrilled to have a lesson from her as this week’s Life Book class. Her instructions are always so easy to follow and even though I started out copying her design the end result is so totally different!

The background was created first using neocolour crayons on copy paper, blended using a watercolour brush. When the background had dried the paper was a little crinkly, so I ironed it flat (much more fun than ironing clothes!) and printed Guada’s template onto it. Then following instructions, I created the mandala and coloured it using my Rotring Rapidograph pen and Derwent Inktense pencils.

I just love the result. If you’d like to have a go, Guada is running a free course starting in October called The Seed of Life. Click on the button on my right sidebar for more details. Thank you so much Guada 🙂

Experimental Journal

It’s amazing how in the few short weeks since I acquired this book my perception of it has changed.

It is no longer simply a book I bought from Amazon …. it has become my treasured experimental journal. It has gone from being a pristine empty tome, to a highly colourful extremely tactile piece of art. It still has lots of blank empty pages waiting to be experimented on, but they are slowly disappearing.

I can’t remember the last time I got hold of some pens and just scribbled with them …. but I really must try to do it more often – it’s so liberating!! And it looks good as well 🙂

The left hand page above is the revese of the right hand page below which was made by made by scribbling on texture plates with a pencil (the left hand page below uses wax crayons over the texture plates)

I’m getting quite addicted to cutting holes in pages …. for this hole I used a grungeboard key as the template for the first hole, then made each successive hole a little smaller. I’m quite pleased with the way it came out!

I stuck the cut outs on the facing page.

I still have lots of fun pages to do and some major wrecking processes to try out, so keep watching!!