WOWW? 508 - WIP, that's what!

Amazingly, at the weekend after Kew on Saturday (glorious - check here - )   I, (much like Julia it seems)  spent some time on Sunday  morning pruning a couple of large shrubs in my garden (it is at the front of the maisonette, so meant to be kept neat... ahem!) and then I played...

So, for the first time in ages, for my WOYWW desk share, there is actual proper crafting!!

It is still only a WIP... needs lots doing to it but I'll share a couple of the in progress pics - that amazingly, I remembered to take as I went along...

 I started by sticking some pieces of cheesecloth to a canvas board with heavy gesso

 and then got out my Dylusions sprays that hadn't seen the light of day for a fair while...

 added more texture... torn book pages, and scraps of paper (using scraps, whatever next,  from the leftovers of diecuts cos you just can't throw them away can you...)


then added glass bead gel and some art stones

starting adding metal embellishments and some wooden flowers too...

added some more sprays - Lindy's this time... in the gorgeous colour that is Tibetan Poppy Teal and Bells of Ireland Green (way too much) 

and thought oh s&*t I've ruined it... but they dried lighter and some dry brushing with white acrylic paint helped


and there it sits... waiting the next layers..

needs more metal.. and some more stamping and text of some kind... but that is for another day and I have kept you far too long, Julia will be putting me on the naughty step!



Do try and check the Kew photos - there are some beauties.. let me tease you!

not bad for a phone pic, eh! 


sadly after a fabulous few days we are forecast rain on Saturday so the droplets may be rain rather than from a watering system!   

Blue and Ochre - Paperartsy colour challenge

The current Paperartsy challenge is, as the title suggests, a colour challenge.  What a gorgeous combination too.  You can see some fabulous DT suggestions here  and I really loved Kate Yetter's post on Friday and my dear friend Chris's altered book kicking things off on Monday7

I seem to be stuck in a journalling rut lately (nothing wrong with that!) and after a false start working on canvas I'd abandoned weeks ago I went back to a journal for my project today!

I started by glueing some strips of torn book page across the middle of the journal (it's my large A4 Seawhite one) and painting my ochre shade - I used Pumpkin Soup Fresco.  round the edges of this I blended on some Haystack

 I stencilled Midnight Fresco through my mini Tim Holtz brick wall stencil (first time out!) taking care to fade out the edges and not get it all the same solid colour..

I then glued some fibres (fab bargain from a Paperartsy sale bin at Stevenage) taking care to only use blue/ochre/beige colours



I left that drying while I went shopping (I used 3d matt gel so it needed some decent drying time)


I then mixed some Midnight Fresco into heavy white gesso and stencilled the 'art is' stencil randomly in some of the white space

I also added a bit of brick stencilling in Haystack to further blend it all in

 my focal point was going to be the lacy flowers (Noor designs, great find at Stevenage) and I happened to see across the room a pack of 7 Dots Studio papers that were bluey-yellowy in colour.
Tore a sheet into strips,
stamped some large scribbly circles (EEG15) in  Cobalt archival before placing the paper and lace

Took a black pen and wrote "live your dream" on the blank strips of paper...done

those lace flowers are so fab!

Linking up to the Paperartsy Blue and Ochre challenge here 

Some Finished WIPS...

so, following on from my WOYWW post, a couple of the pieces are now finished.  (well the arch canvas was finished already but I am sharing some details of how it was done)

Sadly I only took one photo of the beginning stages , and had already added the black modelling paste through the stencil by then.

the canvas is about 9 1/2 by 11/12 inches and is one of those flat canvas boards (from The Works)

I had added various brown Fresco chalk paints - all kinds of colours, to get some shading  I can't remember what colours though now...

 once the stencilled windows were in place and thoroughly dry, I added some die-cut bats on black card


I took a Paperartsy stencil for some grassy effects at the bottom. I wanted more texture, so mixed a couple of green Frescos (Wintergreen and something else!) with some matt 3d gel

 I used a heavy gel glue to fix the bats and left the wings of the larger ones proud of the canvas for more dimension - though you can't really tell from the angle of the photos, sorry!

closer look at the greenery

at the top, I mixed some art stones into some 3d gel coloured with French Roast fresco paint



Now need to find something to fix it to hang up somewhere...












the other project I finished, is the big A4 journal page.

 I don't have any pictures (other than the one I shared on Wednesday) of the starting point of this page...



Lots of blue Frescos, stamps (Seth Apter circle-y ones) texture stencilling (originally with heavy gesso, top right, middle left and bottom right) under the Frescos  In some of the stencilled circles I have stamped some Prima circle-y stamps and some more stencilled dots


I stamped the Prima girl on some tissue paper and coloured her from behind with Frescos and some butterflies, (also Prima) on white card stock and fussy cut them and painted them

 added some splatters in black and white

the sentiments are from Prima too.

 I used slightly brighter, translucent shades for the butterflies (Southern Skies and Glass Blue)

I also added some more stencilled circles in a couple of places, using Finnabair's Light Paste, which picks up the colours underneath so it blends in again.

Hope you like these, I had lots of fun with both of these projects.
Edit.  as prompted by Alison, I am sharing with A Vintage Journey "going round in circles"

WOYWW 397 - Several WIPs, that's what's on my workdesk!

Welcome to another week's desk sharing and hopping.  Head to Julia for the link up as usual - here  

Having got ahead of myself over New Year with a heap of January birthday cards, I had some time to play at the weekend... I find myself with 4 WIPS (work in progress) started...

 to the left.  my A5 sized journal mop up paint from the blue A4 journal page (right) - it's a combination of Frescos and then some Pebeo shimmery paint mixed with heavy gesso and spread with a palette knife...
the white canvas which is bleached out by the flash, has heavy white gesso stencilled (circles) and some Fresco blue stencilled circles and is probably going to be "Finnabair'd"  The flourish is the die I showed a week or so ago, cut from kraft card that was hanging around.


the blue journal to the right, is more circles stencilled in gesso under various blue Fresco paints, and has stamping in circles too.
  The canvas standing at the back is a fabulous Stencil Girl arched window over a background painted of various brown fresco paints. I've done something similar with this stencil before, on a smaller canvas, I just love the gothic look it has.

I tried to get a better photo, so changed the canvases about a bit, I think the texture on the white one shows up a little more in this version.

the window canvas has greenery at the front, using a Paperartsy stencil with matte gel mixed with some green fresco paint.  the bats are die cut (memory box)

So, 4 pieces on the go, none finished.. although the window one is nearly there, I think! Watch this space for more details maybe by next week.

I really had fun with all of these, it's been ages since I had a really good play, and it was fun to do so any different things at the same time.   Apart from the gothic window, I didn't know what I was going to do with any of them till I started.

I've managed to catch the cold that is going round the office, which is a pain, but at the moment it isn't too bad...so I'll scurry off to avoid sharing my germs with any of you...

Wanderlust (remember that?!! ) One Collage Challenge

so yes, I was still taking part, just not done very much lately.  hey ho!  2017 will be different, right?

However, I have been following and doing, the One Collage Challenge, which we've been encouraged not to share until the very end.  Every couple of weeks Kasia gave us a prompt.  Each stage was to take no more than 5 minutes... sometimes this was easy, others not so!

We could choose any surface we liked, bearing in mind we would be working on it for the whole year.
I took a 25mm by 30mm flat canvas  I may have gesso'd it to start with, made no notes, just took photos of each stage.
1. grab at random, no choosing, 2 pieces of paper, tear large pieces and stick to surface.
Grab one acrylic paint and add a shape , either with brush or your fingers

2. repeat the shape from guideline 1 by doodling on the surface - once or more times.  I went more! I chose a matching pen

3. write in (some of) your shapes, thoughts, words, feelings about it so far

4. Use your fingers and add paint round the doodled shapes from step 2.

5. take a semi transparent acrylic paint and paint round the outside of the shapes from step 2 (was running out of gaps by now, regretting quite so many doodle shapes, not enough spaces left)
these were meant to be smooth brush strokes.

stage 6 was to find a word from a magazine and put it aside.
stage 7 was to write turn the canvas upside down and write the date
8. (you can see the photo is still the wrong way up, as the date is the right way round)
add drips or splashes of something white - ink, paint, over the canvas,

9. repeat step 8 with tea bag stains..

10. pick a stamp, any stamp and permanent ink, stamp all over the collage.  you can see I used 2 different inks


11 was to find another word from a book or magazine.

12. find a loose corner on your stuck down papers from the very beginning, rip a corner and tear

13. take a favourite acrylic paint and fill the torn spaces - this didn't take long as I only got one!
I was in a purple mood at the time but do admit to making my favourite not clashing.

 14. add some white dots to the painted area from 13 - any kind of dots. I varied mine.

15. find a focal point - a face - human or otherwise  -   my main problem with these word finding and picture finding exercises was not having many magazines (other than craft ones which I won't tear up!) but I found one eventually.

16. find something from a magazine that will replace one of the eyes.

17.  grab a black marker and draw 3 thick lines somewhere on the  collaged face

18. find another word.

19. put the face in a frame, grab pen(s) pencils,.draw a frame - shape of choice.

I used black and white markers

20.. I just realised I missed out this step, I was playing catch up today and missed it.
there is meant to be another image from a magazine, stuck on the forehead - pretend!

21. find a picture in a magazine of a background.
(I found a picture from Kew in my Kew magazine.. at least that was fairly easy.) make it fit behind your face, filling no more than a third of the frame.

22.  take a photograph and keep it on your computer.   we were not to look at the next stage (published at the same time) before doing this..

I had an inkling of what was to come by this point, I could see where it was going.


typically right at the last minute I forgot to take a photograph of the penultimate stage of step 23..

23.  Yup, cover the whole thing with gesso or paint.

I chose two thin layers of gesso.
first part (that I forgot to photograph on it's own) was to use the saved words and create a sentence, we could add to them if we wanted.
my words read Grand Family Designs Magical Winter.

hmm.
Next and final stage was to write in the rest of the space, words and feelings about the whole process of the One Collage challenge.  
For me, it was all about not over-thinking each step, not spending too long - I certainly stuck to the 5 minutes each time, and it was certainly quite free-ing not knowing what was coming next.
Thanks, Kasia, this was fun!    There were definitely stages I didn't like so much, but hey, they've all gone now under that gesso!!

Wow, what a day - Seth Apter workshop with Paperartsy

Glossing  quickly over Southern Rail's attempts to screw up the day, today saw me heading at 6.15 to Shenfield in Essex for the Paperartsy - Seth Apter workshop.
Big thanks to Leandra for picking myself, Kirsten and Claire up from the station (and back again) - loved the detour to the home of Paperartsy and the farm, we can envisage you all the better now.

Anyhow, on to Seth and the workshop - managed to take quite a few photos during the day (and the camera remains paint free) - we were working on a large canvas along with a smaller one to mount on top.  Seth is a very patient guy and explained and showed each step so we all knew what we were doing..

 after Seth got us all to introduce ourselves to the class it was time to get painty..

 Jo and Alison

there were lots of ladies I didn't know, but I do know Claire and Darcy of course

 with her back to me, Caz, Miriam, Jo

 Kirsten and Claire next to Darcy

 first two paint colours mixing on the canvas... you'd never guess by the end of it this is were it starts!

We had a selection of Frescos to work with, including the new Seth colours... oh boy.. fabulous or what!

 couple more layers..

 keep going...mono printing off a sheet of smoothy cardstock (bit like gelli printing I guess)

 tea break, Miriam showing Seth the swap journal she and Darcy and doing

 back to work... get some paint on the smaller canvas, and some water-pulling (I couldn't get this to work, so will be trying again soon)

 big gap in photos now, where we leap to stencils... lots and lots of stencil layers

Seth made sure we all knew what we were doing at each step of the way and helped lots (especially with my water pulling that didn't! )

thanks to Julie Hickey for taking this

 next work in progress shot , getting some die cuts in there

 next step,nearly at the end now, some pen work and shadowing and mark making... we spent 45 minutes on this that flew by (and I will be adding to at home)

everyone listening and watching intently

 Seth and Rebecca who was sitting next to me

 more watching intently

 lots of tweeting going on..

 my table, I seem to have not got Hazel in for some reason, so sorry Hazel!
Bernadette, Jackie and Debs

 someone (Claire!) has already let out of the bag that I had a big splurge.... well like that was a surprise..

 close up...

 closer..  stamps...

 added to my stencil stash too  (sorry about the flash glare)

a HUGE thank you to Seth and Mark and Leandra for putting on this workshop - it ran so smoothly (lunch was gorgeous) and everyone gave so freely of their time.

to the PAtwits I already knew and the ones I didn't before today, thanks for making it so much fun.


just lifted this group photo from Facebook.. in all our painty glory