Wanderlust Week 46: Rag Journal

I will admit that I haven't been working on my online lessons as diligently as I did in the first part of the year, but once in a while a lesson comes along that makes me drop everything and dive in straight away. This is what happened with this week's Wanderlust lesson by Susie LaFond, who showed us how she makes her dreamy journals out of scrap fabric.

Used my beloved batiks for this purpose, although I found it almost painful to cut into my fat quarters. Luckily, I already photographed most of them for this post, so I can still marvel at them digitally in their full glory. I dusted off my sewing machine too. As you know, I'm not much of a seamstress, but this sort of messy sewing I can do! In fact, it was invented especially for me! The messier the better, and I'm really good at that, LOL!  Here are some shots of the completed cover, front and back:

I used a piece of dyed fabric for the ties, Initially, I cut the cloth for the inside cover, not realizing just how much it will shrink in the process. So I used another piece of patterned fabric instead to line the inside of the cover. I sewed some Khadi textured cotton paper into the middle (just simply machine stitched a signature of three sheets down the spine). All the pages have fold-out flaps for addition interest. I will use this as a collage journal I think. 

This journal is a simplified version of the one shown in Susie's lesson, which has a fold-out cover with pockets. I will definitely do one of those later. I just couldn't wait to finish this to see what it looks like. I love it and can't wait to fill it with yummy collages! Watch this space! 

Thanks so much for visiting! In honour of Remembrance Sunday, I will now observe a minute silence, remembering the young lives lost in WWI, whichever side they were on. I find it unbelievable that some of those lads were just a couple of years older than my own son now. Let's hope that something like that will never ever happen again. 

WOYWW #388: My first ATB and altered bottle

I'm a bit late with my WOYWW post this Wednesday as I've been glued to the telly watching the results of the US elections unfold. Whichever way you guys in the US voted, I think we all have to support the will of the majority of the American people and let's be cautiously optimistic. I don't think I would have voted Trump, but now I want nothing more than for him to prove me wrong. Now let's take a look around my desk this week, as that's what WOYWW is all about!

I've been working on my first ever ATB and my first ever altered bottle. I moved my work station into the kitchen to be closer to the sink. Here it is in action a couple of days ago:

I had just applied a layer of raw umber on the bottle waiting for it to dry a little before partially removing the top layer with a wet wipe. This is a very similar process to the one I used for my altered boxes in my previous post. The difference is that I used a crackle medium to crack the underlying layer of blue. Those of you in the UK might recognize this bottle! Let me know in the comments if you do! Hint; the night before it had stood on our dinner table to go with our sausages! And no, it's not ketchup!

Here are a few shots of the process and the final look against the backdrop of our autumn garden now full of colour of the fallen leaves.

The other project I want to share today is this MDF Artist Trading Block. First, I completely covered it with dictionary paper and then collaged some whimsy houses with my palette paper and painted the background with fluid acrylics. It looked a bit barren, so I splattered some white ink all over each side, which pulled it together a bit more. (Click on the photo to see the full size image.)

I also managed to catch Oreo in the garden and take this new shot, though it's very similar to the one I shared last week. He's checking out the birds on the trees again. There's nothing he loves more than doing that!

Thanks for coming over!

I will be visiting as many of you as I can!

WOYWW #387: Altered boxes

Brrr, isn't it chilly out there this Wednesday morning? Luckily, no frost yet in my neck of the woods and the sun is shining in the cloudless sky. But I know you're not here for a weather report, so let's get down to business showing you my desk for this week's WOYWW.  It is very much staged, as you can no doubt tell - I'll just quickly show you what I've been working on, along with a few new purchases.

I've been altering some boxes: painting them to make them look weathered and distressed. The best way to do this is to give them a base paint of a bright(ish) colour - I really like a middle shade of blue or orange - and when that layer is completely dry, paint over it with raw umber, letting it dry a little before removing most of it with a wet baby wipe. The secret is to let it dry long enough but not too long. This technique also works with cardboard mailers for mail art. You can then stamp, collage or stencil images on these later if you want. For now, I'll just enjoy them as they are.

You can also see a bunch of MDF stuff on my desk. I ordered these from Calico Craft Parts. It went missing in the post for two weeks because it was delivered to the wrong address miles away! How annoying, but all's well that ends well. I received it on Monday and immediately started with the ATB, now fully assembled and gessoed. I chose Gorilla glue to stick it together, which perhaps wasn't the best choice. I'm not one to read instructions and I ended up with VERY sticky hands. Things got even worse when I tried to wash them with water!  Next time, I'll try something else.

Another one of my new purchases is this wonderful book - very much an impulse buy, but I'm so glad I have it. I was so impressed with it, I even wrote a review about it on Amazon. It has a lot of interesting ideas and step-by-step techniques to explore, and it's printed as if it's on old paper. Just full of loveliness!

I won't keep you up much longer, promise! Here's a shot of Oreo in the garden yesterday - if anything he seems to enjoy the garden now in the autumn more than he did back in the summer. 

And finally, a photo of a leaf that I found lying around. I just love these warm, autumn colours, don't you? 

Thanks for stopping by today! 

Enjoy the colours all around you!

WOYWW #386: A book, a collage and some awesome papers

Hello again on this dark Wednesday morning! It was still dark in my neck of the woods at 7.30 this morning. I look forward to the clock going back an hour, but of course it means it will get dark sooner in the evenings. Oh well, time to get those fairy lights out again to make the darkness more bearable.

The photo of my desk for WOYWW was taken on Sunday. I was working on a collage, auditioning different pieces. As you will see, it ended up looking quite different in the end. This project was inspired by a book titled 'Storytelling with Collage' that I saw on my friend Jackie's blog just last week and, of course, I had to have it! This technique is perfect for using up bits and bobs and scrap pieces that I have lying around. The finished collage includes pieces of a tea stained kitchen towel, a stamped tea bag, a test piece of polymer clay with an image transfer, a skeleton leaf, a piece of ribbon and bits of cardboard that I used as underpaper for my paintings.

The collage was built on a piece of handmade Khadi paper, which comes in different weights. The heaviest is 640 gsm, which feels almost like a canvas board and even the 320 gsm weight feels very sturdy. This paper has a lovely textured surface and deckled edges. Don't even think about cutting it with scissors as that would ruin the effect. I trimmed my piece by wetting the paper with a brush along a ruler to soften it and carefully tearing it, so the lovely fibers created a feathered edge.

I've discovered another wonderful product called lokta paper at Anglesey Paper Company. It's very similar to mulberry paper with natural fibres. It's made in Nepal from the bark of the lokta tree, which is a renewable resource as it regenerates itself when it's cut. That's always good to know! When you look at these papers against the light, you can clearly see the yummy fibres in them. This particular type is sold as gift wrap but it will work great as collage paper. Here's my collection so far and some closeups to show them against the light.

I hope you enjoyed your visit today and found something of interest!

Happy Wednesday!

Wanderlust Week 42: Soft pastels over acrylics

Rachel Urista's Wanderlust lesson was published last Friday, but I didn't have any wood panels to try it immediately. I received some 6X6 inch MDF panels yesterday and had a go at this lesson. Rachel showed us her technique using soft pastels and graphite over acrylics and created an intuitive piece on four square blocks, which also stand alone as individual pieces. I didn't quite manage to achieve this goal, as I kept my pieces pretty abstract and geometric, but I still had fun experimenting. I'll show you my process:

paint and collage elements added

graphite and white chalk pastels

more chalk pastels and white acrylics added

This is what the individual pieces look like:

I think I started out ok, but then I got myself into a tight corner that I couldn't get out of - this always happens to me when I attempt making intuitive art! There's something blocking my creative process and it happens EVERY time, so I half expected it to happen again. It might be the compulsive outlining and doodling! As a  result, I ended up with something completely different from what I vaguely envisaged, though I still almost like it. I'll keep these panels for a while but I plan to use them later for another project. I like reusing by canvases unless I get too attached to them, but I can't see that happening with this piece. Good practice though! Have fun creating, everyone!

WOYWW #385: More practice with intuitive art

Brrr, it's rather chilly this morning. Welcome to another round of What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday. I haven't done much since last week, but I've been watching plenty of videos. Yesterday afternoon, I finally sprang into action and created a piece of intuitive art, partly inspired by a Wanderlust class and partly by a new book I bought, which I'll show you later. While waiting for some wood panels to arrive, which the Wanderlust lesson called for, I decided to try Rachel Urista's pastels over acrylics technique on paper. This is what my desk looked like in the middle of this project, and for once it's not staged!

My practice sheet is in the top right corner - I was just randomly testing different pastels, but I quite like what it turned into. I might use it as collage paper in future projects. On the left hand is my background for my main page, which I called Lifeboat after it emerged. It symbolises how art has become my lifeboat. I sealed the pastels with hairspray, which worked great in lieu of a proper sealer. They don't smudge at all now and smell nice too! This is a little cheat I learned early on in my mixed media career. Here's my completed page:

I'll show you a close-up of my test page too. This is just on regular copy paper that I used to test my new paints and some pastels. It's totally random!

I used these Toison d'or soft pastels, that I bought last year, but never used previously. They are really creamy and well pigmented and, if I remember correctly, were quite cheap. 

Part of my inspiration came from this book by Alena Hennessy titled The Painting Workbook. It contains 52 intuitive-style projects for inspiration. I really like it! 

Instead of an Oreo photo (he's hiding somewhere in the garden), I'll share this Face Swap pic that my son took of me last night. I thought it looked very funny, if slightly weird and perhaps a little bit in bad taste. Next time we might try Donald Trump, LOL! Thanks for visiting! Happy WOYWW!