Art Saves Lives

We all know that there are times when the gentle task of stitching or doodling or playing with colours has kept us calm and soothed our minds when times are sad or stressful.

And we know that having friends who are behind us with kind thoughts and quiet support is so reassuring when times are tough.

Now there is another way to be a quiet friend through Art and it is a way to help save lives and let somebody know that we are thinking of them.

Maggie Grey and Workshop on the Web are holding a Sketch-a-Thon in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust. They would like to help this fantastic charity by asking us, everybody who would like to join in, to make a sketch book and send it to them to be sold to raise funds.

Even if you are new to working in sketchbooks or don't have time to  completely fill one I hope you will think about having a go. You could just make a beautiful cover on your book or work on one with a friend. It can be a bought sketchbook or one that you have made yourself. You could make one from recycled cardboard and junk mail or maybe old envelopes.

I am going to make two. They are going to be on the theme of fish! I have been having fun thinking about fish shapes, colours and textures. All things fishy!

I have just sent off my first book. It is a bought sketchbook with black card pages. It is not completely filled because I'd love to inspire the person who buys it to finish it in their own style. It will be a collaboration!

Would you like a sneaky peek at some of the pages?

This is the cover...

The background is painted and stencilled card. The blue fish and lettering are card which has been collaged and painted with shades of blue to show up the texture.

This next page is collaged with fishy patterned napkins and stencilled with acrylic paint.

This one has fish cut out from the same card as the background on the cover but has had decorative papers added. I cleaned my brush on the black page; dry brushing for a background. 

These next two pages go together because the  top one has been cut to reveal the fish and colour below.

This took a while to do but I was really pleased with it. 

Below is a fish shape made with an original hand cut stencil/mask.

I just liked the dramatic black shape against the swirls and blue.

The last sneaky peek is a glassine envelope which s attached to one of the pages. It contains an original hand cut mask of a fish. I am hoping the new owner of the book will use it to finish the book in their own way if they would like to.

I hope you will think about joining us in making and donating a sketch book to Workshop on the Web and the Teenage Cancer Trust. It felt good to do a little something to help and it got me making art too! :o) xx

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Birdy Sketching

I've gone and got the blooming lurgy and its just not shifting! I am not up to doing much so I sat in bed and sketched some little birdies to go in my Altered Book. 

They are done with Derwent Inktense pencils which are my absolute favourites. I've used mainly browns and greens this time but they do also come in the most stunning colours; vibrant and intense, as the name suggests.

But that is only one of the best bits. When you wet them with water they turn into the most 

brilliant ink like paint which blends really well and becomes permanent when dry. 

This means that you can also colour onto cloth with them. So they are great for starting off little embroidery pieces rather than starting on a blank piece of cloth.

The bird below is a little Robin for the 12th day of Christmas, The Epiphany, which is tomorrow.

I haven't had time to sketch for ages so I suppose something good came out of my gloomy day. I'm ready to feel better now tho'.

Christmas Paper Patchwork

On the Mixed Media group I belong to we decided to do a Christmas patchwork panel swap.

We all got assigned different dimensions for our panel and as there were 10 people in the swap we each had to make 10 identical panels- one for each member of the swap.

At the end we each received one from each person and a diagram of how they would all fit together.

I thought I'd do a little tutorial of how I made mine because lots of people have been asking about how to make the paint effects, how to use the products and how to piece it all together.

This may take a while so get a cuppa  and lets get messy!

1. My panel is 4"wide by 5" high so I chose some black card and ran it through the Sizzix Bigshot in a Snowflake and a spotty Embossing Folder. It turned my cardboard into  deeply embossed  patterned cards and I painted them with Gold and Copper Jaquard Lumiere paints which is rich and metallic and perfect for using on fabric, card and anything you like. LOVE this paint!

I also cut some birds and reindeer in the black card with the Sizzix. I know they were all supposed to be the same but I got excited and can't make decisions when I'm excited!

  I wanted the panels to look vintage, so although the bright metallics look good I wanted more depth to the paint effects. When  you are making your own painted backgrounds you can choose your own colour scheme so I decided to make 3 different versions of vintage metallics.

The first one is Verdigris which is the look of copper when it has been aged by the weather. It gets lovely blues and greens mixed in with the copper and metallics.

The second is much brighter with more of the metallic colour showing through.

The third is more like an Aged Bronze.It is darker and has a white bloom on the surface.

2.You can do a mix and match of all the finishes and stop when you like the look of your backgrounds. There are no rules and it is fun to just play with the paints.

We start by putting a blob of lime green, turquoise and white on a plate. These look quite bright but we are going to be blending them and mixing them and between these 3 colours you can make all kinds of different tints, shades and depths of colour.

You can mix the colours on the brush and on the plate but it it really important to have a really dry brush before you paint so when you like the colour you have mixed rub most of it off on to a paper towel so that it looks like there is almost none left. Not like the brush above!

3. Now really lightly brush the colour onto the texture of your card. Try to brush over just the  top of the textured surface. Add some patches of the other colours and mix them together a bit but make sure your brush stays really dry.

4. Wipe some of the paint off with a paper towel to make it look old and worn and to buff up some of the metallic colours and make them shine.

Time to make the reindeer and birdy embellishments! I wanted a crackly vintage finish on these. Ranger make a lovely crackle paint called Rock Candy which produces  transparent glittery fine crackles with just one step of painting. I painted all my shapes with a fairly thick layer of the crackle and let them dry.

Because it is transparent it doesn't really show on the black so I needed to put something over the top to show off the lovely crackles! I used Copper glitter Stickles. I put a little bit on my finger and rubbed it over the crackles which picked up the texture really well. I also used some Treasure Gold on my finger to rub over the texture and give a bit of shine..

Before sticking my shapes on with PVA glue I rubbed the outer edges of the panels with black Treasure Gold to finish them and make them look aged. I then stuck on some gorgeous bronze metal snowflakes with Ranger Multi Medium in Matte finish which disappears when dry and holds really strongly, and some little berry wreaths which I made from a berry pick that I took apart.

Here is a closer look at 4 of the panels. Have a go at making one yourself but if Christmas is too near you can use this technique all year round to make lovely textured artwork for cards, journals and scrapbooks etc. Try using different colour combinations to make them look completely unique each time.

Fibre East and arty comfort blankets!

Fibre East! WOW, what a great place for felters!

This newish exhibition, held in Thurleigh in Bedfordshire is only in it's second year and bills itself as 'A celebration of British wool and fibres' Truly it was!

I have never been to Woolfest in Cumbria or Wonderwool in Wales but this was close to home for me and was a great chance to see and find wool fibre produced by British farmers in the most exciting and colourful products. It was also so good to support small makers who were so committed and enthusiastic about their breeds and products. 

I talked to lots of felt artists, spinners, weavers  and dyers. It is amazing to see what you can do with wool.

The display of balls of fibre above was HUGE! the pile was almost as tall as me! The colour blends are beautiful. there were lots of baskets of fibres and pick and mix selections of gorgeous Wensleydale and other scrummy curly fibres which I find so difficult to source. It was good to choose by feeling and looking at the colours which you cant do if you are buying online.

One of the things I absolutely loved were the recycled wool blankets which had been space dyed. I dye these sometimes but it was so nice to pick and mix colours that someone else had chosen because we all make colours in our own  way and sometimes it is nice to step into someone else's colour scheme.

Having said that I picked a lovely teal/lime green that is one of my favourites. I have bought a new sketch book (addicted! can you tell?) and it is short but very wide. It obviously needs a cover of its own!

The dyed blanket is thick, soft and colourful. A lovely arty comfort blanket! I also bought....
to decorate it all with! Isn't it all delicious? There are curly wool fibres, handspun wool rovings, space dyed cotton threads and some rough handspun and dyed yarn that has a great matte tweedy feel to it.

And here is what I did with it all.....My newest sketch book cover!

 I am so pleased with the textures on this front cover. I am going to do something completely different on the back cover but with the same colours and supplies. Of course I am going back to Fibre East next year!

I'm Felting too!

These photos show the original drawing that I did in my sketch book and the beginnings of the  felt picture which is inspired by my drawing.