still more paint...

Continuing with the Traci Bautista workshops. Week 3 was about painting a background in preparation for painting a 'girly glam' face. The face shape is painted in gesso onto the background. The flower shapes were doodled with india ink onto copy paper, cut and pasted onto the picture, then coloured and doodled using the techniques in the earlier workshops. I really struggled with the hair of my girl. It started out blue, and has had a number of reincarnations. I  just couldn't get the free flowing lines I was after. I do like her eye though!

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed these 4 workshops, and I do wish there were more, but sadly, it was just for 4 weeks. There is however a sketching workshop coming up and I'm keen to have a go at that too.

But through the workshop I found a challenge coming up in February, called 29 FACES that I hope to join in with. I just have to get over this horrible cold that's made my head feel like it's stuffed with cotton wool and has left me drained of all energy.

More paint...

Week 2 of the Traci Bautista workshop was about being free and easy with watercolours. I used watered down acrylics, because I don't have watercolours. At least that's what I thought! Today when looking through a drawer to find something else, I found a set of cheap tubes of water colour paint, so tonight I did some free and loose water colour painting. But this one I'm going to show is the acrylic paint one. It's done on large paper- A2 size maybe?



 And then, because it was so much fun, I did another, trying a different colour palette. These are not meant to be anything, other than experiments and fun. So there is no right way up, but I reckon you can work out where I was standing when I painted these.

You can also see in both that I couldn't help but add some stencils and sprays as well-really to cover up some not so pretty bits!!

I printed both of these out onto glossy A4 photo paper-and actually I think they look rather good-better than the actual painting if I'm being honest!!

I really do recommend Traci's workshop if you enjoy playing with paint and pencils and inks and crayons- or if you tend to be a perfectionist who likes everything neat and orderly. This approach will help you to loosen up and let go!!



Playing with paint....

... and ink and sprays...
I came across this 4 week free online course  last week, and decided to join in. I'm so glad I did!! I've had so much fun this week just playing with paint and ink, and stencils and masks and crayons and coloured pencils and pens! The idea behind the workshops really is to experiments and have fun, and that's just what I did.
Week 1 was about building up layers.
Water colour sprays, and stencils:

 More layers of colour and more stencils:

Extra colour:

Some acrylic paint-this is where things started to go wrong and I leanred it's not a good idea to add acrylics on top of water colours:

 Finally, doodling. The white is a correction fluid pen.

I'll show the rest of the workshop over the next week.

And the winner is...

Today is the day to announce the winner of my Valentine giveaway. The number chosen by
RANDOM.ORG - True Random Number Service was....

By my calculations that makes the winner Sixofone-aka Leah. Congratulations Leah. Can you send me your email address so I can get the package into the post?

Give Away...

THIS GIVEAWAY POST WILL REMAIN AT THE TOP UNTIL THE 24TH. FOR MOST RECENT POSTS PLEASE SCROLL DOWN TO THE NEXT POST.
I've had this blog for quite a while now, and have never had a giveaway before, so I though I'd start off the New Year with a wee giveaway, by way of thanking everyone who has followed this blog, and left comments over the years.

So, at the end of January I'll draw a winner from any of my followers who leave a comment.  I'll draw the winner in three weeks time, that's the 24th, just  in time for Valentine's day, which is appropriate since the giveaway is full of valentine'e embellishments!!

There's felt hearts, a heart banner, doilies, assorted heart embellishments, stickers, quotes, diecuts..

So don't forget to follow and leave  a comment if you would like a chance to win.

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Here's a layout done with ScrapaGoGo January kit. It's Jack when he was little and so very sweet.

This kit is packed with product, all of which works so well together. This is the last of the larger format kits that GoGo will be doing.

From February a new kit format is to be introduced-and guess what? It's CHEAPER!

You can read all about it here. So if you are thinking about subscribing to a kit, but want to save some pennies, then think about this new GoGo kit.

Anyway, it's blowing a gale here, and we have lost bits off our roof, but it's still too windy to check the damage. I do hope this is not a sign of what 2012 is going to be like!!

To everyone who reads this blog, I wish you all a really happy, peaceful, calm and creative year!!

Quick Layout...

Recently I bought some Dylusion spray inks from Art From The Heart. They came wrapped in red tissue paper tied up with twine. As I cut the twine a scrapbook page idea came to mind, no doubt influenced by the very talented and creative Lousie Nelson. Louise often frames her photos with twine or string or wire..

This layout was so quick to make and it was fun to make a page without patterned paper for a change.

I gessoed both the cardstock and the photo. I used the Dylusion sprays for the circles and  the last of my 7 gypsies gaffer tape to ground the photo.

The story is about my daughter's bargain boots-reduced from £50 to £30, and then to £18.When she tried them on she noticed they were different colours, so the assistant  then reduced them to £7.When we came home I grunged them up a bit more with distress inks, so now with a bit of wear they look like a matching pair! We do like a bargain!!

A couple of cards

Some time back I was asked to make a couple of cards for Simply Cards & Papercraft Magazine.

 The theme was 'Let's Face the Music' and the cards had to work together as a page spread. I had so many ideas for the cards, but in the end I settled on these:

The music note on the right hand card is quilled-it's a bit tricky to see that in the photo. It's my first attempt at quilling! the heart button is one I've had for ages that came from the Early Learning Centre. I really like the combination of yellow on kraft.

Collage Art Journal page...

...and my very first video!!

I thought I would make a video showing my very simple and quick process for making an art journal page. I've written about this process here, and here but today I fancied making a video!

 (But first I had to learn how to use the video function on my camera!!)

I do sometimes make inky, painty pages, but I do find they take a lot of time-and I'm very impatient. These glued pages satisfy my need for instant gratification!!

So ta da..without further ado..

So what do you think? (please be kind -this is my first attempt remember!!)

PS-those alpha stamps are the loyalty stamps from Scrapagogo-I LOVE them!!

Learning new techniques

One of my goals this year is to develop my stamping skills, and in an attempt to learn, I've been blog hopping. I came across Roni Johnson's blog. Roni is currently blogging about  different techniques  and using those techniques to create a calendar, so I decided to join in. The January technique isn't stamping as such, but it looked gorgeous, was new to me and so I thought I would try it.

Here's the result:

The technique is about painted foil and embossing, to create a stunning rich glimmery background-it really is a great technique!!

 .

The images are free downloads from the Graphics Fairy. The little snowman is a black and white image that I coloured using distress inks applied with a sponge to give a tint to the image, like an old fashioned hand tinted photo.

Hot Punch...

...at the german market in Edinburgh at Christmas time. Emily and I went in one chilly evening and warmed ourselves up with a spiced wine. Christmas in Edinburgh is always magical.

This layout is another made with Scrapagogo's January kit. For this layout I stencilled a large white square onto the green cardstock which kind of anchors all the elements together.

I got a new punch in the sales and had to use it too!