Monday 21 March 2016

Shadows on the road

Since doing this challenge, I am looking at my environment in a slightly different way.  I look at the backgrounds in my journal or I am cutting words out of a magazine and an idea for a page pops in my head.

I was heading over to the Wistow Gallery,in Leicester yesterday to do a Photo Textile jewellery workshop when I noticed the shadows on the road.  Shadows remind me of books I read as a child, by Enid Blyton or E Nesbit and many others.

This page was created using alcohol permanent pens.  I love the way you can layer the work, yet still see you pen strokes below.


Thursday 17 March 2016

Protect and Reflect


This is a re-make or update of a page I did many moons ago.  It's an exercise in building a verbal and visual picture of yourself.

Start with a image of a person and then build amour around them, adding words that could be inspirational or hopes and dreams or where you are now.

The page background was made up of a hodge podge of layers; tissue, watercolour paint, gold acrylic, music paper and a magazine image.

Tuesday 15 March 2016

View From Here - Printing Flowers with Carole



This week the Threads and Chatter group explored printing with artist Carole Miles using printing ink and polystyrene sheets.


Prints created at the session will be used to produce a perspex sunscreen for a new area at The Green Patch The Green Patch  Each person at the workshop designed one petal for the flower by drawing on a pre-cut polystyrene petal.  Each petal was inked up and placed on the paper to form a new design each time.

I can't wait to see the finished result.



Thursday 10 March 2016

The Bluebells


This time I worked with a cleanish white page.  When I say cleanish I mean there was a little staining from other pages at the edges.

I worked with permanent or alcohol pens, Sharpies, Promarkers etc.  The poem was written by Emily Bronte and the full poem is below.

One the whole page was drawn and the poem added, I felt that the words didn't show up that greatly so I decided to put some white back onto the page by using a correction pen.  This adds some dimension to the overall look I feel especially adding a few highlights to the bluebells.


The Bluebell is the sweetest flower
That waves in summer air:
Its blossoms have the mightiest power
To soothe my spirit's care.

There is a spell in purple heath
Too wildly, sadly dear;
The violet has a fragrant breath,
But fragrance will not cheer,

The trees are bare, the sun is cold,
And seldom, seldom seen;
The heavens have lost their zone of gold,
And earth her robe of green.

And ice upon the glancing stream
Has cast its sombre shade;
And distant hills and valleys seem
In frozen mist arrayed.

The Bluebell cannot charm me now,
The heath has lost its bloom;
The violets in the glen below,
They yield no sweet perfume.

But, though I mourn the sweet Bluebell,
'Tis better far away;
I know how fast my tears would swell
To see it smile to-day.

For, oh! when chill the sunbeams fall
Adown that dreary sky,
And gild yon dank and darkened wall
With transient brilliancy;

How do I weep, how do I pine
For the time of flowers to come,
And turn me from that fading shine,
To mourn the fields of home!

Perhaps in days gone by, bluebells used to bloom in summer.  So strange how our seasons have changed.  I'm not sure we really have defined seasons anymore.


Wednesday 9 March 2016

Let your hair down


I've been struggling with the black sugar paper pages I put in my journal.  It's finding pens, crayons, inks and paints that will cover the blackness successfully.

With this page I used good quality crayons.  Here I have used a combination of the student coloured pencils from Specialist Crafts and Derwent crayons.  Both have a good coverage and are lovely and soft to use.  The top part of the page is an envelope inner which has been marbled lightly marbled, although I feel it hasn't really shown in the image  The lettering and swirls were completed using permanent pens.

I think the woman looks a little intense and slightly Fae.

Tuesday 8 March 2016

Seeds of Change


This page started with a random used page found in my scrap box it had some olive green ink smeared in the middle and some random circles drawn on it by someone at one of my workshops.  I don't like waste and I thought it would be a good starting point to develop a page.

Materials used:  A window envelope, a strip of decorative paper, a flower cut from some wallpaper, turquoise ink, gel and highlight pens and the typewriter.

The journal page represents how change can come about from the simplest of ideas.

Monday 7 March 2016

Permission to Fly


I really enjoyed putting this page together as it was a gradual process and a mish-mash of various papers, stickers and stamps.

Materials used include a gold foil from a chocolate bar, crepe paper, book paper, map paper, butterfly stickers and rubber stamp.  Handwritten and stamped words and a spray of brush ink.