Catherine Rains' Collage Kickstart Course

 Hello All.

I recently took Catherine Rains' wonderful free 5 Day Collage Kickstart course. I can highly recommend this course if you love making collage as much as I do. And Catherine is an excellent teacher.

On Day One we collected up all the supplies we needed, finding items from around the house to make marks with.

Day Two was about creating light, medium and dark collage papers with a limited palette. I chose to use my favourite blues.

 

Day Three we created some tissue paper collage fodder with stencils, paint and molding paste.

Day 4 we created collage papers with circles.

And finally, on Day 5 we created some mini 3x3" collages, using our collage papers, adding in some pieces of magazine text for contrast.

You might recognise some of these collage papers in some of my recent and also future projects, I have loads left over!

You can also find Catherine over on Instagram, as @catrains.artist. Every Tuesday she posts a video of a collage material technique.

Thanks for visiting me today. I hope you have a wonderful week ahead.

Alison

52 Weeks Art Journal - Week 48 - Roots

Hello Everyone.

Here is my week 48 page for Michelle/RaspberryBlueSky's 52 Weeks Art Journal Challenge. The theme for this page is 'Roots'.

 I started with a layer of collage and a light application of white acrylic paint, then I used a PaperArtsy Mini stamp 'La Porte Bleue' for my door, and sketched and painted the house and roots around it. It looks a tiny bit spooky, but that wasn't my intention.

I'm linking my page to Valerie's When one door closes, another one opens theme at Art Journal Journey.

Thanks for visiting.

Alison

Creative JumpStart Day 10

 Hello All. 

Day 10 of CJS was Setting The Mood with Jimmy Leslie. Jimmy showed us that painting an undercoat of yellow and orange on a canvas would give a finished painting a warm and sunny look. In the same way, a blue or grey undercoat would give a cool finish to a painting.

We both love getting out in nature for a walk or hike, and I used Jimmy's techniques to paint a sunny walk in the countryside. I must admit that I nearly didn't do this class, as I was afraid of making a mess of it. But I decided it's only paper and paint, so I jumped in. I really like the result, as it happens! The grass was looking a bit flat, so I added some contrasting spring daffodils.

Our walk didn't look like that this morning. Today we braved the snow and sleet at 7.30am! It's all gone now though, the rain washed the snow away.

I'm linking up to Erika's Favourite Things theme over at Art Journal Journey.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend,

Alison xox

Creative JumpStart Day 7

 Hello Folks! Mystele Kirkeeng was our tutor on day 7 of CJS, and she showed us her art process. This involved using a piece of her painted paper that she'd used up paint on I think, then finding an image on it to develop. Her painting was a portrait, but mine turned out to be a crow.

After painting in the crow, I used a pointed tool to scratch into the paint to add texture. I love doing this! I covered up most of the under paper, but you can still see bits of it if you look very closely. I used artistic licence with the crow's eyes by the way, they're not usually yellow. 

Watching birds is one of my favourite things to do, and we occasionally get the odd crow or two in our garden, so I'm linking up to Erika's Favourite Things theme at Art Journal Journey.

Have a happy and creative day,

Alison xox

Creative JumpStart Day 6

 Hi Everyone! I was thinking about my favourite people when I created this page, which was based on CJS Day 6 with Birgit Koopsen, 'The Distance Is Only Physical'. There's also lots of colour and splatters, which makes it my favourite type of art.

I'm linking up to Erika's Favourite Things theme at Art Journal Journey.

Keep safe everyone, and thanks for dropping by today.

Alison xox

Artist Soul Retreat

Artist Soul Retreat was a set of three free classes by French artist Laly Mille. She took us through creating a mood board, then using that to make four mini mixed media abstract landscapes, and finally to create an abstract mixed media canvas. It was an intensive few days, but I learned so much from it.

This is my mood board. I've never made one of these before, but it was a very useful tool. I used magazine images, patterned paper, music and old book pages. I also added a teabag, piece of gauze, corrugated card and dress-making paper pattern, which aren't shown here.

Using the colours, textures and patterns from my mood board, I created these four 6x6" abstract landscapes.

Here's a slightly closer look at each one.

And finally, I created this 12x10" canvas. I didn't intend on using pink, but it's growing on me! I may have to do another one with the bolder colours from my mood board. I love the random word Pantomime from a piece of music paper, that showed through the drips in the top right corner.

I'm linking up to Chris' Hold The Line theme at Art Journal Journey.

I'm looking forward to exploring these techniques more. 

Thank you so much for visiting,

Alison xox

T Stands for Peppermint Tea, Strawberries, and 365 Somethings Week 21

Hello Everyone! I'm back from another week's holiday, this time we stayed by Lake Bled in Slovenia. We enjoyed lots of lovely hikes of course, and some great weather for it. We'll definitely return there, as it's a beautiful place. And yesterday, my husband started his new job, after being made redundant at the end of March. So he was fortunate and not unemployed for too long thankfully.

As it's Elizabeth's T-Day today, I'm showing my yummy, mid-morning peppermint tea, with some delicious strawberries picked from our garden. Luckily the birds and slugs hadn't got too many whilst we were away! I'll be having them with some greek yoghurt later :-)

I'm a little behind with my 365 Somethings for I Hanna and Daisy Yellow's Instagram challenge, but I've decorated seven teabags for week 21, and there'll be more to follow in the next few days.

I first painted them with white gesso, then added some turquoise acrylic paint with my fingers. Then I printed with green acrylic, using a plastic aida circle. I added washi tape, torn book page, and stamped and painted images by France Papillon and Birgit Koopsen. I finished with some black ink splatters.

Wishing you all a very happy Tuesday T-Day!

Alison xox

Beautiful Chaos

Hello Folks. Here's another page for my Recycle & Collage Challenge at Art Journal Journey. 

I started with torn Gelli Prints, then added some paint, stenciling, collage circles, paper lace and marks. I used a blue Scribble Stick to outline the collage circles. Acrylic paint drips were added, then the quote and Paper Doll. I finished with some pencil shading and splatters. Chaos indeed!

Happy Tuesday,

Alison xoc

Cardboard, Comb and Egg Cartons

Hi Everyone!

Here's a little catch up with my Gelli Prints this week.

Day 27 - Cardboard - corrugations of course, plus the edges are interesting, and cutting a comb for some squiggles

Day 28 - Combs - I used a comb tool, and also cut some others from old store cards

Day 29 - Egg Carton -The bottom makes an interesting pattern

Only two days left, I'll be sad to finish this challenge, but looking forward to using my prints for other projects.

Have a creative day,

Alison x