Never stop dancing

Today’s weather is beyond dismal so I’m sharing a collage I made over the summer. The background was made by gelli plate printing and the collage elements include postage stamps and a detail from La Ghirlandaio by Rossetti (1873).

Collage 18

Already it's time again for another weekly collage as part of my #52collages2019 project, done in a 5 x 8" Moleskine journal. This one came together almost too easily which always makes me suspicious! I should get over that as I'm very pleased with the result, specially how the postage stamps merged with the rest of the imagery.

Collage 12

Here is my latest collage for my 52collages2019 project where I aim to make one collage for each week of the year. This one is dedicated to lines and features some of my favourite French postage stamps.

Stencilgirl February 2019 Project

February is a sort of nondescript month as far as I am concerned. The days are still short and spring seems far away. Sometimes there is snow but even if not, it is mostly cold. What better time to do some arting, and this is my latest project for Stencilgirl  Products®. 

You can find the full step by step instructions on the Stencilgirl®Talk website. For some reason my picture of the initial collage layer didn't make it onto the memory card of my camera but I almost covered the two pages in the 9 x 9" Bee Paper Mixed Media journal completely before adding colour. You can use whatever collage material you prefer. If you have a closer look you can see of what I used peeking through.

The main focal points come from the November 2018 Stencilgirl®Club. The club offers its members exclusive stencils (one large, medium and small) i.e. you can't buy these in theStencilgirl®store. But if you join the Club as a member, you can order previous club issues such as this one!

It's always difficult to get a good picture of the texture on the pages. Above you can see how I used Distress Crackle paint on the house shape.

Collage no. 3

Here is my collage for week 3 of 2019. I'm hoping to make one a week this year as part of my #52collages2019 project. My imagery will come from a wide variety of magazines and will thus be a good excuse for the occasional indulgence of magazine buying. On this one I also added postage stamps and washi tape.

Art Cards 324 - 332

Here is the next set of 9 art cards. Remember these cards are part of the #365somethings2018 project on Instagram, where I hope to end up with 365 cards, one for each day of 2018. If you want to see them appear individually each day, you can find them all on  my Instagram feed

Stencilgirl November 2018 Project

I have been making many art cards this year (and that project isn't finished yet!). Occasionally however I suddenly get an urge to make art on a surface that is larger than 3 x 3"! Changing size in art making (also applies to quilts) gives you a new perspective and it also means you can use art supplies, specially stencils in this case, that are not so suitable for small backgrounds. The ladies on this journal spread are a perfect example of that. They feel very much at home on this 9 x 9" Bee Paper Mixed Media journal that I'm using for this art journalling spread that is my November project for Stencilgirl  Products®.

I was inspired by a quotation by William Wordsworth, that reads:"Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give, Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. 

You can find a full step-by-step tutorial as well as a list of all the stencils I used for this spread, on the Stencilgirl® Talk site.

The Stencilfied Journal Prompt 21

Prompt 21 for #thestencilfiedjournal asked us to used numbers 1, 2, 3.... and for some reason I immediately thought of the battle cry of The Prisoner: " I am not a number, I am a free man" (or woman, of course!). The Prisoner was a tv series way back when in the 60s and yes, I remember watching it then. And I wouldn't mind watching it all over again. It seems as pertinent for the world today as it was originally. So I embraced this opportunity to put the quotation in my art journal (sized 9 x 14cm).

The background was done using the medium stencil from the December 2017 Stencilgirl®Club as well as stencil L471 Hamburg stencil designed by Nathalie Kalbach for Stencilgirl  Products®. To this mix I added rubber stamping with both a circular stamp and a stamp featuring numbers both from PaperArtsy, designed by Everything Art, as well as collage with tissuewrap (Tim Holtz) with numbers on it.

The large black words were stencilled on using Stencilgirl®'s L748 I Get to Choose stencil. Then I glued on the postage stamps with the numbers 1, 2 and 3. The final addition was the quotation that was stamped onto vintage paper using a variety of alphabet stamps.

Art Cards 261 - 269

 Here is the next set of 9 art cards. Remember these cards are part of the #365somethings2018 project on Instagram, where I hope to end up with 365 cards, one for each day of 2018. If you want to see them appear individually each day and you can find them all on  my Instagram feed

Art Cards 197 - 205

Here is the next set of 9 art cards. Remember these cards are part of the #365somethings2018 project on Instagram, where I hope to end up with 365 cards, one for each day of 2018. If you want to see them appear individually each day you can find them all on my Instagram feed.

Art Cards 188 - 196

Here is the next set of 9 art cards. Remember these cards are part of the #365somethings2018 project on Instagram where I hope to end up with 365 cards, one for each day of 2018. If you want to see them appear individually each day you can find them all on my Instagram feed

You can find all the cards here too by clicking on the 365somethings2018 tag below or in the sidebar.

Art Cards 152 - 160

Here is the next set of 9 art cards. Remember these cards are part of my #365somethings2018 project on Instagram where I hope to end up with 365 cards, one for each day of 2018. If you want to see them appear individually each day you can find them all on my Instagram feed.

You will have seen some of these cards before as they were part of the set of 9 that I made as my May Project for Stencilgirl® Products in my capacity as monthly Guest Designer. You can therefore find a step-by-step tutorial for theseon the Stencilgirl®Talk webpage. I am feeding all these cards gradually into my stream of numbered cards for each day of 2018.

I have temporarily stopped working on the prompt for Joggles Art Journal Adventure to participate in #thestencilfiedjournal as well as my 365 art cards. There is only time for so much and there is a quilt to be made too. I'm also thinking about new projects to come, but that won't happen till next year (and it's only June!).

Art Cards 125 - 133

Here is the latest batch of nine art cards. They are part of my #365somethings2018 project on Instagram where I hope to end up with 365 cards, one for each day of 2018. If you want to see them appear individually each day you can find them all on my Instagram feed.

The Dreamers of Dreams

Our mission this week on Joggles Art Journal Adventures was to add texture to our pages. My spread in an A5 journal was therefore started with a collage of washi tapes, using black/white and neutral colours. Once I was happy with how that was looking, I used Distress Crayons and Fluid Acrylic paints and removed them through the small stencil from the January 2017 StencilGirl Club as well as M155 Random Lace stencil using a baby wipe. I then used yellow spray paint and the small stencil from the October 2016 Stencilgirl Club to add the circles. I also dropped on some Magicals powder in dark blue.

The text came from Ode by Arthur O'Shaughnessy and reads: "We are the music-makers. And we are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams; World-losers and world-forsakers, On whom the pale moon gleams: Yet we are the movers and shakers, Of the world for ever, it seems. 

Finally I added some sparkle using a gold Perfect Pearls Misters and stencil M080 Repetition and some imagery in the form of postage stamps.

Collaged Art Cards

The days and months seem to whiz passed at an alarming speed at the moment. It feels like only yesterday since I showed you my Stencilgirl® Project for April and here I am back with another one in May.

You may remember that back in April I used my stencils to make the backgrounds on 3 x 3" cards for the #365somethings2018 project. This month I'm making the stencils the star of the show on each card. This was made possible by a gorgeous stencil set designed by Seth Apter, with stencils that are just the right size for these 3 x 3" cards.

You can read all about how I made these cards and find a list of all the stencils on the Stencilgirl®Talk website today. All the materials I used can also be found there.

I thoroughly enjoyed making this set of 9 cards (and some more too while I was at it!) and the individual cards will be fed into the #365somethings2018 project on my Instagram feed one at a time. At that stage I will add their date and number. We have already reached the point where a third of the cards for the year are done.

I am so grateful to Stencilgirl® for giving me the opportunity on a monthly basis to share my work to a wider audience.  The versatility of their stencils is amazing and I specially love being a member of the Stencilgirl®Club where you receive an exclusive set of stencils each and every month together with videos and PDFs showing how the artists that designed the stencils use them. Highly recommend you give it a go. 

Time Travel

The prompt this week on Joggles Art Journal Adventures was to use the letter T, and in honour of Stephen Hawking I went with not one but two Ts: Time Travel. The quote by Stephen Hawking reads: Even if it turns out that time travel is impossible, it is important that we understand why it is impossible". 

For the background I used the large stencil from the April 2014 Stencilgirl Club. To that mix of clocks I added collage using an image from a Titanic poster, a clock, as well as two postage stamps with images of space travel.

The quotation was printed with a Dymo writer on self-adhesive tape and after some outlining the page was done. I'm working in an A5 sized notebook that I turned into an art journal by gluing pages together to make them more sturdy as well as gessoing the pages heavily before I get started. On the detailed pictures you can just see that the journal was lined originally.

Calm

Our prompt last week on Joggles Art Journal Adventures was to use a word and also feature it's definition. As you can see I went with CALM in honour of my beloved Calm App, that provides daily 10 minute meditations as well as meditation specially geared towards a certain issue, such as anxiety, sleep, breathe and of course calm. It has beautiful music too.

To me an owl is the perfect embodiment of calmness. So he (or she) became the mainstay of my pages done in a 9 x 9" Bee Paper Mixed Media journal. I also wanted the spread to reflect calmness so stayed with a subtle, subdued colour scheme and only used one stencil to do the background. It's the large stencil from the March 2018 Stencilgirl Club. The only other addition was some paint splattering in white.

 I also found some very fitting postage stamps (all French) to tone in with the pages and showing calmness enhancing imagery.

Art Cards 71 - 79

Here is the latest batch of nine artcards. They are part of my #365somethings2018 project on Instagram where I hope to end up with 365 cards, one for each day of 2018. If you want to see them appear individually each day you can find them all on my Instagram feed.

Check out the labels (tags) below for techniques and materials used. 

Art Cards 41 - 49

My #365somethings2018 art card project continues and I'm almost at the stage where I can upload my daily 3 x 3" card on the day of the year it belongs too. That is what happens on my Instagram feed. Here on the blog you will be getting them in batches of nine whenever the opportunity arises.

Art Card 41

Art Card 42

Art Card 43

Art Card 44

Art Card 45

Art Card 46

Art Card 47

Art Card 48

Art Card 49