January Monthly Review

January is always project heavy because I'm on holidays from my school job and I can work late into the night with long daylight hours. I am now back at school and it's been a particularly fabulous summer holiday break. I completed so many projects, you can catch up on my part one review post about cards HERE! 

We started the new year with a week away in Akaroa and Christchurch. So blessed to live in this gorgeous country and so hard to pick highlights so I will just share the artistic ones. The Giant's House in Akaroa - a garden of international significance. Created by artist Josie Martin, it's a sculpture mosaic garden. It's colourful, beautiful, quirky, inspiring - we spent a couple of hours here and this is a tiny taste. 

Christchurch had a massive earthquake in 2011, and the city has been remaking itself since that event. We went to the Earthquake museum and I was reminded of the initiative of Hearts for Christchurch. People from all over NZ and then the world created stuffed hearts and sent them to Christchurch. First they were used to create an amazing exhibition and then distributed to people affected by the quake. 

These were mine : March 2011. I even received a photo of a wee girl receiving one of the hearts when they were distributed 💜

And now to my creative joys this month. I had to stop all my other creativity from Christmas til mid-January so I could make this quilt for my sister-in-law's 60th birthday. 

See more detail about it HERE.

I spent most of January on my "Advice from the Sea" deck and starting my new weekly card project. Sorry I have to share another photo - I just adore these projects so much!

Erin Bishop of E B Mixed Media has released a class called Fabulous Florals. Free for a limited time HERE (no idea when the limited time ends but current as I do this post). 

On the last weekend of my holiday, I finally got a chance to explore her lessons and now have this beautiful floral fodder to play with. 

Such fun techniques. And even when you think they're not going to turn out, somehow the line work followed by fussy cutting makes magic. Highly recommended. You might also like to check her demos out on Youtube and I am always inspired by her Instagram account.

Looking towards February and beyond, I know I won't have as much to show you because I am back at work, but I am hoping that I might finish my journal which I started as December Daily-ish and get back to working in my JIYA Journal. There are a few reasons I am hopeful for this. I made good use of birthday money last year and now have a lovely supply of Megan Quinlan's Art Foamies - I have so many ways I need to explore these. Check out her YouTube for free ideas. 

And I was very excited to get my stencils from Leaca Young at the end of the year. I ordered them Wed 29/11 and they arrived on Thurs 21/12 in time to be a Christmas gift. Very impressive for postage from Alaska to New Zealand.  

As well as those things, Wendy Solganik is running a cohort for all those who have previously enrolled in "Love your (Imperfect) Letters". I signed up when she had a special on this class in March last year and while I did the drills and found my alphabet, I never finished all the lessons to experiment with gorgeous lettering. I managed to do some drills while on holiday 

And am hoping that I can share more work from this class soon.

Fav free inspiration this month - Roben-Marie offered a tutorial making these gorgeous neutral papers

I can't pick a favourite read this month - everything I've read in January has been great. 

And since this blog is about all of me, I'm finishing with an introduction to our 3 new family members living at our house. Meet Oscar (tabby), Obi (ginger) and Arthur (golden retriever puppy). We haven't had pets for a while and although a lot of work, they bring great joy and help us to slow down and be present 💜

You can see why I decided to split my January review in two! You won't hear from me as often now that term has started,  but I will continue to try and post here monthly and more regularly on my Instagram and Facebook Artist's page. 

52 Tags : Week 42

Time for my take on Anne Brooke's weekly Tag challenge. Week 42 : Tag on a tag (on a tag). I had a lovely piece of selvedge fabric that led to my gatherings of green and soft yellow. I wanted my layers to be pretty and spring-like. I added lace and a heart from my recent collage fodder play with the word WONDER. This was a joy to make and I'm delighted with the pieces individually and layered up.

Only 10 to go!!

This link will take you to all of my posts about this challenge. You can view Anne's weekly demo on Youtube #52tagshannemade.

Collage Fodder

It's school holidays for me and I'm having a blast with Fodder School play. The first lessons this month are from Tiffany Sharpe - she's on Instagram. We started by learning how to create florals and leaves in watercolour, with pen work and fussy cutting.

These were on watercolour paper. 

I then wanted to try using salt effects and different kinds of paper. I wasn't sure how well the printed papers would take the watercolour, so prepared some pieces with Absorbent Ground. 

You can see it's white but not totally obscuring the marks beneath. Below is the music page with salt applied in some areas of wet watercolour. 

I found that on the Ground the watercolour blended too much for me to get the effect that I could get on the watercolour paper for the flowers, but I was very happy with the hearts and leaves and could still use a wet-in-wet technique.

It also depends a bit on the paper. I don't like the flower on the Absorbant Ground in the bottom sample pictured above (although this will totally work once I add the pen work) but the samples above were on thicker paper without any Ground added and I love how they look. These are the experiments on various book papers and sheet music

I also had a second go on watercolour paper having fun with salt effects and dropping in extra colour while still wet.

I haven't used my watercolours in this way before and am delighted with the effects I achieved with colour blending

and salt

I also love hearts so made a few of those using different papers - you can see the salt effect quite well on the watercolour hearts

I will be adding stitch and probably words to these hearts when they are used later. 

There was also a bonus lesson on doodling shapes on painted papers. I had some suitable card stock already in my stash - made so long ago that I can't remember when! This first was stenciled

I discovered that by randomly drawing the outline of my leaves, I could then follow the lines of the print below for really cool random marks

These were my doodles before fussy cutting

They look so awesome once cut apart

EDIT : It looks like Fodder School ‘21-’22 sign ups are reopened! Not sure how long this will last so run over there straight away if you want in!

If you're interested in finding out a little more about Collage fodder, I posted HERE about the free Fodder Challenge now finished.

DeeDee Catron is keeping a record of where content from the original challenge can now be accessed. She said she'll update as teachers share in different places. Find that HERE.

Journal 52 : A SMALL weekly project

I always take on a lot in January creatively and wonder what will fall off as the year progresses. I am hoping this isn't one of them since even though I am coming to it a week behind, I have long had the desire to do this.....last year I LOVED my Klimt in the garden with Rumi project. It was small and challenging but oh so rewarding at the end with 15 art cards. I've shared the photo a lot recently, but if you're a new visitor, click HERE.
Effy Wild is once again offering Journal 52 prompts FREE through her Wilderhood FB group and over on her Patreon ($2 a month for this and other content). I have a jumbo deck of playing cards from the $2 shop that have been waiting for this opportunity. They measure 3.5'' x 4.75'' (8.5 x 12 cm) which is larger than a normal Artist Trading card but significantly smaller than my Klimt art cards. 

My friend inspired me with her handmade oracle cards a couple of years ago - they are paper collaged and she glued 2 cards together so they feel wonderfully chunky

If I keep my expectations limited about how much time I spend each week, I should manage this. Each card will include stitch, a found word, and I will try and be inspired by the project I've been working on that week or what's lying leftover on my work table. Since the cards are plastic coated, I will need to apply some kind of ground to them first. And I bought another set so that once each is completed, I can stick a back on for extra chunkiness and to hide any stitching. These are the first 2 prompts for the year (released on a Friday so waiting for me every Saturday).
#1 : Heart. Inspired by my word{s} of the year : Shine with Intention and the colours of green and turquoise. Created on a piece of previously stenciled cardstock which I then sewed to the playing card by machine. This one is finished with a spray gloss varnish because I wanted the Shine and to seal in the black stabilo grungy pencil marks.

#2 : Calm. Inspired by a Book of Days lesson with Rachel Kentish this week. I shared wish feathers inspired by her teaching in my previous post and she provided a bonus lesson which I used for the card inspiration. Began by coating my new card with white gesso and then the watercolour ground...You need to let this dry completely - maybe longer than you think it needs - (ask me how I know!) before applying your watercolour layers. The gold is the Uniball Signo brand. Sprayed with workable fixative since not waterproof. Finished this one by hand-couching pretty thread.

This is really fun seeing 2 done already. Hoping I can share these cards weekly and by the end of the year have 52 in my organza bag ♥

Love is stronger than hate

I spent the weekend distressed and heart sore from the terrible terrorist attack on the mosques in Christchurch. On Saturday I felt paralysed, helpless, unable to art. And then I remembered a lesson from Effy Wild from November 2016 - #artistsforlove. My original version of that lesson is HERE and on Sunday it gave me comfort to create (art heals) and ease to be able to use that lesson as my inspiration starting point for the spread which follows. 
I began with colours : blue, green, gold. Blue for loyalty, strength, wisdom, trust and calm, the throat chakra for expression of truth. Green for life, renewal, nature, harmony, the heart chakra (integration, compassion) and our beautiful New Zealand. Gold for the preciousness of life, illumination, love, compassion, courage, passion, magic, and wisdom.

I then gathered meaningful stencils and printed this quote which has been uppermost in my mind

Next to outline my figure and my hand of love 

then base layers of colour 

- after these initial layers on the face I use clear gesso then blended pencils and more paint (see that link from Effy above for more of that kind of technique). I love my new NZ flower stencils and happy with the effect of them here

Pohutukawa above and Kowhai below

Then to add the quote

I really felt like this spread helped me process some of my feelings