Watts Gallery Sketch Saturday March 2025

Watts Gallery, nestled in the Surrey hills on the 

North Downs Way

Had an amazing day at Watts Gallery today attending a workshop that I thought was going to be just about sketching but actually turned out to be an brilliant mixed media session. Kerry, our tutor, took inspiration from the gallery and 'The Spirit of Charleston' exhibition, building sketchbook pages with a variety of studies influenced by the decorative Bloomsbury style. This style is completely new to me and outside of my comfort zone but I still enjoyed using a number of photographs, Kerry provided, to do some pieces of my own. We experimented with watercolour paints, acrylic paints, oil pastels, watercolour pencils, gelli plate, a technique new to me called Dry Point using a water based oil paint, so here are all my designs and a couple of the photos I used for inspiration.

Dry Point

Painting on a gelli plate.

Everyone's finished art.

xx

For the Steampunk Man

I worked at home yesterday morning so I got up extra early to see what my blogging friends have been making lately and to catch up on some challenges. I have combined some of them to make this tag which fits the themes at -
Simon Says Stamp and Show - Men only
Make My Monday - Steampunk anything but a card.
Sunday Stamper - Simply irresistible
PanPastel challenges - Anything Goes

I have used the PanPastels to create the background using versamark with stamps as a resist. Some stamping, spraying and embellishing finish it off. I love these pastels that create this dry mixing of colours. I used Turquoise Shade, Raw Umber, Bright Yellow - green tint and Yellow Ochre.

This is one of my moulds covered in copper inka gold and black soot DI with white and silver ink pads wiped over the numbers and cogs. I added washers and a watch part to it.

A Scrolls Work stamp coloured with PanPastels and inked round the edges. Added to a spring and wire and pinned to the top.

My pen nibs were acquired from ebay and watch pieces from a carboot.

Thanks for stopping by today. I am now off to work.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Shared Moments

Yay I have managed to get a piece made for the Gingersnap Creations challenge this week. The pressure of work has prevented me doing much else other than DT work and also I am prepping for the classes I am giving soon, but I have managed to squeeze this in for this week. This is a wooden page for a journal.

The image is from The Graphics Fairy. I have used all scraps from my box to add the collage pieces.  Underneath the background has numerous layers - music paper, paint and ink, pastels, versamark with masks and more pastels, various stamps and satin glaze.  The flowers have been made using a marianne die and for the butterflies I used a crealies die.

This is the piece that I came home and experimented with after buying the Pan Pastels from Lin on Sunday.  The colours are vibrant and translucent and give a completely different feel to the DIs I always use.  I want to experiment more with textures and other resist techniques. (I just need some more time at the moment!!!!)

I have discovered that there is a brand new challenge blog starting for this product - PanPastel UK Challenge, so I am going to enter it into their first challenge - Anything Goes. The four colours  used were Magenta, Turquoise Shade, Raw Umber and Yellow Ochre. I love the mixes they give.

Other challenges to have fun with -

Crafty Ribbons - Anything Goes

Pals Paper Arts - Lace

PolkaDoodles - Distress it

My Craft Spot - Ribbon

Creative Stamp Friends - Anything but a card

Well we are supposed to be getting a heat wave this week in the UK - how strange our seasons are at the moment because we are then predicted snow in October -  really can't believe that!!!

Have a great week everyone.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Spring card for Easter

Good morning.
Oooh I can almost smell the spring coming. The mornings are brighter and from my craft room window I can see my back garden and the cherry tree that was planted a couple of years ago is budding and will soon be out in gorgeous pink blossom. Can't wait to get a photo when it bursts into life. My Camelias are flowering and I will go out and get some pics of those today. At last a real promise of the warmer weather to come.

I am full of cold at the moment so I spent alot of yesterday 'playing'. On one of my school visits this week I stopped in the little town of Goring and found a beautiful little interiors shop, I wished I had my camera as there was so much inspiration in there. However I found some sweet little metal bunnies which I couldn't resist for Easter cards. So with that in mind I set about 'challenging' myself to use pastel colours and incorporate one of these cute rabbits with some flowers and butterflies to represent Spring and Easter. I had my granddaughters in mind so wanted it to be 'cute' but at the same time it needed a distressed look.

I cut out the mount for the rabbit using the nestabilities labels 4 and run it through the BigShot with a cuttlebug embossing folder, I used Tattered Rose and Cosmic Twinkles around the edge. I found the pink and blue/yellow papers in a paper block and grabbed a doyley 'cos I though it could give me that sort of vintage but shabby look. I edged the doyley with Broken China and also edged it with a Sakura glitter pen. Having cut the backing and mounting papers I distressed the edge of the pink with the TH distressing tool and went roung the edges with star dust Stickles and the check paper I decorated with baby blue pearlidoodles. These do tend to come out a bit thick sometimes and I need to find a way to make the dots smaller. The flowers were made by putting together petals from some of my purchased collections, including one made of chipboard and covered in fabric, I added the stamen centres using a punch and finished them with some glitter gems. The heart was cut on the Cricut and embossed with sticky stuff and glitter added to give it a real sparkly effect. The tag was also cut on the Cricut and I printed the word Spring out in the three colours I have used, I edged the tag with Adirondack Lights Snow Cap and edged the words with broken china and the glitter pen. The butterflies were stamped and punched using a MS punch. Buttons, bows and gems have been added to give it a girly feel.

Et voila.  My Easter card for the girls.

I know Easter and Spring are a theme on several challenge sites so I am entering this card in the following challenges.
Fussy and Fancy Friday - Challenge 7 Easter
Paperplay Challenges - Week 12 Easter
Colour Create - Challenge 41 Your choice of pastels
CRAFT challenge - 43 Easter
Cute card thursday - Challenge 105 Dimensions (my second entry)
Simon Says Stamp - Easter or Spring with some glimmer
Gingersnap Creations - 48 Growth
Creative Card Crew - 46 Going Dotty
Incy Wincy Designs - 35 Easter or Spring
Crafty Cardmakers - 17 Spring into Spring!
The Everybody Art Challenge - 83 Easter 
Pollycraft Monday Challenge - 36 Sparkly Things (my second entry)
Crafty Angels - 27 Paper Piecing
The Cuttlebug Spot - Wings
Totally Gorjuss - 23 Hearts
Lexi's Creations - 10 Easter
The Corrosive Challenge Blog - 56 Paper Piecing