I'VE STARTED JOURNALLING!

This was my start page. An excercise set in the book, Drawing lab for mixed media artists

Basically the objective was to draw a 3D object a child made and give it a context. I chose a Ladybird made by my daughter a few years ago ,of which I had reluctantly decided to get rid . I wanted to keep a record of it so I created this page. I used water soluble crayons,a white and a black journalling pen and the ladybird got a coat of sparkly mod- podge. Click on the pic for a more detailed view

The next challenge I chose from the same book was a cracks in the pavement excercise. This involved finding images in a photograph of a cracked pavement, similar to studying clouds and discovering images within. I found and drew my two dogs and related a story which had happened while out walking them. I used acrylic paint, journalling pens, bubblewrap(to print), newspaper, and an acrylic overlay coloured with sharpies(for the grass)

This page was created using a magazine freebie stencil of a tailors dummy which was coloured with brown furniture scratch removal markers (£ shop)and highlighted with gold foil (lidl). The phrases came from a tub of 4500 Words to Go from K&Co (TK Max). Back ground is Copic marker over Gesso.

This page started out as an excercise in Drawing with alternative tools. I drew a rough portrait of one of my students using an eyedropper filled with Indian ink. Layers of paint,Ink, Gesso,Pen and Gold foil later......This is what I ended up with.

Snow is Falling......

I've been playing along with Tim Holtz' 12 Days of Christmas. Here are my offerings:

And this is what Two Feet of snow looks like!!!!!

Back from Tuscany

Chilling Out!

Me and Saoirse

Martin and Michael

I thought I'd better blog a few photos, crafty stuff to follow tomorrow!

CyberCropping

Well, last weekend I took part in the UKS cybercrop.I was looking forward to a weekend of using up stash and intensive scrapbooking.The cybercrop was very technique driven, which suited me down to the ground. The week before I had checked the supply lists to make sure I had an approximation to what was needed. I began to make a list of things that I didn't have or coud substitute. Woah! 2 Ikea Frames,a large canvas, a heart shaped jig, a chipboard house, a mountain of glimmer mists,archival spray!......This was becoming expensive. I really wanted to take part as I love learning new techniques, so I acquiesced and bought some of these.

The classes were good, some great!I managed two the first night




On Saturday I waited for the House class as I had a feeling it would take some time.........6 hours later I finished, pleased but got nothing else done



On Sunday I did the next two classes




Tired and pleased with the work I'd achieved, I checked in later to discover I'd won a prize for Jumping over Waves. I was disappointed that I hadn't had time to do the challenges and indeed some other classes. Alas the Ikea frames are still sitting in my craftroom, I wasn't impressed with either class. Which brings me to question is there any way of knowing in advance what the class entails? I could have spent my money on some of the new Tim Holtz dies and have got a lot of use from them. I will use the frames for another purpose so all is not lost but I feel a stash budget should be introduced to avoid the class designers going overboard

Half term and Cardmaking

Dollymount in January fog

I went for a walk with the furbabies today on Dollymount beach. It was very cold and foggy but the light was amazing. Here are a few of the shots I took of Martin and Saoirse with the dogs

Botanic Gardens

Cabin fever hit and I was persuaded by my brother to go on a photography walk this morning, organised through Facebook. We went to the Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin, Dublin. Met a few like minded people and here are some of my shots.

This little fella posed nicely for us!