Author: Clare at CatsEatDogs

100 days of Freeform Mandalas 11-30

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I am really getting into the world of freeform mandalas, so much apparently that I have neglected to write a blog post about my 100 Day Project since day 10. I am now up to day 43 and I have 43 mandalas.  Some days I have to play catch up but I have not fallen more than one behind.  If I do, I shall catch up again, one of the ways I manage the 100 day project is to be kind to myself and not let myself get too far behind with it, but if I do, then I allow myself to make 2 or 3 in one day if needed. Are you doing the 100 day project?  Are you using any helpful methods to keep going? Happy Monday x   SaveSave

Get Messy Art Journaling Botanicals class

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This week has been full of flowers in my sketchbooks and art journals! I am so happy to be a student in the Botanicals in Art Journaling class hosted by Get Messy Art Journal and taught by the wonderful and talented Alicia from Vine and Thistle.  I love to draw and sketch flowers and botanical everything anyway so this was obviously the class for me. So far I have been making botanical bits and bobs in my art journal, my new sketchbook and some vintage ledger paper. My favourite technique is from the free class and involves replacing heads with flowers and I can assure you it is super fun and you may not be able to stop once you have started! I am looking forward to completing the class and filling my sketchbooks with all of the botanicals. What classes are you taking at the minute?  Any recommendations? Happy Thursday x

‘I like’ Friday

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These are some things that I am liking this fine Friday- Trader Joe’s lemon cake mix is the very best box cake!  I usually avoid cake mixes but this one is delicious. The immortalists by Chloe Benjamin is so far an excellent read.  I am two thirds into it and really enjoying it.  It is about 4 kids who go to a fortune teller and find out the dates of their deaths.  From there we follow each character into adulthood and see how the predictions (genuine or not) affect their lives. Making sketchbooks from old books is my latest love.  I am always on the lookout for old books with a beautiful cover in good shape so that I can use the cover to make myself a sketchbook. Finding recipes I want to make in In the Small Kitchen by Cara Eisenpress and Phoebe Lapine is a joy, so far I want to make banana chocolate chip bread and vanilla cake with chocolate frosting.  Yes, I like cake!! Flow and Breathe magazines are at the top …

Daily Moleskine 2018 April Pages

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Lots of flowers this past month as I also participated in Creative Bug‘s daily flower challenge with Pam Garrison.  The flowers sit alongside vintage photos, vague figure sketching and a spot of collage. My Moleskine daily planner is filling up nicely and it is lovely to flip through the completed months and see what was going on. I use this planner to test new paint colours or practice a new idea or supply.  It is a no pressure platform to mess about for a day and then turn the page. Some of which I like and some I don’t but whatever the turn out, I always turn the page and carry on. Happy Monday x  

Taking Stock May 2018

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Each time I write a ‘Taking Stock’ post I have to look back on a previous one to get the list and make sure I am consistent with the title.  While I am visiting the older post I like to read what I was up to just a few months ago! One of the many reasons I like to write these fun posts. The idea for Taking Stock came from Pip of Meet Me at Mikes fame and I am grateful to her for it. To take stock, just copy the list at the end of my list and fill it in to make it your own stock take.  Do it again in a couple of months and revisit them to see what you were up to! Making : sketchbooks using old book covers. Cooking : I am not sure what to cook for dinner but I made a very nice apple cake at the weekend. Drinking : Frothy coffee. Reading: The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin. Wanting: Spring, it seems that here in the mid …

Art journaling, bookmaking and sketching.

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I felt like I was neglecting my little art journal for the Season of Play at Get Messy this week. So one evening I picked it up along with some collage pieces I had chosen, cut out and left to one side. Rather than wait for inspiration to strike I decided to just go for it and make a page with these ladies, a constellation map and some butterflies with a few swipes of paint.                                                                                                                                                        I have also just signed up for Sketchbookery so I did a little sketching practice on this page too in the form of a flower …

Consistency or not consistency? That is the question.

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Is it though, I mean of course there is consistency in the regularity with which I am making art but is the art consistent?  Is there a cohesion between the things I make every day? In some there is and in some there isn’t, maybe it doesn’t even look like I made it.  I think this often happens when I am following an instruction from a class or a tutorial.  I am trying to get the technique right so I wonder if I miss my own style for a beat or two while I learn something new? Or do we maintain our style and cohesion even when learning something new? Looking through these pieces, I see a style (I think) in most of them, but I think where it wanders off is in the flowers and I wonder if this is because I am following instructions for this class and I am learning lots of new things which haven’t got my stamp on them yet. These watery ladies are new to me and inspired by …

100 days of freeform mandalas 1-10

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Yay! I am loving the 100 day project so far. Yes, I know, easy to say when we are only at day 17 out of the 100 required days, but I am not feeling the pressure and I am enjoying my mandala making. I think one of the main reasons I am liking it so much this year is that I haven’t restricted myself to a sketchbook or one paper type to make them on.  In fact I am sure at some point I will make a mandala which doesn’t even involve paper. Some are in art journals, a Moleskine sketchbook, a handmade sketchbook, a vintage library card, on an old black and white photo and on a sheet of ledger paper. I do need to find a box or envelope to keep the loose ones all together though or I can see that by the end of the 100 days I won’t remember where half of my mandalas are! Are you doing the 100 day project?  How is it going? Happy Thursday x   …

The Sketchbook Project 2018

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The Sketchbook Project is hosted and housed by the Brooklyn Art Library and I got my little sketchbook many months ago! This is an amazing and unique project in that it is not curated, you buy a sketchbook, fill it up following the Art Library guidelines, send it back to Brooklyn and you are in.  Your book filled with your art is on a shelf along with the other sketchbooks waiting for someone to pick it out and browse it’s pages. I removed the original pages and made an accordion fold out which I painted both sides of and glued it back in. The theme I chose is ‘People I wish I knew’ and my book title is ‘Vintage names and modern faces’.  I snipped out some names from a vintage encyclopedia and glued one per page/face and painted a face onto each page. On the reverse side I painted a loose pattern. I still think this is a wonderful project and I will be signing up for 2019! Happy Monday x