1. I played with my gelli plate this week and had a lovely time with some giant bubble wrap! 2. A misty morning. 3. Misty tennis courts. 4. A watercolor self portrait. 5. Fall trees. 6. Storm clouds and red leaves. Happy Monday x
I keep getting the best ideas from children’s picture books. I check them in and out at the library and every so often, one will catch my eye. I have a look at the beautiful illustrations and get some ideas for my art journal. Some are just plain gorgeous and some are sparking ideas left and right! These are some examples of what I have found recently. There are lots of ideas in these books which will keep me going for ages! Yak and Dove by Kyo Maclear and illustrated by Esmé Shapiro. These buildings are inside the covers and I just love them. Another inspiring inside cover from Kali’s Song by Jeanette Winter. Looks like some gorgeous collage and pen drawings. These fabulous ladies make me want to gather all the leaves and sticks to make wings and crowns and skis! From Fairy Friends Seasons by Merrilee Liddiard Images to inspire from Shackleton’s Journey by William Grill. The drawings are deceptively simple and very effective. These last two pages are from The Story of …
During October I joined Pam Garrison and Creative Bug for a month of creative lettering. Each day a new video was released on the Creative Bug site to instruct and inspire a new lettering idea or technique. I chose a handmade book which was waiting for the opportunity to be filled with letters and lettering. Inside are just over 30 pages of a variety of paper from navy thin paper to cold and hot press watercolour paper via a few sheets of brown kraft paper. Here are my favorite pages from the month. I enjoyed the whole month but I think my favorites are the sumi brush and ink alphabet and the watercolor shape alphabet. I love a monthly challenge! Happy Wednesday x
1. A lovely orange fungi spotted in the woods this week. 2. Dried hydrangea flowers gathered on a dog walk. 3. The last tomato before the cold weather came in with a vengeance. 4. We went to a great estate sale this weekend, I liked the box of cutlery but I didn’t need it! 5. This phone caught my eye, it was behind an open cupboard and not for sale, but it took me right back to chatting with my friends on a phone fastened into the wall. I like the unintended orange theme this week. Happy Monday x
1. I had a great time this week painting some background papers for future use! 2. Chrysanthemums in the park. 3. The kids craft at the library this month was making masks and here is a selection of the mask making bits and bobs. 4. A trip to Elephant Rocks state parks this weekend under blue skies. 5. The ruins of the engine shed at Elephant Rocks. 6. The top of one of the ‘elephants’. 7. Two rocks. 8.& 9. The pool at Elephant Rocks with the trees just starting to turn into Autumn colours. Happy Monday x
I had a wander through some of my art journals this weekend and I was very happy with what I found. Some pages I had forgotten about and I loved coming across them again. Lots of ideas come back and bring new ones at the same time as I see what I did on the pages and remember how I made them. This page is from the Season of Fairytales and is a vintage National Geographic image with wings drawn with a Signo Uniball white pen. The wings on the seated figure are on the next page and can be seen through the circle I cut in the page. A page from the Season of Colour in my journal made from grocery bags and pages from a 1981 giant atlas found at the library while we were on vacation! I used a lot of butterflies this season and loved making my own marbled paper. This page also has a cut out to see the butterfly on the following spread. This is a page I made …
The season of connections over in the Get Messy art journal community is in full swing and I am really enjoying it. I suppose I do use things with connections to me in my journal just by the nature of the fact that I chose it or chose to draw or paint it, but I am more and more fascinated by this as I fill this journal. For this spread I painted and sprayed and splattered the pianola paper to get started. When I was merrily slapping paint around, I didn’t have a plan for it, I was just making some background paper. Once I saw the tutorial on the Get Messy blog which covered mixed media self portraits, I thought I would give it a go. I grabbed a handful of library cards (I work at the library, so there is that connection) and painted some self portraits on each one. I do these very quickly with no sketch or outline, so they are all different even though they are painted from only a …
I have been exploring connections of all kinds in my art journal this past two weeks since the Season of Connections started over at Get Messy. Once I started thinking about it, connections are everywhere, physical and abstract. I have a strong connection to nature, so there is usually a botanical theme to my journal somewhere. It may be flower shapes or organic leaves or a landscape or two. So far in this journal I have printed leaves with my gelli plate onto dry wax paper and stuck them in, I have stitched leaves and painted them with watered down sumi ink. A completely random connection appeared when I printed a leave on a page from an old dictionary and when I tore it up to stick down, I noticed that I had printed on a page which had ‘folk dance’ at the top. This is an immediate connection to my maternal grandparents who used to take me folk dancing when I was a kid. I loved it and have very fond memories of folk …
When I was a teenager my grandma gave me a ‘British Home Stores’ (now closed down all stores, but I think they are still online) plastic bag full of small cards saved from cigarette packets and tea boxes over the years. The cards were given away in cigarette packets, tobacco tins and boxes of tea. My grandma kept all of the cards she collected and I am pleased she did because I am the happy owner of our collection now. Because I was a cool teen, I put them under my bed where they stayed for many years maybe until I left home to go to college. I fished them out, sorted them into collections and stored them in vintage wooden boxes left to me by my other grandma and great gran. When I was a poor student I took them to be evaluated and maybe sell them, the dealer offered me five pounds and thankfully I wasn’t that desperate to sell them, so I didn’t. I am so pleased I didn’t part with them …
1. One of the first pages in my new art journal. Just the beginning, or is it done? We shall see if I add any more to it. I think I will. 2. I found a fabulous black acorn in the woods, there are hundreds of acorns on the woodland floor but only this black one. 3. Teeny tiny white mushrooms growing precariously on a thin twig. 4. A dead tree against a white wall, I like the shapes! 5. We went digging in the woods this weekend and found a couple of marbles (hurrah!) and half a bowl. Happy Monday x SaveSave
Clare Davis Etheridge 