Author: Clare at CatsEatDogs

100 Days of Creative Ideas 71-90

Blimey we are into the final ten days of the 100 day project which seemed so far away back in April when we started. I don’t think I have repeated any ‘ideas’, but I might have done!  I don’t look back to see if I have made a copy.  Maybe I should! Here are ideas 71 – 90. 71. Draw a cat with your eyes closed! No peeking. 72. Cut out a picture and stick it down. Draw a frame around it. Make a gallery! 73. Watch a flower grow, draw each stage.  This would be a cool sketchbook once it is full! 74. Look in the mirror. Draw your face without looking at the paper. Keep your eyes on your face and your pen on the paper. 75. Take a page from a book and cross out all the words except a few to make a new sentence. 76. Make a pattern which looks like part of a map. Start with a small shape and use different line thicknesses and closeness to make your …

Weekly Photos 2017. 26/52

1. Tiles, shards and a marble found in the woods. 2. Pizza rolls before looking a bit of a mess! 3. Pizza rolls cooked still looking a mess!!  Tasty though. 4. We found an ‘F’ which I think was an ‘E’ in a former life. 5. Funghi which looks like plates! 6. I pass this building every so often and it looks like it has no entrance or exit, no signs and no windows.  I wonder what it is/was. I am sure it has a door somewhere….. Happy Monday x

Get Messy – Season of Colour Week 4.

Lots of colour play this week, using a few colours and using lots.  I learnt that I don’t love using yellow! I painted on these vintage library catalogue cards using a very marvelous tutorial and idea from Julia via the Get Messy members blog. What to do with the cards now? I added two of them to a page I started in my Season of Colour journal (made from paper bags and atlas pages).  This page was a fighter, I almost painted ‘I hate this page’ all over it at one point (I am not even a little bit joking!). But I persevered and after a slice of orange in my corner, I jumped back into the ring and finished the page. I am so pleased that I didn’t scribble all over the page in a tantrum! Happy Thursday x

Taking Stock June 2017

  A stock take at the end of June, inspired by the wonderful blog that is Meet Me At Mikes. Making : A sketchbook with pages of watercolor paper for a class I am starting in July, Cooking : Egg fried rice for dinner. Drinking : A hot cup of Typhoo tea! Reading: ‘Project Calm’ magazine. Wanting: All the paints in all the colours! Looking: At the bird feeder out the window. Playing: The radio. Deciding: What to do for my ‘100 day project’ tomorrow – 100 Days of Creative Ideas. Wishing: I had chosen an art based ‘100 day project’.  Less than 20 days to go, I am not giving up now! Enjoying: Digging around in the woods with my kid! Waiting: For tomorrow to call my Mum and Dad who arrived home from their holidays. Liking: Cool evenings. Wondering: If I can fill an sketchbook which would be good enough for the Brooklyn Art Library‘s sketchbook collection. Loving: Making sketchbooks using old book covers. Pondering: Should I buy wine? Considering: Buying wine? Buying: …

‘I Like’ Fridays. The travel art journal and supplies edition.

  Before I went on holiday to Cape Cod I used the covers of an old book called ‘Cape Cod Folks’ to make myself a journal filled with watercolor paper, handmade blue paper, kraft paper and some pages from an old dictionary. I am really enjoying using handmade journals because I get to choose the paper, the size of the pages and the overall size of the journal.  Full credit to the Get Messy Bookbinding class for teaching me all I know about making journals.  It really is a great class.  If you want a good book with clear instructions I recommend Esther K Smith’s book called How to Make Books. I have borrowed it many times from the library. Once I was on vacation, it honestly took me a couple of days to get going in my art journal. It would have been easy to leave it in the drawer. I am so glad I didn’t. The first spread I made was awful and again I could have left it in the drawer.  Then …

Get Messy Season of Colour

You know when you have a fancy box of chocolates and you want to just dive in and try them all, but you know you need to use restraint and savor each one.  Well, this is how I am feeling this week in the Get Messy Season of Colour.  Firstly there are some great prompts which I want to try out, then I looked at the website last night and there are three new tutorials I have not looked at yet. Yikes! I want to quickly zip into each one and see what it is about, but I also want to allow myself the time to read and look at each one and of course have a go at the artistic wonders that lie within! Before I take a run up and jump off the high board, here is my season of colour journal so far. I have taken a different approach this season, not deliberately, it just happened as do all good things in my art journals. One evening on holiday, the boys all …

The Circle Zine.

I have been zined! Mail is the very best thing when it is not bills or junk, it is the very very best thing when it is a mini book full to the lid with art made just for you. This is what the amazing Zine Squad do, they collaborate with each other and make a zine using their talents and generosity and it ends up with a lucky recipient, this time, it was me.  I was so excited to open my very own zine when it arrived in the mail, I had just got back from vacation and among the junk and adverts, this gem shone out at me! My heartfelt thanks goes to Jules, Vanessa, Ashley and Katie for thinking of me and creating this wonderful artwork. This mini art journal has zipped around the world and back again, gathering art and energy as it goes.  It almost shines with the joy bursting from it! Love love love my zine! Happy Tuesday x       SaveSave

Weekly Photos 2017. 24/52

1. Walking the dog and finding the interesting shadows. 2. Think big, start small, connect the dots. 3. I had a go at making marbled paper and this was some ink in the water all ready for the paper. 4. I spotted this recipe on the bottom of a Trader Joe’s bag and we had to make it! 5. Some marbled paper. 6. A turtle catching a bit of sun. Happy Monday x

100 Days of Creative Ideas 51-70

51. Gather some lovely beads and some thread or beading wire. Make yourself a pretty necklace. 52. Let’s design some borders. Put them along the bottom of a page. Make your own stationery or a pretty card. 53. Paint some blocks of colour onto sheets of paper.  Cut out random shapes from the painted paper. Stick the shapes onto a blank page to make a stunning collage. 54. Find patterns. In the course of your day, be on the look out for patterns. As I was sitting on the plane heading to our vacation I found some shapes to make into a pattern. 55. Sketch your day. Make small sketches of things you come across in your day. A flower in bud or a ticket to  flea market. Have fun! 56. Use a funky phone app to alter a photograph. For this photo, I put it into the Diptic app and turned the colour all the way down.  Play around, see what happens! 57. Stitch in your sketchbook. Find some cotton or embroidery thread and …

Weekly Photos 2017. 23/52

Fancy a seat at the dock!  This was taken at Wellfleet harbor, I hope there are cold drinks in that cooler. I liked the colours of this boat. Baker’s hardware store in South Chatham, opened in 1950 and not much has changed!  It is a great shop, I bought two paintbrushes and a Stanley knife from there. The Goose Pond (minus any geese!) at Wellfleet Wildlife Sanctuary.  It was a cold windy day but we braved the trails anyway, oh and it was raining!!  We still enjoyed the walks though. My boardwalk obsession continues, this one leading to the beach at Wellfleet Wildlife Sanctuary. An old mailbox in Chatham. Playing silly buggers with filters at Chatham Lighthouse beach view-finders!  I used Hipstamatic for this photo. Sunset at Rock Harbor, Orleans. Red river beach in Harwichport has all the shells in the world, if you are looking for slipper shells you are in the right place here, there are carpets of them! Red river beach also has the whitest sand I have seen on Cape Cod. …