Author: Clare at CatsEatDogs

Ways to Forge Creativity into your Day.

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I like to create something everyday, even something small like a layer of colour on a blank page. If I don’t know where to start, colour is my kick off point most times, grab some paints and choose 3 to 5 colours and make a background to work on immediately or another day. Things I might do to fill my creative soul daily – I like to follow an organized prompt based challenge. This month I am taking photos with Susannah Conway’s August Break and art journalling with Creative Bug and Dawn De Vries Sokol. Art Journal a background or finish a whole page in one of my sketchbooks. Sketch a flower from my garden or a mushroom spotted in the woods. Maybe a quick pen sketch or a watercolor impression or a combination of the two. I will pull out my Gelli Plate and see what I can print with it, or try and use my stencils in a new way. There are so many ways to use equipment like this, the results are …

Weekly Photos 31/52.

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  The end of the summer holidays is upon us, this week we have all the school registrations and supplies to check.  The weather is cooling slightly and the mornings and evenings are much more pleasant especially when the dog needs a walk and Pokemon need to be gathered! 1. Mushroom spotting this week, this pink one has the best gills! 2-4. Ted Drewes trip this weekend.  A St Louis institution and this is the first time we have been!  We won’t leave it so long before we return. 5. More mushroom goodness.  I just love the textures on these little fungi. Have a lovely week. Happy Monday x

‘I Like’ Friday. The Get Messy Art Journal Edition.

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I have been having some great fun during this first week of the new Get Messy Art Journal season. ‘Get Messy’ is a community of art journalling ladies who hang out via the inter-webs and sometimes in real life.  If you are interested in creating art journals or are a seasoned art journaler, you may be interested in joining. For this ‘season of music’, I made a journal for the first time which was quite a leap, I thought I would not be into making a handmade journal at all. I make enough mess in my art journals and sketchbooks, what if I make the mess of all messes while making the darn book! I chose a small music script in the form of a book which was stapled together to unstaple and add my own pages as well as keeping all of the original music.  I used pamphlet stitch and added tracing paper, mixed media paper and watercolor paper. I soon ended up with a natty little handmade journal to fill. ‘Eine Kleine Nachtmusik’ is …

Postcards from the Past.

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Sending postcards from holidays has always been a mainstay of my travels, don’t forget your address book and a stock of stamps or be prepared to find a local post office. I think this is a British thing, postcards don’t seem to be a big thing here in the USA. I always spent an hour or so at the beginning of any travels writing postcards then searching for a post office to post them!  Of course they always arrived home after I did, but it is the thought that counts isn’t it? I suppose anything in the mail is no longer a big deal, until you get something like a surprise postcard or letter.  I love to get a card from a friend, for no reason, just because.  Handwritten and chosen for me! I try and send out cards regularly too, I will grab a few postcards from Ikea or some vintage cards and send them off into the world. I have collected a few old cards over the past few years and I really …

Weekly Photos 30/52

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  Today we are enjoying slightly cooler temps and some rain.  I walked the dog in light rain this morning and we both were grateful for the relief from the scorching weather we have been having lately. Having said that we are going to see more heat for at least the rest of the week.  Sunscreen and hats always at the ready! In the meantime I am sitting on my porch writing this and listening to ‘Steve Wright in the Afternoon‘ on the BBC iPlayer. Crazy lady sitting on the porch listening to the radio! Here are some photos from the last week. 1. Some weeds I picked up along the dog walking route.  I sketched them and took this snap. 2. This leaf was almost glowing with colour as it sat on the floor of the path through the woods.  Is Autumn coming?  Not yet I don’t think! 3. We have seen some beautiful cloudy skies this week, these yellow leaves are the perfect contrast. 4. Fabulous tomatoes at Tower Grove Farmers Market here …

‘I like’ Friday. The Crochet Edition.

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Making stuff is the best thing! I haven’t pulled out my crochet for a couple of weeks and today I thought I would hook a few stitches onto one of my blankets in progress. I have two blankets on the go because one was getting big and I wanted to take a crochet project on vacation earlier in the summer. So I started a new blanket and a new stitch to take away with me. The ‘vacation’ blanket which is at very early stages in size, is made using ripple stitch and I am very proud of myself for managing a new stitch!  The pattern is here if you fancy a go. The grey blanket is a giant granny square and I am starting with dark grey in the middle and getting lighter as I work my way out to the full size blanket.  The pattern is from the book ‘Craft for the Soul’ by Pip Lincolne. I am super pleased that I learnt to crochet, it is one of those activities which really makes …

100 Days of Altered Cards 81-100

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All done. Finished. Hurrah! 100 days of drawing, painting, inking, gluing, stenciling, printing and embellishing vintage playing cards. I am so pleased with my pile of one hundred little pieces of art. Never have I worked on such a small area and I have loved the tiny ‘canvas’ which a playing card presents. There were some cards I didn’t alter because there was only one of them and I wanted to keep them as they are.  I also kept one of each card I used in it’s original state. The ‘Wild West’ illustrations are so cool, I wish I had more of them and the girl in the checked trousers looks like she is equal parts innocence and mischief! Here are cards 81-100 – That’s a wrap! I think I will look for an album to store them in, maybe like one of these Project Life albums.  Or I could keep them in a nice box, but they might get damaged just loose in a box. If you completed The 100 Day Project, well done …

Weekly Photos 29/52

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Lots of poppies and mushrooms in my world at the moment. The poppies were a happy surprise as I thought they were all done, but no, some lovely ruffled petals bloomed in the sunshine. Although it has been a hot hot week, there is still enough damp in the woods to produce a new mushroom or two. There was a funny little crop of mushrooms all jostling for growing space. We have been clearing the honeysuckle from around the shed and found this sign written by the boys and their friends years ago. An arrow pointing round the corner and the words ‘Hide Out’. They all wrote their names under it! Happy Monday x  

‘I like’ Friday.

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This week I have been liking all kinds of things, it has been hot and humid so there has been more indoor activity than outside. Grace and Frankie. I am at the last episode of Grace and Frankie  on Netflix now, so I am looking forward to season 3 next year (I hope!). Marcella I have only just started to watch this series (also on Netflix) and I am only a few episodes in, enough to have me gripped though. Part of the reason I like it is because it is a British drama and I eat those up, just to see the UK is enough to make me happy.  Even if it is part of a police drama. Hitman Anders and the Meaning of it all by Jonas Jonasson.  I was drawn to this book because it sounds like my kind of dark humor and it was written by the man who wrote ‘The 100 year old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared’ which is one of my favorites. I am …

Gelli Plate printing with seed pods.

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Sometimes I find printing with my gelli plate very confusing. There I said it.  Like trying to direct something while looking in the mirror, it is just a skill I do not have.  I still love to play with it though, even when I am not sure whether I am going to get a print with negative or positive colour! I really think this is sometimes when I get my best prints, when I am not sure what is going to happen. I have seen some great prints lately using seed pods so I decided to use some dried honesty plant to make some pages of print and colour. Firstly I decide on my colour palette and  in my mind I wanted these prints to be all blues and blue/greens which as you can see I strayed from a little.  This often happens when I get my paints out and start to put them together, some get taken out and some get added. I will sometimes paint a few sample splotches to see what looks …