All posts filed under: Hand Lettering and sketching

Sketching in a magazine-entertaining myself during a flight.

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I was on the way home to St Louis from Portland on the only direct flight I could find at the time I needed and I had forgotten to check in early so I ended up in the dreaded C boarding group on Southwest, there were 4 people behind and a plane full of people in front of me.  I was not looking for a luxury window or a convenient aisle seat, no, I was looking for a inevitable middle seat but what I was really looking for was one with room to breathe! I spotted it, a seat I could fit in without (hopefully) having to fight the elbows or knees of my fellow travelers. I plonked myself down and get settled. Phone on airplane mode, what shall I do?  Read my book which I had just bought and was only a few pages in?  Listen to some music or a podcast? Start reading Kinfolk magazine which I had splashed out on just before I left Portland? While I was in Portland one of …

A month of creative lettering.

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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

The same, but different. Sketch the same thing in different ways.

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Last week I was in the garden looking at my tomato plants to see if any were ripe and how huge the beefsteaks are getting.  I like to pop into the garden every morning and see how my tomatoes are doing, it is one of my favorite things about the summer. Nothing better than being able to grow your own veg, even if you only have three tomato plants! All of my plants have lots of tomatoes which is a marvelous thing. Anyway, on the day in question, I spotted a dried up leaf mangled up among my little tomatoes.  I went to pull it out when I realized that it was not a leaf, but a dried magnolia flower from my neighbour’s tree.  Perfectly formed, just with brown petals instead of the delicate pink of the fresh version. In all the years I have lived here, I had never noticed these mini wonders.  I began to look all around the tree and I found a handful of crispy flowers. Of course I did what …

100 Days of Altered Cards by CatsEatDogs, Days 31-50.

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I have made it to over half way in The 100 Day Project!  Yay! I am really enjoying altering my little box of vintage playing cards, little artworks with no pressure. Well apart from the ‘one a day’ pressure of course! The first 30 cards in the project are here  and here. If you want to follow my project daily over at Instagram, my hashtag is #100daysofalteredcardsbycatseatdogs.  Happy Tuesday x        

Get Messy Art Journal and sketchbook pages.

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I brought my sketchbooks on holidays and am happy that I did because I have enjoyed doodling some patterns which I am sure I will use in the future. I often plan with all good intentions and end up doing nothing I thought I would. This time I have enjoyed having my sketchbook to stick old pages in and practice my buoy sketches.  For this season of Get Messy we are using a book as a sketchbook/art journal which is something I like to do anyway, so I am happy with that. I did have a false start though. The original book I was going to use had very thin pages and I knew I wouldn’t be sticking any together to work around this so I picked a new book.  This one is the ‘avocado’ book which I picked up from a yard sale here on the Cape. There is a picture of the front cover in my last post.  For the above page I used three different flower stamps and gave them a painted …

‘I like’ Friday, a colouring sheet for you.

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I recently drew and printed out some colouring in postcards to send to friends and family across the globe as a little happy mail with bonus colouring if they fancied it. What I hadn’t done, is colour one in myself.  I drew them and traced them and made sure all the lines were where they should be, but I never added any colour.  Until now that is. I decided that I would explore a few different ways to colour the same sheet. What do you like to colour with?  I know pencil crayons are a top choice, but I don’t like to colour with them as much as I like to draw with them. For the top two cards I used brush pens for the colour and I did some extra drawing and patterns on the yellow card with a Micron pen. Watercolour paints is maybe not the first choice for a coloring page, but these are post cards and printed on card-stock, so they put up with a layer of water colour just fine. …

‘Get Messy’ Season of Lists. Week 3

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The season of list making continues in the Get Messy community.  I am not sure how I am feeling about the lists yet.  I enjoy a list and I may or may not write them to get through each day, but to use them as art journal fodder may be out of my range.  I don’t normally write much in my sketchbooks, I am more art, less journal. I had a go at drawing a face this week in my journal which I am pleased with. I feel like I have given myself permission to have a go at drawing more in my journal pages.  Some will be spectacularly terrible, but I am hoping to keep practicing and improving! Happy ‘Get Messy’ Thursday!

‘I Like’ Friday. My Art Journal – ‘Get Messy’ Season of lists.

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For this week’s ‘I like’ Friday I have been working on some art journal pages using the themes and prompts from the Get Messy Season of Lists. It turned out to be a classic example of nothing going to plan. I was planning to use the same colours in each page and make all five pages work together. First flaw was that I only made three pages (and I really don’t like one of them very much). Once I got my colours out, I did three base pages using the diagonal ‘stripes’ in the corners using different ephemera and still planning to stick to my grey/pink/green/brick red colour scheme.  I ended up using navy instead of red because it was being used on the eye shaped stencil and I really really didn’t want red eyes (not on this spread anyway, maybe on a page which needs creepy red eyes…). As it turned out I didn’t use the colours anywhere else on the pages, so the colour scheme plan went out of the window right behind …

Get Messy Art Journal. The Season of Lists.

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I am happy to report I am managing to do some work in my art journal almost every day which is something I have been trying to do since I joined the Get Messy community at the beginning of the year. I rarely start and finish a page in one sitting, mainly because each layer has to dry before I add anything else.  This is another reason that I usually have more than one sketchbook on the go. This first page is one I started over a week ago when I saw the fabulous crane in an old National Geographic magazine.  I added a little gold craft paint to the gesso and glued down my bird.  Then I left it.  For ages. I added the triangle doodles and left it again.  Today I finished the page with one of the list prompts from Get Messy Lists – ‘Mysteries to Explore’.  I jotted down a few mysteries and I am not sure that my bewildered crane has any answers! The top spread started as a watercolor …

‘I like’ Friday. Art Journaling Supplies.

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I have been reading a lot lately about the supplies people like to use in their art journaling. These posts are inspiring and helpful all at once, so I thought I would add my two pennies worth and write a post about what I like to use. As I have only been art journaling deliberately for a couple of months, I suspect the supplies I rely on will change and develop over the next months.  I look forward to how my supplies evolve. Of course the first thing we need to journal is a sketchbook.  I have filled a Strathmore 500 series book which has very nice heavy paper and I have just started a Ranger Dylusions sketchbook which has heavy paper too, but is a little thicker.  I can’t wait to fill it up! These are both larger books, 8″x 11″ give or take a quarter of an inch. I like to have lots of space to play with, so I like this size. Pens pens pens.  I use Micron pens in almost everything …