All posts filed under: Hand Lettering and sketching

Art Journal ideas and progress.

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This week I started to fill a book with patterns and doodles just to see how many ideas I can come up with. I want to fill pages with stripe ideas and then more with dot ideas until I can’t think of any more, then fill some extra pages. For this I am using an old library book which I bought for 25 cents from our library’s sale cart. ‘The Shelf Book’ is my pattern sketchbook, I will try anything in it, it is not precious.  So if I don’t like a page, never mind, turn to the next page and carry on.  It is very freeing to be honest, I have only just started to fill the book and hopefully by the end I will have a nice collection of ideas for journal pages, backgrounds, colouring sheets and maybe a post card or two. I started a new spread in a new sketchbook too which is a wonderful thing.  I am so happy to have filled one sketchbook and to be onto the next …

Weekly Photos 11/52

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Spring sprang yesterday officially and we woke up to snow on the ground!  After a week of sunshine and mild temperatures, I pulled out my boots again. 1. I have been trying to keep up with a sketch a day project over at Skillshare, but I seem to be leaving it for a week at a time then doing all the drawings/paintings in one day to catch up.  March doesn’t seem to be the month for a daily challenge. 2. I have been obsessing about the flowers in my garden lately, it is so lovely to see them, I can’t helping recording them.  Here I sketched some magnolia flowers with my pencil crayons in a kraft paper sketchbook. 3 & 4. The light was creeping in slowly the morning I took these two photos. 5. The star magnolia is all abloom! I hope you had a good week.  Happy Monday x  

Weekly Photos 10/52

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1. The star magnolia is starting to bloom. 2. We got a new dog and her name is Ruby!  She is a rescue and a cutie. 3. I made an Easter card using watercolours, a white Gelly Roll pen and a blue Micron pen. 4. My neighbor has a beautiful magnolia tree which is blooming and looking amazing. 5. I bought the new Bella Grace this week, it is a magazine extravagance but I really enjoy it. 6. I managed to snap the magnolia last night with the night-time clouds in the background. Everything is starting to bloom now, just starting, the daffodils are peeking out and some trees are in bloom and some are just budding.  My neighbor’s magnolia smells just gorgeous, especially on a rainy evening. I hope you had a lovely week and are about to have an even better one! Happy Monday x  

Get Messy Art Journal ‘Happy’ Season.

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The weather today is pretty grey but I like to think of this page as grey sparkle rather than dull weather grey. As I splattered the background I managed to cover myself in black ink as well as the page and the floor.  Don’t worry I did the splatting outside! I did have a very nice time with my gelli plate and some pages from an old dictionary.  I used a used gift card and feathers as texture creators in the paint. I mixed some paints, but stuck to the grey theme. I also did some prints using dry deli paper for a lovely see through effect when I stick  them on my final page. It really is wonderful how many effects can be created using lots of different techniques and tools.  I am so pleased with the gelli prints on this page. All of this journal fun was inspired by the week six prompts over at the Get Messy Art Journal website. The idea was to cover the background with the same colour, so I chose …

A month of Tinkersketch drawing challenge

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Through the month of February I joined in with Rachelle from Tinkerlab for the Tinkersketch drawing challenge.  Prompts were provided along with ideas for each day, sketchbooks were grabbed and art was created. I decided to use an old book discarded from the library as my sketchbook and I had filled it by the end of the month.  I didn’t use every page because I used all kinds of media which invariably ruined the next page or two. Here are some of my favorite pages from my little vintage book as sketchbook.  I quite like that I ended up with lots of bugs scuttling across my pages! Day 2. Mirror. Day 7. Repetition. Day 5. Tiny Doodle. Day 11. Stamp. I used a squashed cardboard roll to stamp hearts. Day 14. Hearts. Day 15. Sky.  Watercolor with masking fluid and pen and a collaged moon. Day 19. Junk Mail. Day 27. Mismatched. Day 29. Torn Paper. The final prompt which was ‘torn paper’ was completed on the very last page of the book. Thanks to Rachelle …

Weekly Photos 6/52

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This week I have been arting all over the place!  I am taking a few classes and learning lots which is always a wonderful thing.  I saw lots of feathers on Instagram through the week and discovered the #IFDrawAWeek and joined in with the ‘feather’ week. 1. I passed this historic house as I walked to the doctors this week, I find it strange that it is just there on the side of the road.  It used to have a sign I think, but that has gone now.  There is sits, being old, but still majestic. I love the blue walls. 2. On the way back from the doctors I walked passed the local ‘lake’ which was looking very pretty in the cold and ice.  Remember folks, don’t feed the ducks. 3. I made some stencils this week and had a lovely time messing about with them in my art journal. 4. Ikea was our destination this weekend, where we bought various useful things for the house like shelves and mugs! I liked these clouds …

Weekly Photos 5/52

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I feel like I have done nothing so far this week except walk to the shops and the dentist.  Oh wait, that’s because that is pretty  much what I have done!  Why is there always something you need for dinner which the cupboard does not contain, off to ‘Trader Joes’ I go. I went to the dentist this morning in the whirling snow to get a crown put on, well the temporary, I have another appointment to put the real thing on, yay. It has been swirling snow all day but none of it has stayed on the ground. This first photo is a lovely sunset earlier this week which I snapped while we were out metal detecting.  No treasure this week I am afraid.  Still looking for the chest! Over the weekend the skateboards were pulled out and my youngest was zipping about on his wheels, I spotted this circle of lichen on a tree.  Pretty cool. Shadows at the end of the day in hazy sun are the best. Yesterday’s Tinkersketch was ‘repetition’ …

#WIP Crochet Blanket and Drawing

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I am joining Catherine at Saint Cardigan for this post all about some of my work(s) in progress.  I narrowed it down to a couple of projects although I have a week’s worth!  Once you have had a little look at what I am up to, you can pop over to Saint Cardigan and look at what everyone else has been doing. This crochet blanket is my second ever and the one I have already completed is pretty much the same, just in lots of colours.  As you can see, I am no crochet genius, I can do granny square stitch (I am sure it isn’t even called that when it is not an actual granny square) and that is that. For this blanket I decided to start with a dark dark grey and as I crochet out, I will use lighter and lighter shades, ending with white or a super pale grey.  I am currently at shade two and I am liking where I am heading.  The pattern is from Pip Lincolne’s book Craft …

Weekly Photos 3/52

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Red!  Last week I found lots of red things to take snaps of as I joined Xanthe Berkeley and Hula Seventy in the yearly color/colour lovers challenge. So here are some Target carts all in a line.  My 11 year old may or may not have been standing next to me cringing as his Mum photo’ed shopping trolleys! It snowed mid week and we had a snow day on Wednesday, these sweet gumballs got little snow hats. My gooseberry bush is leaveless, but looking good against the snow and showing off it’s thorns.  I think I need to prune it in the spring and hopefully we will get a nice goosegog crop this year. Over half way through the Creative Bug Draw a Day challenge hosted by Lisa Congdon.  I liked my cactus drawing this week! The fabulous Craftwhack started a ten day sketch along this week and the first day was ‘Blind contour drawing’. No looking, not even a peek.  The top three were all done with no looking, fun but a bit creepy. …

I Love my New Waterbrush

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Are you the type of person who thinks everyone knows how to do something except you?  I am.  And when I do learn I think I am the very last person in the world that knows how to use whatever the new thing is.  So, here I am with this fab new art supply in my life and I want to run about and tell everyone, so here I am, running about, telling you! I bought a waterbrush a couple of months ago as part of a class I had signed up for, but I didn’t end up using it, so it  has sat in my drawer since. Yesterday I started a class at Skillshare called Watercolor Lettering Essentials which solely uses a waterbrush for the projects.  Hurrah I thought as I grabbed the brush, I can use it at last. Well, hurrah indeed, once I had got used to using the brush, I fell in love with it. I think the reason I left it for so long was that I didn’t know how …