Garden painting

Hello

Today I'm sharing a painting I did over the recent long holiday weekend in the UK. It was inspired by the Place2Be garden at the Chelsea Flower Show, which was about highlighting children's mental health.

It was my favourite garden and I took lots of photos!

The painting has lots and lots and lots of layers...

I had a lot of fun. I must thank our Queen for staying on the throne long enough for us to get some bonus crafting days. Thank you Your Majesty.

Water

Hello

A couple of weeks ago I spent the weekend with a friend for our annual painting treat to ourselves. For a few years now we've spent a day with artist Jo Sheppard gleaning tips and techniques to improve our acrylic painting. In the past we have covered mixed media techniques, abstract landscapes and trees. This year we were having a go at water. 

Jo always gets us started with colour mixing. We then used reference photos that Jo had taken to have a go at studies, with about 90 minutes for each one. 

My challenge to myself was to loosen up and try and use a bigger brush or a palette knife.

 

 

I could carry on tweaking but overall I was pleased how they ended up. Think I like the middle one best, which is weird when turquoise is my favourite colour and that's the least natural of the three. I definitely learnt a lot and am already looking forward to our painting day next year.

Thank you for stopping by. I hope you have a lovely creative week xx

Lockdown Lola

Hello

At last a chance to catch up with a bit of blogging. Today I'm sharing a project that I've been working on for a few weeks, hence the lack of papercrafting recently. It's an acrylic painting of my sister's cat taken during lockdown.

 

 Here's the original photo.

I felt it summed up a lot about being restricted and not able to move freely. The wistfulness, and also after a while, the apathy.

Things are cautiously beginning to get back to normal here. Fingers crossed we can keep it going.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by. Hope you have a lovely carefree day ahead xxx

London twilight

Hi there
Today I'm sharing the second of my attempts at a landscape on the Gelli plate. I have a friend who works in an office tower in London who is wonderful for sending me pictures of clouds. Over the last few months I have many photos of the same scene in different weather conditions. (I think I'm just missing snow.)

I think I managed to get a bit more abstract with this one and mostly resisted the temptation to fiddle.

The very tiny points of light were added direct to the paper with a pin, but the rest was pulled from the plate.

I'm sure this view will feature again.

Hope you are having a lovely day. Happy crafting xx

Monoprinting landscapes

Hello
And now for something completely different! I was fortunate to get an 8x10" gel plate for my birthday and have been inspired to have a go at landscapes. Especially landscapes with lots of clouds which are a particular interest.

I used PaperArtsy Fresco Finish acrylic paint as it dries quickly, but also added a few drops of the retarder at times if it was drying a little too quickly.

My first go was inspired by a trip to Robin Hood's Bay, N. Yorkshire on a blustery October day when the tide was out. I love the dull bleakness of the coast in winter.

 

In my head monoprinting is going to help me loosen up my art. In reality I still tinkered around with sponges and cut up credit cards for a few finer details. It's a work in progress!

If any of you have tips for monoprinting landscapes I'd really welcome them. I'm mostly making it up as I go along with a bit of YouTube searching.

Thank you for stopping by xx