Used Christmas cards. 2015

Hi everyone, looking at all my Christmas card after taking them down and it seemed just a shame to throw them away so I decided to use some of them in a different way.

So save all your cards, well at least some of them and I will post another blog to show you what I did with them.

 

 

Choose one of the larger cards, then make sure that the other cards are smaller, it does not matter if they are really small or just smaller. we will use most of them.

 

 

 

 

I chose not to use these cards as they are covered in glitter or embossed. If the card is embossed you may be able to use it, but no glitter.

 

 

Some of the cards I chose to use, note the one with the corner cut, this is okay and will add interest.

I chose about 6 cards and also my larger card, now all I have to do before the next blog is to paint each side of the card with white Gesso, I use Jo-Sonja, but most makes will do.

 

I have not tried the Mont Mart Gesso, but if you have it try it on one card and see how you go, let me know if you try this please.

 

I just wanted to share this with you so you would not throw your cards away. I will be back soon to show you what I did with them.

Wishing everyone a great 2015

Just look at these lovely azalea's, with all the rain we have had we had a full cover of flowers  about 2 months ago. They are south facing, against a wall. This plant catches the morning sun, it is the only spot in our garden that we can grow azaleas. The lower two photograph shows two grass parrots that I found on our doorstep in Sawtell caravan park, they stayed around for a while and as I was feeding them they came right up to me and fed from my hand.

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and I hope the new year to bring you some peace within, God bless. Lyn.

In the new year I will be joining a workshop with Kate Bolton, we will be learning new techniques as well as painting a lovely painting, we have 3 paintings to choose from, i will be painting gum trees. I will let you know how i go!

Using Inktence blocks and Matisse paints.

Just finished this project using Inktence blocks (these are like the Inktence water colour pencils) and some Matisse paint. You can also see in the photo a water brush and a filbert brush.

I first used 3 colours from my few Inktence blocks and rubbed them across the dry A4 watercolour page, placing the colours where i  wanted them, covering all the paper. Next i took a baby wipe and starting with the lighter colour first i wiped the colour over, blending in the colours with a circular motion. Do not rub too hard or you will rub off all the colour.  When i was happy with the result i let it dry naturally. Then i lightly drew on the flowers with a pencil.

Please note that the pencil lines can not be rubbed out very well.

Next I used a filbert brush and using watery Matisse paints i painted in the large flowers. The small flowers were painted by using the water brush and the Inktence blocks.

The water brush is a brush with a water chamber and works well with watercolours, the brush reminds me of the old fashioned ink pens!

Again dry well.




Next i added some black outlines to make the flowers pop.

 Using a white pigment pen, (bought from Officeworks) I dotted all over the background. This pen is also good for writing over your art journal.

Next I added some stickles, by Ranger, it has a very thin funnel and makes applying it much easier. Matisse make a good range too.

                                                     

                                                          This is the finished piece; Just have fun, Lyn.

Hello in August

It is now late August and I am trying out my new computer, my old one was very noisy and slow! so hi to everyone! and hopefully I can give more time to my paintings and my blog. I have not been idle, just sick and it has not helped my Chronic fatigue syndrome at all,  I have found energy to do a little work in my art journal with Inktence pencils and sticks, they are easy to set up than paints, along with some projects with Mountains and Rivers group, they have a weekend away in October, or you can attend a workshop on the Saturday or Sunday if you wish. We have six workshops with six lovely projects to choose from. Click to see the blog 

As soon as I get this computer up and going I will show some more paintings, at least now i can make sure that i add more blog posts on a regular pace, hope you are all still looking. We are also having a compertition with Mountains and Rivers group so check back later to their blog to find more info.

Talk again soon, thanks for using my blog! Lyn.

New Art book

Hi again, welcome into 2014. I have been slow starting this anything new this year, just recovering from a pulled ligament in my leg, which stopped me from sitting for even the shortist of time, on the mend now.

I attended a workshop on Saturday with the Mountains and Rivers, the First meeting of the year. Click to see more. www.mountainsandriversfdp.blogspot.com

We painted a watercolour and Incorporated salt into the design, Janette Newman was our teacher for the afternoon, an enjoyable project.

Today I was able to sit for a while and I played with some colour and salt making an interesting  background onto watercolour paper. I then drew some simple flowers onto the background and started to paint them. Not finished as I was interrupted, I will add a photo of the finished project when complete.

At the beginning of this month I started to paint into my art book, a hard covered multy media page book, it has an elastic band to close. the size is A5, or A4 over 2 pages. I wanted to use this book for my original paintings or pre-designs and ideas. So I started to paint in some of my older designs that I have painted in the past, a good start, so now my leg is getting better I can resume this interest.

Nothing special about this book, I bought it from Office Works. I painted the first double page with white Gesso, Painted on my Owls design. As I started to paint the corners curled, so when I had finished and it was  all dry I glued two pages together, not a good idea, too thick, I recon if I just painted Gesso on the back of the page it would have been okay. Only thing I also glued the next two pages together at the same time,  so my first two paintings are very thick.
Next I decided I needed to bring out the colours on the page so I painted Jo Sonja All purpose Medium over the pages, it came out with too much shine and sticky, when this had dried well I decided to spray a matt varnish over it to see if it would work, well it worked!!! Took away the shine and now it was not sticky at all.

(The bubbles you see on the left of this painting is where I glued the pages together, not a good idea).

My next painting was my Pelican that I painted for Mountains and Rivers Convention a couple of years ago, this I also added a journal page, this is not yet finished, I will add a completed photo when it is complete.

The next entry is about the shells I added to the original Pelican painting.

Have fun starting your own book or just have fun with your painting. If you would like ideas about starting a Journal or smash book look on the internet, there are plenty of free video's on the net to get you started.

As I add to this book or paint more pieces I will post them on this blog, Happy New Year to all, Lyn.

Tis the season, well not quite...........

Tis the season to be gathering all those un-finished, un-painted Christmas projects ready to put on display in a couple of weeks time.

Among my little treasures I found some cut out Santa,s on of my students cut out for the class a long time ago. They are rocking santa's, that is they stand up and if you pull them to one side, gently, they will rock from side to side for a few moves, without falling over.

I painted 7 of these little fella's, all in red, it was not until I had finished that I thought i could have painted some of these in brighter colours, they look good all the same. if you are interested they are for sale on my Made it store or Etsy store, links to both sites are on the right hand side of this post.

As we do not have the resources to have more of these little Santa cut out, these are the last I have.

The original Design is from; an American book called; Country Lovin, warm 'N Cozy, by Pat McClure. It  was published in 1990, by Viking Folk Art.

Me pulling  Santa to one side ready to make him rock.

This one is the small size, there are two larger one's.

A close up of one of the faces.

Smash Art Book

As promised I am now showing some of my pages from my Smash Art book. I have been working in this book in between my Folk art Painting. I find it more creative as I paint what I feel, and it also gives me samples and ideas to look back on. Sometime a simple idea can lead to a folk art design.

Smash books are a way for everyone, even if you have no experience in this type of craft or art, you can still use it to express how you are feeling at the time, it does not have to be painted, craft items are often included into smash books. Some books or pages can be very personal to the person creating them and may never be shown, a form of therapy, If you use acid free products you could also use it as a photo album or journal,  there are plenty of other examples of how to video's on the internet to help you get started.

I started with a basic art book from the local VH dollar shop, cost was $5.50. Taking a piece of watercolour paper (140g) slightly smaller than the front cover, (which is plastic by the way). I taped down the paper to a board while I worked on the pattern. Using a permanent black texture pen (also from the dollar shop) I drew in the horizontal wavy  lines and did a bit of doodling between them, the bottom half I used a stencil and drew through the holes in the stencil, moving it around as I worked. Then I coloured it with water colours, let it dry and glued it to the plastic cover with PVA glue. Make sure that the edges are stuck down.

These two postcards are from a lady  I bought a purse from on Etsy, Bo, sent me these as a little surprise in my parcel. I was not sure what to do with them, as I really liked them I decided to add them to my smash book, with a bit of watercolour, doodling and some writing, it did not need anything else. This is where it can start to get personal and I like the way it is proceeding, either arty or as a visual diary. Smash books are about layering, but I like things more simple, cleaner looking, I enjoy that. How you journal is up to you!

This one is more about layering, as full as a garden can get, it was inspired by the two spiritual cards, I had for ages, with a little bit of layering using stamps, splattering, stenciling and some painting this page emerged. 

Work is ongoing and I intend to keep going with this type of work as well as with Folk Art.

Next Sunday I am attending a workshop with the Mountains and Rivers, looking forward to that and I have a teacher that I have not worked with before so it should be fun! Photo's later. Enjoy!

Latest painting, Mixed media.

Hi Everyone!

Had nearly a week to get over my weekend away at Nelson Bay with the ladies from Mountains and Rivers. Great weekend, the painting was A1 as usual, for the first time at this convention I taught a class, my Owls were one of the painting choices on the Friday afternoon, it went well with seven students, we seemed to be laughing a lot I was told by the other classes, we did have a good time all weekend.

Saturday I chose a mixed media painting by Josephine Louwen, Josephine is one of our Mountains and Rivers Folk Art teachers, an excellent teacher with many years experience.

This "Zentangle" is painted by me from a design by Josephine Louwen.

Josephine can be contacted through Mountains and Rivers.









Since painting this I have looked into the pen work on the circle. Some call it "Zentangle" others doodling. Doodling - meaning is; Doodling - present participle of doo-dle (verb) = 1.    Scribble absentmindedly.

If you Google search ' doodle you find that the work is often drawn absentmindedly with no real form, often filling the page. 

While searching "Zentangle" they start by drawing what they call a 'string' and forming a shape with this drawn 'string they then draw a selection of patterns inside this 'string'

"Zentangle" is a trade mark of an internet company that sell books and patterns.

In the last couple of days I have trying out some dooling/tangling (what ever you would like to call it) of my own, it is quite easy to do, and it grows on you!

This one I drew around the bottom of a Horlicks container, it was oval. I then drew shapes inside the oval and decorated them, I then went outside the oval and drew some more shapes until I was happy with the design. When I looked back I can see a bird with it's head tucked away, I had no intention of drawing anything, just a as my mind took me. Not bad for a first attempt.

This second one I was tired so the shapes not so good, I was trying to resemble the comers in Folk Art, just goes to show it is best not to think too much when drawing these, it is best left quite spontaneous.

I drew this one the next night, must have had too much chicken! that is what it reminds me of!

These by the way were drawn on lined paper out of an exercise book with a double sided "sharpie" pen. The trouble I had is that the pen bleed through to the next page, so either put a piece of card under the page or better still draw on a sketch book or some thicker paper. Look out for some mixed media paintings using some tangles within the painting. Do try it and Have fun!

Hello

Hi everyone, time is passing so quickly! It is now March, I have already been to two workshops, one with Kate Belton at the first meeting of the year with Mountains & Rivers at Penrith, painting a lovely wood tile with a kettle and fruit, it came up lovely as Kate is always a professional  teacher, this was in February.

This is my painting; (there is texture paste underneath)

 

Then only last week I was at a workshop with Christine Whipper, we painted 'Maude'. The background is done with Mattisse inks before painting Maude with Jo Sonja paints. My painting is not yet finished.

The original 'Maude' was painted by Alfons Mucha a talanted Art Nouveau painter in the 1930's.



My painted owls on a canvas bag was entered in the folk art section, Fabric painting, of the Luddernham show last weekend, and would you belive it I recieved First Prize! much to my supprise.

Class news

A photo from one of our Mountanis and Rivers meeting 2012

Our Thursday class will start on the 7th February, I hope everyone had a lovely break and you are eager to start painting again.

I have been busy with my project for the Mountains and Rivers get away in March. No sneek pre-views, all the convention projects will be on display on the mountains and Rivers in a couple of weeks time, so keep checking!

A warm welcome to all my readers, thanks for your support and emails, it is always lovely to hear from you. Looking forward to sharing with you all this year. Kind regards, Lyn.

Merry Christmas

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas!

To all my Students and Readers. This has been a busy two months, we went on a well needed holiday to Tuncurry staying  in a town house faceing the sea and a cosy B&B that was over a 100 years old.

We were lucky enough to meet the new oners who had just taken over the lovely old cottage and they showed us around it was lovely!

The original owner and builder, built the house for his family, he was a local saw mill owner in the Tuncurry area, He also built the church next door, sad to say though, he just finished the church when he died, so the first service in the church was his funeral. It is nice to know though that the house is still giving pleasure to people who live and stay in the B&B. The 3 town house's built on the same site were built 12 years ago. Two are holiday lets and one is private. The whole site is on a corner near the Tuncurry/ Forster bridge.

We are all due back at painting in the New Year, 2013. On the 31st of January.

See you all then and have a lovely Break and Happy New Year!

Have been busy..........

Hi all, it is a long time since I posted something on my blog, well this nasty flu bug is still giving me problems, still on the sprays, like so many other people that I have spoken to, and with the CFS/ME it just brings on the symptoms of Fatigue. Rest, rest and more rest.

I have not done much painting for the last few months, however, I have finished off the painting I did with Christine Whipper, it still has to have some varnish and a hanger on it, looking good! I have to take a photo of it in the next couple of days to show you.

Also from a couple of years ago I bought a Advent Calender kit, it has sat in the spare room for all this time, now my grandchildren are growing up I have started to decorate it with papers left over from my scrap booking days. I must say it was a lot easier cutting and gluing the papers than painting all those pieces, as well as the problems of painting them only to find that the craft wood has swelled when painted so lots of sanding would have been needed.
The craft wood covered quite smoothly with the paper, it looks good too. When it is completely finished I will post the photo and how I covered it. Worth the effort for my Grandchildren and I enjoyed the process, just that it took so long as everything was flat packed, and no real instructions! Not something I would do again in a hurry.

I have also been helping a friend paint two very heavy (but sturdy) old posters she has in her kitchen. They are looking good with a fresh coat of paint and a different look, we spent a few hours yesterday working on one of them with much improvement. Too big and heavy to bring to class so we are painting them on site.
Be back soon with photo's of all projects, Lyn.