Monday 25 August 2014

Art doodle fun



Well, we've been away, and although we haven't been as far afield as we might normally go, space is still at a premium when you are travelling with two kids, food, kit and bikes and all the associated paraphenalia  required for a family of four. Given that we were holidaying in the Lake District, which whilst beautiful, is, shall we say, a little unpredictable, weatherwise, we needed to take some 'indoor day' stuff with us. Journaling without that nagging feeling that you should be doing something else, like washing, ironing, hoovering or cleaning is a total joy, and one of the best things about being on holiday. How do you decide what stuff to take with you though? I have it down to a fine art these days; I pack my satchel with a pencil case and my 'Art Doodle Love' book in for 'on the go' stuff, and a bigger, holdall type bag for indoor stuff ( although I have been known to stuff my husband's ski boots with art supplies on occasions). The 'indoor' bag has paint, stencils, gesso, gel medium, a small selection of handmade stamps in and a craft mat or two, and anything else, I just have to improvise with what I can find. Its quite a good exercise in paring down the clutter in your creative space actually, and means that if I ever had to grab a few things to save in the event of a fire, I'd be pretty sure where to start grabbing!

Anyway, whilst the kids were busy canoeing, or mountain biking, or righting rigged tups (putting sheep that have got stuck on their backs back on their feet, for those not in the know), I could happily sit and doodle away. Sometimes the doodles end up being  inspiration for other things, like the bunny in the picture above. He made it onto a journal page all of his own, below:


Sometimes, the doodles end up as stamp designs, or ideas for borders that I can cut out of scrapbook paper. Sometimes, its just an opportunity to practice a new technique that I am messing with, like faces, here:

 
 
Still so much space to fill, so off to doodle a bit more!
 
 
 
 





Sunday 10 August 2014

Summer holiday fun

 
Well, its the summer holidays here and because the weather has been so amazing, that I have started to get up early to get out before the it gets too hot, so getting out at 7am to either ride or run means that I am home for 9.30, which means only one thing - more time for arting about! This page started ages ago, following a mini tutorial on Susana Tavares blog. I have had lots of inspiration for stamp carving, and I have used quite a few of them that are now in my Etsy shop, in this page. As for completing a page, I have struggled. However, we had a great opportunity last week, when a friend of mine who works in the theatre business invited us to the opening night of the national tour of Shrek the Musical, in Leeds. It was a fantastic night, the show was amazing,  and the party afterwards was a real treat, as my kids got to meet all the cast and got their programmes signed by ALL the cast. Princess Fiona is also the girlfriend of Gareth Gates (winner of the first series of the XFactor for those non Brit readers), so the kids were pretty impressed to meet them both up close and personal!
One of the great songs of the show is 'let your freak flag fly', so I decided, whilst practising some faces, to make my character a little 'Fiona-like'. Below is the real Fiona (without the green makeup!).

 
We all looked a little Shrek-like in the green hue of this prop! 

Monday 4 August 2014

August ready and Etsy stamps

Get me, it's only the 4th of August, and I'm up to date! Whilst browsing on Pinterest a while ago, I saw some carved stamps that were like little picture frames. I thought that they would make great frames for my monthly diary page, so I made some from foam and here is my August page. This month we are taking the children to London for a few days, and planning on hitting a few galleries, so this seemed appropriate. (They think that we are doing the dinosaurs again, but I really hope that we can move on from that...)

I have also been busy making some things for my Etsy shop , a cute birdie two step stamp made from rubber and foam, and here it is all packaged and ready to go:
 
And then there's Wol, a little character I started hand drawing a while ago, and has featured on a few journal pages. One of my regular journal ladies loved him so much that I carved one for her a while ago, and then I thought I would add a friend or two of his to my Etsy page. Is he an owl, is he a bear? The truth is, he is loosely based on a pair of mittens one of the children at work was wearing last year!
 
Hope you are all enjoying the fabulous weather, it's marvellous, isn't it? And unusual!