Workshop with Sharon Tomlinson

I've started a workshop with Sharon over at All Norah's Art. The idea is to examine and try to recreate masterpieces form great painters from around the world. I'm having a little trouble with Sharon's method, as I don't feel that I have the right consistancy in my medium, but I will persist.

 First is from the Singaporean artist Namiko Chan Takahashi

And this is from the artist Romanian artist Nicolae Grigorescu

I'm sure you can tell...my versions are on the left hahah!

Radiant Faces Giveaway

Effy Wilde has an amazing giveaway over on her blog this week. 

Radiant faces is an amazing workshop that will see you doing portraits in all different styles, from all different teachers. You'll even get to see Effys take on each lesson as you watch her take each class also.

 Head on over here  http://wp.me/p1ZQyo-1kV for a chance for. Free spot! Yippie!

Documented Life Planner

Thought I'd pop in some recent DLP spreads. Week 37 was to predominantly use a white pen.

Here I laid down a gesso undercoat which I then texturised. Then I blended two colours of acrylics for my base. Next came a white gel pen and a thicker nib white paint pen  for details and lastly some pastel pencils for colouring in. It's quite a happy looking page with the addition of some sweet 'flower' quotes.

Can you see the texture......yummy!

Black and white were the prompt for week 36. After a black gesso background, all I needed to do was add some white gesso through a stencil and add some text. Easy peasy and quick to boot!

Some more exercises with Alphonso

I can't help but love this guy. He makes learning the basic, and more complex concepts, easy. I highly recommend his you tube channel if you want to improve your sketching and cross hatching!

Alphonso Dunn is the the one!

Catchup 4

I always love lettering with Joanne Sharpe. This workshop "Lettering in Motion" is no exception.

Joanne is a great teacher who not only provides great examples in the form of PDFs but also gently leads you from doing your own research on letterforms right through to creating your own. You then move on to putting them into a pleasing layouts here is just some of my course work...such fun!

Different layout styles

Putting letterforms into a shape

Deciding project layout

Final workshop project

Catch up 3

I was fortunate to travel to Singapore, Malaysia and Bangkok this year. Here are a few of the sketches I did while there

Having a cuddle ( yes, that's right! I got to hug a tiger) was an experience that I will remember of the rest of my life. They were so soft and kept very clean. So sleepy ( no, they are not drugged...they sleep 18 hrs a day) and totally cuddly. If you go to Phuket, you must visit Tiger Kingdom...AMAZING!!!

Catchup 2

 Collage suddenly grabbed my attention. I have tried it before in some of my journal spreads, but I had the hankering to make a book out of some coloured file folders that I had laying around. The colours lead me to think of collage and the whole idea took off from there.

It really is great fun and so relaxing. You should try it!

Back cover

Front cover

Back cover

Inside...page 1

First spread

Pages 6&7

Pages 4&5

Catchup

Once again, my poor little blog gets neglected! A quick catch up is in order, if only for my own records here is a snapshot of what I've 'arted' in the last 5 months

Sketching textures and eyes with the MOST amazing free tutorials on you tubes with Aldolphson Dunn. This generous soul takes the time to explain in detail the reasons behind the techniques. I find my hatching and shading has already improved. You really should check him out if you have the time. It's far better than a lot of paid workshops I have taken and he has a lovely voice that I also don't get tired of listening to.  

Lifebook giveaway

Head on over to the amazing Effy Wild here... http://effywild.com/2014/09/15/kermit-flail-life-book-2015-squeee/    for a chance in an incredible giveaway for Life  Book 2015

I'm crossing my fingers, arms,legs and eyes for everyone who enters LOL ( no photos of THAT please) it's a wonderful opportunity and I cant wait!