Second Week Of Sketching For Textiles

Printing plates after printing

Hi there, how are you?

Finally I’ve finished the sketching for textiles class that I’d started a few weeks ago. It was only supposed to be a two week course but there was so much interesting information to digest and actually doing all of the exercises makes it easier for me to learn so it took a little longer.

We made lots and lots of thumbnails some on black and some on white paper to start and out of these I picked four to enlarge to three inches and turn into collages.

Thumbnail sketches

As you can see the thumbnails are mainly line work so I just picked colours from the papers I’d made to put the collages together.

4 small collages

The aim of the class was to design a textile piece of art; I don’t have lots of scrap fabric so after some thought decided to design a print instead.

I made two small plates (3”) out of cardboard boxes, the same design only one was the positive the other the negative as an experiment, also a larger one (6”) all based on the collages.

The plates were glued together then varnished. After my last printing experiment, which wasn’t completely successful, I have looked up various blogs for instructions.

Cardboard printing plates before printing

I used my big shot die cutter to make the prints; it worked very well once I’d gotten the “sandwich” right.

One of the smaller plates stuck to the paper and fell apart on the first print, too much ink or pressure maybe? You don’t get many prints before the plates are squashed flat with the pressure; they are only cardboard and don’t last long.

It got a little messy and some of the prints are better than others. But on the whole I don’t think they’re too bad. Lessons learned and filled away for next time.

Some of the prints

The two plates that survived after printing (at the top of the post) look more interesting than the prints themselves so I think I’ll hang on to them.

Again I’ve thoroughly enjoyed these lessons. I think I’ll put all the work into a little folder and keep it for future reference

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by. till next time, have fun

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Christmas Crafting Begins

Santa gnome watercolour

 

‘Tis the season so they say, which means Christmas crafting begins in earnest. I know most sensible people sort this stuff out way back in August, but I just never seem to get round to it that early.

December always creeps up on me, I turn around and Pow, there it is and I’m not ready!
I have too much stuff so I’m trying to use up only things I already have this year.

I found a cute Santa tutorial here and tried a little origami for the tags.

A group of origami santa tags

I don’t have any two-sided origami paper but I managed to find a couple of red envelopes that were white on the inside. The tutorial doesn’t give a size for the little squares, they’re really tiny so I experimented and decided 1 ½ inches was about the right size.

I made a simple patterned paper on the computer with little baubles and streamers (something chrismassy) and used it for both the tags and the cards further down.
I don’t put ribbons through the tags till I wrap the gifts so I can use something that matches the paper I use.

Detailed picture of the origami santa tags

I was given a lot of odd shaped card bases a few years ago (6 ¾” x 3″)   so I decided to use these up this year.

Most of the cards I made this year are simple, die-cut, as near to one layer as I can get, they needed to be quick to make and easy to post.

just a few of the die-cut Christmas tree cards made this year,they were all slightly different

The cards were narrow enough that I could place the whole card flat on the plate and cut the tree directly out of the card base; I backed each tree hole with a coloured paper (cream, green or gold) and glued the trees back into the hole. Then it’s just ribbons sentiments and snowflakes, bang, job done.

Last but not least I finally painted some Christmas cards whoot! The winter scene I painted last week made a very nice card, I added a small amount of glitter with a sparkly pen to make it a little more festive.

Watercolour Santa gnome and snow-scene cards

This week I wanted to draw/paint a gnome, (no idea why?) I roughed him out in my sketchbook a little to decide how he was going to look then painted him with watercolour on watercolour paper.

I like him, even if he does look more like Santa on his day off than a gnome. He certainly looks OK on a Christmas card.

So that’s the cards written out, the tags sorted and were not even half way through the month yet! oh so organised hehehe.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by today. Till next time, have fun x

Christmas Cards – Using Stuff Up

christmas card with embossing and a star aperture

Hello Peeps, how are you?

It’s that time of year, you know the time of year when everything you do is geared towards one day. This week I have been shopping (on-line), shopping in actual shops, because that’s still a thing and making Christmas cards/tags.

Looking around on the internet I’ve seen people painting lovely watercolours and making them into cards, I thought what a lovely idea, I should do that! Who am I kidding; I would have to start making my cards in august if I wanted to finish before Christmas.

Introducing all the stuff I have made this week. The star card is made with nesting star dies and has a little floating star in the aperture. It’s a 6”x6” card so the top layer was embossed with an embossing then the folder was moved along to emboss the other side, happily it worked quite well.

In real life the card is very sparkly and has blue glitter borders. It doesn’t show up, we have very poor light this time of year and even at midday in bright-ish sunshine everything looks washed out.

 

The gold card bases were given to me, they’re an odd size 6”x3”. The second card in the picture was embossed with a die; I like it more as a die-cut. I had some fancy paper which was a cross between tissue paper and mulberry paper; I used it to back the cut-out, it looks really good when light shines through it.

The reindeer card is made entirely with peel-offs. For some unknown reason I seem to have loads of peel-offs, they need using up. It’s just the right size to place a gift voucher into.

 

Another card made with card bases I seem to have acquired these are 6”x4” cards. An embossed panel and die – cut snowflakes, I also managed to use up more of my peel – offs and a small piece of thin ribbon.

 

Through out the year, when ever we get something in pretty packaging I die cut some tags and put them in a little box. Then when I need tags for gifts they’re cut and ready to use, just pick something that goes with the wrapping paper.

For the main presents this year I thought it would be nice to have die-cut names on the tags to make them a little bit special. I cut each letter three times and glued them on top of each other to give some dimension, then glued the names onto the tags, it’s a bit fiddly but I like the effect. It also used up lots of tidily bits of card I had hanging around.

I haven’t bought any new dies, stamps, card or anything else really this year. I have far too much stuff and really need to use things I already have so that’s what I’ve been doing. To be honest all this making hasn’t really made a dint but I’ll keep going and eventually I’ll get to the bottom of it all.

So, cards done, tags done, vouchers done. Gifts almost wrapped, shopping done, and we still have a couple of weeks left to go, yes! I’m on it this year hehe.

Thanks for stopping by today. Till next time, have fun x

An Anniversary Shaker Card

Hi there, how are you?

This week I needed an anniversary card, I had planned to paint something small with watercolour but life got in the way, as it does.

I decided die cutting a simple design would be a lot easier as I could do that relatively easily with one hand (I could use the other one as a paper-weight)

It’s a shaker card. My daughter was throwing away some beads and sequins she no longer wanted, I jumped up and said “don’t throw those away; I’ll use them in a card!” no point in wasting them is there?

We’re back from our holl’s, a week in London to see relatives.

Dippy has now been removed from the Natural History Museum to be replaced with hope the huge blue whale skeleton.

There was a visit to Kew Gardens (it rained persistently) the psalm house, water-lilies, cactus and orchids, (trying to keep out of the weather).
Kew also has a small gallery built to house the work of Marianne North. She sounded like an amazing woman, travelling around the world on her own in Victorian times painting everything that she found interesting.
There is also a lot of botanical art by many other artists housed there too. It’s well worth a visit if you’re in the area.

We went to the natural gallery because the other half wanted to see the Van-gogh paintings. (We couldn’t see them last year because they were refurbishing the room)
I wasn’t fussed on the sunflowers but I did like his “two crabs” I also liked the Monet “The Water-Lily Pond” but you really have to stand at the far end of the room to see them in their full glory.

I’ve taken loads of pictures and hopefully soon I’ll be able to draw from them. How’s the drawing coming on you ask?

Little rose drawings. The left hand drawing is on the right hand side of the page, broken on the left.

Erm.. there’s more work needed me thinks. Hehe there doesn’t seem to be much difference between hands at the moment. I don’t want to fall out of the habit so I just need to keep going, it will get better with practice.

Thanks for stopping by today. Till next time, have fun x

I Am Groot (A Birthday Card)

Hi there. How are you?

This was a card I made for a young family member (Happy Birthday!) I’m never sure what teenage boys are into and find making cards for them quite difficult; this seemed to go down well though.

It is a 3D Decoupaged card made the same way as the yoda and stormtrooper cards I made last year.

Yoda One for Me Valentines card

Happy stormtrooper birthday card

Can’t believe it’s a year since I made them, where does the time go!

Thanks for stopping by today, till next time, have fun x

Happy Mothers Day

Hi there.

Happy Mothers Day to all of the mum’s out there.

A quick, clean and simple card made with patterned paper and dies. A few little pearls thrown in because, well, why not?

Have an amazing day, much love x

Skools Out And Some Birthday Cards

A drawing of my kitchen for sketchbook Skool class.

Hi there. How are you?

This was the last week of sketchbook skool klass. The delightful Tommy Kane showed us its all in the details. If you look at his work you can see the amazingly detailed illustrations he draws that sometimes take him hours. Hours of standing/sitting around on location working busily away.

This is a picture I drew of part of my kitchen, not nearly as detailed as his but I liked the way it turned out. The paper isn’t good for watercolour so I used inktense pencils and put just a light wash of water over the top. I like the texture it gives against the tooth of the paper.

A drawing of a pomegranate just before we ate it for dessert.

I was making a dessert and cut open a pomegranate, spurred on by my kitchen drawing I decided to have a go at drawing it in detail, seed by seed. It came out quite well. Not something I would have thought to do till now.

This class seems to have come and gone in a heartbeat, I’ve learned a lot, now I have to put all this new-found knowledge into practice. I’ll probably go back and look at some of the videos again to keep it all fresh in my mind.

The information was geared mainly to people who keep (or want to keep) journals but it is all good information and can be used for all forms of drawing, and who knows maybe I’ll do that one day.

A watercolour card painted mainly in two colours (Payne’s grey and burnt umber)

I’ve bee making birthday cards. This one was a picture of a racoon (picture from a google search**) painted in watercolour, I even used watercolour paper! I wanted it to be kind of washy with not too many colours, I used Payne’s gray and burnt umber with a tiny bit of orange or the eyes. It’s not perfect but he’s kind of cute.

(** Disclaimer:  I’d link to the photographer of the racoon but couldn’t find a name. I’m not linking to the site because I don’t think it belongs to them. If I find out who took the picture I’ll update with a link.)

Autumn leaves birthday card.

This one is made with a stamp and dies from crafters companion magazine set. I like that the dies match the stamps, the leaves are small enough for a background and big enough to use in their own right.

The patterned paper was made with a piece of white card blended and stamped with distress ink. The extra leaves are gold card; craft card and the black background are stamped with embossing ink and heat embossed with clear powder.

Thanks for stopping by. Till next time take care and as always, have fun x

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Blue Lily Watercolour Card

Hello, how are you?

It was our wedding anniversary this week and my lovely other half bought me some lilies. They’re beautiful, blue (probably dyed) and the buds are nearly all opened now. The sad news was that after two days of them being in the house his eyes were streaming and he couldn’t breath! They had triggered a fierce bout of hay fever. Guess who won’t ever be getting any more lilies?

To make the most of them I’ve been taking lots of photo’s  as they open and keeping them well out of my poor other half’s way as much as I can.

I made an attempt at doing a watercolour, just to see if I could. It’s not brilliant but it did make quite a nice birthday card. It’s painted onto watercolour paper and some how dropped the paint brush on the paper so I die-cut it to get rid of the splodges.

It looked a bit washed out when I held it against the card so I cut the same shape out of the centre of a failed watercolour experiment left over from watercolour class to use as a frame. I liked the contrasting colour and it evened out the front of the card.

 

This is a photograph I took of the offending lilies. They really are beautiful but I think he will be sticking to less pollinated flowers in future.

Thanks for stopping by. Till next time, have fun x

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