Secret Mission

Today I was on a secret mission to attend a journaling class, yes, I did say a journaling class, with the lovely Kate Crane at AftH. The reason for going was because Em and Lin and Chris were all going. Em made it as you can see here, but unfortnatley, Chris and Lin ended up waiting for a recovery vehicle on the service station about an hour away.

So the theme of page one was black and white and shades of whilst trying not to make it too muddy. We preped the pages added the white panel in the middle and outlined it in a black. Did some stamping in the paints and added some music paper to create a frame.

I chose to use the main image from The Presenters plate by Brett Weldele. We had to colour it using shading using pencils and the like. I've never been any good at colouring and shading, so I did mine with black soot and iced spruce distress ink markers and a water colour brush.

Quick blast with the heat gun before we moved on!!

I didn't take any steps in-between as I was covered in black, white and shades of grey paint - lol.

View from above. The afternoon page was to use a splash of colour. I chose purple and used the Dylusions paint in the tubs, it's lush. Thick, creamy, vibrant and very quick drying.

I wanted to use another image from Brett Weldele but unfortunately there was only the one I'd already used available in the workshop, so I left it empty and am going to finish it off another day when I find the right image.

Emma colouring in her image for the second page, just look at all those coloured pencils!!

Everyone chilling colouring their images and adding colour to their pages.

Emma's pages. She put them to one side for them to dry whilst finishing her colouring. She used the Dylusions teal paint for her splash of colour.

And whilst in the process, she managed to dunk her elbow in the black paint - mucky pup!!!

Had a fab day and really sorry that Chris and Lin had car troubles and couldn't join us - next time, fingers crossed xxx

***Edited***

Just lifted this of Kate's FB page, just to prove I was there you understand

January Challenge - In Gratitude

The main challenge set by Sandra for all the members of the Creativity Venture group for this month is called 'In Gratitude'.  Sandra has set up all these challenges to make us think outside the box.  The main brief, once I had had it explained to me, was to basically think back over last year and choose a word which covered around 6 events.  Take that word and create a project.

There are 3 levels to choose from to work with.  The visual output areas (number of surfaces) determine which level to do.  So there were 4, 5 or 6 surfaces and each one carried a number of techniques you have to include and you also have to incorporate the mandatory ones on the list too, again level dependant.  

So as you can see, I chose the middle one with 5 visual outputs, which Sandra calls, 'enjoying the moment level'.  The project had to include 7 techniques including 5 from the list.  I chose journalling, die cuts, something new, layering and inking.  Now for those of you that know me you'll know journalling doesn't feature very high on my list, so I wrote on a piece of tissue paper first and used mod podge to glue it onto the canvas.  It says 'not under the control or in the power of another; able to act or be done as one wishes, know no boundaries, take flight, release, relinquish'.  The die cuts are the arrows decorated with rub ons.  The something new is the background technique as I have just bought Kate Cranes new box set of dvds.  The layering is the paint and the inking is the stamped images.  Other techniques include stencilling, bumping, doodling, using gesso, using artbars and blending and I'm sure there are a few more in there too!!!

And this is a snippet of the other 4 sides.  The canvas is a deep edged one and the overall size is 9" x 12".

So can you guess what my chosen word was?

Over at ABAC this week they have the theme of 'things with wings' and this just happens to fit in perfectly.

This weeks PanPastelUK challenge is 'new technique' so again, a perfect fit.

***Edited***

I made top 3 over at ABAC with this canvas