Fast & Fabulous with Tracy Scott

Good morning!

In the last couple of months I have had the pleasure of going to workshops being taught by 3 new tutors at AFTH. 

The first one by Karen Hayselden but I haven't finished it yet but as soon as I do I will blog it.  Check her work out - shes fab!!! 

The second workshop was the one I did earlier this month with the amazing Tracy Scott.

Her work is so colourful and full of life I just love it.

So in the workshop she decided to give us an insight into her process and to show us how she produces her work so quickly!!

She so quick its unbelievable!! (check out some of her youtube videos) - however she did manage to get us working quickly and we produced a lot of great work.

 I created the first 3 in the morning and they only needed a little doodling when I got home to finish them off.

I was surprised how this one turned out as I'm not really into flowers but this piece took on a grunge feel which seemed to work well for me.  I cant believe I not only used pink but did flowers too!?!?!  Oh dear am I going to turn into a girly girl....... no don't think there is any worry about that happening any time soon ! lol!!!

This last one was produced in a very short afternoon - I wanted more time as I didn't want to go home - I was having so much fun!!!

With this one I did need to do a bit of stamping as well as some doodling at home to finish it off but I totally love the way it turned out!!

All of this was so far out of my comfort zone I still cant believe how well they turned out!!

But today I saw a quote which I thought was quite apt :

"Life begins at the end of your comfort zone!"

I hope you get a chance to step out of your comfort zone and try something fresh and new!!

Have a great day!!

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Regular Art Journaling with Kate Crane - Collage

Hello folks!

Just another quick catch up post.  

Yet again another workshop I did with Kate Crane last year (she must have been sick of the sight of me lol!) at AFTH.  But I am so loving the monthly art journaling workshops - I'm learning so much - I just need to find the time at home to put all these new techniques into practise!!

This day we created any sort of backgrounds we wanted and then used downloaded digital collage images to create our pages.  Stamping, and doodling with various tools helped pull the pages together.

These are the 2 full sized pages I got done in that workshop!! I think I might be coming round to the collage idea - haven't been a big fan till recently but I think I'm finally being converted!!!

As always I wish you all the opportunity to find time to do some Happy Crafting!!

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Regular Art Journaling with Kate Crane - Painted Houses

Hi again - I thought I would just do a quick blog post of a page I started in one of Kate Cranes workshops a while ago, but I forgot all about it until recently.  It was a Kate style painty background but where we collaged houses in journaling before these ones we painted ourselves!!

I needless to say had to put silly faces in the windows etc - but it was fun!  I think I need to add something else to finish it off but I haven't been able to figure out what that 'something' is!!!

So it will be classed as finished for now!!!

Happy Journaling!!! 

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Christmas journal pages

Hi everyone - sorry that you are getting inundated with posts at the moment but I have finally found a bit of time to catch up on the things that I have made in the last 6 months and I'm getting a chance to blog them.  So this month will be rather over loaded but it will go back to normal next month I'm sure LOL.

These are 2 pages that I did at Regular Journal class with Kate Crane just before Christmas.  We had a lovely festive day and as it was the 22nd of December it started my holidays off really well.

I loved adding this Stampotique stamped character as the 3 Kings!!!

Enjoyed learning how to paint these guys!!

All in all it was a fab day!!!

Hope you all manage to find some time to be creative today!!

xxx hugs xxx

Stitched canvas shapes

Hi everyone - well I might not be getting much crafting done at home but I have been going to workshops rather regularly so have been letting my creativity out there!!

This was a workshop I did at AFTH with Dyan Reaveley!

We painted, inked and stencils some canvas and then with some cutting and sewing thrown in we made some lovely canvas shapes!!

If you haven't ever tried to stamp, stencil, paint etc on canvas give it a try!!  You can get some amazing and sometime unexpected results but the uses you can make of your self decorated canvas in endless!!

Go have a play - and have come fun!!

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Regular Art Journaling with Kate Crane - February

Kate Crane has been doing a regular journaling class for a few months now at AFTH and I'm glad to say that I have become one of the 'regulars'!

Kate has been trying to push us out of our comfort zone by making us do things like draw faces or animals - use paint in different ways - collage with digital downloads as well as with our own photographs or backgrounds.  We have produced some amazing work and learnt so much and I'm looking forward to learning and creating much more in the future.

For now however I wanted to show you what I made in class this month!!

As it happens the workshop fell on Valentines day - so of course we had to do something with heart!!! Here's the two pages I produced!

This first page was done in my large Dylusions Journal!

Using a brayer and acrylic paints we created a multi layered background then as the focal point, stitched on 3 triple layered hearts which we had cut out of on a separate sheet.
When I got home I did add a bit of stickles on the hearts for a bit of bling!!

This second one was done in my small Dylusions Journal! The background created much in the same way as the other first one but with only 1 triple layered heart!

 With the addition of a Stampotique figure (Hiya Cinth by Janet Klein) and a quote the page was very quickly finished!!!

Lovely fast technique for creating vibrant backgrounds - I love it!

If you would like to go to any of Kate's workshops please check out her website HERE.

Happy crafting folk!!!

xxx Donna xxx

Altered Drift Wood

Hi!

I had a great time on Wednesday at AFTH doing Kate Cranes Altered Driftwood workshop!!

With her usual unflappable, elegant style Kate had us painting lovely backgrounds, beach huts and little girls in no time at all!!  We even had a go at painting on pebbles!!  Well you can pretty much alter anything!!

It was a fab class and I am so looking forward to doing some more beach combing in the near future!!

Hope you all get a chance to do some altered art and possibly a bit of beach combing yourselves, to get some fresh air before diving right back into the craft room to alter your lovely new finds!!!

Have some beachy fun!!

xxx hugs xxx

Dylusions Paint Play Time

Last week I was at a Journaling class at AFTH with Dyan Reaveley and we were lucky enough to get to play with some of her new Dylusions Paints which haven't been released yet in this country but should be here by the end of the month!!

Its always exciting to get the chance to try things before they are released.  Dy was also showing us how she has been using her new paints!!

We had a wonderful day playing and making loads of backgrounds - as you will see.  Now I just have to find the time to turn them into finished pages!! lol

Using the paints we decorated the covers of our journals!!  This is my front cover

and this is the back!!!  I have to say the black is awesome and covers beautifully and as with all these paints a little goes a long way.

These next 5 are layered backgrounds - I think the least number of layers is 4 and the most is about 10!!!!

On this double page spread in my small journal the page on the left is the main page and the right one is just a clean up page!! totally love it

These next pictures are all clean up pages.  Cleaning brayer, palette knife, stencils, baby wipes etc!

I am so looking forward to getting my hands on these wonderful semi-transparent paints!!  They are truly so much fun to use, if you have a change play with them you will see what I mean!!!

Happy paint playing!!!

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February Calendar Journal Page

Hi everyone - sorry for the delay in doing the blog for this month calendar journal page but life seems to be speeding along and there never seems to be enough time for everything!

I did get this months page done but as always it was late but only 5 days lol!! 

OK here's what I did.

I gessoed a page and let it dry the I dripped some Dylusions ink, and some Opalite pigment ink onto the surface and spread it around with a scrapper.  I then sprayed a bit more on and splattered and dripped, sprayed some more and splattered and... well you get the idea!!

I left the centre pale and just let the shimmer of the Opalite ink show!!

Then I did a little bit of ghosting through a Dylusions stencil and splatter it with water to lift off some of the ink.

Next I stamped the day squares round the edge and dried them with the heat tool because the gesso delays the time it takes for the ink to dry.  Next I put a green line of liquid pearls paint round each square to give it some dimension.

At that point I went to bed as it was late and I had absolutely now idea as to what I was going to do next!! 

I was running out of time to get the page done but I really couldn't decide what to do in the centre.  I came back to it several times during the next day but no inspiration struck!!!  Don't you just hate that!!

Late on in the afternoon I saw a picture a friend of mine had drawn of a face and I realised it had been awhile since I had done one and I could fit one in lovely to that space.  So I dug out my favourite Inktense pencils and Neocolour 2 waxed pastels and got started planning on colouring it in with the pencils and putting highlights on with the pastels.  Well as always with me it didn't quite work out that way!

Having pencilled in the basic outline I realised that the background colour made rather a nice face colour so I thought I wouldn't bother colouring that bit in.  So I started drawing in the hair with the pencils which are water soluble and when I wet them to pull the colour out I remembered that the Dylusions ink I had used is reactive to water and it was moving along with the pencil and created a rather nice effect.  So out came the waterbrushes which I have filled with some of the Dylusions inks and I started to paint with them instead.  It worked lovely.  Much quicker than it would have been with the pencils!! Quick is good when you dont have much time!!

So with the addition of some gesso to whiten the eyes and some of the pencils to add details and highlights she started to appear!!! 

I realised that there was something wrong with the proportion of the face but I couldn't figure out what it was.  So a quick trip to the bathroom to have a look at the page in the mirror and it clearly showed that one of her cheeks was way bigger than the other and at a very strange angle.

So back to the waterbrushes and the addition of some more hair on that side and problem solved.  She is still not in proportion but she looks better and as I'm not aiming for perfect (just as well because I could be waiting for a very long time if I was) I decided that I was happy with her.

Then It was just a case of the finishing touches.  I used some Tim Holtz stamps to add FEB and 2015 which I stamped in an archival ink in a matching tone to the background and I stamped lines of numbers all over the background.  Last touch was using a blending tool to add some Distress ink round the edge of the page!!!

Job done!!

Have any of you managed to find time to do the Calendar Journal challenge?  Its a great way to make you find time for yourself each month and to get creating!!

Bye for now!!

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