The Sketchbook Challenge - Resist

 The Sketchbook Challenge for May is 'Can't Resist This'. I did actually post this the other day. My blog dashboard wasn't working yesterday and today I find that this post was missing, so I'm putting it on again as I don't know if anyone saw it or not. Anyway the picture above was created using a regular white candle to make the white lines [resist]. Then I painted it with blue dye. I waxed more areas [below] and painted again but with pink.

 More wax, more dye.

I wasn't happy with the white lines, I thought they looked too white [should have painted the card before putting on the first wax], so I put on strips of 'holey' painted paper. I'm still not sure I like it but I can do some digital alterations to it sometime.

 My other attempt is below, I can't resist a book. I do like this one. I've used the wax candle on this picture too.

Sketchbook Challenge

The sketchbook challenge for May is 'Can't resist this'.

Although I would call myself a mixed media artist I have mainly been doing brush pen sketches recently so I thought I would try something a little different for a change.  

I used a plain old candle for the resist and just drew lines across the page, then I painted with dye solution.

 It was a bit plain, so I drew on more marks with the candle & then applied another colour.

 Another round, another colour.

 I thought the marks looked too white [should have painted the card before the first wax] so I glue on strips of dyed paper with holes in [from the end of sketch books] so the white would just peek through. I'm still not that keen on it but I will have a go at altering it digitally some time.

 I do like this attempt I did below. 'I can't resist a book'. 

I've also used the candle to add texture to the picture.

Alphabet Bead Book [A-N]

I started this book a few months ago, but just got round to sorting out the photos. It was a little address book with the alphabet down one side. I covered the pages with collage - painted papers, found papers, papers printed with some of my work, etc  I also wanted to use some of my bead stash so I decided to make a letter for each page with some sort of bead embellishment, some are on fabric [some vintage], some on paper. I covered the book in some recycled denim fabric and as it is so fat I put a ribbon around it.

Iris Doodle and Alterations

The original doodle is top left and the others were altered in Paint.net

Illustration Friday & Doodle

The Illustration Friday challenge this week is 'Beginner'

Mummy bird is watching baby bird on his first flight.

Below - another doodle from a sketchbook.

Doodles with altered versions

 More doodles that I have altered using Paint.net. The original brush pen drawing above and the 2 altered versions below.

 Another original doodle and an altered version below it.

Branches, Birds & Bag

I seem to be be just posting pictures of my doodles or sketches at the moment. But that is because that is all I seem to be doing at the moment, and some of those are from last year. I haven't done anything very creative recently such as collage, printing [getting my hands dirty], altered books, embroidery and I'm missing it. One problem is that I don't know what to do/make, my creativeness seems to be almost at a standstill. I did start an idea for an illustrated book but that seems to have come to a stop too. There have been a few changes at home so maybe this has something to do with it, perhaps when things have settled down a bit something will spark an idea off. The only slightly creative thing I have done recently was the making of this bag, but it was made from purchased upholstery fabric I have had for years.

Lesson & Doodles

A couple of doodles above and for the Illustration Friday challenge - Lesson - I did the picture below in pen & watercolours

Out and About

You may or may not have noticed but I have not posted any blogs for a while as my daughter and husband came up for a visit. We had a lovely time and went to a few different places and saw things such as the door knocker above at Durham Cathedral. We saw the strange creature below at the Hancock Museum in Newcastle. The museum had changed a lot since I last went, there is now a large model of Hadrian's Wall.

Another day we went to Tynemouth where there is a castle on the cliff top.

After visiting Tynemouth we went further up the coast to St. Mary's Island

On the day before leaving us, we went to Kielder Water & Forest Park. The park has a lot of sculptures to see, some better than others. The viewpoint below looked like a boring shiny yellow shed from a distance but was very interesting once we got to it.

We also liked 'Mirage' below. Five hundred pairs of shiny discs hang high in the trees, reflecting light and glittering.

And the weather was good, stayed sunny & dry, I'll not say it was hot as it was quite cool at times, but it was great for April. If you want to see more I will be putting some photos on Flickr.

Doodle and Alterations

 Below are experiments using Paint.NET. I started out with the doodle above drawn with felt tips

 These two remind me of a quilt

 After the last alteration above and I used another page of drawings on top as a background.

Hare & Watch out Birds there is a Snake about