Face Stencils

I've been trying out some face stencils. These figures were done on scrap bits of paper that I have been using to clean my brushes and stencils. They are mainly worked in graphite, watercolours pens and paint pens. I may cut them out and incorporate the figures into another piece. Each one only took a few minutes.

Mixed Media 2015 Diaries

I've been making these 3 mixed media diaries for myself and for the kids.

To make one you'll need 4 sheets of paper; I used A3 cartridge.

First decorate both sides of the paper any way you like. I used collage, acrylics, stencils, ink sprays, and lots of Gelli prints.

You need to cut each piece of paper long-ways into a strip.

Each page on this book folds open giving 3 smaller pages joined together for each month. There's also a spare page at the beginning and end of the diary.

Choose 2 strips that go together and fold each in half and half again.

You can see in the picture above that the 2 strips give you 8 sections altogether. You need to overlap them on 2 sections and this will give you 3 sections for each month and 2 storage pockets. I used double sided tape. See below for where to place the glue or tape.

Once they are joined into 1 long strip with 6 sections it looks like this:

You need to do the same with all 8 of your strips and then fold the ends in like this:

You'll have 4 folded pieces as above. You need to make 3 holes along the centre crease of each one. A hole in the centre and one at each end about 2cm from the edge.

Then stack the pieces on top of each other so the holes line up. IMPORTANT: make sure your pocket openings are at the top, it's easy to forget this again and again grrrrr!

You'll need some thread; length about 4 times the height of the book. Take a needle and thread (I used embroidery cotton) and pull the thread from the outside into the middle hole and through into the centre, leave a long tail of thread hanging on the outside. Take the thread back down through the top holes.

With you thread now on the outside of the book take it all the way down to the bottom and through the bottom holes. From the inside take it back through the middle hole again.

You should now have 2 long threads on the outside of the book. Pull the threads tight and knot them together around the thread running along the spine.

You can either cut the threads off close to the knot or add beads to them.

You will have 8 pockets in the top of your book. Paint up some card tags and insert them into the pockets.

Stick on labels for each month and the diary is ready to be filled with drawings, collage and journalling throughout the year.

Stick Your Neck Out Journal Page

I did this quick journal page to try out some face stencils. It's made with paint pens, graphite and Inktense over a acrylic and gesso background.

Monochrome Challenge

I'm just catching up with some Jennibellie challenges that I missed. This is the messy monochrome challenge.

I have used mainly collage (including some lovely bird drawings ripped from an old book), paint pens and Inktense blocks. The piece above is about A3 size. The one below is a little smaller than A4.

Ink Blot Journal Page Challenge

This month's Jennibellie challenge is to make a page using an ink blot for the background. Here's what I came up with using acrylic inks, Gelly Roll pen and paint pens.

We Will NOT Surrender

I often let pieces evolve as I make them, having no idea what the finished piece will be and just seeing what jumps out. This journal spread was made this way. My only intention was to test out some new spray inks I made by diluting acrylic ink with water in cheap spray bottles from the dollar store. Making your own inks this way is much, much cheaper than buying the ready made sprays and has the big advantage of being permanent when dry and not reactivating with other layers like the Dylusions inks. I also wanted to try out a new stencil and my Inktense blocks.

This piece evolved into a response to the recent Sydney hostage situation.

Here are some close ups:

Water-Soluble Quick Sketch

Today I just wanted to experiment with my new Inktense Blocks. These can be used in a similar way to watercolours except they come in a stick so you can either used a brush to apply them or draw them directly onto the paper. You can get similar effects to watercolour paints with 2 massive advantages. The colours are much more vibrant than traditional watercolours. Once the ink is dry it will not reactivate again if you put more water or other wet media over the top. You can even rub them onto a damp stamp pad and print as I have done with the hearts above.

The actual face is drawn with 12B water-soluble graphite stick available in the dollar stores. I'm not even sure if this face belongs to a girl or a young boy.

South Coast Explorers Travel Journal

Just lately we have made a couple of camping trips to the beautiful NSW South Coast. I decided to pack a few art supplies and try making my first travel journal. It was a challenge using just the very few materials I was able to bring which included glue, paint pens, pencil, gauche paints, and watercolour pencils. I added some collage found along the way in tourist brochures. The background of all the pages was done before leaving home using acrylic paints and bubble wrap printing.

Below is how I imagined myself whilst swimming in the sea.

We were all attacked by disgusting leeches - hence the blood suckers below.

3 Pages 7 Days Challenge

Here is another challenge I've been doing from Jennibellie. Again we did one layer each day but this time we were making an actual journal page, not just a background. The twist was that before we began we chose our 6 layers, wrote them down on scraps of folded paper and then picked a random one each day. In this way we wouldn't know if we'd be starting with paint or paper, embellishments or text etc. The 7th day was left free to choose.

I got my layers out in the following order:
1) Focal image
2) Journalling / text
3) Paint
4) Paper
5) Ephemera
6) Pastels
7) Highlights and doodles

Day 1 - Focal image (Paint pens, coloured pencils, acrylics)

Day 2 - Journalling (paint pens)

Day 3 - Paint (Neocolors, acrylics)

Day 4 - Paper (Gelli prints, scrapbook paper and patterned tissue paper).

Day 5 - Ephemera (Well as I didn't have any I used fake ephemera cut-outs from scrapbook supplies)

 

Day 6 - Pastels  - Oil pastels and PanPastels

Day 7 - Highlights and doodles with Posca paint pens