This month's blog post from me is inspired by our book club and the book we read for
September and October: Mr Penumbra's 24 hour book store.  I really liked this book, it was magical in the way only books about books can be.  I also really liked the theme of fellowship and friendship.

I really loved Anna's collage sheet that focused on her favourite quotes from the book and it got me thinking about my favourite.

I thought this one summed up the magic of the book for me:

"There is no immortality that is not built on friendship and work done with care.  All the secrets in the world are hiding in plain sight."

I knew I wanted my page to represent the magic of the book and so I decided to paint a universe with watercolours, as we are led to believe the secrets to the universe are held in the bookstore and in the codes.  I then drew my representation of the symbol used by The Unbroken Spine (this is a great name for a book society!) and added the second part of the quote to it.

I really enjoyed stretching myself for this art journal page - I don't usually make art based on books I've read but I think I'm going to try and do it each month for the book club.

Don't forget to check out Anna's Patreon which includes all of Anna's beautiful collage sheets including these gorgeous pages as well as art tutorials. You can find more of my art here, on my blog, or on Instagram.

Creating art when there's no time

How do you make time for art when your time is limited?  It's one of the hardest parts of my creative life.  I have a full time job (which admittedly I do from home), a 4 year old daughter with additional needs, a husband and dog who both demand my attention and I'm studying for a second Masters qualification.

One of the ways I make time for myself is to keep my pages simple.  This month has been really hard, J has had a lot of appointments and a couple of operations and finding balance has been hard.  I got to the point today where I felt like it seriously couldn't get worse.  Anna created this beautiful painting of flowers and offered it in this month's Patreon collage sheets.  And so I questioned the universe but used this pretty, colourful painting to include some much needed optimism into the spread.

Don't forget to check out Anna's Patreon which includes all of Anna's beautiful collage sheets including these gorgeous pages as well as art tutorials. You can find more of my art here, on my blog, or on Instagram.

Using poetry to inspire art

I use poetry a lot in my art journal- it inspires a lot of my pages and gives additional meaning to my art.  I usually just store photos of poems I like on my phone but I've recently found this hard to keep track of.  So I've created a travelers notebook to collect these words that inspire me.  I write them poems or quotes in here and use a simple decoration on each page.  For these two poems I've used collage sheets from this month's Patreon and think they set the poems off nicely and look so pretty (making me more likely to continue with this notebook).

I've just started a new journal about the seasons and plan to include some of my favourite poems about change within it.  This is a found journal (basically anything that can be repurposed for art - in this case a children's book but it can be as simple as a mail order catalogue or a pamphlet you find at the doctor's office).

For my introductory page I wanted to journal about my journey as a woman, the seasons in our lives.  So I drew some figures based on some images from Jane Davenport's book and painted them.  I wanted a background that was airy and clean but it was impossible to watercolour on the glossy papers.  I sorted through some of my paper stash and thought this collage paper from last month's patreon was perfect - the exact style I needed in a format that I could add to the glossy pages.

As you can see I kept the original book page on the right and added my poem around the clouds.  I like the daytime-sunset contrast between the two pages and feel it helps further illustrate the idea of the seasons of our life.

 Don't forget to check out Anna's Patreon which includes all of Anna's beautiful collage sheets including these gorgeous pages as well as art tutorials.

You can find more of my art here, on my blog, or on Instagram.

Watercolour Flowers

Recently Anna posted one of her gorgeous pieces of art on Instagram, and I was hopeful it would be one of the Patreon collage sheets for this month.

It was! But even better than that, it was the feature of one of the Patreon videos with a tutorial on how to create a similar page. As a result, I was able to create these pages using the same techniques:

I hope you like them and you get involved by checking out Anna's Patreon which includes all of Anna's beautiful collage sheets including these gorgeous pages as well as art tutorials such as this one.  Anna has recently changed her tiers on Patreon to provide even greater value for money, so if you're not a Patreon, now is a great time to join us. 

You can find more of my art here, on my blog, or on Instagram.

Art journaling about me

I've been working on some art journal pages about me recently. I've been wanted to record some thoughts about motherhood and my journey to get there so that my little girl can read about it later when she's older. Her journey to us was a complicated one and so writing it down in a visual way helps to break that complexity down a little. As part of this journaling I wanted to write some lists - they're an easy way to record thoughts and record moments in time.

 As soon as I saw one of Anna's collage sheets from this month's patreon I knew it would be perfect for my list pages. I ripped them up (I find paper glues better if it's ripped rather than cut), swiped some acrylic paint on the page and journalled around them. Simple and effective. I also used the same paper as a piece of writing paper when I wrote to my penal, just printed it out and wrote my letter on the plain side. How would you use this collage sheet?

 

Don't forget to check out Anna's Patreon which includes all of Anna's beautiful collage sheets including these gorgeous pages as well as art tutorials. You can find more of my art here, on my blog, or on Instagram.

Art as self care

Art journaling for me is an act of self care.  I've been crazy busy in May with work (as a lecturer in a university, May is exam month so lots of marking and student support) plus I've had some complicated family stuff going on.  All that has taken it's toll and art has taken a back seat and I feel it.  I've spent a morning working on a couple of art projects and immediately felt lighter.  Look after yourself, make time for you.

Here's what I've been working on:

This is a page I made with some of Anna's collage sheets- I love how vibrant they are.  This is a page in a collaboration journal - I'm working with a couple of friends and we've each chosen an artist who we can be inspired by.  This one is inspired by Laura Horn, the collage sheets were perfect for this because the paper I've printed them on is light so great for posting through the mail.

Next up I have created a journal for myself using an old book.

I've gutted it's pages and added my own mixed media paper.  Becaise this journal is called 'The Mermaid' s Purse I thought one of Anna's collage sheets was perfect to line my book.  It totally made me think of magical seas and mermaids.

I'm looking forward to working in it over the next few weeks and am confident that I'll be inspired by this beautiful work each time I open it.

Don't forget to check out Anna's Patreon which includes all of Anna's beautiful collage sheets including these gorgeous pages as well as art tutorials. You can find more of my art here, on my blog, or on Instagram.

Creating a traveler's notebook style folio

Creating a traveler's notebook style folio using Anna's Patreon collage sheets

 It's no secret that I am *obsessed* with Anna's acrylic pour collage sheets so I wanted to make a project where I could use them everyday.  I have made myself a little traveler's notebook style travel-folio so that I can document my holidays.

This is how I made it:

I took 3 pieces of card, measuring the same size.  You can use any size for this, mine were 100mm by 175mm (I chose this size so that I could insert personal sized travelers notebooks later if I wanted to) as long as your pieces are the same size.  I also cut three thin pieces of card about 1.5mm thick (175mm long) - these are the spines of your traveler's notebook.   I took some masking tape and stuck these together, with a tiny gap between each one so that the card could fold:

I then cut out three pieces of paper the same size as my big pieces of card from Anna's collage sheets and glued these to cardstock, I used washi tape to cover the spines.

Essentially this is it.  I cut some mixed media paper, folded it in half and used an elastic to secure this inside the traveler's notebook - this is for my journaling while I am away.  All you need is another elastic and you can add as many notebooks or pieces of paper as will fit.  I glued in some pockets to the inside of my traveler's notebook so that I can keep receipts and tokens while I am away, and I added a sticker to the front.  It'll probably be decorated a lot more while I am away but for now I wanted to keep it simple.

I hope you like this project, I can see myself making this type of thing again, and altering the size to suit my needs.  I like the idea of being able to choose the collage sheets that best suit my project.
Don't forget to check out Anna's Patreon which includes all of Anna's beautiful collage sheets including these gorgeous acrylic pours as well as art tutorials. You can find more of my art here, on my blog, or on Instagram.

Art journaling to nourish

The beauty of Anna's patreon classes and collage sheets are that you can dip in and out and come back to them at a later date.  I've had a bit of crazy January with work and I tried to set aside some time today to do some art.  I need this for my own well-being - my word for 2018 is 'nourish' and in order to nourish my mind and soul I have to allow some time each week for art journalling.  I remembered that Anna did a lovely tutorial in November on different types of masking - so I used that to create a page in my art journal to honour my word of the year.

I started by drawing the hands - I normally sketch before bed - it helps my brain to calm before going to sleep and the following day I used some masking fluid to mask off the hands.  Once it was dry I painted a galaxy - it's meant to look like the hands are cupping the galaxy.  I find starry nights and looking at pictures of space calming and so this was meant to represent my gathering of the resources I need to nourish myself.

Anna has added some really wonderful collage sheets this month - my favourites are the dirty pour images - all the joy of dirty pours with none of the mess - plus you can include them in your journal - something you're not able to do as the paint pouring has to be on canvas.

Don't forget to check out Anna's Patreon and you can find more of my art here, or on my blog, or on Instagram.

Taking time to reflect on my word of the year

As we move from January into February I want to make a conscious effort to meditate on my word of the year - nourish.  This is particularly important because January was a really busy month for me and I didn't get to spend a lot of time doing what I enjoy, what nourishes my soul.  Instead I felt a little overwhelmed with work and travelling all around the region to get to J's medical appointments.  I found some time to make art but it was for moments rather than a period where I could sit down and create.

So I wanted to ensure that I go into February keeping my word of the year in mind - in fact, it's my plan to do this at the beginning of each month to remind myself of my wishes for the year.  And so I created a page to remind myself of it using collage sheets from Anna's January Patreon.  This beautiful acrylic pour painting reminds me so much of a bath when you have just dropped in the Lush bath bomb and it swirls around creating beautiful patterns.  Bathtime for me is a time of nourishment and reflection so I wanted the page to illustrate that idea - J is in bed by the time I get to run a bath so the house is usually quiet and calm.

The collage sheets are so beautiful that I hardly needed to add anything - I simply used some modelling paste with a stencil in the corner and added some found words from a magazine.

I've become a bit addicted to the collage sheets of Anna's acrylic pouring adventures, I've used one for my desktop background and one on my phone background too!


Don't forget to check out Anna's Patreon and you can find more of my art here, or on my blog, or on Instagram.

Christmas all wrapped up

Wrapping presents is one of my favourite parts of the run up to Christmas.  I love making each present look beautiful and like time and has been taken to make it special.  I always take special care to choose the right paper each year.  This year I bought my wrapping paper (in black and gold) in a three pack of different designs and it came with tags and ribbons.  I was disappointed when I opened up the pack to discover that the tags and ribbons were not quite as pretty as the paper itself.  So I decided to make some. At first I thought about using the different papers to make some tags when I remembered I had some of Anna's beautiful collage sheets that I printed but hadn't used yet.

I thought the beautiful colours in the October sheets would pop perfectly against the black and gold papers, so I glued the paper to some cardstock to give it strength and cut out some tag shapes.  I did some embossing with some Christmassy stamps I had and I think they look perfect against the papers.

I also cut out some thin strips of the papers and used these like ribbon to wrap around the presents here:

I hope you are finding some time to be crafty in what can be a crazy time in the run up to Christmas.
Don't forget to check out Anna's Patreon and you can find more of my art here, or on my blog, or on Instagram.

Making your own Christmas decorations with the Marblous Marble class

Recently I attended a workshop at Hobbycraft on Advent Calendars and made this:

While I was there, and was in the festive creative spirit, I picked up some ceramic baubles, decorations as well as a ceramic vase with Anna's Marblous Marble course in mind.  I thought they might make nice Christmas presents along with a box of chocolates for those people I buy something little for.  I'd done the Marblous Marbling class a while ago but I'd only created my Marble creations on paper (I found deli paper to be amazing) and I shared a page in this link where I'd combined my marble paper with one of Anna's Patreon lessons.

My plan was to marble them and then use embossing powder and stamps to add images onto the decorations and vase.  This wasn't very successful though, the embossing powder didn't really want to melt on the ceramic and getting a clean image on top of the marbling was difficult.  I did manage it on this star decoration though: 

                                             

 For the vase I marbled my pattern in blue, black and white and then just added embossing powder in silver in a random splodging around the middle and the top.  It took quite a bit of heating using the heat gun but I think the vase could handle it better than the flat decorations:

 For the baubles and remaining decorations I just used the marbling inks to decorate, for some, like the red and green ones I dipped them a couple of times to get more coverage.

 Check out the other classes Anna has in her shop here and please share in the Happy Place Facebook group if you've created something with the Marbling lesson.


Don't forget to check out Anna's Patreon and you can find more of my art here, or on my blog, or on Instagram.

Discovering your style

Hi everyone, I hope everyone is doing well, it's Rose here again with a post about how I am discovering my art style.  This month so far I've been catching up on October art posts.  I got sick in October and it meant I couldn't face doing much, so it's been nice to feel well enough to create.  And, if I'm honest, pushing myself to art has probably added to me feeling better within myself.

I have been working through October's Patreon class with Anna.  Last month's video was Anna working on a painting of a fox.  There was a watercolour fox and an acrylic version.  I loved both, but because I really find watercolour difficult I decided to concentrate on that.

First I worked through a version with Anna and created this:

I really enjoyed using the autumnal colours and was really happy with how he turned out.  Then last week as I was walking home from picking my little girl up from nursery, Mr Fox crossed our path.  He saw us and we all watched each other.  So when I got home I thought I would have another go at sketching and painting him, again in watercolour.  This is what I produced:

I don't really know what my style of art is, but taking art classes and working in other people's style really helps me to understand what my own style is not.  I know that my style is not loose and I struggle with painting loosely, so I wanted to push myself with the fox on the top to try to be a bit looser.  I'm not sure how successful I was but a few paint splatters makes it look looser than he was originally.  If you're struggling to find your own style, give it a go - copy some other artist's work and see what makes you feel uncomfortable, what colours do you struggle with? What mediums are difficult for you? Do you struggle with looseness or preciseness? From creating in someone else's style and working out what you like or struggle with, you can really start to understand your own art and your own style.  Even the art you choose to recreate can tell you a lot about your style.

I know Anna has all these classes on her Patreon just waiting for you to join and create.  I like it when you can learn a technique in a class and then use it as inspiration to create in your own style, and Anna's classes are perfect for doing just that.  Why not join us if you haven't already, and if you have I'd love to see your fox paintings.

Don't forget to check out Anna's Patreon and you can find more of my art here, or on my blog, or on Instagram.

Sketchy faces art journal spread

I don't know about you, but the bit of chill in the air in the morning now is putting me in the Autumn mood. I'm looking forward to warm jumpers, hot chocolate and art journaling with a fragrant candle burning nearby.

My little girl has a few disabilities that make her different from her friends and now that she's starting to notice them, I've been working hard on helping her to see that those differences are part of who she is - a funny, affectionate and clever little person.  Creating a page for this month's blog was perfect for helping me to work through my feelings about it all as well.

I have used Anna's Sketchy Girls Patreon tutorials to draw my people on the right hand page. I wanted to keep them looking quite simple and plain, in contrast to the face on the left hand side. For that, I stamped a face using Jane Davenport's face stamps, coloured it in quite simply and cut it out. I used Brusho powders in 3 colours and sprayed them with water to create her hair and then stuck the face on top. I stamped out the quote using some alphabet stamps and that was that.

Don't forget to check out Anna's Patreon and you can find more of my art here, or on my blog, or on Instagram.

My plan for the Mrs Brimbles October Daily

Every year I take part in the October photo challenge on Anna's blog - this year she has two to choose from, which is even better.  There's the traditional October daily one which is all about Autumn, and a Halloween one - even better that you just enter your details via Anna's blog in the link above, and you can win a store credit for Anna's shop if you post all the photos.

Sometimes it can be a struggle to remember to post everyday or to fit in taking photos and posting them on social media - especially when you've got a million other things going on as well.  I certainly find it hard sometimes but I really love the challenge, so last year I came up with a plan.  I write out the prompts in my planner and next to them I write down some ideas - as and when they come to me.  I start by looking at the existing stuff I've got going on through the month and seeing if I can use my everyday experiences to take photos. 

 For example, on the 9th October I know we are going to Alton Towers and I'll certainly get a hot chocolate - and so I can make a note in my planner to remind me to take that photo.  I want to make it pretty (obviously!) because the prettier it is the more I'll want to use it.  I used Anna's gorgeous art work from her October Patreon collage sheets - aren't they just gorgeous and perfect for this project.  As the month progresses, my plan will become messier and I'll add more art and stickers to it as I go.

Good luck if you're taking part in this challenge - and if you think you're too busy or too dis-organised, give this little plan a try.

Don't forget to check out Anna's Patreon and you can find more of my art here, or on my blog, or on Instagram.