Adventures in Dina Land

A couple of months ago Art from the Heart put an announcement on Facebook at they were having a surprise visit by Dina Wakley, 3 days of classes at the end of October.  I did classes with her back in March so I knew they would be amazing.  I didn't have to think about it for long and as soon as they went on line I signed up for two of them, Playful Printmaking and Make Your Mark.

As we didn't have loads of holiday left we drove up after work on the Thursday and stayed in a Premier Inn in Wakefield.  Mark had planned out some things in Leeds he wanted to see, he went off on the train from Wakefield and I carried on up the M1.  I love going back up to Yorkshire, going into Harrogate feels like going home!   

Playful Printmaking was the first class, we started by making prints from collaged tags, one was covered in molding paste, one with corrugated card and one with thick watercolour paper, other things we used were funky foam, acetate sheets anything we could find.  We used these to tear up or cut shapes from to use in our art journal pages.

Art journal pages using the deli paper and card from the print making.

Using the Collage Tag on a journal page

We stayed in a lovely little Bed and Breakfast in Harrogate for the Friday and found a fab Chinese Restaurant.

After a hearty breakfast the second day was all about Mark Making.  Dina got us to soak a length of string in black paint, you can tell its going to be a messy day!  What do you do with the wet string, throw it at pieces of card of course, being careful not to cover the person in front of you!  After we finished making marks with the string, bottle tops and many other things we had a session of what can you see in the marks, just like looking at the clouds to see pictures in them.

Everyone could see something, to make it come alive we added for a few extra lines and painted out the marks we didn't need.  There were some amazing paintings made from just from throwing string!

These were my string paintings.

Mark had gone to Barnsley to watch Bristol City, he wasn't back until 6.30 so I had some time to kill in Harrogate.  I had a wonder around the shops, made a few purchases in The Works and the little art shop.  Waiting at Harrogate train station who should walk towards me but the lovely Kate Crane, what a lovely surprise, and I had someone to talk to for a while.

Tonight's accommodation was a pub near Ripon Racecourse, The Black a Moor Inn, lovely room and a great Lasagna! 

One more page to finish off.

Can't wait for next years classes!

March and April Calendar Pages

One of my favourite films is the Wizard of Oz, I had some Oz stamps for Christmas which I thought would be great for a calendar page.  I used the brick stencil for the 'yellow brick road' with Dorothy, the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion along with Toto lining up ready to take on the Wicked Witch!

April's page was inspired by my visit to Dina Wakley at AFTH, using one of her masks for the background, and the technique we used of wiping away the paint from the stencil and one of her lady stamps, slightly altering her hair.

Four Days in Dina Land

I am so late posting this, I don't know where time has gone!  March whizzed past in a series of birthdays, holidays and a wedding but for four days in March I had the most fab time with Dina Wakley at Art from the Heart in Harrogate taking three of her classes.  Thank you Mark for sending me for my Birthday present.

The first class 'A face in the Crowd'  was over two days and was all about drawing faces, seeing how they developed and what stories they could tell, we were taught techniques for drawing the faces and drawing with different items, one was using the cap of a dabber bottle, pouring out the paint from the cap then drawing, I ended up with the biggest puddle that took an age to dry and a face that didn't really resemble a face!  I have to confess she did get covered up with gesso and another girl was born!  We also used Dina's face stamps but altered the clothes and hair.

First drawing exercise, drawing blind
without lifting the pencil off the page.

Drawing the person opposite.

Drawing with the paint from a paint dabber bottle
and the lid, wasn't could not be rescued!!

This girl was born from the dabber mess!

This girl had her face painted in blocks first then
the outline drawn afterwards.

A face in the crowd, the first face.

The finished faces.

The following are journal pages using Dina's face stamps.

On the Saturday the second class was called 'In Your Image' we had some fun here with photo's of ourselves, one technique was using a photo as a stencil, cutting away parts then spraying with spray paint, some ladies had some amazing results.  We also used a photo to paint over, mixing up skin tones then painting directly onto the photo, had a bit of trouble with shadows and had to be rescued by Dina.

A warm up class, drawing three figures in a minute.

Drawing a face with a feature missing - the eye!

Painting over a photo of ourselves.

Tracing a photo of ourselves.

Using a photo as a stencil.

The last class on Sunday was all about colour, called 'Colour Wow' we started off with some colour theory mixing complementary colours, near complementary and analogous to name a few, then had to do pages using various different schemes, it was good fun but I had to use some brain power!

Colour Wow day using Dina's stamps

Dina's Bird Stamps.

A bit of homework, a couple more girls appearing on the pages.

Dina kept telling us to use pictures as reference material when drawing, I found this photo on the back of Vogue magazine, was really pleased with the finished result.

Finally some photo's of the class and the lovely Dina.

And I got to sit with Kate Crane during Colour Wow!



Thank you Dina for some great classes, inspiration and laughs during the four days, can't wait for next year!

Kate Crane Art Journal Weekend

The last few weekends have been filled with crafting loveliness, the last one was spent with Kate Crane at the fabulous Art from the Heart shop in Harrogate.  Kate was teaching us ways of adding lots of different layers to our art journal pages.

Ready to get going!

The first day was playing with Amsterdam acrylic paints, they are lovely thick paints and very easy to work with and blend.  Lots of doodling, stamping and sponging through stencils.

We also used some Deli Paper with the Geli plate, it's a waxed paper and great to use on your page or stamp onto and cut your image out, saves colouring in!

Geli printing onto Deli Paper

Kate busy teaching

 These are the painted pages from the first day.

The second day was all about getting very messy with inks, stamping and colouring!

Kate is a great teacher if you ever get the chance to do one of her workshops.  It was a fun, messy and very inky weekend with some new found friends, and of course some new supplies which just happened to fall into my shopping basket!!

Whilst I was still in the zone, here are some more journal pages.

Me with Kate

Mark came up to Yorkshire with me and we stayed in a little apartment in Knaresborough, we spent the rest of the week checking out the sights and eating far to much fish and chips!

The Shambles in York

Found this great little 50's American Diner in the Yorkshire Dales!  Amazing ice cream parlour!!

A photo with Blind Jack in Knaresborough.

Last workshop this weekend, Kate Crane again making her junk journal, a bit closer to home this time at the Stamp Attic.