It's Dina time again!

One of the best things about having a Birthday in March is that I get to go on Dina's classes at Art from the Heart!  I had three classes for my Birthday, Art Journal Folio, Random by Design and Awesome Acrylics.

Day one started off with a blank Tim Holtz Idealogy folio, after adding lots of paint and stencils with a bit of Dina magic you end up with a fab folio filled with pages of journalling and images, all in a days work!

Day two was all about random, I arrived at the class with my brand spanking new Dylusions journal in hand, what's the first thing Dina says "rip four pages out of your journal"!!  After some muttering that I had a new journal I ripped them out and covered them in gesso ready for the random by design day.

Day three was all about techniques, reverse stenciling and masking, image transfer, using Vaseline as a resist, dripping paint, glazing plus others, I found this day very useful, especially for when you are stuck for something to do, just refer back to these techniques to jump start creativity.

This weekend has inspired me to try and create more in my journal and use different techniques. Here are a few of my pages completed since the weekend.  Some of the pages below are using the new Dylusions paints.

Thanks Dina for another fun and inspirational weekend.

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!