Tuesday, 22 April 2014

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!

Thursday, 13 February 2014

February Calendar Page

I've been meaning to blog this since I finished it on the 1st Feb at Bristol Scrappers, better late than never!

February's calendar page is a mix of pinks and creams for the background and Claudine Hellmuth's foam and clear stamps to make up the little street scene.  I love the little scallop punched shapes, they look just like clouds!  I did my usual of inking up one of the stamps on the book and dropped the ink pad on my page, I managed to cover it up with one of the date shapes - I'll never learn!!!



Saturday, 11 January 2014

January Calendar Page

A little late but Happy New Year everyone.

I haven't done Kate Crane's Calendar Challenge for a while now so I though it was time to give it a go again. I bought some great metallic paint which I used for the background, had to tone it down with some matt paint though!

I'm going through a bit of a Dylusions stamps phase at the moment so thought I'd use one of my new sets Doolally Dorris and stamped out the circle journal from Write between the Lines.

Now I just have to fill it up!




Tuesday, 24 December 2013

Christmas Bauble Challenge and other Christmas Goodies

At our last Bristol Scrappers crop at the beginning of December, Katrina set us all a challenge of decorating baubles, she'd rescued a whole bag which a neighbor was throwing out in the rubbish.  There were lots of lovely ones made and some great techniques used and Amy was the winner, she'd made a Christmas Pudding bauble.  I made one with tissue and another bauble painted black then doodled over in white.













Amy with her winning Christmas Pudding bauble - well done Amy



Emma also came along to the crop with her Stampin Up and shop goodies, we had a lovely class making this tree hanging, it was lots of folding and gluing! 



Bristol Scrappers Girls Christmas Photo

I've also been busy this year making my Christmas cards, I mainly used Dylusions Christmas stamps and spray inks for the backgrounds with the Dylusions Christmas stencils.  Here are a few of the finished ones.










Just to finish, I had a go at making a gingerbread house, I was pleased with the finished house but I think the gingerbread was a little bit over done, so might need dipping in a cuppa before eating!!


MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE AND A HAPPY 2014