A little bit of Whimsy with Kate Crane

A couple of weeks ago I spent another creative weekend with Kate Crane at the Stamp Attic learning how to draw whimsical faces, I've been wanting to learn to draw Kate's style of girls for ages so this was a great opportunity.

The first thing we did on the Saturday was make a tiny little journal in a matchbox, using Dina Wakley's mini face stamps and washi tape we ended up with a great little mini journal ready to fill with mini ideas and thoughts.

Next was working on a bigger scale in our art journals, creating painted and layered backgrounds to which we added downloaded images and journalling.

I always seem to have some mishap when I am at the Stamp Attic before it was the windscreen wipers on the car, this time it was trying to stay on my feet!  I admit I wasn't exactly wearing sensible footwear but they do make me taller!  I managed to get over the cobbles fine, with the help of my stick, but whilst I was walking back through the car park, loaded with with my bag, shopping bags, handbag and walking stick, I turned to try and get the car keys from the pocket in my bag and wallop, down I went in the car park, my glasses flew off in front of me and I landed on my bag.  Two guys came over to see if I was ok, one of them picked up my glasses and bag and carried it to the car for me, but as you know when you do something like that it's always 'oh I am fine!' and then say ouch when they are gone!  I was most upset about denting my pencil tin after I fell on it!!

Luckily I wasn't driving home, only to Didcot Railway Station to pick up Mark, we had booked a hotel for the night which turned out a good choice, the room was lovely and the good was brilliant.  Plus they had my favourite Brandy, of which I needed a few medicinals!!

After a yummy cooked breakfast I headed back to the Stamp Attic (wearing flat shoes) for the second day. Again we started off making a little mini album in the matchbox.  Then it was time for drawing, there were a few moans and groans and 'I can't draw' comments but after we followed Kate's exercises everyone ended up with some great whimsical girls.

Some photo's of the projects: -

Drawing and shading practice

A small banner made with the whimsical girls

Mini matchbox journals 

And Kate, I have been practicing!

I think she looks like an England Player!

Thanks Kate for another great weekend, looking forward to the next one.

May Calendar Page

Well I'm still keeping up with Kate Crane's Calendar Challenge.  May calendar page is finished and days written in so far!  I used pinks and greens for the colour scheme and my new Tim Holtz heart stencil for the background.  I picked out some of my favourite Polkadoodles house stamps to add to the corner.

Long time since I've quilted!

I haven't done any patchwork or quilting for quite some time, years in fact!  My best friend celebrated a special birthday this year, I usually do a life scrapbook album but not having access to any of her early life photo's I decided to make a memory quilt with pictures I already had.  I used the printable cotton which was amazing, just put it straight through the printer, cut round, peel off the back and it's ready to be sewn.  I printed photo's of her wedding, her babies when they were born, toddlers and the age they are now, plus photo's of things we have done, our holiday group photo in Florida and not forgetting her dog Jenny.

I didn't have too long to get the quilt done once I had decided to do it, so I stuck to 6 x 4 pieces to match the photograph sizes, and stitched them together in rows.

The stipple quilting was done on the sewing machine.  The binding took me just as long to hand sew it on as it did to make the quilt top!

She was really pleased with it when she opened it up on her Birthday.

Here it is...

Feel inspired to do some more now, or finish some off!!

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!

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!!!