Sketch into Spring #5 Get loose

Well I was looking forward to having a go at, 'Getting Loose', but boy did I find it hard!!  I'm not delighted with what I ended up with, but it's better than the three efforts that are now assigned to the collage box, lol.  It is better with some black pen on it, but, again, I don't like the yellow 'flowers', (very loose interpretation there).  But, (gosh what a but-head I am today, lol :O), I'm glad I had a go, and I will try it again - behind closed shutters that is.
The prompt was to wet down the paper, drop on watercolours so that they bleed around the paper and then when it's dry, make something of it with markers/pen.  I ended up having to cheat a bit and kind of 'draw' some flower type shapes in order to get anything at all that I could work with when dry!  Anyhoo, here is what I did :-

I'm grateful that the next prompt is to 'Fill a page with pattern'.  Yay!  Nice relaxing doodling. Thanks Alisa ;)
I think I may need to get some new watercolours.  I love my pencils but they just aren't adequate for some things (or that could just be me of course), and the wee pans I've got are almost done. Now do I go for pans or tubes? Hmmm.....what do you think?  Bearing in mind I have 20+ more prompts for this class and a new watercolour class starting on Monday.  Thanks in advance for your kind thoughts, *hugs*

Now until next time..........
........thanks for popping by to say 'Hi' *hugs*

Tag Tuesday ~ Cooking

This week on Tag Tuesday the theme is 'Cooking'. I was a bit stuck at first as to what to do so I started to create a background on my tag using some distress inks which I spritzed with water and dried with my heat tool. I then went through my stamps and found the cake stand stamp from Little Claire Designs that I thought I would use as part of the background.

I still had no real idea what I was doing with this so I added some washi tape, one of which has some cookery themed images on it. I then remembered that I have some cooking themed peel-offs so I got them out and coloured on them and in them with Wink of Stella glitter brush pens. I love Wink of Stella!

Now it looked like it was getting somewhere. I wrote out some words and then found a foodie quote online, 'Cooking is love made visible'. It has no attribution but there are variations on the same theme, 'A child is love made visible', for example; I like that one.

I outlined the words with distress marker pens and coloured my ribbon with inks smooshed around with some water on my craft mat. Et voila! You can see some other cooking related tags here.

Until next time..............
..........thanks for popping by to say 'Hi' *hugs*

Sketch into Spring: #4 Illustrate the stages of growth.

When I first saw this prompt, I thought, Whaaat!? And when I saw what other people in the Flickr group had done, I felt very intimidated. In fact, I nearly skipped this prompt altogether ((hanging head))
But yesterday was a beautiful bright day and my hubby had just potted up our tomato plants when I saw the buds and some wee flowers and some immature fruit and remembered I had some tomatoes on the vine in my kitchen. *Light bullb!* Lol. I took several photos and then took more photo's of my strawberries that are also just beginning to flower and produce immature fruit there too! Hmm, maybe I'd do both!
I didn't. But I may have a go at doing the strawberries this evening; I don't know yet.

I used a pencil to lightly sketch, then went over it with a fine liner pen and then coloured with my watercolour pencils and an aqua brush. 

I am quite pleased with the results. Whodathnunk?! Lol. I'm really looking forward to the next one, which is, 'Get loose'. Intrigued? Well you can either join in and check it out, go through the flickr images or wait and see what I come up with, hehe. 

But until next time............

.......thanks for popping by to say 'Hi' *hugs*

Sketch into Spring #2 Use nature in Printing & #3 Capture colour

For the second prompt Alisa challenged us to use nature in our art. Using her beautiful example as inspiration I went outside to my garden to see what I could perhaps use. There isn't much there at the moment, but I found a stem of Lavender from last years gowth, some leaves from an Astilbe plant, a sprig of Rosemary and a Clematis flower. I had a lot of fun mixing paints, brushing it on, dipping the flowers, stamping with the leaves or using them like a paint brush.

I really like the results.

For the third piece Alisa said to 'Capture Colour'; to look outside and paint the colours in my garden, and paint the weather. Ok, I thought; I'll give it a go. 

Today was a mixed bag. The sky was grey in some parts, but clear and sunny in others and we had had some rain.

There are lots of green leaves on my strawberry plants, they have some wee flowes forming that I hope bode well for a luscious crop of fruit. I have a miniature cherry with blossom and some Winter Polyanthus flowers just going past their best. 

I struggled a little with this page. Just letting the paint drip drop onto the page and lifting it to make it run down. It's not ordered or clear and it didn't seem to make sense, but a few hours after doing it, I can see what I was looking at and I am satisfied with it. 

The next prompt, #4, is to 'Illustrate the stages of growth'. 

Need to do a lot of thinking about that one. 

But until next time ................

..........thanks for popping by to say 'Hi'

Sketch into Spring

I've joined an online class by Alisa Burke called Sketch into Spring. It's a mini class over 30 days with simple ideas, prompts and lots of inspiration. I love Alisa's work. I have only been following her for a short time but have been inspired enough to want to try one of her classes and as my creating time is quite limited, a mini class seemed ideal. I'm late to the party, as it started in March, but the class is available indefinitely once you have joined, which is great for those with limited time.
Anyhoo, the first prompt was to use as many different words as you can that describe Spring. I've just used a few and drew around a word stencil.

 The rest is doodling with various pens and daubers and I went over the background with pale blue chalk pastel. I really enjoyed creating this.

Until next time............

..........thanks for popping by to say 'Hi' *hugs*

Tag Tuesday - Africa

For this weeks Tag Tuesday theme of, 'Africa', I used my inktense watercolour pencils and created a Djembe drum.

I play in a local group with some incredibly talented & inspiring women. The Djembe is a rope-tuned, skin-covered goblet drum played with bare hands originally from West Africa. According to the Bamana people in Mali, the name of the djembe comes from the saying, "Anke djé, anke bé" which tranlates to, "everyone gather together in peace", and defines the drums purpose. 

A favourite quote of my teacher is ~ 

The spirit of the drum is something that you feel but cannot put your hands on,
It does something to you from the inside out . . .
It hits people in so many different ways.
But the feeling is one that is satisfying and joyful.
It is a feeling that makes you say to yourself, ‘
I’m glad to be alive today! I’m glad to be part of this world!”
—Babatunde Olatunji

Until next time..........

........thanks for popping by to say 'Hi' *hugs* 

Craft Barn Q & L Challenge number 8: Knowledge & Hurt

Hurrah! I am so happy that I've got my page completed so quickly this time around ((happy dancing)).
The Craft Barn's new challenge words for the Quotes & Lyrics Challenge are Knowledge and Hurt.
We are to use one or both words and use a quote or a lyric.

As soon as I saw the quote by Charles Schulz I knew I wanted to use it; I have always been a fan of the Peanuts cartoons. Elizabeth was very quick off the mark and has used the same quote on fabulous recycled file folders.
I printed off the image of Snoopy along with the quote and cut around them. I glued an Easter napkin onto my page and added a folded, Lindt chocloate wrapper, over the egg that the pink bunny is standing on.
Ok, I admit, the wrapper was around a wee chocloate bunny I enjoyed yesterday ((nomnomnom)) hehehe ;)
I stuck down Snoopy and the quote, then cut out some wee flowers, from another napkin, which I also stuck down and added a few stems with an aquarelle pencil. Easy peasey, lemon squeezy :o))
If you would like to see my previous entries for this challenge you will find them here. I am very grateful to my friend Lynn Holland for allowing me access to the Sketchbook Friends blog so that I may showcase my entries thus far. ((HUGS)) to Lynn.
Click on this link if you would like to find out more about the Q & L challenge, and here to see what others have created this time around.

Until next time.........
.....thanks for popping by to say 'Hi' *hugs*

Creative Tuesdays - Happy Birthday!

Every two weeks, our host of the Creative Tuesdays challenge, Michael, aka Mr Toast, aka MMm, gives us a new theme to work on. Last week it was Nursery Rhymes, and this week, after receiving word from Linda of dots 'n' doodles, that it is nearly the birthday of one of our co-op members, Wanda, "Happy Birthday!" was chosen as the newest theme. We have until April 22nd to create something, so I am delighted to be completed with a few days to spare.

I don't 'know' Wanda yet, but what I have read others say about her, leaves me honoured to be taking part and I hope that in some small way I can make Wanda smile for her birthday with my Happy Birthday message for her.

I edged my page with some paper tape for a border, then did a light wash over the page. I sketched everything in pencil then used my watercolour pencils to colour it all in. Alternate letters are decorated with wee circles and I used a Wink of Stella Glitter brush on all the candles. I'm happy that my flash caught the sparkle on some of them. Finally I added a few squiggly streamers. **HaPpY BiRtHdAy WaNdA!**

I hope you will pop over to Dotty Hill Creative and see what the other co-oppers have created to celebrate Wanda's birthday. And perhaps pop over to wish Wanda best wishes for May 1st.

Thanks for popping by to say "Hi" *hugs*

First Blog Post

Hi There - OMGoodness I cannot believe I am finally getting around to having a blog - YiKeS!! Putting myself 'out there' in this manner is so very strange and a bit scary too if I'm honest, but I know I have lots of expreienced blogland friends out there, who will keep me on the right path, I hope.
Sooo, if you feel like saying, "Hey, don't put that there it's ugly" or "Hey that's pretty good" then feel free to leave your comment and I would appreciate your views on whether my layout is easy to use or not.
I don't have word verification, but at the moment I will moderate comments before they are published.
As you can see, this is a bare bones blog at the moment, but I do hope to prettify it and if you can help with that - I'm listening ;)
Thanks for popping by to say "Hi" *hugs*