Art Journaling

I have been absorbed into the wonderful world of art journaling. Yes that’s where I’ve been – swept away into this magical colourful place and covered in coloured pencil scribblings, watercolours, ink and acrylic paint- oh, and tons of gesso!

I’ve been busy with a few online classes this year…

I heart drawing (Jane Davenport)

I then discovered that I should have done Supplies Me first –so I went backwards…

Then Jane started a new magical class on 30 April called Joynal…

These classes are so amazing and easy to follow along – click on the links to find out more.

I’ve also started 21 Secrets which features classes by 21 artists all sharing their passion for art journaling. (Jane Davenport also has a class there called “Frolicaholic”).

Then from 21 secrets I also found Gina Armfield and started an online live watercolour class called Creativity in Flight…

So now you know why I haven’t blogged much – I’ve been totally carried away by the artsy fairies.

Here’s a few pics of my art journal that I’ve started with for the Joynal class with Jane Davenport. I am having loads of fun being messy while transforming this old children’s book into my new art journal…

My plan is to finish Joynal and Creativity in Flight and then go back and complete the assignments for the other classes. Well, that’s the plan. I’m trying to discipline myself so I don’t go rushing into another class quite yet.

Will be sharing some of my artwork from these two classes soon…

Vxx

Autumn in April

The little sign on the postcard below says “Guess who’s sending this to you”. Well, guess who is actually writing a blog post? Yip – I am!

I have The Graphics Fairy permanently on my internet homepage and this rather funny postcard popped up for April 1st. Isn’t that fish funny? It’s like a carrier fish I guess (as in carrier pigeon?).

My birthday also happens to be April 1st (I know- funny ha! ha!) My kids even managed to prank me yesterday on my birthday! Shocking!

One reason I haven’t blogged in a while is that my internet has been so erratic lately! It simply goes off-line at whim. I discovered the problem has to do with my noisy crackling landline which then naturally interferes with the ADSL signal. {sigh!} It got fixed a week ago, and 2 days after, it went all crackly on me again. So here I am crossing fingers and thumbs that the signal holds out (and that dear old Telkom fixes the problem again soon!).

I must tell you what else has kept me very busy…

I have been doing an online drawing course. (Well- trying to do it in between internet signals!)

The course I started is called “I (heart) drawing” by Jane Davenport.  About a 1/4 of the way in, I discovered I should have done her “Supplies Me” course first – so I stopped the first one and started with “Supplies Me”.

“Supplies Me” is, well, all about getting the most from your art supplies & finding which media you enjoy best. Jane’s classes are fabulous – funny and filled to the brim with valuable information with loads of tips. She takes you through different media like pencils, watercolour, acrylics etc. and then with each week of the 8 week course, you learn to draw faces and figures – Jane’s way. Now let me tell you, Jane’s method of creating figures & faces out your head – be it whimsical or more realistic drawings- is so easy to follow and made such a change to the way I approach my art.

The best part is that even if you are not natural at drawing, perhaps you are simply just ‘creative’ rather than ‘artistic’, Jane will be able to teach you how to draw! The bottom line is practise.

After finishing ‘Supplies Me’, I will go back and complete “I heart drawing”. This is more of a detailed look at drawing figures – especially stylised fashion figures as well as faces.

Jane will also be doing a new course from 30 April which is all about drawing fairies and other mythical creatures. In the course you also create your own fairy tale. I am itching to start that one!!

Here are a couple of the drawings I’ve done in my journals in mixed media:

in pencil on plain paper:

and more mixed media…

If you are interested in Jane’s courses, take a peek at her blog:

http://www.janedavenport.com/

Online craft class…

Hi there crafting friends. I just thought I had to tell you about an online self-paced class that is starting on 12 November 2010.

My blogging friend, Bonnie, is running a really fun class :

“A Pocket full of Posies”

She will be teaching the art of making various types of flowers from fabric, felt, crochet etc. I love the variety!

To find out more, click on the image below to be directed to her blog…

Please join me, I’m signing up!

Under Construction

I am finally 'getting it'! Blog designing is not rocket science once you learn to play around a bit. I enjoy making use of Blogger's basics and getting it to do what I want! One of which is the Navbar I've finally figured out how to do. So go ahead and start clicking to be redirected to specific areas on my blog. Watch this space as I'll be upgrading it it soon now that I've figured out how to get it there!

I'm still busy with the Blog Design course "Bling up your Blog" at the Little Light Studio. What fun! I love this creative site. Kayla Aimee and Wilna are really talented and artsy and explain everything so well - so go one and click on their button which you'll find in the left side-bar of my blog.

Do pop in again to see how my blog changes as it is still Under Construction!

This weekend we went away to Buffalo Thorn Lodge in the Pilanesberg near Sun City. This was our second visit and we really enjoyed it. The accommodation was superb and the kids had fun with their cousins. The highlight was finding a pride of 5 lionesses having their lunch! They had caught a Wildebees, we estimate around 2 hours before we saw them, and were devouring the last of it. They weren’t too keen on the vehicle and the one dragged the carcass further into the long grass where they could eat in peace. Fortunately we could still see them when they stood up.

 

One thing we decided after our visit is that we are so spoiled at Olifants being able to drive around when we choose and also the landscape there is so beautiful , nothing can compare in our humble opinion.

The weather lately has been cold and wet to say the least! We have had such a lot of rain, so unusual for late April. At Buffalo Thorn, getting there was quite a feat! Take  a look at the car!

We literally drove sideways in parts! The mud got into the rims of the wheels and the car shuddered all the way home each time we exceeded 90km/hr! So now we’ll have to have the tyres removed and cleaned out. At least we got some real mud on the “Rangey” which normally only sees city driving with the odd pothole here and there!

Today is a public holiday and Leon’s sister, Denise is visiting from the USA so his mom and Denise are coming to us for lunch. The weather is still cold and wet – real comfort food weather! So I think we’ll have a roast chicken with potatoes & veg (which Leon has offered to cook! Yay!!) and I’ll follow it up with good old-fashioned South African Malva Pudding…