mixed media – Page 4 – Basement Studio

Canvas Workshop

It feels like an age since I updated my blog but since life has slowed down slightly (due to the current situation), I’ve found a bit more time to do a few things I’ve wanted to do for a while!

I was fortunate enough to be able to hold a workshop just before everything closed down and self isolation became the norm. It was a requested workshop to create a mixed media canvas. I spent ages wondering which sort of canvas to create seeing as we’ve already done collage, texture and mixed media in the past and I really wanted to create something new.

One of my favorite artists is Flora Bowley. I bought her book a while back called Brave Intuitive Painting and love it.

Intuitive painting is the technique of letting go of your inner critic and letting your heart and hands do the painting. The results can be colourful and lively and full of spontaneous doodles and mark making.

I thought I’d let the others experience this for themselves and gave them the canvas and a few materials to get them started.

As watercolour is my favourite medium to use I created a watercolour background to start, letting the colour flow into pools on the canvas and adding some spray to help it move. If you want to add contrasting colour it’s best to let each colour dry first before adding the next otherwise you’ll end up with dirty colour which you don’t want. Once this was dry I started to add doodles and patterns with watercolour pencils. I used them wet and dry as I loved the texture from the canvas coming through. I further added doodles with white and black pens along with a snippet of text paper collage at the bottom.

It’s already pushed me to get out my art journal and start creating again so while I have some time I intend to make the most of it.

Take care of yourselves and if you’d like to create a canvas of your own you can find the canvas, watercolour pencils and more in the Basement Studio shop.

Jaine xx

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Lots Of Crafty Stuff From The Studio

Well January has been a bit of a mixed bag so far. My lack of blogging has been due to a broken laptop which has gone away to be fixed so I’m left using my tablet for writing which is a slow process and my phone for photos. I’m getting a bit fed up of one fingered typing. My fat fingers keep making mistakes and the auto correct changes my text into something altogether rubbish, sometimes totally inappropriate too.

That’s not good…… Hopefully it’ll come back soon before I go bonkers.

Meanwhile…….having a bit more time on my hands meant I could have a bit of a tidy up in the studio and as a result came across a pile of leather pieces. I’d almost forgotten about them in the back of a cupboard. Given to me by my friend Lena, they originally came from a sofa swatch book so are mostly A4 size but with odd holes and stitching where they were held into the book.

They’re just the right size and stiffness for making into notebook covers like this. I broke four needles sewing the strap on but it was worth the effort.

I’ve made this green one big enough to take four to six notebooks comfortably with a wrap around and button closure. I love it. I might make some more this weekend.

One of my goals for this year is to journal more so last Friday in the studio I did just that and had a blast. I missed the paints and inks alot last year so I intend to bring my journal out as much as possible in 2018.

It was a perfect opportunity too to use my house stamps. After stamping and cutting them out I was happier to leave them uncoloured againsed the crazy background and I think it worked.

For this Friday in the studio I’ve turned to the journal in my travelers notebook where I’m going to start documenting the months. I’ll add some photos, notes, ephemera and stickers and keep it sketchy and informal. It’ll be a place where I can highlight everything which happens during the month plus I can add some arty backgrounds in too.

That’s it for this week. Have a good one and I’ll speak soon.

Jaine xx

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New Projects – Friday In The Studio

Hello there and welcome to the first Friday in the studio of 2018.

Outside its stormy, wet and fairly miserable so I’m happy to be here in the basement with paints and glue.

This has to be my motto for the year “you can do it”. I just need reminding from time to time so here it is on the first monthly spread in my planner.

I think this year I really want to take up more mixed media and journaling again. I didn’t do so much last year instead focussing most of my attentions to making books and planners. I need to add more mixed media into my planners to bring the two worlds together and my sketchbook has been neglected a bit since the beginning of the year when I was adding to it almost daily. I’m really happy that Paper Pen and Plan are running a challenge this month to doodle every day so I’m taking this as an excuse to go a bit further and challenge myself to a small sketch each day. If you want to join in they’re running the challenge via their facebook group. You can find them here https://www.facebook.com/groups/paperpenandplan/ to join the group and join in the challenge.

It’s funny though but since participating in the open atelier just before Christmas and hearing what other people had to say about my work made me think about what it was I was doing and where I was going. I think I’d stopped believing in myself and had given up trying to produce anything in my art journal. For the atelier I’d made lots of mini books for scrapbookers and right at the very end – literally a couple of days before, I decided to make a few blank sketchbook/journal type albums with mixed media covers just to see how they went. Blow me if they weren’t the first books to sell and the response I got was amazing. So just from those few little books I’m now all fired up again to get out the paints and mediums.

Tomorrow is my first blog post for WOW and here’s a little sneaky peek at what’s coming up. I loved playing with texture and adding layers to this project. I’ll show you the full project tomorrow.

Happy Friday everyone, have a good one.

Jaine xx

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Monday In The Studio

I think I should rename Messy Monday to Manic Monday that’s how it’s felt for the past few weeks. After lots and lots of dental treatment mixed with a sinusitis, ear infection and struggling with weeks of deafness in one ear, things are starting to look up and I’m feeling a bit more like me again. Hey, yesterday I opened my journal and put some paint on the page and that’s not been me for ages. Add into the pot some truly dreadful weather, not like Summer at all and a broken laptop thanks to a glass of water and I think the start of my Summer has been at times depressing.

Anyhoo it’s ~~nearly~~ July so things have got to get better, haven’t they?

Big big big news, I have my stamps all ready here to go in the shop. Woo hoo. I just need to package them up and we’re good to go. Here’s a little peek at one of the sets. I couldn’t resist having a little colour in.

The August edition of Craft Stamper magazine came out last week and I’ve a card featured in the 3D Challenge pages this time. To be honest I’d forgotten about this one seeing as we work so far in advance for print so when it came it was a pleasant surprise. The whole mag this month is full of cards just to show that mixed media isn’t all about canvases and journals.

As I said the weather has been absolutely apalling in June so every minute without rain was a minute spent out doors making the most of it. It’s always more enjoyable to take everything outside to work. The sun seems to make planning days much easier.

Basement Studio also received a party commission last week to cut shapes to be used in table decorations for a Vegas themed party. I cut 400 shapes to glue onto 200 stems of wire and wired up 100 playing cards. Plus they were all glittered too so as you can imagine there was glitter everywhere. It felt like Christmas.

Hopefully I’ll get time to finish that journal page this week before next Messy Monday.

Have fun

Jaine x

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