Redbubbleartparty

Redbubble are running a little competition on instagram, so I thought I'd join in.
I browsed for photos that people were submitting to the challenge with the idea an artist would come along and transform / develop their image.
Here's the original photo and my finished piece as a repeated pattern and as the pattern template - well, most of it. I removed some of the pattern edge to make copying it more tricky.

Bluebell Woods workshop ready for bookings!

Come and paint your very own Bluebell Wood!
Saturday 19th March 2016
2 - 4.30pm
Acorn Wellbeing Centre, Hemel Hempstead Old Town
All materials, including your canvas, are included for £25

The smaller painting is my original and the larger one is a slightly simplified version for us to use as a model in our guided painting sessions. 

The sessions, as always, will be suitable for beginners (and terrified!). I will guide you gently, step by step.


If you have been to other workshops you will be suitably challenged. It's a small step up in terms of skills and there is a great deal of scope for making your own mark with this one.

See the events and workshops page for more details 

Or contact me to book a space - a deposit is necessary to secure your place.

I look forward to seeing you there: and seeing the masterpieces you will create!

Bluebell wood - Acrylics workshop

This is a quick painting I did as preparation for a bluebell wood guided painting.
The painting I use as a guide will have similar colours and composition, but with a few tweaks.

• This was painted with acrylics  - using process yellow, process cyan, process magenta and titanium white
• on A3 watercolour paper: in the class we will paint on canvas around A4 size 
• I'll rationalise the steps, as at the moment it will take too long for a workshop.

Please contact me (see 'contact me' page, in the side bar) 
and I'll keep you posted with when workshops become available
or ask for a quote for a private group / party session.

Exploring repeating patterns - I've been 'guest blogging'!

As a child I was fascinated by repeating patterns on wallpapers, wrapping paper and fabric. I spent hours trying to find where each one started and stopped and trying to workout what sort of weird shape was being used to make the seamless tessellation. I was in awe of the creativity and wizardry that made it happen. 
My curiosity never really abated and being part of the wonderful 52 Week illustration challenge on facebook has spurred me into action. 

I have written a full tutorial for the #illo52weeks challenge website - it's quite long, but I hope will inspire others to get pattern making. 
  
You can read it here: full tutorial

Here's a walkthrough of my latest pattern: 

The prompt for the challenge was 'swimming'. I  decided that an underwater scene would work well. I dithered about the subject and decided firmly on using Koi. However as you can see, I got distracted by mermaids!
I scrolled through story books and stock images, and made a series of sketches (I also made sketches of fish to swim with the mermaids, but I had a word with myself).
I used them as a basis for my ink - a brush pen. Taking photos of the pencil work meant I felt freer with my brush strokes. If it had all gone pear-shaped I could have used the photos as a guide for digital drawing.
As it goes, I wasn't too unhappy with it, even though the characters of the mermaids changed a little.






































Pencil lines were erased and the ink drawings were scanned, cropped, layered, flipped and coloured. Backgrounds came and went. The repeats were swapped around to be checked, tweaked, swapped and checked again.



Finally I committed to a pattern template - which I found fault with straight away. I could endlessly make adjustments and it pains me to see things that aren't quite right - but it is a time pit!

So here is the pattern template and the pattern repeated one and half times:



It is available on t-shirts, large silk scarves, duvet covers and a whole a bunch of other stuff in MY REDBUBBLE STORE

Cross hatching

I recently did a scheme of work with my year 5 class focusing on texture, tone and value.
We looked at various techniques, including cross hatching. 
I have used cross hatching in my own art, but not for a while, and never using charcoal and chalk for a portrait: so here we are.
A2 sugar paper.

I don't know who this is, the stimulus was an image from the internet.

London Photo Day: Regents Place Art

I had a photo day in London with virtual friends from a photo sharing group on facebook - 

I have uploaded them in sets onto flickr. Here are a few pictures from Regents place including work by Anthony Gormley and Julian Opie.

Here's the link to my flickr stream: Regents Place Art

And here are a couple to whet your appetite

Melted Crayon Art

I have to say at the outset that this is not my idea - it is all over Pinterest and other crafty sites.

Most people line their crayons up very carefully in a straight line but my daughter wanted something more 'free' so ours is quite random.

We also decided not to let all the colours run off the canvas so the finished piece is more minimal than most.
I am hooked and want another go!

This is a great project to do with your children (over 8 I think). You get to use a hot glue gun and hot air - either from a hair-drier or hot air gun which is fun for all of us. I did this very much as a joint project with my daughter, sharing the creative decisions was really good, and very interesting for me as I curbed my artistic control tendencies!


What you need:

• Crayons
• Good glue (I used a hot glue gun)
• Hot air (hair drier or hot air gun)
• Canvas
• Splatter mat or newspaper

What to do:

• Cover the floor with the newspaper - there will be splatters and dripping wax
• Line up the crayons along the top edge of your canvas and experiment with how you order the colours
• Glue the crayons in place
• Support the canvas at an angle with an easel if you have one or just prop it up against the wall
• gradually heat the crayons til they start to sweat and then work on a few crayons at time as they start to drip
• Enjoy yourselves! The moment the crayons start to drip is ridiculously fun :-)

Next time I will use more colours and pack them in more closely, I will also melt more of the wax and fill the canvas with more colour.
After more experimenting I intend to stick to a smaller range of colours and also make more deliberate pictures like these:

Source: i.imgur.com via Vuka on Pinterest

Source: media-cache8.pinterest.com via Elia on Pinterest

And it looks amazing on black!

Source: stressure.wordpress.com via Lindsey on Pinterest

Improve your photography with classical art.

click here for the tutorial at unfocused brain.com

This technique is so easy and so effective - for extreme changes but also for subtle changes to portraits and holiday snaps which don't quite have the impact you hoped - without endless hours of editing and creating multiple layers and masks.

Open the picture with the colour scheme you like into photoshop, let's call it 'art'

Open the picture you want to change, we'll call it 'portrait'

Go to 'image / adjustments / match colour' select the 'art' picture from the spurce drop down menu and fiddle with the settings.

Have a go and have fun!

 Here's a picture of me before a after a 'match colour' process with "L'Olivier" by Georges Braque.

Surrealism Collages

Choosing sessions for art clubs which are self contained in an hour (no storage space!) and are accessible to all abilities and a mixture of ages is not an easy task. I am always determined that after school art club is not just a glorified baby sitting session. I want the children to learn a little bit about art and artists and take home artwork they are proud of. Some people thought introducing Surrealism to children as young as the reception class was over ambitious. I do love a challenge. In the first session I introduced the idea surrealism and Dali without showing them images. The children then used magazine photos to create 'funny people'. I insisted that the more different and mis-matched the heads, torsos and limbs were the better. I was amazed at how rigid even the youngest children can be with their ideas, they are so keen to follow rules once in school that breaking them is incredibly hard, and a bit confusing. This session was designed to release them from those constraints and I think it worked: The following week the children made a dreamscape or an imaginary strange landscape using the same technique as for the strange people. I reminded them about Dali, and showed them some examples of surreal art and a collage I had made. Some of the final pieces are incredible! PS - When I asked a KS1 (reception to year 2) club if anyone had heard of Dali a little scrap of a thing pushed her hand into the air as high as she could with that 'if you don't pick me I'll burst' look, her long and detailed answer (which was correct in it's own way) began like this: "It's a time when people have parties and are happy and light candles..." Clearly the children had been talking about art club during the week. In the second session when I mentioned Dali the whole class chorused: "Dali, not Diwali - Dali!" The loudest, and with the biggest grin, was the little one who had made the mistake.

family learning

What a great way to spend a day. Kings Langley Secondary school has had two days of free art workshops for families. I've been making monsters from socks and flowers from ribbons with children as young as 3 to grandparents who are much older! The feedback was reeally good too - if they're happy, I'm happy! In the summer I ran workshops for Extended Schools making sock monsters, macrame bracelets and paper chefs hats. I really enjoy doing them... I should run my own! Watch this space or contact me if you want an arty party!