It’s the same technique demonstrated in my Stitch a Little Landscape course, very easy and very effective. Any fabric paints will work; acrylic inks will work too.
If you let the fabric partly dry while it’s scrunched up, you get these really attractive watermark effects where the colour settles into the creases:
paint-dyed chiffonpaint-dyed chiffonnice
An unexpected extra – I laid the fabric strips to dry on some packaging paper and now I have free collage paper too:
packaging paper accidentally paint-dyed
Some of the chiffon will end up in sheer fabric scrap packs next month. I’m pretty pleased with these, which is always a good way to end the working week.
There’s lots to explore, from choosing, preparing and painting papers to making your own stamps and stencils, some simple hand-printing techniques, and lots of ideas for using your hand-painted papers.
all this and more
Special early bird price until the end of March, so be quick if you’re interested. You don’t need to enter a code, the special price of £30 is already set at the checkout.
simple mark-making
Classes are pre-recorded, so you can learn at your own pace. You can download the videos to watch later, and you get lifetime access – watch as many times as you like. Enrol before the end of March to take advantage of the Early Bird price.
Rounding up all the scraps of painted paper in a quest to Do Something Useful with them. I’ve been cutting and pasting into an 11″ square sketchbook, and very therapeutic it is too.
From this…
random scraps
to this…
sorted scraps
to this…
mini paintings cut from painted collage papers, approximately 2″ square mini paintings cut from collage papers, approximately 2″ squaremini paintings from painted collage papers, approximately 2.5″ squareapproximately 2″ x 4″same as above
Quietly having a good time. Comments are off for now, to preserve the quiet.
It’s been a difficult few weeks and I needed a couple of days down time, so I’ve taken refuge in some no-pressure sketchbook work.
coloured pencil on acrylic/ink background
I’ve just started Suzanne Allard’s online course 31 Bright and Fun Sketchbook Paintings. I really like Suzanne’s calm and confident teaching style, and I also like seeing how other artists approach their work. The bright florals are not completely my thing but there are plenty of inspiring ideas and techniques to try, and it’s nice to sit back and watch someone else talk you through their approach to their art. And there’s always something new to learn.
My own sketchbook pages are nothing like the ones in the course, but I’ve been trying some of the layering techniques just for the fun of it.
sketchbook pagepen and Inktense crayon on acrylic ink background
Without really meaning to, I often find that my sketchbook pages are full of marks that could feasibly become stitches. Not really surprising, given that drawn marks are mainly dots and lines.
One of the things I’ve discovered is that I no longer enjoy using acrylic paints. The ecological aspect has bothered me for some time (as in acrylic=plastic) but having had a little play with them again I find that I really don’t like the slightly plasticky sheen.
sketchbook page background, gesso/acrylic
Layering or mixing acrylics with gesso makes them less shiny/glossy/plasticky. In the spirit of using what I’ve got, I’ll probably use my existing supply and then not replace them.
I do, however, like acrylic inks – also plastic, but I’m guessing not quite so bad as the paint. I like the inks because they behave like watercolour but they’re not water-soluble once they’re dry so you can easily go over them with other media without disturbing the base layer.
sketchbook background page: gesso and acrylic ink
The problem I have with layered backgrounds is that I end up really liking the base layer as it is and I don’t really want to add anything else on top of it. I’ve therefore ended up with a sketchbook full of nice backgrounds, which is also fine I guess.
I’ve had a little tinker in the watercolour sketchbooks as well.
watercolour mini-sketches
I used low-tack masking tape to divide an A4 page into postcard-sized areas. The marks on the top two were made by dipping a stick in walnut ink and drawing on wet paint.
I’m resolving to make more time for this as it’s something I really enjoy, and besides all work and no play etc. Wishing you an equally playful and creative weekend.
I’m feeling settled enough in our new home to think about starting some new work, and I’ve made a start in a spiral bound square sketchbook that I’ve had for a little while. Sometimes these things only speak to you when they’re ready.
Of course I had to make a cover for it, as I do for most of my sketchbooks. I find it helps to illuminate some of the themes, as well as providing a little extra protection for the contents.
The cover wraps around the spiral binding and meets itself on the front. It’s not my usual colour palette:
wraparound cover for square sketchbook
I’m using a Two Rivers plein air pocket sketchbook, which has alternating pages of watercolour paper and cartridge paper. The pages are about 7.5″ square, so a nice manageable size.
sketchbook cover
I like pockets in sketchbooks. Actually I like pockets full stop. In my youth I went through a phase of wearing men’s vintage jackets purely because of the number and quantity of pockets, which utterly delighted me. I would keep finding extra hidden pockets all over the garment, inside and out. We no longer say the word pockets in our house. We always say pocketses, a la Gollum in The Lord of the Rings.
pocketses are great
I’ve been using the watercolour-paper pages for direct painting, and the cartridge-paper pages for collaging.
So far it’s all very loose and sketchy, blending colours, shapes and words. I’m cutting the words from an old poetry anthology to create found poems, which is helping to navigate the direction.
ink and watercolour on TwoRivers watercolour paper
I don’t know exactly what it’s going to be yet, or where it might be going, but between us (me and the work) we will find a path. Or maybe this is enough. I think it’s leading somewhere, as most things do.
sketchbook page: be prepared
Some of it is already looking like textile work.
probably the beginnings of a quilt
This page is just ink on wet paper with salt sprinkled over it. I enjoy the unpredictability of this kind of work. Play, really.
ink with salt
It’s a voyage of discovery as always, exactly like life. Travelling through time, we never know what will happen next. And yet, on we go.
Recently I rediscovered some work from a couple of years ago, from the pre-blog 100 Days of Winter series (all the pictures are buried on Instagram if you can be bothered to go back that far. 2019/20 I think it was). I sold some, gave some away, and still have a few left, which I’ve started reworking.
Work old and new, 4” square
I’m in the process of writing/creating an online course showing how to make these, and spent an engaging hour or so this morning experimenting with colouring some fabric scraps.
Painting some scraps
I’ve used watercolour, acrylic ink, and Dye-na-Flow fabric paints. An additional extra was accidentally creating some collage paper by using painted paper as a drop sheet.
Drop sheet collage paperBlues and greens, land and skySketchbook page with scraps
During a routine dental check-up some years ago, my Greek dentist once caused me some alarm by announcing that he was going to begin his autopsy. Noticing my rabbit-in-headlights expression, he calmly explained the etymology – the Greek translation of the word is something like ‘seen for myself’. I’m not the most relaxed dental patient and it was helpful to have this (slightly nervous) laugh at the time.
And of course, seeing for yourself is always the best way to learn. I drew some masking fluid on a page of my colour palettes sketchbook before adding watercolour. And – surprise – it doesn’t work.
note to self: masking fluid doesn’t work on this paper
You can see where it was, and it does act as a resist of sorts, but it doesn’t rub off in the normal way when the paint is dry. It lies underneath as a separate layer and sinks into the paper rather than sitting on the surface. I’ve added some pen marks over the top to enhance the effect here and there. I don’t know if it’s because this paper hasn’t been sized, or whether the surface is just too soft. The reason doesn’t really matter; the fact is it doesn’t work as I’d expected. But now I know, having seen for myself.
watercolour and pen on soft cotton rag paper
As always, I can see some of these designs working in textiles with stitch, but for now it’s just an exercise on paper. It’s been a hectic week, and paint on paper is one of my best ways to relax and recover some equilibrium.
I use a separate small square sketchbook for testing paint colours before committing to the thing in progress, and I really like the little abstract compositions that happen purely by accident:
testing, testing – and yes, masking fluid DOES work on cartridge paper
Another long bank holiday weekend here in the UK – whatever your plans are, enjoy some time out.
Sketchbook-making, obviously. I prefer to make my own because I like to vary the paper content and size of the pages. Readymade sketchbooks are usually variations on A4 and I don’t always like the proportions.
sketchbooks, newly made
The little book with the wraparound cover below is for experimenting with various forms of ink. I have acrylic ink, ink/stamp pads, inktense blocks, and a few distress crayons, plus the more obvious drawing pens etc.
little book of ink
Just somewhere to try dripping, blotting, stamping, stencilling etc with various kinds of ink. My favourite thing so far is drawing with a little twig dipped in ink.
monochrome ink swipe with twig as drawing tool
The spread below was made by sponging yellow/purple ink onto damp paper and then using the twig to draw in the green marks. A few random splatters is always very satisfying.
ink used loosely like watercolour
I also quite like the distress crayons, which you can smudge with a bit of water. This is the wrong kind of paper really (it’s very soft cotton rag), as it won’t stand up to too much rubbing. I’ll probably try this again on more robust paper.
Tim Holtz distress crayons smudged with water
I made more sketchbooks than I will use, so I’ve added a handful or so to the shop.
In my new life of freedom from the nine to five treadmill, I’m trying to set aside Fridays for research and development (AKA playing).
I was given these beautiful super-granulation Schmincke watercolours for Christmas but have been really busy since January and I’ve been trying to set aside some time to try them. It turns out today was the day.
Schmincke super granulation watercolour set ‘Forest’
I’m no great watercolourist but what I like most about watercolour paints is that it’s quite hard to make anything look ugly. I really like the granulation effect.
Watercolour sketches, about 2” x 4”Single colour sketch, wet on wet, lines made with a stickIn progress
Apart from splashing a bit of paint around last week while on annual leave, I’ve also made a start on setting up a shop on RedBubble. It’s a print-on-demand site where you upload your work, then people can purchase it in various forms (stickers, T shirts, phone cases, etc), and you get 10-20% of the sale price.
New shop on Red Bubble
It’s still very much a work in progress, and I will be adding to it/tweaking it over the next few weeks and months. Just dipping a toe in the water to see how it goes. It may work and it may not, but you never know unless you try these things.
I’m also teaching myself to use Procreate, a digital drawing app. It is fun and frustrating, as well as surprisingly absorbing. I have probably had too much screen time and not enough stitching time recently, but it will balance itself out eventually. New things always take longer than you expect.
My shop banner is very simple but I quite like it.
Simple banner made in Procreate using a photo of a silk embroidered moon
Most of all this past week I have enjoyed the freedom of not having to go out to work, and the luxury of time to do some of the things I’ve been wanting to do for a while. Time is one of the most precious things we have and last week it was all mine.
