Wednesday 30 March 2016

Glimpses of Jesus 13

Glimpses of Jesus in the Old Testament is a year long bible study written by Simon Clay of Jubilee Church Solihull.   You can join in at any time.

Today's post is about the curse of the Cross in Deuteronomy 21:22-23.

I did an even more simple drawing than last week!  Using the Stabilo pencil again, I sketched the three crosses.   I used a wet brush again for the shading.  I wrote Blessing with a Pitt Brush Pen which I also used for the red cross through the word Law and for the blood drops.  The word blessing doesn't stand out much so I may go round it with a white pen.


Do have a look back through the posts on the Glimpses of Jesus blog where you will find links to other people's art and poetry.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

Monday 28 March 2016

Looking for my voice

On Facebook, Hilary Beattie challenged me to post a piece of my artwork everyday for 7 days.  Today is day 5.

I thought to make life simpler I would find photos of 7 pieces of work and keep them in a folder on my computer so I could post one every day without having to search for something.

This was a piece I made on a Hilary Bower workshop.

This piece is called The Prophet's Mantle and is loosely based on Exodus 28.

This piece is probably called Alpha & Omega and was made at a workshop taught by Yvonne Morton.

This is a mixed media piece from one of my journals.

This is a collage I did at a workshop with Seth Apter.  I still haven't decided whether it is finished.

I made these tags at a workshop at The Bramble Patch taught by Angie Hughes.

And this is another mixed media piece that was pubished in Art Journal Kickstarter.

You may remember I talked recently about what I had learned from my month of sketchbook work in February: what did I learn?

Seth Apter wrote this excellent article: 7 ways to own your own voice. His 7 ways are Play, Step Out, Play Favourites, Obsess Less, Keep a style file, Journal It, and Four Score.

What themes could I see once I'd chosen the seven pieces of work shown above?
1. layers
2. pastel colours mostly or neutrals
3. lots of 'white space' - even if it isn't white
4. text

What themes do you see in these pieces of work?

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice



Friday 25 March 2016

Busy, busy!

I spent last weekend with friends at Art from the Heart.  The weekend actually started on Thursday.

I spent a couple of hours at the NEC on the Thursday morning having a quick gallop around the show that was on and then helping Steph Redfern on her stand.  To begin with there weren't many people around so I had a great time talking to Steph which was really helpful.

Then I drove up to Harrogate where as I was early, I visited Harlow Carr Gardens.   I've been a couple of times before but not at this time of the year.  The light was fantastic for taking photos.







Friday's workshop was called The Creative Scroll.  Dina is extremely generous in sharing ideas, knowledge and experience in these workshops which is why I love them so much.

I started work on my scroll with the canvas this way.

But this is the almost finished piece.  This is how far I got on Friday.  It now needs some writing on it and some stitching.

And a close up

Saturday's class was Finding Joy in Abstraction.  Dina led us through a variety of exercises and then we did one larger piece.  When I showed it Roger he asked me if it was the right way up!

After lunch we were given a stretched canvas each.   I started working on mine this way up.

But then decided it was better this way.   It still needs some work doing to it but it was still wet 

And on to Sunday which was a journal making class.  I love Dina's way of working - she gives you a pile of papers and gives out instructions for a technique and through the morning you end up with bits like this.


And then in the afternoon you assemble it all and it ends up like this:

I think the book is also still a work in progress.  It would benefit from some stitching on it.  I have a new-to-me sewing machine just waiting to be used.  I've had it 6 months and only once switched it on to see if it was ok.  I'm not sure why I have struggled with actually putting it up on the table and using it.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice



Wednesday 23 March 2016

Glimpses of Jesus 12

Glimpses of Jesus in the Old Testament is a year long bible study written by Simon Clay of Jubilee Church Solihull.   You can join in at any time.
Today's post is about the bronze serpent that Moses had made in Numbers 21:4-9

Still with my theme of keeping the journalling simple, I drew two crosses using a Stabilo pencil. I drew a snake round one of the crosses.  I used a paintbrush and some water to shade the drawings.  I wrote between the two crosses.

Do have a look back through the posts on the Glimpses of Jesus blog where you will find links to other people's art and poetry.

Thanks for stopping by.

Bernice

Wednesday 16 March 2016

Glimpses of Jesus 11

Glimpses of Jesus in the Old Testament is a year long bible study written by Simon Clay of Jubilee Church Solihull.   You can join in at any time.

Today's post is about the Atonement from Leviticus.

Simon explains how the Atonement offering was made and the use of the 'scapegoat'.

Still keeping my journal entries simple, I found a photo I had taken of a goat peering over a hedge at me, and added sticker letters for the words.

Do have a look back through the posts on the Glimpses of Jesus blog where you will find links to other people's art and poetry.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

 

Friday 11 March 2016

Know Your Why

You may remember that my One Little Word for 2016 is Purpose.   I wrote about in this blog post: Purpose.  I had great intentions of getting to grips with the word via various books, videos and studies and apart from the one of the exercises in the Reflections class I have done none of it.

And then this week, this video turned up on my Facebook newsfeed.


And it started me thinking.

Do I know my why?  Do I know my what?   If my what currently is mixed media and textile art then why am I doing it?

I believe we have seasons - not the four seasons in the year - but times for certain things to happen.  There is a famous passage in the Bible about this:  Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven -
A time to give birth and a time to die;
A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.
A time to kill and a time to heal;
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
A time to weep and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn and a time to dance.
A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.
A time to search and a time to give up as lost;
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear apart and a time to sew together;
A time to be silent and a time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate;
A time for war and a time for peace.

I think that our purpose has seasons - we have times where our activities fulfil a certain purpose and then we move on to something else.

I believe that there are some purposes in my life that are on going:
To be the best wife that I can be
To be the best mother that I can be
To be the best friend that I can be

However I also think there are other purposes or plans that God has for me now and in the future - although currently I don't know what they are.  I trust God to reveal them in his timing which is never the same as mine!

But I wonder whether sometimes I am doing the what without seeking the why first.

This month's assignment for One Little Word was to make a vision board.  So I cut out words and pictures from magazines that 'spoke' to me and collaged them together.

I enjoyed putting it together but sadly it didn't help with the why!

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice


Wednesday 9 March 2016

Glimpses of Jesus 10

Glimpses of Jesus in the Old Testament is a year long bible study written by Simon Clay of Jubilee Church Solihull.   You can join in at any time.

Today's post is about the Lord, our healer from Exodus 15:22-27.

I am trying to keep each page of my journal simple and easy to do.

For today's page I took one of the Bible verses that Simon quotes in the blog post and used a Sunkissed font, different sizes and colours to print out a page to glue into my journal.


Do have a look back through the posts on the Glimpses of Jesus blog where you will find links to other people's art and poetry.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice



Monday 7 March 2016

More gothic than Venice

On Thursday Roger & I went to St. Albans - a place we had never visited before.  It has the most amazing cathedral.  I don't much care for cathedrals but this one had medieval wall paintings and tremdous architecture which reminded me of my Venice sketchbook and Michelle Ward's gothic stencils.


Some of the brickwork patterns reminded me of La Mezquita in Cordoba.



And this made me think of interesting decay in textile pieces.


I belong to Workshop on the Web created by Maggie Grey.  Each month there are several textile ideas form a variety of artists.  In the March issue Gillian Cooper provided a phototutorial on 'A mixed-media approach to surface design' which involved gelli plate printing on fabric.

I love gelli prints but usually do mine on a variety of paper surfaces.  So I had a go and ended up with these two lovely pieces of fabric.


The first prints of each of these came out really dark so I took each piece and using cellulose glue put a layer over the top.

This is the original piece of fabric and a piece of repair tissue

which combined to be this and I added some extras.

 These two - fabric and teabag paper

combined into this image.

At present I'm not sure where this will lead but I am planning to try some sketchbook work!  Shock, horror!

I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice


Saturday 5 March 2016

February Sketchbook Challenge - what did I learn?

I have blogged weekly about the contents of my sketchbook for the Sketchbook challenge.  You can see the results here: week 1week 2week 3week 4

These are the pages I did on the last two days.

Day 28
A collage of painted papers, a photograph, a picture from a magazine, map paper and book paper.

Day 29
Two small collages with more of a textile feel.

So what have I learned from the 29 days?
1. That it's a good idea to work for a short time every day.   It gets the creative juices going.

2.  That I really enjoyed working with a muted and small colour range.   These are my favourite pages.

3. That I still haven't found my 'voice'.   I may have found the colours to work in but not the work that I want to do.

4. I started the monthly challenge wanting to do something with seedheads but soon found that the leaf stencil dominated.  I also found that I don't really want to work with seedheads.  There's some beautiful work out there from various artists and I was influenced by their work to a certain extent but I need to find my own style and subject.

On Tuesday night I went to a talk by Amanda Hislop and she does some amazing work.  She works with a very limited and muted colour palette on landscapes, seascapes and seedheads - particularly cow parsley.   She showed how she works from her initial idea through her sketchbook to the finished piece.  The sketchbooks were amazing (works of art in themselves) and that led me to my fifth learning point.

5. I've known this a long time but sometimes you need to see it to get it: you have to put effort into it!  Amanda's sketchbooks were full of drawings and experiments.  Sometimes a drawing was only minimally different from the previous drawing.  Her finished pieces were excellent due to the amount of preparation work she had done in her sketchbooks.

So where does that leave me?
I've no idea to be honest but I shall spend time thinking about it and continuing with what I do now until I can really get to grips with the things I've learned.

What have you learned recently about your creative way of working?

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice


Thursday 3 March 2016

February

In January I told you how I am combining my One Little Word, 'I am' tags and my Unplanner all in one binder.

I managed to keep up with February although some days I didn't do anything other than art so at the end of the month I printed out some small photos of the pages of my February Challenge Sketchbook.

February Divider
I planned to put a large photo of snowdrops on this page and at one point thought I might have to find a photo from a previous year.  However we eventually did go out and find some.

Week 1
The theme for the I am statements for February was  'Made in the image of God'.  I don't usually include photos of peoplein my art but managed to do it this time on each tag.


Week 2


The List Ten for this month was about things I shouldn't have done and one of the art challenges was Gratitude so I decided to list 10 things I'm thankful for.

Week 3

Week 4

One Little Word
The assignment for February was to practice something everyday and record it.  I used my February sketchbook as my art practice everyday.

I damaged my back at the beginning of the month and wasn't able to do the Salsa exercise I had planned to do.  I was eventually able to do short walks.  The back is ok now so hopefully in March I will be able to exercise more frequently.  Just have to find the motivation!


Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice