Up North!

Last weekend I went to Yorkshire - known to the locals as God's Own Country.   I was going to a weekend class with Dyan Reaveley at Art from the Heart.  I decided that rather than sit in a traffic jam on the M1 on Friday afternoon I would drive up in the morning and visit York.   I left the car at a Park & Ride and took the bus into the city centre.

I have been to York before so I concentrated on visiting Fairfax House which I hadn't been to before but had seen on the television.

Unfortunately there was a ban on photography in the house but I did manage to sneak this one of the window on the main staircase.

I went for a boat trip on the river.

And saw about 50 or more geese going for a walk.

Then it was off to the hotel in Harrogate, dinner and the start of the workshop on Friday evening.    The workshop was called 'Expanding the Page' and was described as being 'Not for the faint hearted!'

At the start we were given one of Dyan's square journals and we were off - tearing pages out as a starter!  And then cutting a wavy line on several pages which produces this effect:

We didn't add the paint until the next day.

Over the weekend Dyan introduced us to old favourites and new techniques, showing us how she works when she starts a new journal.

We had a great time chatting, discussing, laughing, eating and oh yes - painting and spraying pages.  We also cut things out, pasted them in, and generally just played.  We weren't allowed to think about what each page might be.  The whole point was to have as many pages as possible having a background with random things stuck on so that whenever I want to journal I can just open up the book and journal.

On Monday and Tuesday I carried on with the pages - painting those I hadn't managed at the weekend, doodling and generally playing.

I took these two pages out because I wasn't very enamoured with them

And I stuck one or two pages in the journal together because I didn't like them at all.  I expect I could have gessoed over them but I didn't.

Here's a flip through my journal.

I bought another square journal and I hope to make another one using all the same techniques and principles but using other colours.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

Glimpses of Jesus 24

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 David's Psalm foreshadowing Christ's death and resurrection.  (Psalm 16)

I used a photograph I had taken of decaying stone in the Cathedral in St Albans earlier this year and added the words using Publisher.

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
 

Studio Day

The last time I worked on my Venice project was during a studio day at Ineke Berlyn's studio.   I wrote about the last time and here's an update.

It's such a privilege to be able to use Ineke's studio at Littleheath Barn.  Today Ineke's daughter Liske was in attendance as well so we had double the input.

Last time I had decided I was going to make a book with my fabric.

This time I decided I wanted to make each piece smaller and not make it into a book.  I cut the intended pages down to 7 inches square.

Then I chose bits of paper and fabric to glue down on the squares.

When the glue was dry I stamped and printed on top. They are now ready to stitch.

I managed to spread myself across a whole table big enough for 4 people to work at!

A fabulous day and I feel I achieved something.  Just need to keep up the momentum and stitch!

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice