april art calendar

Well - how do you like that! Been gnashing my teeth all day trying to work out this frustrating business with the photo's - I shouted at the computer, blamed blogger, blamed the camera (my new one is in Leicester - don't ask - but I'll just add here, it was Andy's fault!)

Anyway, he's been out all day, when he got in I told him I hadn't been able to blog my pages and it was the camera's fault! He walked into my room, clicked a few buttons and ta-da....there they were!

Anyway, the photo's still aren't great but at least the piccies are here. (I'm just posting two because they're not great)

The background is quite dark so I added a few splodges of white paint (Dina Wakely tip)

I made tags for the journal blocks and stapled on some sari ribbon - I like that shabby look with all the loose fibres.

I'll do some more work on it but it's ready for me to start writing tomorrow....




April is a special month for us as it's andy's 11th transplant anniversary on the
17th. We will be going off alone for a time of reflection as we do every year.
When he first had the transplant back in 1999, we were told a transplant can prolong your life between 5 and 7 years....here he is 11 years later and his liver results are excellent! We feel very blessed and thankful to God, hence the celtic cross to denote our faith.

Aaaargggh!

I have just wasted I don't know how long messing about trying to get pictures uploaded to my blog and all I'm getting is a load of jumbled writing!

I did try to post something last week but the same happened and I thought it was something I'd done but didn't have time to go through it to see what was wrong.

As soon as I get this problem sorted I'll show you the finished March page in my art calendar for Kate's 365 challenge and the April pages ready to go.

Just thought I'd let you know I'm still here when you pop by!

The Age of the Storyteller

Yep, another sleepless night. Another journal page. Its weird though, I still get up at the same time!
I think I need to tweak this a little but I enjoyed putting these thoughts to paper. Nothing deep, just observations, but they've been chunkling around in my head forever, now they are committed to painty paper!

I had cut the image out at some point and saved it in my saving drawer (which is FULL by the way!) As I was rifling through it last night, there was the puppet master peeking at me through the curtains, saying "choose me". So I did because I knew they fitted my thoughts perfectly!

Lastly, I'm sure THIS will brighten your day, it certainly brightened mine when I received it in an email from a friend.

Sanity for the soul!

Another sleepless night nudged me into a bit of art journaling. I did wrestle with the idea though, because I thought if I got the paints out, it wouldn't be a 'quick' play, like my last page (which was a doodle page where I added bits each evening and could play as long or as little as I wanted)



So this is what my overloaded mind led me to create last night while you were sleeping!

How goes it with you?

I thought I'd post a few pictures of some of the things I've been up to this last week.

Check out this piccie of my ancestors! I'm not only pleased that I have this fab photo, I'm fascinated by their footwear... I used to own a pair of those pointy almost ballet like shoes in my youth when I trekked all over the country to Northern soul events! (I got them from a charity shop and they were in good 'nick' - also, they were great to dance in!)

I used the photograph on a vintage layout at the scrapclass I teach at the Craft Box at Elsecar Heritage Centre - subject "Ancestors" We had a great time talking about our heritage and everyone thoroughly enjoyed the class (and I'm proud of you Helen, you jumped in with both feet and scrunched that paper up even though you prefer 'neat'!)

We made tags using transfer images - this was the quietest part of the class - in fact it freaked me a little because everyone was SILENT! (would have been a different tale if Janet's sister, Ann had been there....)

This is Karen's creation. Everyone loved the technique, (the proof was in the silence!) so I'm sure it will be used again in the near future!

Look at this - everyone on task - they might talk a lot but they get on with their work too!

I really enjoy the classes, I've been teaching there for over five years now and some of the students have been with me nearly all of that time... it's a community in itself.

Most Thursdays Andy and I visit our friends Stan and Shelley. Stan is a photographer so he's usually behind the camera... on this particular day, I had my camera on me, so I snapped a photograph of him...

....and Shelley, who was in her PJ's and makeup-less!

On Saturday, Laura-Beth and her fiance (ooh I love saying that!) came for a 'day before Mother's Day' visit. We went for a walk as the day was sunny and crisp - my kind of walking weather!

Jim playing the joker!

I've also spent many hours this week taxi-ing our youngest daughter, Steph, and Uncle Frank around to various appointments - I felt like a prisoner in the car! Its quite alarming how much traffic there is on the roads these days.

Its been a sad week because Uncle Frank has come to the realisation that he won't be able to manage Auntie Glad coming home after all, even with support, so we've had to deal with the emotion of all that and look for a residential care home near to where he lives. There are still issues to deal with and lots of tears for us all. But for now, I feel relief. Does that sound strange? or cruel?

I've managed a page in my A5 art journal. Its a doodley page - because of the kind of week I've had I suppose... the doodling was therapeutic - I did a little work on the page every evening and it soothed me.

The Beatles image has got nothing to do with anything, I just liked it.

Withdrawal Symptoms

Well I can hardly believe where the time has gone. Since my fantastic two days at AFTH with Dina Wakley, I haven't had time to do anything big along those arty lines! (moan)
I've been busy catching up on college work and running too and fro to meetings with Social Services, Mental Health, Doctor's and Care Workers about my Auntie Gladwin. Uncle Frank desperately wants her to come home, so we are working hard to put a care package in place to make that happen.
I took my Mum and Dad to visit at the weekend, its Dad's sister and they look very alike...once, my Dad put on a wig and my sister thought it was Auntie Glad! (she was only little at the time!)

Uncle Frank and Auntie Glad have married for 62 years so you can understand why he doesn't want to be parted from her.... its so sad because I don't know if he will manage to look after her 24 hours a day, even with a care package and me and my sisters not too far away. They are both 84.

The only thing I have managed to create, besides keeping up with Kate's 365 challenge ( yes, Kate, I'm hanging in there - its my 5 minutes peace every day!!) is this for Lynn's birthday - its a voucher for a meal at 'The Walled Garden' at Wentworth Garden Centre.

I like the look of the 'voucher' very much, two of the images are from a collage sheet from artchix, the one in front (yes, I know - they match perfectly!) is from the new Graphic 45 'On the Boardwalk' collection (bathing beauties) The background looked quite good before I covered most of it up!
I love to make these vouchers for friends so they've got something to look at and hold (and I know Lynn will stroke this!) - its much nicer way of saying "I'm taking you out for a meal for your birthday"! Also, Lynn will love this because she loves to escape to Wentworth....she'll just have me for company on that particular day!

The new restaurant is open at the garden centre and it's called 'The Walled Garden', I was captivated by the name because I am following Jill's story about a place she loves and visits often also called 'The Walled Garden' but this is actually a place undergoing renovation. Jill takes fabulous photographs and is telling the story each visit by making a journal incorporating her photo's. I love it. It's inspiring. Go check it out.

Two days of Arting plus Photographic Evidence..

Dina Wakley taught a two day workshop at AFTH this week and I was one of the very happy bunny's who managed to book a place!

(The beautiful smiley girl on Dina's left - which is your right as you look at the photo! - is Mell, who lives just down the road from me in Doncaster)

Look who got to play!!!

Even Dina got to play....well actually, I suppose this is work as she was giving us tips on how to make our journal pages look good! (How lucky is she to have a job that is this much fun!)

Surprise of surprises, my old mate JaneyB was booked on the workshop too, which I didn't know until I arrived, so we sat together and had loads of catching up to do. (At this point I would like to say that we are NOT the people who laughed and caused the ruckus that Dy mentions on her blog!!! - well OK, we were PART of the group of people who laughed and caused a ruckus!)

See below for another member of the rowdy group...yes...it is Sue Roddis (sorry Sue, I only got this photo of you and your eyes are closed!)
The hilarity came because Beatrice had been sat with Sue and Sarah for the whole 2 days and it was only when Dy's delivery of the Craft Stamper mag arrived and she was checking out Sue's latest article that Beatrice screamed "Are you Sue Roddis? Oh I LOVE your blog!!!" We all dissolved into laughter and made fake bowing motions to Sue, who had to deal with all the unwanted attention! (She told us off!)

And look, Dy is still managing to play a bit, even though she had to keep jumping up to do this and that... you know like helping Emmi to make lunch and sort out delivery mistakes and such...

Anyway, here are my pages... Dina helped us to get our "toolbox" together - all the techniques to help us create layered and textured pages. One thing she said that struck me (and she got this from a Lynn Perrella workshop) "You can't get the layers if you don't put in the work!"
So ..... there you have it.... art is work..... So whilst I was having the MOST enjoyable two days...I WAS WORKING!!!

I loved adding the white to the page....Dina is big on white space on a page...in fact I took a piccie of Sarah, Sue, Milliande and me 'worshipping the white space' in Dina's gorgeously gorgeous journal.....which was really us just being daft but I forgot to load it in this post!

Works in progress....

I had a bit of a 'Charlie's Angels' theme going on here .... stage one

....stage two.... I manged to have a bit of a mentoring session here with Dy 'cos I wasn't quite satisfied with it, so we discussed my options... this may become a tryptich in the near future so watch out for it!

See, I put in the work... check out those textured layers!

And here's my other 'Charlie's Angel' piece. Looking at it now the image should have been offset to one side, but hey, I'm still that pilgrim on an art journey and learning all the time!

Thank you, thank you, thank you Dina, I had a fabulous time!

P.S.

Check out the white space in the top LH corner - I am a good student!