Wanderlust 2026 - First seven weeks - roots and wings

The art journal course I have been doing for several years is well underway and the theme was 'roots and wings'.  It has moved to intermediate skills and slightly away form always being pages in a journal.  However, I am keeping my work in a journal because I don't have space for 'things' to be on display.  It will be a challenge for some weeks, transferring 3D to 2D, but that will be fun in itself.  As last year, I won't show every week, just the weeks I particularly enjoyed.  Above was week one, where we were encouraged to use a big sheet of paper and be free, then cut it down.  I enjoyed making all the swooping brush marks.

This week was about someone who inspired us, so I made a tribute to my Granny. There are scanned watercolour paintings from when she was at school as well as a watercolour from when she was in Australia.  I have inherited a love of art and nature from her as well as enjoying sewing.  

Creating natural dyes was the focus of this week. I used walnut ink, tea and the bright yellow is turmeric. 

I so enjoy making books and journals too, so this week was really right up my street.  My little book has a pocket to live in.  We were encouraged to think about our dreams and what we hope for ourselves in the future.

This is the front with a handmade bird stamp, texture paste and a little fabric collage. The binding thread is decorated with beads.

Inside the book are pages including stamps, material, cut outs, tracing paper pages and quotes.

Found poetry on the left and a material flap on the right...

...which shows the word dream through a cut out page.

More stamps.

A final quote.  More to come in my next post.