Wanderlust 2026 - weeks fourteen to twenty-six - Paper Alchemy (part two)

Here are the other pages I particularly enjoyed making from the Paper Alchemy theme of the art journaling course.  Above is a collage of printed vellum, magazine transfers onto sticky tape, material, and photos. It was all about our past. 

We made 'paper leather' for this lesson, using packaging paper and coating it with a mixture of acrylic paint and glue. For some pieces, we added oil and scrunched it up and flattened it out many times which gave it a very 'leathery' feeling.  We also encased thread and sequins in tissue paper, which was rather messy, but fun!

As I make cards, making these cards was right up my street.  Abstract painting, painting an animal (our much missed cat, Scruffy) and then painting the background for one and finally using packaging to make a collage card.  

I used a matcha chocolate wrapper.

Watercolour flowers with added tissue paper foliage and gold accents worked really well.  Painting in the background made the flowers pop.

I did another version in watered down acrylics which worked well, but seems to have lost a bit of expression/spontaneity along the way.  I still like it though!

Making bunting using paper and material was a really enjoyable week.  I chose to make a single piece so that it could go in my journal. Alcohol inks on the gel plate made some lovely papers.

Finally for this theme was looking at the Japanese art of Kintsugi - taking something (usually a ceramic) which has got broken and then mending it, highlighting the cracks with gold.  Crackle paste came out to play here.  The photo in the centre is of Tupholme Abbey.

The crackle paste worked really well.  Our next theme is 'Stories Unfolded' - I think this may be another good one for me!