Wanderlust 2025 - part three

Here are my favourite pieces from the last twelve weeks of the art journaling course, Wanderlust 2025.  The broad theme was 'Storytelling' and within that, we had 'Journaling', 'Capturing Moments' and 'Taking Inspiration'.  Above was all about gratitude and using different ways to capture things we were grateful for.  I used a die I bought earlier this year to make the mini clipboard and a die for the paperclip. 

More journaling opportunities with this page. I used a napkin for the flowers.  Simple, but enjoyable. 

I think this was a 'capturing moments' lesson.  We used a photo and then drew the image on tracing paper.  The flower is one of my cosmos flowers. 

I used magazine transfer for this page.  The magazine images didn't really like the textured watercolour card page, but it gives a faded and worn look , which I like.  The images are of the Eden project in Cornwall and views of Florence and Rome, all places I have visited. The birds stamp is one I have cut from lino and it is one of my favourites to use.  The word is also a transfer, using magazine letters onto sticky tape, which was a new technique to me.

Memories of a holiday to Egypt turned into the next page, with tickets, money, and photos.

We looked at Expressionist artists as the inspiration for this piece.  We were asked to just go with our intuition and not worry what the image was going to be.  You can see the Van Gogh influence in the lines here, I think.  I am still not sure what the three hill shapes mean, but I enjoyed the process of this one. I think the face is somewhat enigmatic too.  

We chose a favourite poem or song lyric as the inspiration for this page.  Mine is 'The Way through the Woods' by Rudyard Kipling.  Again, I thoroughly enjoyed the process on this one too and am pleased with the end result. 

Finally, this interesting page.  This is very much in Dyan Reaveley's style (she was the teacher for this one) and she does have a recognisable style in her work.  She told us about something she does every six months or so, which is to go through magazines and pull out pictures which appeal. It should be an intuitive process. My pictures include cake, gardening equipment, flowers, a woman reading, a pen, a vase, a mug, some blue glass, a cat face, a silk scarf and some jewellery.  It depends what magazines you have used for the images you might find.  I loved creating the collage, although it took a bit of time to get it right and I had to take a photo of it  before I started glueing things down. 

On to the last twelve weeks of this year's course - the broad theme is 'Leaps and Bounds'.

Wanderlust 2024 - weeks twenty-five to thirty-two - Printmaking

I was looking forward to this theme of the Wanderlust 2024 course and I have enjoyed it. The first week included some rust dyeing which I had not done before, so that was an interesting start.  We incorporated the images into the page.  There was also making a printing block using crumpled packing tape and doing some gel printing.  The focal image was a print from a polystyrene tile which we incised.  I was pleased with how the page came together. 

Week twenty-six was all about carving our own stamps set and we had to create three squares which would be printed over each other.  The next thing was to print a repeat pattern which I found a bit of a challenge and I didn't get it quite right on the finished page, but I still like the end result and enjoyed carving the three stamps.  

I went full on grunge with my next page, using household objects to print on a gel plate.  I used a few lids and a plastic cover from a plug, as well as some bubble wrap.

Creating fern prints was the focus of the next week, using the fern leaves on a gel plate as well as using the leaf as a stamp too. We then had to cut the prints into strips and weave them. 

Making our own foam stamps was the next focus and I liked adding the bright neons to this page which is one of the most vibrant I have made this year.

Making transfer prints from photos and magazines was the technique here.  The photo which I transferred onto a book page (on the left) shows three of my great uncles, around the time of the First World War.

We had to find a photo of a person which appealed to us for the next week. I chose this girl as I like her attitude.  Once she was cut out of the background, we had to fill it in with descriptions of ourselves - Chris provided the words for mine.  We could then add colour to the image and other details as we wanted to. I really enjoyed this page and using old photographs.

For the 'artful musings' week, I chose to create a grid showing some of the techniques I have been using during the course this year.

Our next theme is 'Drawing' so it will be interesting to see what is featured and how I get on.

Wanderlust 2022 - Weeks nine to fourteen - Image transfer and Texture paste

I am really enjoying this year's mixed media art journaling course.  Each block of seven weeks focuses on different media.  This block was about image transfer and texture paste/modelling paste.  The page above has image transfer using gel medium, image transfer using acetone and texture paste through a stencil.  The image transfer using gel medium was a new technique and one which worked well.  The big photo is of my granny's family, the small one is my Dad when he was little and the rather ghostly bride and groom are my Mum and Dad (that transfer was using acetone).

Week ten was all about texture paste.  We made marks in it and then added a tag and images around it.

I loved making this page, which was based around a gel plate transfer using a magazine image and words from a magazine.  Using the monotone colour scheme was not something I would normally choose but I loved it! I also added some mark making tissue paper pieces and stencilled letters in gold, and printed back to front to the collage.

Week eleven involved making our own flower and leaf stamps and using watercolour to stamp into the texture paste - something I had never done before.  The image has ended up with lots of texture, which isn't obvious from the picture.  We also stamped the leaf and flower shapes onto separate papers and used these to create the vase.

Week twelve was all about layers around an image transfer.  I didn't have a family photo big enough for this and as you need a laserprint image for this to work, I ended up choosing a magazine image to transfer using the gel medium technique.  I based the page on some of my Granny's interests which were nature and the countryside.  She knew all about wild flowers and trees and so I have incorporated these into the page.  I also used the leaf and flower stamps I had made from the previous week.

Week thirteen was based about texture paste through stencils onto tissue paper.  I also incorporated collage papers I had made on my gel plate.  this stencil is one of my favourites - It is Klimt Spiral pattern by Stamperia.  I have used it quite a lot since I bought it!  I hadn't intended using my Mum's two favourite colours, turquoise and orange (well, cadmium red acrylic paint actually with a bit of Spiced Marmalade Distress crayon for good measure).

Last week was based around a napkin which was applied around the edge of a page.  The texture paste was used to hold a pressed flower on the central cluster element.  However, my flower is still being pressed!  (I will add it in when it is dried and pressed and if it looks OK).  It's a very happy page.

The next material we'll be exploring is artists' acrylic paints.