Wanderlust 2024 - Weeks one to eight - Brushes and Tools

I have joined Wanderlust 2024 - the year long mixed media journaling course I have done since 2021. This year, there are star supplies which are the focus for eight week blocks. The first of these is Brushes and Tools.  We started with an overview of brushes and then I created the page above.  With life as it is now, resilience seemed like a good word to choose for the year.  We all need some of that. 

The next week was more calm with a focus on watercolour brushes, using a round brush, a fan brush and a rigger brush (with a toothbrush as well), to create the different effects.  It is based on looking into a rock pool.

Week three was all about a palette knife.  I found this quite tricky but kept on going.

Week Four we used gel plates to make collage papers, some of which we added a tea dye to.  I used a photo I had taken as my inspiration for this, but it has a few imagined details too.  I loved creating this collage.

We had to make our own tools for this one. We wrapped bits of sponge around sticks/skewers and used these to make patterns based on nature.  These then became the background collage.  The sponge sticks made fantastic splats (you can see them in the top right and top left corners).

Using a bottle with a fine liner tip was the next tool. We wrote with it and then outlined a face.  I used a stamp to start with, as my face drawing, while improving a lot, isn't quite there yet.

Paper punches were the tool for week seven.  I don't have any except for a one inch circle, but what I do have a lot of are dies. I used these for the different sized circles and to create the paper lace. My focal image is from The Secret Garden and the muted colours of the image, where Mary is finding the door in the wall, worked beautifully with this page.  I enjoyed creating the shading too, using an inktense pencil and water brush.

Week eight was an 'Artful Musings' week, where we heard about organising a studio space from a mixed media artist.  I created this page, again using collage but adding tissue paper, embossing and some stamping.  The face was a stamp which I then added to, with paint and black pen.

Now we are on to Texture, which should be fun!

Brush holders - using what I have

When I am in the midst of creating, with paints and brushes all over the place, invariably a brush will roll across the work space and over whatever I am working on (and it is usually the brush which is coated in paint!)  I decided that something had to be done and had my eye on some nice wooden soapdishes which had grooves in them, just right for putting brushes on.  I showed them to Chris and explained my problem.  He replied "You've got lots of polymer clay, why don't you make some?"  Hmm, I hadn't thought of that. So I got out my scrap clay and  had a go.  They are a simple construction - clay sausages and  a flat bit.  Underneath, they are supported on three clay sausages. You can see the result above.  Now, they don't look that pretty, but then they were made out of bits of leftover clay.  It is quite difficult to bake polymer clay so that it is totally flat, so they have a little bit of a wobble, but not enough to be a problem.  

The most important thing is that they work and here's the proof.  No more rolling brushes - thank goodness!  I may make some more and try to make them a bit prettier... (of course, if you were really good with polymer clay sculpting, you could have a whole menagerie of little animals/flowers/other interesting things to hold your brushes - there are many examples on the internet.)