Patricia Janečková 1998-2023

 I was so saddened to hear of the death of a lovely soprano singer, Patricia Janeckova, who I had been following on Youtube.  Her voice had been trained extremely well and she had a lovely singing technique.  Sadly, she passed away due to breast cancer, at the age of 25.  I think she would have had a wonderful career but at least we can still enjoy her voice and her performances.  I had some singing lessons when I was at school, so have a little understanding of the technique and hers is the kind of voice I would have loved to have had.  

Photo from here 

If you enjoy classical music, please find her Youtube videos.  

I particularly like this one - Song to the Moon from Rusalka by Dvorak. and this one - Laudate Dominum by Mozart.  (I have sung this before, but not as well as Patricia does!)

RIP Patricia and thank you for sharing your gift.

Wanderlust 2023 - weeks thirty-three to forty - Pigments and Powders

 It has been a rather messy seven/eight weeks, exploring pigments and powders.  For me, these included embossing powder (where you use a sticky ink to adhere the powder, heat it and it leaves a raised glossy surface.  It comes in a multitude of types now, metallic, clear, coloured, with glitter, with large or small particles.)  There is also embossing glaze which is a translucent powder, leaving just a hint of colour.  Pigments and powders also included Infusions (dyes with walnut ink added).  I have Brushos (watersoluble pigments which came as a powder) and Pixie Powders (Dye based powders with added mica for a lovely pearly finish).  Most of these will stain if you don't wear gloves, hence the messiness. They are fun to use though!

The first week was thinking of somewhere special to you (I chose my garden) and then enhancing the photos with gold embossing powder, having created a background using the powders.

I enjoyed all the making we had to do for this page - all about lichens.  We added powders to material and to threads and created background papers as well.  I added some embossing powder in white.

This was a bit of a tribute to my parents - Dad died in 2013 and we lost Mum earlier this year. The photo of Mum and Dad is from 1960, when they were guests at a wedding.  I wore the dress she is wearing (which she made) in the photo at her celebration of life service. Her favourite colours were turquoise blue and orange, so that's what I used.  We were using the powders to colour the texture paste.  

Week thirty-six was really enjoyable to make, using embossing powders and glazes and making bold marks with the sticky ink. On the right, the purple and blue glazes allow you to see the images underneath.

This wasn't one of my favourite pages. The teacher used lots of ephemera and her piece was created on a piece of wood. I used die cut shapes to add texture on my page.

I struggled with this page. The teacher showed us lots of techniques, which I enjoyed, but left the page design to us and I took ages to decide what to do.  

This page was by a teacher called Rachel Greig, a photographer and owner of a stamp company in Australia called Darkroom Door (really good quality rubber stamps). She was going to be leading this lesson, but so sadly, she died earlier in the summer, due to cancer.  After consulting with her family, there were two lessons put in place, from 2016 and this one from 2020, where we were stamping and I used powders which were made into paints to stamp with.  Underneath the tags is some journaling about doing something you enjoy every day and making the most of your time.  Two lessons I have certainly taken to heart.  

The Artful Musings lesson was about expressive writing.  The teacher discussed journaling (where you write about something that happened) and then expressive writing (where you write about how you were feeling).  I wrote about being resilient.

The final seven/eight weeks of the course are on Monoprinting and Carving, which I am hoping will be completely up my street!

Collagraphs - a simple version

I enjoyed the Wanderlust Live weekend at the beginning of September where teachers from next year's course gave us some tasters of techniques and journal pages we may be doing.  I decided to make a little journal with an example from each teacher.  I was particularly taken with the simple collagraph with Claudette Hasenjager.    

I had made collagraphs (colla meaning glue and graph meaning draw) before, when I did my Foundation in Art and Design course.  These are plates made using collage with different textures, varnished (with shellac in my case, I remember) and then inked up and printed using a press.  As the press squashed a little more detail out of the materials with each printing, they were a limited use plate, which I liked, as it made each version more special.  I really enjoyed the process  although it was quite a time consuming one to create the plate, then varnish it, wait for the first layer to dry then varnish it again.  However, I was really impressed with the end result and the detail that was captured using simple materials, such as tin foil. (I enjoy all of the printing processes I have tried so far - lino printing, collagraph, simplified screen printing, block printing, hand carving my own stamps and printing with them, and monoprinting, using the gel plate).

Here are some photos of my collagraph from the Foundation in Art and Design course. This was the original photo I used to create my collagraph.

I then traced the image and reversed it for the plate.

This is the plate - I cut into the surface to create the dark areas, then used foil, string, paper and card to add the texture.

This was the first print, which worked really well.

This was the last print where you can see how much detail has been lost.  It was really interesting looking at these again after fourteen years since I finished the course!

However, during Wanderlust Live, we were shown a simplified version which was created on cardboard, using self adhesive foam, string and lace.  I don't have any self adhesive foam, but I did have ordinary foam, which I used instead, sticking it to the cardboard base with pva glue.

Here is the plate ready to be inked up with acrylic paint.  It is much bolder and with less detail than the collagraphs I made on my art course.

Here is the print on the left and the right hand one was coloured with watercolour.  I was really pleased with how these turned out and with  the detail from the different materials. I would like to try other designs using this technique as I think more detailed images could be created with finer cutting of the foam.

Some cards through the year - part 2

Here are some more cards which were made over the year.  More birthday cards...

...some using dies as well as stamps.

Anniversary cards made using stencils...

...a thank you card using a stamp which I watercoloured.  I really like this Kandinsky-esque pattern.

A special birthday card for my best friend who lives in Canada but who visited this summer.  The little rhyme reads: "Cherish friendship in your breast, New is good but old is best; Make new friends but keep the old; Those are silver, these are gold".  I included a Canada stamp, relevant numbers, a picture of a forget-me-not and a photo of her when she was little.  I really enjoy creating these collage backgrounds.

This was her pearl anniversary card - both of us were married in 1993 and I was at her wedding in Canada as a Matron of Honour.

More birthday cards...

...anniversary cards...

...and these are the most recent, for my brother-in-law

...and my nephew.

The next cards to make are for my sister, sister-in-law and then Chris, not forgetting that Christmas (whisper it!) is not all that far away!  I had better get making!

Some cards through the year - part 1

As you know, I enjoy making cards and I like to keep a record of what I have made.  So here are some of the cards from this year.  There are probably more, but I think two posts is enough(!).  The top one was for a friend's birthday - she likes pink.

The next one was for my brother-in-law.  I always find cards for men a little trickier.

I think this card was my piece de resistance this year.  It was for my colleague at work whose partner is an entomologist. My colleague has now become interested in insects, so I made this card for her.  There are pockets and 'slides' with various bugs and beetles on them.

On the back of the card were many bugs too...

Here you can see the 'slides'.

I also added a little money envelope inside.  The only problem now is thinking what to make her for next year!

There have been thank you cards.

Lots of birthday cards...

...some including collage.

Then there have been Mothering Sunday/Mother's Day cards...

...and Easter cards (I love this Tim Holtz/Sizzix rabbit die set)...

...and more Easter cards.

Finally for this post, another birthday card, following inspiration from Tracy Evans, who has been posting lots of helpful 'snippet' videos on Youtube here and I have a few of her stamps so can make my own interpretations.

Part 2 coming soon... 

Hydrangeas

The hydrangeas are looking good again and beginning to turn their autumnal shades.  Above is a dwarf macrophylla white which had these beautiful bright white flowers earlier in the summer. They are now turning more green.

Here is Bobo, another small plant but a paniculata variety. I find these easier when it comes to pruning.

Sundae Fraise starting to turn pink around the edges.

Pinky Winky turning pink.  This has the biggest flowers of the lot.

Macrophylla magical Revolution Pink, with shades of green on the flowers.

Magical Revolution Blue which hasn't done so well this year as it was too shaded out, I think. I have moved it in the hope that it will do better next year.  It is going more purple/lilac now and will probably change to pink another year.

Macrophylla Dark Angel looking pretty good.

Only two flowers from Sanguine Merville, (probably down to my not that brilliant pruning!) but they are rather lovely.

Finally another Magical Revolution Pink at the front door and looking probably the best of them all!