Van Gogh Junior

Gorgeous piece of art created by my niece Alexis and proudly displayed in the school office. 

October.

Something a little different ...

I had the intention of spending a little time once a month on my blog this year ... but as we are 4 weeks away from Christmas I feel that intention has slipped by the wayside.

Here's a great little piece of street art that is very clever.

Until next time ...

Art Journal Calendar - June 2013

Here is my Art Journaling Calendar page for June.  I started off with a painted background that I then covered with a series of napkins depicting green hills, water, lighthouses and what looks like nice but cool weather very typical of Europe. 

The colour scheme is based on the fact that we're travelling from Australia to Ireland on 13th June for a week and then I'll be in the UK for the last week of June. I've used Green, White & Orange depicting the Irish flag and Red, White & Blue for the English flag.  I'm not really sure all of these colours really go together, but I'm happy that the layout is finished and is based on the theme of our holiday.

Now to finish July before we depart on Thursday ...

My May calendar page also managed to feature as the Header of the Art Journaling Calendar Challenge group FaceBook page again this month ... it's quite an honour considering the talent of the group.

 

 



Sydney Street Art

As I was walking back to the office from a client meeting, I discovered this treasure ... fabulous street art brightening a dreary Sydney alley.

Such talent.

Calendar Challenge May ...

Hard to believe that we're in May already! Here's my Art Journaling Calender Challenge layout for this month.

The whole background is made from the inside of security envelopes - light blue ones for the sky, brown one's for the land and dark blue for the water.  Distress inks were added over the sky and land to highlight the colours a bit more.

I wanted to create a little village atmosphere with the houses, kites flying, birds and fish ... as there are no people it's more of a summer holiday village, but downunder it's Autumn and nearly winter so it's deserted!

The close up images show the security envelope patterns.

Art Journaling Calendar - April 2013

Here is my April Art Journal Calendar.  I'm determined to use the copious amounts of craft supplies I have accumulated so have used a couple of napkins with birds and eggs, scraps of patterned paper from scrapbooking for my squares, stickers, paints, stencils/stamps and ink and the washi tape I recently bought.  I even used Dimensional Magic to highlight the Bird, eggs and butterflies.

I'm having so much fun doing the calendar challenge this time around ... I'm not overthinking it, just going with the flow.

My layout managed to make it to the header of the Facebook Group again ... stoked!

Paper Craft Festival fun ...

Yesterday saw myself, my sister Natalie and my friend Jean attend the Paper Craft Festival in Penrith.  It was Nat's first time at one of these shows and we had a lot of fun browsing the wares.

We did a class with the lovely Rachel Greig and created these amazing mini tag books.  We managed to get two completed in around 2 hours ... I was thrilled, as it takes me forever to complete unfinished class projects once I get home.

SYDNEY MINI TAG BOOK

 

 

This Sydney book has already found a new home as we had Ferg's cousins Dearbhaile and Ciara with Gus come to stay with us for a week and this little book was the perfect gift to remember their trip to Sydney.

FLORAL MINI TAG BOOK

Nat & I also did a make and take with Michaela Laurie (http://www.paperquiltcreations.com) and created a very cute paper quilt luggage tag ... we even sewed it ourselves!

Street Art Melbourne

Spending a lovely weekend with my husband in Melbourne, a city renowned for its culture, delicious food, fantastic coffee and art ... especially street art.

 

Amazing Talent ...

My girlfriend Janneka and I visited the Art Gallery of NSW on Saturday 23rd March and it was fantastic.  Every year I go to check out the amazing talent of our youth with the Art Express exhibition, showing the best art from students graduating with their Higher School Certificate.

Janneka's partner Paul knows one of the artists Mark Barnaville and his scenes of Penrith in charcoal are outstanding:

 

I especially loved the mixed media pieces from Rhiannon Laman, but then again I'm a bit of a fan of of Mixed Media Art.

 

We also checked out the Archibald, Wynn & Sulman Prizes ... again so much beautiful art and talent. This year's winning Archibald Price piece was created by Del Kathryn Barton, titled Hugo.

I really loved all of them, but a couple really resonated with me:

Carlo Pagoda, Habit de jardinier - permanent ink on metal &

James Powditch, Ben Quilty, Where is my mind?

I'd forgotten how much I love the art gallery ... so I became a member so I can go more often.

This year is going to be a year of creativity for me ... it helps me feel balanced so I'm going to search for it in the everyday!

Birthday Celebrations ...

I celebrated my birthday on 9th March and was totally spoiled by my beautiful husband and family.

Lovely gifts:

Fabulous dinner:

Stitches & Craft Show

On Sunday 10th March, my friend Jean and I spent the day at the Stitches & Craft Show at Rosehill Racecourse. 

We registered for a Card Make and Take class with Azza Sedrak and it was loads of fun.  We made three fab cards:

 

 

I then stuck around at the end of the day to do a class called Native Animal Cut Out Cards with Skye Rogers, author of art book Paper Bliss.  Our cards ended up being larger than life and more of a art piece than a card ... crafting with Skye was a blast, she's quite the character.

 

Enjoy!

Calendar Challenge 3 months on ...

The last time I decided to join Kate Crane's calendar challenge in 2010, I managed to get to February!  Am very proud that I have this year managed to get March done.

March is my birthday month and I wanted this layout to reflect time out for me ... and there's nothing better than taking time out with a good strong cup of coffee.

I painted the pages with golden paints that matched a napkin I had with the coffee cups.  I then stuck a barcode sticker along the base and added the napkins in each corner.  I cut out the border from the napkins and glued it around the two pages to create a type of border.  I used some left over rubons, scrapbook cardstock as the squares, Making Memories sticker numbers on each square and for the year, then lastly some round stickers for the month which were black and white, so I coloured them in to blend in more with the coffee coloured layout. 

Kate Crane is running the Art Journaling Calendar Challenge again this year with a Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/calendarchallenge/ and there are so many amazing and varied artists participating.

This month my calendar page was the feature page on the Facebook group header ... was very chuffed.