Starting a New Art Project-Part 3

Hello everyone! Today, I'm here with the final part of 'Starting A New Art Project'! This time, I'll be talking about the backgrounds that I create to start of the pages in my project. I enjoy creating backgrounds because it's fun to just let loose on a blank piece of paper and get creative with materials! Some people don't create backgrounds for their school art projects, so don't feel like you have to. I just enjoy doing it and think that it pulls together the project nicely. To get better marks in your GCSE Art project, it's probably best to focus on the quality of your own drawings and photos, rather than the backgrounds but I still like to make them. Anyway, I'll get on with showing you examples of my backgrounds!

 This background is the first one that I created for my 'Personal Collection' project. It's the background for my title page so I wanted it to be really special. I created it using a decoupage technique (ripping small squares out of paper and layering them with PVA glue) with newspaper. I chose this technique because I thought the words in the newspaper reflected the theme of stationery. Once the newspaper had dried, I used a sponge to put on the three primary colours:red,blue and yellow. I also added some whiet over the top of some areas to brighten it up. I like the textured look I have created.

This second background was created for the moodboard. You can see part of the title there that I created with glitter, it didn't exactly go to plan. However, I'm quite happy with the background. I used a water blotting technique with primary colours: red, blue and yellow. I have tried to do several backgrounds in the primary colours, to tie the project together. If you don't know 'water blotting' is where you first put water on your page, then you put paint over the top and it spreads out.

This background is for the own photos page. I created it with a sponge, acrylic paint in primary colours, white acrylic paint, alphabet stamps and black ink. I like the distressed look I have created with the black ink edging that I have created and the white paint that dulled down the colour. The letters tie in with the stationery theme again like the newspaper writing did.

This one was for an artist page about Andrea Joseph. This didn't tie in with the primary colour thing that I have mainly been using because the artist pages seem quite separate from the rest of the project, because the rest of the project is my own idea whereas these pages are someone else's ideas. I hope that made sense hehe! Anyway, the main background was lined paper but this is the border. I created it with map paper, bubble wrap and acrylic paint. The acrylic paint was put on the bubblewrap which acted like a stamp. I like using bubblewrap because it creates an interesting texture.

 This next background was for the artist response page, which is where you draw from your own photos but in the style of the artist you are studying (Andrea Joseph in this case). I went back to the primary colours since this is my own work this time. I used the lined paper to represent a notebook. which the artist seems to use a lot for her artwork. The border was created with bubble wrap and acrylic paint in the primary colours and white.

 This final background was for the artist response evaluation. I used scrapbook paper, a colouring book page and white acrylic paint. I ripped up the two papers and layered them on the paper with PVA glue. I then used a sponge with white acrylic paint to dull down the colours in the papers. I didn't want the black lines and pink pattern to stand out too much since this is just a background.

So that's it! The next time I post it will be a different topic since this was the final 'Starting a New Art Project' post. Once I've finished the project completely (24th April) I'll probably show you all of the pages in full. But for now, I'll be writing new content! I hope you're looking forward to the next time that I post, I've been keeping a list of blog post ideas that are either new topics or bringing back old ones!

PS: Do you like the new Spring background? I drew all of the elements this time: the tulips and the blossom. I put it together on PicMonkey.

Over to you...
Do you enjoy creating backgrounds for creative projects such as your sketchbook or creative journal? Or do you enjoy making collages? Also, what topics do you want to see on my blog in the upcoming months?

Starting a New Art Project-Part 2

Hello everyone! Sorry for not posting for such a long time! I've missed blogging so I thought i'd try to quickly write a a post. I'l try my best to keep regularly posting now but I tend to get quite busy at the moment! Anyway, I'm back with a second part to 'Starting a New Art Project'-it's not really new anymore but I'll stick with the title he-he! 

So, in this post I'll be showing you a few of my drawings that I've done in my 'Personal Collection-stationery and craft supplies' project so far. At this point in my project, I've now done a double page spread of observational drawings based on the photos I showed you last week. It took me a long time but I love looking back at my project at this stage to see the progress I've made!

 This first drawing is of some mini pencils that I createdwith my Prismacolor pencils. I wish that I'd just left a gap on the paper for the white stripe since it took a long time to create a white light strip after I'd coloured it in already! Oh well- I'm quite happy with this drawing since I like that the light as added a realistic look to the drawing rather than just cartoon-y.

 These next drawings are quite small so I found it quite difficult to add details. I used acrylic paint which I find quite hard to control sometimes (since I haven' had much experience with it). However, I don'y think these turned out as badly as I had expected them to. They're quite cute ad I like the texture on these.

This is one of my favourite drawings on the double page spread so that's why I decided to give it its own photo (I haven't zoomed in all of the drawings). I created this with black fineliner and it was a lot of fun to give ink another go! I haven't used ink since Inktober really (last October) so I was glad to see that I remembered how to control the pen! In real life, these eiffel tower scissors are a rose gold colour but I made it simpler for myself by keeping it black and white for this drawing. The lineart itself was very detailed so it took a long time but I love the overall effect!

These next photos are both the same drawing of a purse that I keep my mini pencils in, the purse was a gift from Japan. This is my favourite drawing (with the eiffel tower scissors being in a close second) and it's a good job that I love it since it took me hours! Actually, I wasn't really counting in hours, I was counting in TV programmes and films that I watched in the background whilst drawing it! But when I calculated the length of the programmes together, it seems that I took about 3 and a half hours on this! Oops! You can see that I created the texture of fabric on the purse in the photo on the right.

Here's the completed double page spread, the lighting in the photo is a little iffy but hopefully you can see all the drawings clearly! I wanted to create an interesting layout and add collage-like features such as sequins, stamps, buttons and pencil sharpenings. There are a few drawings that I'm not keen on such as the stamps and the panda sharpener but overall I'm proud of the results of this page.

That's all for this post! I hope you've enjoyed nosey-ing at my sketchbook, like I said in my last post I like to do that too! I think I'll only do one more of these 'Starting a New Art Project' since I don't want to be stuck in one blog series-I want to try new topics like bullet journalling and calligraphy and just experiment really this year.

Over to you...
What do you think of my observational drawings? Have you been doing an art project recently either at school or at home? Let me know in the comments!

Starting a New Art Project-Part 1

Hello everyone! This year I started my GCSE Art course and I've been loving getting creative! So, this week I decided to share with you my experience of starting a brand new art project. I'm one of those people who love nosy-ing at people's GCSE sketchbooks so I hope you're one of those people too! I think I'll do a few posts about my art project so make sure you come back to read the rest! This first post is about my own photos (AKA primary sources).

To start our project we were given a list of topics such as: stretched, personal collection, public transport, details, assembled, architecture and wrap. We could interpret these any way we would like to personalise our project. I knew straight away that I wanted to do 'personal collection' because my room is practically overflowing with stationery I've collected ha-ha! So my sub-theme was stationery and craft supplies. From this point we were given a list of tasks to do and since I only started this 1-2 weeks ago I've only made a start on the first few.

Here's where I get back to where I started...photography! Over the weekend I used my spare time to take photos for my project! I gathered up all of my prettiest stationery and prepared a few backgrounds then just got started!
                                                   

 Left:
I used a Johanna Basford colouring book page as the background for this because I wanted to create a soft look to the photo. Also, I continued this soft look in the editing stage by turning the temperature up to make it look cosy. I also used an effect that darkened the edges and brightened the centre which \I thought added to the cosy feel. By the way, I used PicMonkey to edit all of these photos and just used my smartphone's camera. Also, it took me AGES to link those papercliups together in the shape of 'hello' ha-ha!

Right:
This one fits more into the crafting supplies section of my project because I used sequins. I spelled out 'love' with sticky notes. I liked how this tied in with the upcoming Valentines Day celebrations.

Left: 
I decided to use hessian fabric as my background for this one to create added interest with some texture. It should be interesting to come up with a way to recreate that background in my sketchbook! I used my moleskine dotted notebook and some mini pencils for this because I thought these items were really cute! The purse is there because that's where I store the pencils and I think it will be good to get a break from drawing stationery. By the way this purse is from Japan.

Right:
This one doesn't have such an interesting layout as the others but I wanted to focus on the sequins. I chose to take photos of sequins because I think that it will be interesting to look at the colours on them and then try to recreate them with different mediums.

Left:
This one took me a very long time to arrange ha-ha! I started this early in the morning on Sunday so that it would be done by 12 o'clock when the lighting was just right! For some reason I love incorporating circles into my art projects, they just seem to look neat but not too harsh. Do you understand what I mean? Anyway, I like this layout.#

Right:
Well...this one didn't exactly go to plan. It was meant to look a little bit like the one on the left but less organised. I started by putting the ones that were in the middle (red) at the bottom of a toilet paper tube and then put the next layer above it and so on. Then when all of the buttons were in, I lifted up the tube and let the buttons spread out. As you can see, it's messier than I was hoping for! Anyway, I think that the contrast between the photos will be an interesting part of my project.

Left:
I took this photo in a slightly different way to the previous photos. All the others are flatlays (taken from above) but this one was taken in front of the items against a background. I like that this one has a mixture of plain white paper and hessian as the background because it ahs a nice balance of textures. I chose some really cute pieces of stationery here. In editing, I darkened the edges to bring attention to the items.

Right:
For this photo I chose the wooden table as the background because I wanted something warmer than plain white paper but I wanted to choose something different than hessian.I like that I chose the eiffel tower scissors with the eiffel tower writing paper because they work well together! I love this writing set by the way, it's so gorgeous! It's from Paperchase (but the sharpie, scissors and stamps aren't).

So that's all for this post! I hope that you've been inspired by my photos, I'll be taking a few more for the project but these are the ones that I wanted to share with you! I don't know how often I'll update you on my new art project but it may not be every time I post since sometimes I'll feel like posting something else.

Over to you...
Are you currently doing a GCSE art project or have you done in the past? Let me know in the comments. Also, what do you think about my photos?

Giveaway Time! (CLOSED)

Hello everyone! I hope 2017 is treating you all marvellously! I was originally going to call this post 'New Year's Giveaway' but since it's the 16th of January I wasn't sure if I should still refer to the year as 'new'. Anyway, this is sort of a giveaway to celebrate the new year! It is a free entry into this competition since it's just a bit of fun!

So, the last time I did a giveaway, I only opened it to my UK readers. But this year I've decided to open it internationally because I know that a few of my reader are from around the world which is so exciting! Also, another reason that I decided to open the giveaway internationally is because in recent months I have seen an increase in views so I wanted to cater for those views from around the world!

This is just a small giveaway but I wanted to giveaway two items that I thought my creative readers would love! The first item is a pack of 10 plain cards that you can decorate for any occasion! They are 380gsm so are good quality and they are 6" by 6". They come with envelopes too by the way. The next item which is the main one is a colouring book called: 'Colour Yourself Advent Christmas Countdown' and was illustrated by Hearfelt Illustrations (click on this link for her facebook page). I know that Christmas is over but I wanted to give one of these away so that you could look at my colouring of it in my post (click here)  and then give it a go yourslef! In fact, both of these prizes are inspired by my past posts, I wanted to give you this pack of plain cards so that you could be inspired by cardmaking post (click here). I thought by giving you prizes inspired by posts it would mean a little bit more than if I just gave you random items ha-ha! Look at the prizes below...

So what are the rules?

Well,they're pretty simple! Please follow all the rules:

1.) To enter, just comment below telling me why you'd like to win

2.) Ask your parents if you can enter if you're under 18 because if you win you'll need to tell me your address (we can arrange this over e-mail)

3.) Enter by the deadline: 20th February

Extra Info

• There will be one winner who wins both prizes
• I may include a pretty letter with your prizes 

So that's all! Good luck to everyone! I hope you're happy about the giveaway, January can be a dreary month for some so I wanted to brighten it up a bit!

PS: I hope you like the new background, it's a Winter one that I created on PicMonkey

Over to you...
You know what you've got to do now, if you're ready to enter, just leave a comment saying why you want to win!

EDIT:Thanks to everyone who entered or left a comment but now the contest is closed and a winner has been chosen, I've replied to their comment in the comment section so please check your replies! 

2017 Blogging Resolutions

Happy new year! For my first blog post of 2017, I thought I would tell you a few of the changes I hope to make to my blog in this coming year. I'm only making a few small changes, I think you'll still enjoy reading my blog if you've been reading for a while. I'm excited to introduce a few new ideas and see where my blog takes me in this new year! I think that my blog really grew last year as because I tried out a few new topics such as penpalling and colouring that I have become very passionate about recently. I hope that my blog improves even more this year and I continue to try out new ideas.

The first change that I decided to make this year is a change in my schedule. I've decided to aim to post about once every 2 weeks rather than once per week. I've found that I tend to post once every 2 weeks anyway so I thought that I'd announce it as an actual change. It's quite hard for me to fit in blogging with school and I'll be getting more schoolwork in these next two years so I wanted a bit more time to write posts. I don't think you'll notice much of a change anyway since I didn't really stick to the once a week schedule anyway.

I have done one blog collaboration in the past and really enjoyed it so I thought that this year I would take part in a few more collabs. Last year I started to work on a Disney fanart collab with 5starartists.blogspot.co.uk which I'll be able to continue this year now that I have finished the colouring challenge. Also, I hope to start some more blog collabs with my blogging friends that we've been talking about for quite a while. A project that I was working on last year was guest blogging for Cathy Cassidy's blog which I hoep to carry on with this year.

I'm really excited for my next change in this list! In the upcoming months, I'll be introducing some new topics that you've never seen me write about before! For Christmas I asked for a bullet journal and bullet journal so I was given both of these. I've never tried out calligraphy or bullet journalling but I'm really looking forward to trying them out. I want to share my experience with you so you can see what it's like so you might want to take up the hobbies yourself! I think learning new skills is a great new year's resolution so I hope to inspire readers.

I feel that in the previous year I haven't done much fashion designing at all. I feel like this is a big shame since it is something that I'm very passionate about, in fact I have always thought that fashion design is a career that I want to get into in the future. There's still lots for me to learn so that's why I want to get back to this topic on my blog. I think that having a blog motivates me to try creative things so I'm hoping that now I have said that I want to write about fashion design, I actually will DO fashion designing. I created a fashion sketchbook that I want to use.

The final change is one that is the most difficult to achieve. I will try my best to make at least a little progress on this during 2017 but I can't promise anything. The reason that I am unsure about this goal is because I will be getting more schoolwork in the next two years. This means that I will be more busy. However, I setup a YouTube channel last year that I want to upload more videos on. I don't think that I will use a schedule yet but I do want to be a bit more active. I have filmed a few videos but they're not edited yet and are quite old. so fingers crossed that I will have time for YouTube but I may not.

So those are the five changes that I aim to make in 2017! I hope that you're happy with the changes I want to make, I don't think there are any dramatic changes so you don't have to worry that my blog is going to transform into a completely different creature. I'm sticking with creative topics as I always have done and I'm excited to see the blog evolve to fit my newest hobbies as well as my original ones! Happy new year everyone!

Over to you...
What are your new year's resolutions? I have quite a few that I'll be tracking in my bullet journal. Also, are there any blog posts that you'd like to see in the new year that fit with the creative topics that I already write about/plan to write about? Let me know in the comments.

PS: I'll make a new blog background very soon but you'll have to look at the Christmas one for a little while longer ha-ha!

Why I'm Doing a Month-Long Colouring Challenge

During October I did a month long art challenge called Inktober which really helped me to improve my inking skills so this December I decided to do something similar. I decided to do a month long colouring challenge where I aim to colour in a whole colouring book before Christmas Day. It's proved to be very difficult but I think that I'm really benefiting from the challenge so I thought I'd share the idea with you in this post.
The reason I thought of this idea was because I saw the colouring book called 'Colour Yourself Advent Christmas Countdown' that was drawn by Heartfelt Illustrations (see the Facebook profile on this link). The book inspired me because it seemed that there was a page for every day of the month so I decided to colour one page every day. Unfortunately December is a very busy month so I haven't done one page per day but have tried my best to get close to that target. I used my Prismacolour pencils and gel pens o colour all of the pages and it's been really useful for me. This page was for the 1st of Decemeber and was a snowman. I learnt a lot from this first page because looking back I can see that I went a little overboard on the snowflake details so on future pages I didn't draw anything onto the backgrounds.

 One of the main things that I have improved on during this challenge is blending without blending tools. Normally, I would sue a colourless blender pencil or a blending stump to help me to create a smooth gradient. However, during this challenge I decided not to use any blending tools. This has meant that each page takes about double the time than usual, but now I have really improved my blending skills. I've found lots of ways to blend properly now such as: using a white pencil, using varied pressure on my pencils, building up tone gradually, etc. I struggled on the first few days to go without blending tools but after a while it got easier.

 By the time I coloured page five, I had got very behind on the daily schedule. I had to start catching up with colouring fast. I'm still actually behind by nine pages. I think that doing colouring almost every day has helped me with my working speed. I struggle with time management so I try my best to do organisation and time limits, etc but doing month-long challenges has proved to be the most effective method to help me with time management. I've never produced more art or colouring than during Inktober and the colouring challenge this month,

Another reason that I've done this challenge is not only to improve my colouring, but for fun too. I love Christmas so a Christmas themed colouring book is perfect for me. Colouring in festive art every day is great because it gets me excited for Christmas. There's only 5 days until Christmas now! Can you believe it? Christmas is my favourite time of year so I try my best to make it last. I love chocolate advent calendars but this colouring one is really unique. It's been great counting down the days until Christmas with this because it's something a little different and keeps me busy all the time. I've only shown you photos of some of the pages but half of them have activities on them which inspire me.

 I'm looking forward to next December too because I can display my advent calendar once it's finished. This year I haven't displayed it because I would have had to take it up and down to switch between colouring and displaying it. I think it's great that with this book you can use it as a colouring book and a calendar because I can look back next year and see how my colour application has changed. Maybe I'll even colour another one next year to compare them-who knows? It's nice to look back on old art or colouring or anything because it shows that with practise I can improve my skills and techniques. It keeps me motivated to carry on even if I aren't happy with my current skill. If you're an artist,colourer(I'm not sure what it's called),etc  then I recommend that you look back at old art or colouring to keep you going.

 Overall this challenge has been difficult but worth it. Every time I do a month-long challenge, it's very tiring for me but when reflecting back on it I feel proud of what I've achieved. I know that some people just think colouring is a hobby, but for me colouring helps me to improve colour application for my own art. That's why I feel like doing this challenge is a real achievement because I'll be able to see a difference in my own art next year. Hopefully next time I do a month-long challenge I'll have time to do it every day as planned. Maybe it would be wise not to choose December for my month-long challenge next time! It's a busy time of year so doing this has been a little stressful. I've loved building up the colouring book though and seeing what I can do when I really push myself. I hope that I've inspired you to do a month-long challenge whether you use an official one like Inktober or come up with your own like I have this month!

That's all for this week's post. Sorry that I missed last week but as you can see from this post I've been very busy recently. I've noticed that although I set a schedule of posting every week, I keep missing a post. Therefore, I think that in the new year I might make a few changes to the schedule and my blog so that it's less stressful for me. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed seeing my colouring pages and hearing about this challenge.

Over to you...

Have you ever done a month-long challenge? Tell me about it in the comments. Do you enjoy colouring, any tips? Also, what are you doing for Christmas? I'd love to know.

Christmas Card Craft Idea

Hello everyone! I'm finally back with another post and it's my first Christmas one!I've had lots of revision to do recently so I took a few weeks away from blogging but I missed it so I'm back this week. Today I've got a lovely Christmas card idea for you to craft for your friends and family so get cosy and see how I made a wreath card!

 Firstly I chose a Christmas patterned paper, a plain card, a bow, a doily and a few Christmas washi tapes. You can find all these supplies (or similar ones) at The Works or The Range. These are two of my favourite shops for craft supplies since they sell a wide range of products for good prices. In ended up not using the button you can see in the photo or all of the washi tape but you might decide you want to. As yopuc an see I have quite the collection of Chrsitmas-y washi tapes-I've been collecting lots in the last few months!

 Now that you've got the basic supplies you can now choose all of the embellishments. You'll use these to decorate the wreath so you'll want small, festive embellishments. The ones you can see in the picture are: silver star stickers, enamel dots, crystal stickers, a range of Christmas stickers and Christmas phrase stickers. You probably won't sue them all on one wreath but I just got out plenty of embellishments so I could choose what looked best. I actually went with the crystal stickers, stars and mini candy cane stickers for the wreath. I also used a Christmas phrase sticker elsewhere on the card. I liked how the red crystal stickers looked like berries, the yellow crystal stickers looked like flowers and the green crystal stickers looked like sprigs or leaves. The enamel dots would have given the same effect but I wanted to give a sparkly effect to the card! By the way, some of these products were from a subscription box last month called Birmbles Box.

Here's the final result! started by cutting a strip of patterned paper and glueing it n the left side of the card as an accent. Originally, I was going to make a background with it but I think it would have been too overpowering. I cut the middle of the green doily out so that it looked like a wreath. Once you've glued down the patterned paper and green doily you can personalise it however you want! This is where the embellishments come in! I spread out the crystal stickers, stars and candy canes evenly around the wreath. After decorating the wreath, I created the ribbon. In chose a washi tape and cut a small section of it to go above the wreath, To give the impression of a real wrath, I then put a bow on top of the washi tape. I used double sided sticky tape for this. To finish off, I used washi tape and a phrase stcker in the centre.

There you go, that's how I made the wreath Christmas card and I love how it turned out! It's such a unique card; I thought of it when I was looking at my Christmas craft supplies, I knew I wanted to use a doily but I didn't want to just stick it down so I did this instead! So now you're ready to make your own Christmas cards, let me know if you make any.

PS: I've changed the background for Christmas now. Do you like it? I created it with the PicMonkey overlays, sorry that I didn't draw any of the elements this time round. Hopefully my next background will have some of my drawings.

Over to you...
Have you made this card idea or any other Christmas cards this year? Tell me about it in the comments. Also, do you have any Christmas blog post ideas? I'm looking forward to writing plenty of Christmas posts!