6 Tutorials To Have A Go At This Year

Happy New Year! The New Year is here and I would like to wish you a really lovely 2017, may it be full of creative joy for you.

I have the last of my 2016 work round-ups blog posts and today it is all about tutorials that you might like to have a go at and get your creative 2017 started with!

So let's get straight into it with gel medium!

[I do use affiliate links and there are some in this blog post.]



1. Colour Your Gel Medium

This is a super simple technique to get you eased back into making after the holiday season.

A really fun thing to do is colour gel medium with powdered pigments, you know, like the Ken Oliver Color Bursts or Brushos. They colour medium really well, you only need a tiny amount and they don't change the nature of the medium, so if it is transparent when dry it will still be transparent when dry when you add the colour.

I have a full tutorial over on the Blitsy blog called 'How To Decorate A Mesh Bag With Ken Oliver Color Burst' to show you how.


2. We All Love Gel Skins!

Sticking with gel medium how about gel skins? Even if you have made gel skins before they are so much fun and a great technique to revisit from time to time. And if you are new to them they are really easy to make.

This tutorial shows you a technique for adding texture into your gel skin and the finished project is a free-standing heart decor gel skin piece but it is great for making flowers and other items too, so give it a go! You can find the full tutorial over on the Blitsy blog in my 'How To Make A Gel Skin Heart' tutorial blog post.


3. When Infusions Met Embossing Ink

Fancy a bit of experimenting? Why not try this technique? Grab your embossing ink like VersaMark for example, and some powdered pigment like the PaperArtsy Infusions and give it a go.



This technique works on other powered pigments too like the Ken Oliver Color Burst and Brusho, so why not try them out?


4. Make A Mixed Media Necklace From Old Jeans

Ready to get into something a little more detailed? Then the next project is perfect for you!

This project is all about recycling those old jeans into lovely, wearable artwork. Add a little bit of stamping and some paint, a couple of beads and a chain and you have a beautifully crafted piece of jewellery.

All the steps for this project are on the PaperArtsy blog.


5. Make 2017 Your Year Of Sketching

At the end of last year I shared a great drawing exercise that I have loved doing in 2016, and I am continuing for 2017, in the hope that you would join me and start doing it too!



It is really simple and doesn't need to take a lot of time but do it every day and you will start noticing the differences in your creativity, sketching and style. You can find the exercise in my 'A Fun Sketching Exercise To Turn Into A Habit For 2017' blog post.


6. Make A Box Vignette

Now that you are nicely warmed up and ready to head out into the new creativity opportunities that 2017 holds for you, my last tutorial suggestion is a little more meaty and full of things to get your creative teeth stuck into.

I love putting scenes into boxes and tins and this tutorial shows you, step by step, the making of this little single flower scene in a box using various techniques including different ways to use embossing powders. So great to pick up some tips and to create your own little scene with.


Happy Creating!

Kim

To find my other 2016 Round-Up Posts click the pictures below or follow the links listed:

My 5 Favourite Art Videos of 2016
6 Card Ideas To Revisit For 2017
My 6 Favourite Drawings And Paintings For 2016
5 Art Journal Page Ideas To Play With in 2017
My 5 Favorite Oddments Of 2016



Come And Connect With Me:

YouTube

Instagram

My Shop

Join My Newsletter!

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

My 5 Favorite Oddments Of 2016

I hope that you have been enjoying my blog posts looking back over some of the work I have done this year? I hope it has been inspiring your creativity and kicking off some ideas for what you want to be doing for 2017?

Today I am sharing a curation of oddment projects that don't entirely fit into my other round-up curation blog posts as they aren't cards, or art journal pages etc, so I have given them their own 'oddments' category.

I'm going to kick off this collection with two tags. The first tag was a sample I made using my new stamp range with PaperArtsy.

I'll let you into a little secret, come closer, I don't want everyone to hear... when I designed these circle stamps I had that little cluster of circle flowers in my head all along. I know, I am circle crazy, but who isn't? What? You aren't? It is just me then? No surely not?

Next up is a tag of a totally different style, less layers and more quick and simple and a tag I made for Blitsy earlier in the year.

I am a great one for quick and easy and this tag is just a little bit of die-cutting, probably the most complicated thing on it is the layering of the die-cut sentiment to make a three dimensional element and even that was super-simple to do. You can see the steps for it over on the Blitsy blog in my blog post called 'How To Make Quick & Easy Gift Tags' (affiliate link).

The next favourite 2016 project was one that I did for PaperCrafter Magazine Issue 96. Commissioned to do a summer-inspired stage box this is what I came up with:

[Photo credit: ©CliQQ Photography]

I thought it was cute and being a bit of a diorama fan it was fun to do, if a little more involved than a card of course! Looking at the picture again now I have just realised that they look a bit like they have just come out of a village fete marquee don't they? I didn't spot that before! Or perhaps it is the Great British Bake Off tent?

Anyway, Summer fetes aside, my next share is all about chemistry! Being a bit of a science nerd I do like to stretch my materials and see what they can do so when tasked with writing a blog post to fit a resist theme over on the PaperArtsy blog earlier this year I decided to go on a little bit of a chemistry experiment to find out how to use the PaperArtsy Fresco Finish paints instead of Gouache in the Gouache and ink resist technique.

If you do not know this technique it basically uses the ability of gouache to resist waterprook ink, a property that some acrylic paints also have. But not the PaperArtsy Fresco Finish acrylic paint, well until you do what I did, and if you want to know what that was then pop over to my 'PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Acrylic Paints And Ink Resist' blog post to find out more.

So my last share was actually a project that I was involved in in 2015 but the results of the project were released in 2016. So I am only slightly cheating in including this one in my favourite project lists from 2016!

Trish Latimer, the editor of Craft Stamper, along with Tracy Scott, Clare Lloyd and myself made a step by step video of how each of us draw faces as part of a collaboration with Traplet. It was really fun to do and great seeing four different styles of face art too. Oh and shameless plug, the online streaming of the videos or physical DVD/blurays are still available to buy I believe! Totally shameless!

Five different projects from my 2016 back catalogue, it's fun looking back and seeing where my art has twisted and turned over the last year.  If you haven't done it already I would suggest you take a look back at your own work and see how your art has changed and developed over 2016. Let me know if you have shared any of your favourites, I always like to see!

Kim


To find my other 2016 Round-Up Posts click the pictures below or follow the links listed:

My 5 Favourite Art Videos of 2016
6 Card Ideas To Revisit For 2017
My 6 Favourite Drawings And Paintings For 2016
5 Art Journal Page Ideas To Play With in 2017




Come And Connect With Me:

YouTube

Instagram

My Shop

Join My Newsletter!

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

5 Art Journal Page Ideas To Play With in 2017

2016 has been a fun year in my art journal, perhaps a bit messy at times but that is all part of the joy of art journaling isn't it? I've been going back through the work I've been doing in my art journal this year and I have collected together some ideas to inspire our art journal work for 2017!

So if you are into your art journaling I hope that some of these ideas will inspire you for the New Year and if you are new to art journaling then it is never too late to give it a go!

[I do use affiliate links and there are some in this blog post.]



1. Don't Resist The Urge To Resist!

Resists are great! Everyone loves a good resist and there are so many different ways to make a resist. Looking back through my 2016 art journals I have found that I use resist techniques quite a lot this year! I definitely wasn't resisting the urge.

A basic resist is about adding a layer to your surface that will resist whatever you put on top of it. In art you have lots of different ways you can do this so try these:


a) The Gel Medium Resist:

Apply gel medium through a stencil, let it dry then add colour over the top. You can see all the steps for this page my 'How To Make A Tim Holtz Distress Crayon Art Journal Page' blog post on the Blitsy Blog.


b) The Embossing Powder Resist:

Use stamping and heat emboss with embossing powder to make a resist for paint. Again I have a full step by step tutorial for this project over on the 'How To Get A Faux-Print Look With Paint And Embossing Powder' post on the Blitsy post.


c) China Markers On Yupo

China markers, or chinagraph pencils, are a wax pencil that writes on all sort of surfaces including shiney paper like Yupo! So it is great for drawing a resist pattern and you can even use it as a resist for alchol inks. You can find them in art shops and some stationery shops. If you want to see how I made the project above, there is a tutorial on the Blitsy blog in my 'How To Get A Resist Pattern On Yupo' blog post.



2. Make The Most Of Leftover Paint

It gets said a lot in art journaling circles but it is always worth repeating - don't waste any paint! Whatever project I am doing, whether it is in an art journal or another surface I always clean tools on spare pages in my junk and art journals.

It is a great way to get rid of clean page fear, you know, when your mind goes blank when faced with a clean page and you don't want to 'ruin' it! It is also a great way to hook yourself in to your next journal page as flicking through a book of colourful pages inspires you to get stuck in.

Here are a couple of examples of projects made on leftover paint pages, the first one builds on the leftover paint, using it as a background and in the second one I drew and stamped around the leftover paint and incorporated it as part of the image.

3. Doodle-Fill That Page!

Pattern is one of the things I have been getting into big time this year and I've been having fun filling pages of my journals with random collections of patterns and motifs. This is also a great project for doing over those leftover paint pages too!

Art journal pages don't have to always be a rounded piece of art work they can just be places to play and experiment and filling a page with shapes and mark making is a perfect for an art journal and a great way to build up some of your pattern making skills for other projects.

4. Use Your Ink Refills

So you refill your ink pads with those little bottles of refill ink right? Well you know you can use them as they are as well don't you? Of course you do! And if you didn't, you do now!

It's the often forgotten colouring material, you do not need a lot of the ink as a drop can go a long way.

If you want to see how then guess what? I have a tutorial using refill ink to make this page below, it is in a blog post handily called  'How To Make an Art Journal Page With Refill Inks'!

5. The Humble Biro

Well actually the humble any ballpoint pen! I love drawing with ballpoint pens, some of you might have noticed! Find a nice ballpoint pen that has a good flow of ink and doesn't splodge ink everywhere and you have a fabulous drawing tool. And it doesn't have to break the bank either, you can get some really good ballpoint pens for practically pennies and it lots of different colours too, so they are well worth adding to your art tool box if you do not use them already.

I use them for all sorts of projects and they work on a lot of surfaces including paint, like this leftover paint page in my junk journal.


So that is it for now, five ideas to get you jumping and hopefully inspire your Art Journaling for 2017. They are great ones to revisit and build upon so have fun and if you have any of your favourites you would like to share then feel free to leave me a comments below.

Kim


To find my other 2016 Round-Up Posts click the pictures below or follow the links listed:

My 5 Favourite Art Videos of 2016
6 Card Ideas To Revisit For 2017
My 6 Favourite Drawings And Paintings For 2016




Come And Connect With Me:

YouTube

Instagram

My Shop

Join My Newsletter!

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

My 6 Favourite Drawings And Paintings For 2016

One thing that 2016 has meant for me, and for you guys as readers of my blog, is far more shares of artwork. I've been trying to draw and paint more this year and I've found myself expressing my creative side more through artwork than making this year.

I am a beginner, learning as I go and a total experimenter, I'm not really sure what is 'my thing' yet or where the art is going to take me. However, I'm also one of those people who wants to be good at something immediately and obviously that just doesn't happen which is extremely frustrating. Practice, practice, practice right? Well you have been watching a lot of my practice this year and probably will again next year so thank you for being patient with me and to those of you who have shared their practice too an even bigger thank you!

So let's kick off this favourite drawings and paintings of 2016 look back with a face.

Ok, so I might be alone here but I love this face! It was one of those pictures that developed from the page, you know how it is when you see a face in a pattern or a paint splodge? Well this was one of those and I teased it out with some light and shade. Some of you might remember that I was running a weekly art share called Show Your Face in the first half of this year and this face came out of that weekly sharing.

My next share came as a bit of a surprise to me, I wasn't sure if I could do this artwork so it was nice to know that I could!

It is some ink and watercolour sketching from photographs that I had taken at a blogger event. I really enjoy doing work like this but it is time consuming and the one thing there never seems to be enough of is time! This all falls into my wanting to be good at everything immediately because I don't feel like I have the time to get good at it! I think working on getting the balance right with personal expectations and practice time might need to be a focus for 2017!

Moving on quickly! My next favourite share is another face.

She is all wrong, the proportions are all wrong, the line work is wrong, features are all wrong, but I actually quiet like her! I love the eye and together with the bad line work and dodge background I just think she works! She was actually a piece that I abandoned as I could tell she was failing so I just left her. When I looked back several days later I thought she had something, so I posted her for one of my Show Your Faces posts and also because I didn't have anything else to share that week! Time beat me again!

My next piece is another one that came out of a blogger event.

Each of those feathers were printed in paint at the Viking blogger event I attended earlier in the year and then I added some pen work to them once I was back in my studio. I do love this type of graphic line style and I've been trying to do more of it. And of course feathers are a great subject for the drawing exercise I shared with you all recently so add it to your list, they can be drawn if so many different ways.

I did warn you that I was experimenting, or perhaps I should have rephrased that to all over the place?!

For the next share I am going to stick to the very graphic style of line work that I am drawn to (no pun intended).

This is an imaginary flower and leaf drawing done with paint pen line work on a watercoloured background which I must admit I've been doing quite a lot of! This style has featured a few times in my weekly mini Art Slice videos as some of you know!

My final favourite share from 2016 is another face. I started with a face so it seems fitting to finish with one too.

This guy just makes me smile! I love his big bushy pink beard! So he was also a share from Show Your Face but he came out of some play with gouache and trying to paint loosely and be relaxed. I was trying to suggest facial features without really drawing them but as I don't yet know how to do that I think he became more structured than I was aiming for, but hey ho! Got to learn!

I hope that you have enjoyed this curation of my favourite drawings and paintings from 2016. You can find my other 2016 round-up posts here.

Let me know if you are doing a share of your favourites, I would love to see them.

Kim

To find my other 2016 Round-Up Posts click the pictures below or follow the links listed:

My 5 Favourite Art Videos of 2016
6 Card Ideas To Revisit For 2017




Come And Connect With Me:

YouTube

Instagram

My Shop

Join My Newsletter!

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

6 Card Ideas To Revisit For 2017

On Wednesday I posted 'My 5 Favourite Art Videos Of 2016' blog post as part of a little review I do around this time every year to take stock of what I have been working on through the year. Today I thought I would share six of my favourite cards designs from my 2016 back catalogue.

But I have to admit I haven't done a lot of cards for my blog this year. I've still made them for magazines but when it comes to making them for my blog content, they have been a little sparse. Even so, the ones that I have collected together to share today are still my favourites from my blog this year and I hope they are yours too!

So to kick off here is a great design for Valentine's day (affiliate link).

Yep, I know, we haven't even got past Christmas and New Year yet, but believe me, I have already been making Valentine's cards and projects for 2017. The original card is on the Blitsy blog with a step by step showing how to put it together and if you are interested you can visit it via the link above the picture.

Another favourite card idea from 2016 has to be one of my clean and simple (CAS) style designs using my new stamp range launched with PaperArtsy this year.

And you could not get much simpler than this design, well, except perhaps just stamping one flower and the sentiment, ok, that might be simpler!

I think I do kind of lean towards CAS design, sometimes through personal taste but also a lot of the time due to deadlines if I'm honest. But even my 'arty and 'messy' cards have a clean and simple vibe as seen in the next two cards.

The first one was from an article in Simply Cards and Papercraft issue 153 where I shared some ideas for using the Ken Oliver Color Bursts which were very popular this year. For this card I used a The Crafter's Workshop stencil to apply the pigment watercolour paint through.

The second card was a similar make in that it uses watercolour and a stencil but this time the stencil was a chipboard embellishment and the watercolour was a Lindy's gang spray.

[Photo credit: Practical Publishing International]

I have a video showing how I put the 'Hey Pineapple' cards together, it is a really simple method for making multiple cards in one go, great for invite making! You can watch it if you hop to my 'How To Make Quick Pineapple Party Invites' blog post. 

The last two card designs that might make good ideas to revisit for your cardmaking in 2017 are very different from each other but still in-keeping with my CAS vibe. For the first one I played with die-cuts and patterned paper to make a fun, very loosely inspired by Captain America, card,

As I have mentioned before I do like using circles and stars in designs!

The final share is a mixed media card that uses cut outs with brush work to form the image. The dress was made by adding gouache colour to a piece of cardstock collaged with book pages then I cut out the shape. The dress was then stuck over a body form that I painted on the card directly with a brush. And the lettering was also done by hand with a brush directly on the card. 

It was a bit nerve wracking as I don't tend to draw or letter like this directly on projects for commissions. I tend to do the drawing or lettering on something else, cut it out then stick it on, so no big deal if I get it wrong! But I threw caution to the wind for this one!

That is my look back on my favourite cards for 2016. I hope that some of these are interesting for you and might inspire one of your card designs for 2017.

Let me know if you have or plan to do a look back on your favourite makes for 2016, I would love to see it!

Kim

To find my other 2016 Round-Up Posts click the pictures below or follow the links listed:

My 5 Favourite Art Videos of 2016

Come And Connect With Me:

YouTube

Instagram

My Shop

Join My Newsletter!

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

My 5 Favourite Art Videos of 2016

I have been trying to do more video content this year. It has been a bit of a learning curve, as with all these things, but I am now getting into the swing of it and I hope that I can get some more video content out to you in 2017. In fact I was going to post a new video today as part of my PaperArtsy Make and Take series but I have decided to save it and kick off the new year with the rest of my 2016 Make and Take videos, so I hope you will enjoy them.

Instead, today I thought I would start my year in review posts with a look back at five of my, and hopefully your, favourite art videos of mine from 2016 plus a couple of links to some other favourites from other people.

But first a little introduction to some of the videos I have been making this year.


Different Types Of Videos

This year I have made four types of videos for my YouTube channel:

Project How-Tos - which are start to finish walkthroughs showing how to make a specific project.
Tips and Tricks - with little shares of ideas to help your work or to use in your work.
Product Testing - trying out a new product and what it can do.
Art Slice - which are little snippets of weekly art inspiration.

I'm planning to do more titles under all of these headings so watch this space! Let me know if there is something else as well you would like to see me cover, I am open to suggestions.


What Is Your Favourite?

So probably my favourite video from the whole year, and most definitely your favourite video of mine this year, was the 'Get The Faux Print Look' video.



This year found me exploring printed looks and trying to get the look in different ways. For this video I shared a screen printed look that did not use screen printing. It did use the credit-card method for adding paint though, which is one of my favourite ways to apply paints and I'm glad to say that lots of you fell back in love with it too after seeing this video!


My next favourite video from this year has to be 'One Stamp Three Ways' which was a video hop/ collaboration with two amazing card makers Sharon Curtis and Michelle Short.



Michelle Short and Sharon Curtis are two seriously talented creators and I was very excited and happy to be able to work with them both on a project. I always love watching both their YouTube channels, so they are definitely on my suggested watching list! It was as extra special collaboration as it randomly came out of us chatting about making videos on Facebook and from that we all made a video using one of my PaperArtsy stamp sets released this year. So I feel especially honoured to see what amazing projects they came up with with my stamps.

My next two favorite videos are both from my Art Slice videos - Watercolour Worlds, which is the first one below, and Brush Pen Bloom, the second video below.





I started the Art Slice videos this year as just a quick, less than a minute, snippet of whatever art I had been making that week. And I've been posting one a week since around about the Summer. At first I was just going to put them on Instagram but then I decided to put them on YouTube too, it makes it easier to see them all under one Playlist. I hope you have been enjoying them, they have been a great way for me to get into the habit of filming more without the stress of doing voice overs, which I find the hardest thing to do at the moment!

The final favourite I have of mine to share is also from my Art Slice playlist.



It was my Halloween offering and a little bit of fun. The reason it is one of my favourites from this year is the little cheeky nod to animation at the end of the film, a little rough and unsophisticated but I enjoyed making it!


Just a small selection of some of my own favourite videos from this year, I would love to know what yours are (not just of mine!).

I'm going to leave you with a link to a super cute video from Iraville's YouTube Channel of the cutest little fluffy Robin red breast done in watercolour that you ever did see. Enjoy! And do leave links to any of your favourite videos at the moment in the comments below.

Kim

To find my other 2016 Round-Up Posts click the pictures below or follow the links listed:

6 Card Ideas To Revisit For 2017






Come And Connect With Me:

YouTube

Instagram

My Shop

Join My Newsletter!

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter