ArtyFartyAnnie

Hi Everyone, We're just into Autumn here in Norfolk UK, and a very beautiful one it is too, hope you're having a good day wherever you are in the world. Today is when we link up over at Julia's Stamping Ground to join in with What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - it's great fun to have a nosey at creative spaces all over the world and anyone is welcome, so why not show us what's happening in yours? :o) I don't get to play along too often these days, due to a change in working hours, but my lovely bloggy friend Zsuzsa over at Inky Dinky Doodle has kindly offered to link me up so I can go back later for a good old snout around and catch up with everyone. Thanks Zsuzsa! It should be Show Us Yer Mess Wednesday for me again this week. Here's a picture taken yesterday afternoon ...

Hi everyone, For week 43 of Life Book 2016 , the fabulous Martha Lever introduced us to "Chunky Versals". Inspired by traditional fonts used in old manuscripts, this is a fun, quirky, informal version which is easy to draw by hand and then decorate with paint and doodling. Here's my take on it. I think it might make a nice cover for my Life Book ... Don't make the mistake of believing it's enough to reproduce the realities of life.... The object of art is to give life a shape, and to do it by every conceivable artifice. Jean Anouilh . You may recognise part of this quote from the top of my blog. For me, it means that art helps to make sense of life, to explore and express how the artist feels about something. It may be music, or sculpture, or a garden, or poetry, or a mixed media journal page, or anything you like, as long as it speaks to you or for you, and it doesn't matter if it's a great masterpiece or amateur dabbling like mine! This is w...

Hi everyone, What a beautiful day it is here in Norfolk UK - all sunshine, blue skies, and the trees turning golden green for Autumn. I hope you're having a good day wherever you are. Ta-daaaaa!!! At last I have caught up on my last overdue tag for Tim Holtz Tags of 2016 ( Lizzy Hill if you're reading this, can you believe it?!) - this one should have been done in MAY!! For the 2016 series, Tim has been randomly selecting two techniques from previous tags and "remixing" them to come up with something different and new. This time, he used tissue-tape resist and tiny tattered floral thinlets dies. I'm not making tags this year, instead I'm making little pages to go in a leather-bound journal my good friend Trina gave me last Christmas. As ever, I had to improvise with the supplies I had available, but that is part of the fun. Here's how mine turned out. Its pretty simple, but I only had half an hour to play ... I take no credit at all for the ...

Hi everyone, For week 42 of Life Book 2016 , the talented Pam Carricker inspired us to create some speedy, stress-free art by building up layers of collage and paint in a very free-form way to create a meaningful journal page. I worked on mine in stages as and when I had a few minutes to spare - stencilling, scribbling, spreading and spritzing, dabbing and doodling away to my heart's content and not worrying too much about the end result. Here's how it turned out ... The scribbling you can see all over the background is mostly words of encouragement to myself - reminding me to let go, embrace the process and enjoy the journey, rather than focusing too much on how I want something to turn out. If it goes "wrong", it's not the end of the world, it's another adventure, an opportunity to explore something new and use my imagination and creativity to turn it around. One of the most important lessons I've learned through doing Life Book is that I shoul...

Hi Everyone, It's another beautiful bright Autumnal day here in Norfolk UK. When I've done a few little chores, I plan to play in my room for an hour or two, then I'll have a nice walk through the sunshine to spend some time with my son, and this evening I have a card-making jolly to look forward to - what a perfect day!! I hope you're having a good day wherever you are :o) It took me several days to work through the lesson for week 41 of Life Book 2016 , but it was a really enjoyable process and as always I tried out lots of new ideas. The wonderful Kristin Dudish showed us how to paint a multi-layered self portrait. Mine turned out very strangely I think, but I'm going to share it anyway as it's part of my LB journey ... Hmmmmm .... yes .... definitely needs work!! :o) I'm glad I went with Kristin's suggestion to take a picture of the background before painting the portrait as I really liked this effect ...

Hello lovely Bloggy Friends, Yesterday being the 1st of the month, I popped over to the Tim Holtz blog to check out the tutorial for this month's tag and I was extremely excited and surprised to see my name on the list of winners for September wooooHOOOOO!!! I really didn't expect to ever see my name there, I am SO chuffed!!! Each month of 2016, Tim has been picking two tags at random from previous years and remixing the techniques to create new effects. The tutorials are always inspiring, full of tips and techniques, and I love the challenge of adapting to make use of whatever supplies I have on hand. Best of all, it doesn't take long to make a tag - this morning I made TWO :o) Here's the first one, inspired by Tim's October tag ...