Cath Sheard Art

Tag: art journaling

  • New art journal

    I’ve been waiting (im)patiently for some new art supplies and they arrived this week, but playtime had to wait until the weekend because I’m working from home. I was super excited to get a Dina Wakley Media blue edition journal and I love it! I had one of the original mixed media journals Dina put out and enjoyed it, so was interested to see her using denim. I also got some of her collage tissue, a few paint colours and some of her new gloss acrylic sprays.

    The thing about new supplies is there is always a learning curve. Not all acrylic paints work the same way, tissue papers are different weights and so on. With a mixed media journal you need to learn what the various substrates do. Often there’s some completed pages you love early on, and a few you’re pretty ho hum about.

    The only way to get really comfortable with new supplies is to play, play some more, and then play even more. Test, retest, and start to understand how they work. Today I’ve done 3 pages in the new journal. Two I’m super happy with  and one is in the ‘ho hum basket’ but that’s ok. As I say to people when I teach a class, in the end it’s only paint and paper…

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  • Getting to the feelings

    I’m starting to record more of my feelings about COVID-19 and the lockdown, not just the facts. I know this is good for me, because – apart from one or two people – my journals are my safe place where I can say whatever I want.

    Tomorrow at 4.30pm we find out when New Zealand will move from Level 4 to Level 3. As much as I want that tiny extra bit of freedom (and it will be tiny) what I really want is to only do this once. I’d rather wait a bit longer than have to start over. The stats from countries who locked down too late, or broke lockdown too early, are truly frightening.

    There are a few New Zealand commentators – privileged white males mainly – who think we should worry more about the economy than about people. Men who think our empty ICUs and low number of deaths mean we “got it wrong” whereas it signals we got it exactly right. I hope those loud opinionated voices don’t win and cost us all the gains we have made as a country. I hope we are better than that.

    anger 20200419get real 20200419numbers 20200419safe houses 20200419

  • Colour my world

    Today’s journal page is in my Dina Wakley mixed media journal; there’s only a few pages left it in, and I can’t get a new one till lockdown finishes. This was done on a canvas page that I put a good coat of gesso on, then scraped on paints, and layered on mark making with my fav Tim Holtz stencils. I used a Dyan Reaveley mask for the person, then wrote round the edges with a Uniball white gel pen. The page was inspired by Niamh Baly, who I follow on YouTube.

    colour my world 20200418

     

     

     

  • A crafty Easter

    Most weekends I spend time doing some art and craft. This weekend is no different; except of course it is. Easter is lockdown is a whole different animal – no going away for the weekend, no church gatherings (not that I would anyway), no dinner with friends. I was so tired by the end of the week I was hanging on by a thread, so four days away from my dining-room-table-home-office is a very good thing.

    What have I done so far? Made cards. Made more cards. Coloured in stamped images. Worked in my art journals. What else will I do? paper, scissors, glue…

  • Working in my lockdown journal

    Working in my lockdown journal

    All the pages have the same sub-structure to give the journal some uniformity; tissue paper, gesso, stamps/stencils or washi tape. I’m recording a combination of facts and feelings.

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