Thank you and some arty stuff ....

... Morning, this is just a quick post to say thank you to everyone for all the kind comments and wishes on my new Design Team post with 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown - I really do appreciate the time you take to leave such lovely comments.   What better way to make all the cards I need for Christmas?

Now I thought I'd share a few photos of the art I created at the weekend in Amy Flowers's classes.  Amy is such an inspiring teacher - we all had a blast. 

Our first class was to make an art journal from scratch.  We started with five sheets of plain watercolour paper, prepared them all and then played with paints, stencils - it was fab!  At the moment my journal is still separate pages, but I'll get it put together soon.  Here are a few photos of my pages:

The photos above are for my journal - you can see that I still have a lot of work to do on the middle page - sanding, stamping, journalling etc.

The photo above is the cover from Amy's journal - just love it!

The next class involved bees wax!  I did one of these classes last year, where we created art works with bees wax - well we did the same again, and also created a faux bees wax picture.  This idea of a faux work is great - it won't melt in the heat of a Michigan summer!!!  Here's my work from the class:

Above is the wax picture with the ephemera laid out.  I took a photo as I wanted to get it all back in the right place !

Above is the finished picture.  All the pieces have been adhered and held in place with bees wax.  I also used wax pastels to define the leaves and flowers.  Not only is the class a fun messy hands on experience, it smells great too.

Above it the faux wax picture - it almost has the same texture as the wax, but it doesn't smell as nice and, importantly, it won't melt in the sun!!

The last class on Saturday was to start on an altered book, and as I've only got a page done - I'll share that another time.

On Sunday I attended the last of Amy's classes titled Mirepoix Collage.  Mirepoix is a cooking term referring to three key ingredients for a recipe - here it relates to three elements for a great collage.  We used three canvas to create a triptych - applied collage, acrylic paints, stamps and stencils and several gels which dry transparent and allow the design to show through.  It was fantastic!  Here is my triptych.

This is the complete triptych laid out on the table as I plan to hang it on the wall in my craft room.

Photos showing the individual canvases, and below are a couple of close up photos showing the transparent gels - I had to add some paint to define the edges otherwise you wouldn't see the shapes!!

Here are some photos of work done by my class mates - we all started with the same materials and ended up with something unique to us! 

The triptych above was created by Jessica - I love the colours she used.  It has a very South-West vibe.

The was created by Jessica's mum - Dee. 

That's all for now.  Kathryn has a day off school and we're going to go out shortly - so I'll see you soon.  Have a good day.