Tim Holtz Day at Art From The Heart

Well, the long-awaited day arrived, and I could hardly contain myself waiting for the school bell to ring at quarter to one yesterday, which meant I could finally set off to Harrogate for an afternoon with Tim Holtz. Dyan had persuaded him to come to England, and I am so thankful that she did! We learnt so much, my head was spinning and I didn't know which new product to try first! 4 hours of staining, spritzing, stamping, sanding (why do all crafty skills begin with 'S'?!) flew by, and we all went home with our own Artful Journals...and a whole heap of goodies, too!
Here are some of the afternoon's highlights...

Even the ticket for the class was special....Dyan had made them in her own unique style, and then proceeded to make each one individual by doing a different doodle on Tim's face for each persons ticket, while we were busy making our journals! Mine has Tim wearing a pirate eye-patch, and a few missing teeth!
I'm so glad I was able to go, and I'll treasure my journal....especially as I got Tim to sign it for me!

Project 12

Just finished putting together my first LO for Project 12. It was trickier than I expected, mainly because my camera went AWOL for most of January...finally found it in the boot of my car just in time (which John found hilarious, given that my boot is about 2' wide!) It was lurking in my recycled carrier bags...
The LO was fun to do, it's the first time I've worked from a sketch and I really enjoyed it. I think because I am currently so stressed about poor Nick that the sketch enabled me to do a LO without thinking too much...good job, as my brain is currently having a meltdown!
If you fancy joining in, the details can be found by clicking the link opposite.
Here are my finished pages...

Art Journalling

Well, I've made numerous attempts at art journalling, since I attended a weekend course with the lovely Dyan at Art from the Heart last spring. However, none of my pages seemed to look right, and I keep giving up then having another go! Yesterday, I finally made a page I'm happy to share.....prompted I think by the sheer rage, anger and frustration I feel at the moment, after being told by our lovely son Nick that he will learn next week if he is going to be made redundant....this, after 60 weeks gruelling training with the RAF, and passing out as a Pilot Officer just before Christmas. How can the RAF justify doing this to such fine young men, just to save money? Why spend all that on their training, indeed continue to recruit, and yet still make such a short sighted, devastating decision that will wreck so many young lives?
Anyway, I will get off my soapbox for a moment and show you the page.
It started life a few months ago like this...

It was done with very sloppy watercolours and a bit of twinkle H2O's, which I let drip down the page. It didn't turn out like I wanted, so I just left it.
Yesterday, I took it with me to Leeds Paper Dolls and was thumbing through the Times Educational Supplement colour magazine (no, I'm not a reader, but the magazine delivered to school has some great images in!), when I came across this article, which summed up how I felt perfectly...

It looked a bit lost on the page, so I drew round the image and caption with a water soluble oil pastel crayon that Gill had told me she loved using...except I didn't know how to use them! It looked a bit grainy and insipid, and I'd forgotten to bring my paintbrush, so tried using a wet wipe...wow! I love how the oil just darkened and merged into a solid colour, I'll definitely be using them more often now, in fact I think they're my new favourite thing!
Finally, I wrote down all my anger, and this is how it ended up. Hope you like it x