Watts Gallery Sketch Saturday March 2025

Watts Gallery, nestled in the Surrey hills on the 

North Downs Way

Had an amazing day at Watts Gallery today attending a workshop that I thought was going to be just about sketching but actually turned out to be an brilliant mixed media session. Kerry, our tutor, took inspiration from the gallery and 'The Spirit of Charleston' exhibition, building sketchbook pages with a variety of studies influenced by the decorative Bloomsbury style. This style is completely new to me and outside of my comfort zone but I still enjoyed using a number of photographs, Kerry provided, to do some pieces of my own. We experimented with watercolour paints, acrylic paints, oil pastels, watercolour pencils, gelli plate, a technique new to me called Dry Point using a water based oil paint, so here are all my designs and a couple of the photos I used for inspiration.

Dry Point

Painting on a gelli plate.

Everyone's finished art.

xx

Seaside theme - Country View Crafts and Tim Holt products 2024

For a new challenge at County View Crafts Challenges 'All Things Seaside' on FaceBook I've used a clipboard as the substrate for my project and created a fairly flat collage so that the clipboard can be used.

The board was painted with Haystack and stamped with Buff PaperArtsy chalky acrylics. I used one of Tim's ledger stamps.

 

Then over this I created a collage.

xxx

Products by Tim Holtz

Layering stencil - Rosette

Stampers Anonymous - Ledger Script CMS 241

Papers

Idea-ology, ephemera, snippets, typed tags, cello sticker tape, word chips, paper strips

Sizzix Dies - wildflowers, numbers

Distress inks

Skype Collaboration - Wooden houses

It's been so wonderful to have skype sessions with my two lovely friends Nikki (Addicted to Art) and Alison (Words and Pictures) during lockdown and really it's been the only time I have sat and created anything. I've spent so much time in the garden and, since we have been allowed out more, Ken and I have spent at least two days a week visiting National Trust places and beautiful gardens, so between that and walking on our local Ranges to try and keep fit (a bit!!) there really hasn't been much time left. 

When wondering what we could do for this session I showed the girls some little houses Ken had cut me from wood and we agreed we'd each have a set of three and couldn't wait to see the outcomes.

As I worked on the painty layers and decided to add some small windows and doors I began to get the feel that these belonged in a farm yard, what do you think?

Photo taken outdoors in the garden.

Process steps

*Seal with gesso using a palette knife to spread it over.

*Scrape cobalt blue and grey acrylic paints randomly over the walls and dry.

*Sand the sides.

*Scrape on some resist paste and give a coat of white chalky paint and gently heat to wipe away leaving some of the previous colours showing through.

*Use a blending tool and foam to add some yellow oxide and tita buff , both mixed with a little glazing medium - this ages the paint a bit.

* Rub with some dry kitchen towel, a wet wipe and buff the walls before scraping some white chalky paint randomly down all the sides.

*Paint the roofs black.

*Sand the edges again and rub in some brown distress ink.

*Outline where you want the windows and doors with a pencil then cut away the paint layers with a sharp knife. Darken them by using sharpie pens.

*I knocked in two rusty nails for chimneys.

Photo taken indoors in a light tent. They could almost be in a snowy setting.

Side view straight on.

Photo showing side windows

Nikki's version. I love the gorgeous tissue layers, the beautiful bright colours and the  sequencing of the phrase over the three layers.

Alison's version. These are very much in her beautiful shabby, cottage garden style and the added stamping, painted flowers and rusty elements really bring them to life.

Please click the links to be transported over to see more details of these fabulous wooden house sets.

xxx

Vintage shabby emboss resist - New Technique

I'm using some of the Andy Skinner new release stamps today - Mandal and Pebble Beach to create this emboss resist background.

I started by scraping some gesso thinly over my card and when it was dry I added some London Brick chalk paint rubbed it around, spritzed it with water and dried it.

I stamped the mandala and pebble beach stamps with embossing ink, covered it with the embossing powder and heat set it . When the card was cool  I squeezed over a little white chalk paint and  again spritzed with water and rubbed it around then took my heat gun and gently wafted it over the surface not getting too close. I let it cool and repeated heating until it was almost dry, then took a wet wipe and gently rubbed over the surface to reveal this gorgeous shabby design

I wouldn't recommend stamping over the surface, it was a nightmare and I had to use both black and white posca pens to touch it up!!! ;o))

xxx

Andy Skinner Creative Expressions - Stamps - Mandala, Pebble Beach,
Andy Skinner Creative Expressions - Matt Chalk Paint - London Brick
Miscellaneous - White Gesso, White Chalk Paint

Revisiting old techniques - Water Distressed Layers

Here's another of my techniques and layer combinations using acrylic paints. I like to turn to these when needing some inspiration and I have been documenting them on media boards as a resource.

You will find them added to my Tutorials and step x steps page found on my sidebar.

This one - Water Distressed Layers - I taught at Ministry of Mixology in April 2019.

Process steps

1. Paint a coat of acrylic paint (phthalo green-yellow) and heat dry.

2. Paint a thickish coat of a different colour (I mixed PGY with some hansa yellow and titan buff) and splatter with largish water droplets. 

3. Start to heat the board but before the watery spots dry lay a piece of clean dry kitchen paper over it to absorb the water. It sucks up some of the paint that has mixed with the water and leaves these gorgeous splatter spots.

4. Repeat step two and three with a coat of another colour (I used the above colours with titanium white). 

5. Move straight onto step six or stamp some text first using archival ink.

6. Finally repeat steps two and three with titanium white. 

7. Finish with some brush splattering of the same colours (I used the last green that was still on my palette and added water to it).

You could leave the finished background looking clean or you could add a watery frame around it.

I'm loving making these technique boards into mini pieces of art.

xxx

Revisiting old techniques - Scraped Gesso Layer

I've devised a number of techniques and layer combinations using acrylic paints over the years and I am returning to them for inspiration and to document them on media boards as a resource.

This one - Scraped Geso Layer - I taught at Ministry of Mixology in April 2019.

Process steps

1. Seal substrate with a layer of gesso.

2. Tear and add some tissue tape.

3. Dip in watery colour/s and dry.

4. Stamp text and/or numbers using black archival ink.

5. Scrape gesso randomly and lightly over the surface using a palette knife keeping it flat.

6. Splatter using leftover watery paint.

7. Create a dark frame firstly dabbling and spritzing some watery burnt umber mixed with quinacridone gold - dry.

8. Mix neat quinacridone gold with paynes grey and slide the brush around the very edge and dry.

xxx