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

Constructing Vintage Photo Cabinet Card Collage

Gelli printing, stamping and mixed media

A gelli print, a stamp and the idea of creating a mixed media cabinet card brought this project to fruition. 

Played with Alison's poppy stamps on the gelli plate using Fresco Finish paints and ended up with a lovely design that I enhanced with a brown drawing pen. I cut it in half ........

...... and used one half as a wallpaper for the photograph, edged with a dark flowery paper that makes it stand out more.

I stamped the corners of the main card.

Next, gathered items to bring the design together including some embellishments, but knowing me these could change as I move things around to get a design I'm happy with.

Eventually happy with the design and the idea.

Supplies

TH Stamps - Victorian CMS300

Alison Bomber- EAB37 Poppy

TH _ Found Relatives

PaperArtsy Fresco Finish paints - colours not recorded, probably Buff, Toffee and Snowflake 

CVC Challenge February 2025 #3 - Romance and Friendship

Happy Valentine Day 

I am sneaking in a third project for the CVC February challenge which is a last frame and this one is made for my 6 year old grandson who wants to be an Astrologer. I picked out what are the nearest products I could to fit in with his story and this theme.

I began by taking these metal elements found in my supplies and used the shown products as a play time to give a rusty look to them. Cogs and gears to represent machinery, spectacles because he loves Harry Potter, a compass to help him look in the correct direction when looking for stars and planets with his telescope and propellor as he also has a love of aeroplanes. (I just couldn't fit his love of lego into this project but he's a genius with it).

For the background I used the gears embossing folder and swiped the rusty ginge embossing ink pad over to create a rusty look but as always with me everything changed as I played with different products in the process of creating the layers.

I can't honestly say what I did for each layer to end up with the design below but I had fun.

These are all the products I used and there must be at least another 4 layers on top of the rusty hinge that I started with. It certainly doesn't look like I expected it to but just experimenting always takes you down a different path and that's the excitement of it all.

Things came together well as I collected together elements to sit in the ledge at the bottom of the frame. and added words to bring it all together.

A couple of bulbs to light his way, clock gears and clock hands in the bottles represent time, time he spends creating things (he loves his arts and crafts), time he will spend gazing up at the night sky. (I already have a fabulous photo of him out one clear evening last week where he was looking for the alignment of the moon with Saturn, Venus, Jupiter and Mars). Spectacles to represent his love of the Harry Potter books, and hearts for Valentine's day.

I made up small labels to add to those bottles, bulbs and heart.

xx

Supplies

TH- Distress Spray Stain -Faded Jeans,Stormy Sky

TH - Distres Spritz - Uncharted Mariner, Vintage Photo, Crackling Campfire

TH - Distress Inks - Faded Jeans, Rusty Hinge, Uncharted Mariner

TH - Collage Medium, Crackle Paste

TH Foundry Wax - Statue

TH Embossing folder - Blueprint and Gears

DecoArt Fluid Acrylics - Quinacridone Gold, Prussian Blue Hue

All & Create Rub-ons - Acid Blends, Wanderlust Passport

Quick Valentine cards

 Inspired by Tim Holtz

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

These are some simple Valentines cards to go with the frames I have been making for the grandchildren (plus one for hubby as well). I was inspired by the Tim Holtz Valentine Live and his beautiful cards. These are very different to his but the design is the same.

All of them were made with backgrounds cut from left over bits from other projects, splattered with white paint.

There's a banner of embossed vellum paper and then the stamped love token by Tim Holtz.

xx

https://www.instagram.com/p/DFi6iBeTzNj/?hl=en

Supplies

TH stamps - Mini Blueprints 2

TH Distress inks - no colours identified on the offcuts.

TH Punch -  hearts that went in the envelope.

CVC Challenge February 2025 #2 - Romance and Friendship

 The Colour Purple

My second frame for the CVC Challenge is for my grandaughter Maddison who is at 6th form college doing dance and musical theatre. She wants to be an actor and be in musical shows. She recently was on stage in Guildford, in a production of '6' as one of Henry the Eighth's wives - Catherine Parr. The whole show was electric with so much energy on stage from this group of youngsters and the wives were amazing. We were so proud of Maddison and her achievements, when it came to her solo and taking the lead she absolutely rose to it, and sang so incredibly well and belted out her singing whilst acting and dancing as well. We came away feeling ecstatic. 

This frame contains a lot of meaning and is representative of her whole theatre story. I included the glass star, of course I'm biased but that is what she is to us. A bottle of love, a key to her future in this world of musical theatre, flowers that we always give her after seeing one of her shows, a sparkly heart recognises the emotions we feel when watching her and the excitement it gives us, 14 because this is a valentine gift and a bottle of gems to represent the costumes and jewellery that she will wear so beautifully. 

Maddison has been having dance lessons since she was about 3 years old so here is a ballet dancer dancing to the music.

Anyway Maddison loves the colour purple. We have an embossed musical score background representing her singing abilities, this was dipped in a mix of spray stain and distress spritz, spritzed with water and dipped and sprayed until I was happy with it, once dry I blended distress ink round the edges.

The heart is for Valentines Day - the 14th February. It was painted with Purple mixed with Distress Spritz Villainous and the tim plaquette added.

The ballerina was stamped, cut round and supported with a small block of wood underneath.

Tucked in the little base of the frame a bottle of LOVE containing mauve gems and tiny seed beads, a resin flower, a token and a key.

Tucked in the other corner another small bottle coloured with alcohol ink and some little paper flowers.

The bottles were sealed with a coat of collage medium. I applied rub-ons around the frame just to distress it a little. 

Supplies

TH- Distress Spray Stain -  Seedless Preserves

TH - Distres Spritz -  Villainous Potion

TH Distress Ink - Villainous Potion

TH - Metal Plaquettes, Gumdrop Hearts, star

Ranger Archival Ink - Hydrangea

Ranger Alcohol Pearl - Villainous

DecoArt Metallics - Purple Pearl

Visible Image stamps - Born to Perform

All and Create Rub-ons - Stainy Rainy