Saturday 20 October 2007

It's been a funny kinda week

I don't know where this week has gone. I haven't done anything earth shattering all week but I have managed to get some art work done in between feeling ropey, having chest pains and going up to the hospital with DH on Wednesday to see the out of hours doctor as his tum was playing up! The joys of middle age! DH has got to have a procedure next week and then he can go back on his tummy pills so if we can just get thro the next 5 days we should be ok. I have already had an ECG and I've got to have a chest x-ray but the doc seems to be erring on the side of a digestive problem. Fingers crossed.

I have made these 4 ATCs for the All things Natural Swap at the Mixed Media ATCs_UK group but I am not too sure about them. I think I will probably add a dried flower or two to the ivy.
I am not pleased with the beach materials one as I got too much sand on it and I don't think the composition is very good. What do you think? Could do better!

The sun drew me out into the garden this afternoon and I took a few pix. It seems amazing that a clematis is in flower in October - I think this one may be a Jackmanii which should flower in July.

We cut the plant down to the ground in July when we had the fence replaced and it's gone mad ever since and is smothered in buds. I hope the frost doesn't kill it off.

There are still flowers on the fuschia too and the pansies were smiling happily in the sun


Since it's almost Halloween I've been revisiting a technique I've used before and thought you might like to see it. It's not an original thought of mine as I saw it described in an art magazine (International Artist I think) but unfortunately I can't find the copy so I can't credit the artist. The idea is to use "cobweb", the type that they are seeling now for Halloween works well. You can buy it in Morrisons and Woolworths and probably ASDA too. I have used it on paper and canvas and the result is always different. Today I pre-wet a block of watercolour paper and dripped and squirted some inks on it. I then stretched the cobweb over it and sprayed it well with water. I then used more acrylic inks to dribble ink all over and sprayed again with water so that the colour moves around and all the cobweb is wet.



The hardest part is to leave it overnight until it is dry, then all will be revealed! If I'm lucky it may look like this....







3 comments:

Gina said...

That last picture of the cobweb sample is lovely Julie. Fabulous colours. Don't the flowers in your garden look gorgeous... I just love these sunny autumn days.

Susan D said...

I had chest pains quite a few years ago and was diagnosed with a Hiatus Hernia. I'll have to look out for some of the cobweb looks an interesting technique.

liz said...

Those cards are really lovely:) I wish I had joined that swap to maybe get one.