Seasons Greetings...

I thought I should post something Christmas themed as I'm feeling very festive at the moment. With all the Carol services and wrapping and decorating I've been doing I felt like it was high time I made a Christmassy post.

This year I made Christmas cards for some of my closest friends and somehow I managed to make all three of these cards within two hours.

The Christmas tree, Gingerbread man and Snowman are shapes cut out of wood which I painted with acrylic paint. This step took the longest; all I had to do after that was mount them on cards and write a little message underneath in gold gel pen. When it comes to cards, I find the simplest designs are often the most effective so despite the temptation to add more, I had to stop myself.

Usually I write extra little messages in my Christmas cards as opposed to just having 'Merry Christmas' so this year I wrote each of my friends a little poem inside which made them laugh. 

I was very pleased with the way these cards turned out and I thoroughly enjoyed making them. It was well worth the time I spent on them and I'll definitely be making some next year. 

Have a FANTASTIC Christmas everyone!

Emma x 

An 'Altered' Magazine...

If you're anything like me, you won't be able to part with some of your favourite issues of your favourite magazine without making full use of them first. This is why I decided to have a go at turning one of my old magazines into a piece of artwork. I got this idea from a friend who owns a craft shop/studio where I've been going to paint and learn ever since I was six years old!

My chosen magazine to 'alter' was the June 2012 issue of Company Magazine. I love the design and layout of this magazine anyway, so I didn't want to completely mask it in artwork.

Instead I used the best features and images in the magazine as a base, and built up layers of paint or collage around them.

An essential tool for painting on magazine pages is Gesso. A thin layer instantly turns a glossy magazine page into a papery, almost chalky surface. Also an under layer of Gesso allows you to wipe off any paint that goes on top easily. As you can see in this picture, it gives the look of bits of faded text peeking through the paint...a rather cool effect.

Of course I couldn't paint over some of my favourite articles. That's the beauty of altering a magazine, you can pick and choose which bits you use and don't use; you're effectively improving something you'd enjoy looking at anyway.






Another way to use your old magazines to the full, is to cut out any body parts (I know that sounds a bit sadistic) and use them in your altered pages as I've done here with the eyes. I'm planning to go into this technique in more detail in a future post.

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed altering this magazine and let me tell you, its much cheaper and quicker than buying a new sketchbook! Enjoy the pics...


Emma x

A peep at my Sketchbook...

I was really struggling to decide what to write about for
 my first post, so after much consideration, I thought I'd
give you a brief look at one of my old sketchbooks just to give you an idea of my style.

I created this over about five months for my Btec Art course at school. I chose Btec over GCSE as it offered more free reign with the project  briefs and taught me to be independent with the design process. Although some people may like a bit more structure, I felt it worked well for me and this decision payed off (my mark was a Distinction Star in the end).

Even though this is a Btec Art sketchbook, I hope it will also help those of you doing GCSE as the examiners will be looking for simillar features. Also it's much more interesting for the examiners to look at a bright and well presented book as well as it being much more fun to create...a win win situation.


















I'm planning to go into more depth with this sketchbook in future posts, about things like the background techniques, clever ways of annotating and nifty tricks to fit all of your artwork into your book.

For now though, just have a little nosy through these photos. Enjoy!
Emma x

A Quick Hello...

Hello there! My name is Emma and one of my greatest passions in life is art. Ever since I could hold a pencil I've been drawing, painting, making sculptures and taking photographs. I love looking at art too; one of my favourite things to do is visit art galleries with my friends and family.
Anyway, I've been wanting to create an art blog for some time now as I have a real ambition to inspire.For me, feeling creative and inspired is one of the best feelings and I want to share that with everyone. This blog is a place for me to share my artistic journeys as well as giving sketchbook tips and ideas to help those of you who are doing art at school or college.
Above all, I hope you enjoy the posts to come and that my own little corner of the internet will help your creativity to soar.
Emma x