Scrawlrbox

I recently entered a competition on Twitter to win a box of art supplies from Scrawlr, if you have never heard of them please do visit their site HERE.  All I had to do was retweet one of their tweets and i was ridiculously happy to have won. the box came within a couple of days and here is a video of me unboxing the supplies. 

Each month Scrawlr also issue a challenge using the supplies that they send out. At the end of the unboxing video you will see my drawing. 

Darcy x

Shakespeare in Colour

So I have had this chunky book of the works of Shakespeare for a while now, it was only 20p at a car boot sale. the cover is shiny and plasticky and not appealing at all…

but the insides… oh swoon, be still my beating heart. The pages are super thin, beautifully delicate and not too ‘new’ looking , though this book is only about 30yrs old. There are illustrations on a lot of the pages, which just made me a bit giddy. I am amazed the lady didn’t spot my excitement and charge me a whole lot more.

Apart from the cover, it would have been a nice edition just to keep as is… but that wouldn’t be me. I do already have a much older complete works, that is special to me and I would never consider altering.

but this one was just asking to be coloured in.

For some time now I have been seeing people do ‘bible art’. I believe it is called Bible Journalling and you can see lots of examples online, HERE are a few on Pinterest.  This involves creating art in the margins of a treasured bible. I had no idea that some bibles come with very large margins specifically for taking notes I guess, but these areas work just as well for doing artwork. The ones I have seen have all been inspired by the verses on that page.

Anyhoo, back to Shakespeare. I loved the idea of creating art in a treasured book, while still being able to read the book and not completely cover up the text. not being religious, when I spotted this book I knew it would be perfect.

So before I even started I deconstructed the book, taking off the cover. That will become an entirely separate project. I am thinking of making a linen cover and embroidering it with some stumpwork. This would fit in nicely with the whole Elizabethan era…. but I digress..

As the book is so chunky, to use the pages on the left I found they needed to be propped up. So I popped a stack of books under this side. This gives me a stable surface on which to work.

The first play is The Tempest, and begins with a scene set on a ship on a stormy sea. Now I did at first think I would like to decorate the pages with images that directly relate to the text, but came to the conclusion that was putting too many restrictions upon myself. So I plan to make some kind of art that is inspired by the text, it could be realistic or abstract, whatever I feel like at the time. 

So I found myself searching for inspirational images of waves, and as often happens, one image leads to another, that leads to youtube, that leads to pinterest, and so on… eventually I wasn’t looking at real waves at all, and I ended up on THIS PAGE A very eyecatching pattern you will agree. I loved the simplicity of the illusion and in a way it still did look like the clashing of waves.

So, not wanting to copy exactly, I read the instructions once and began in my book. These pages are super thin, and I knew any kind of pen ,in or marker would bleed through. So I added a very thin coat of gel medium first.

Adding some wavy lines with a pencil.

I then went over these with a black fineliner, and added the cross lines to each column.

Next I added a water wash of colour to each column, using Fresco paints in China, Blueberry, Lavender, Eggplant, Glass Blue and Smurf.

I then went over the paint, adding shading with Faber-Castell Pitt pens .


My next layer of colour was with Derwent Coloursoft pencils.


Once all the colouring was done I added further highlights with a white Posca pen.

On the site where I found the pattern, the artist used more coloured shading to achieve his optical illusion. This wasn’t really what I was after, so I only went back in with more black. I wanted the columns to be much stronger , and almost fighting against each other. I used a Mitsubishi uniball eye pen.

This is how the page has ended up, and I quite like it. It does have the feeling of tempestuous colums of water, churning and turning in a storm.

Here it is next to the page of text. i do not plan to work my way through the book, rather I am going to dip in and out, creating on pages as I feel like it. I don’t think every page will have colour… but who knows. On the pages that already have illustrations perhaps I will just colour those in.

Next year sees the 400th anniversary of ShaKespeare's death, there are going to be celebrations all over the world. See some of the details HERE. 

Also next year, as part of the celebrations there will be a full sized 'pop up' replica of the globe theatre built in New Zealand. Once built it will then go on a world tour. See the details HERE. 

Darcy x

ABC of Flowers

A quick and funky single page for you today. A few weeks ago while doing another page I had cleaned off my brushes onto this page... might seems a dirty thing to do, but..

this is the ideal way to get excess paint off your brush...

it means that paint isn't wasted..

and it gives you a base to start a new page. 

There were 3 patches of colour, Ice Blue, Mocha Mousse and Pansy. The colours don't matter, whether they go together or not.. they can always be covered up, partly or totally. As it happens I quite liked the 3 patches, and decided to just cover the whole page with an alphabet stamp. I have this stamp plate twice.... one plate is kept as a whole for doing backgrounds and the other one is cut up into individual letters.I love this set.  Ink and Dog Words 2.

Next I used the stencil PS009 and black gesso to create these silhouette flowers. You can see more clearly here the original patches of paint. 

I cut out some flowers from scrap paper and placed them over the flowers to protect them. 

I then created some background circles using Portfolio Pastels. Light blue, dark blue, brown and orange. 

Next I mixed some Fresco paints with water, just enough to make it runny enough to drip and splatter. I used 3 colours, first Tango, then some Autumn Fire and finally some splatters of Blood Orange. 

Here is how it looks now that the paint drips have dried. 

Next I took  a white Posca pen and did some doodling. 

To finish off the flowers I added some stems using a Faber-Castell Pitt Pastel pencil, this is a bit like charcoal and is quite smudgie. I then added some white details again with the Posca pen. 

Here is the finished page. I was in two minds as to whether I should add a title or a quote at the bottom right corner. I still might go back and do that, but i will leave it for a while... live with it and see how I feel in a week or two. 

This really was just a 'play and see' page, and I found it very relaxing, pages like this are great for trying new techniques. You don't have to finish them in one session, you can keep going back and adding 'stuff'

Give yourself permission to just play. 

Darcy x

Another finished page.

On a roll...it won't last haha, good job I only had 2 ARC pages to finish off. This one is from the November post. 

At the time, I managed to get the background done, and got it to this point..

next I needed to draw the boy who is the main character of the book. 

the book is basically about how he feels different from his friends, in that he really wants to wear a dress. 

I coloured it using Faber Castell Polychromos pencils and stamped a football onto a bit of scrap paper that had bits of paint on it. 

I worked out my positioning in the book

then added in some text, it needed a border, so I cut strips of paper to look like goal posts. 

All done. tho I won't be hosting ARC here on my blog this year the FB group is still open, and the monthly challenge will continue in there. Of course as and when I have time to do a page I will also show it here. 

Darcy x

Finishing things..

This year I am determined to get things finished, UFO's... unfinished objects. Projects that have been started and then put to one side for various reasons. I am not going to list them all here, it would be a scary list. 

To kick things off I have finished my ARC page from December( the review and background are in THIS POST), I started this on Christmas Eve and got as far as this.. I totally loved this background but just didn't have time to finish it last year. 

I decided that I wanted to draw Santa, though not a whole figure, just the head. I didn't want it to look like it was floating so I put it onto a scroll. 

Then I started to colour, first with neocolour II crayons. 

then I finished it off with Faber Castell Polychromos pencils..

This was then glued into the book on the right side of the journal..

I then found some ink pens on old wrapping paper, I tore them out and glued them to the left side, with a little script stamping in the background. 

I then used a sizzix die to cut 3 tiny envelopes out of scrap card that had bits of paint on it. I stamped the same background script onto the bits inside the envelopes. 

These were glued in over the pens. 

to finish that side i added some faux ink rings and ink splats.. 

and here is the finished page.. with sentiment added. 

I am really happy with how this turned out even if it did take a while to finish.. 

just love the layers and details.. 

Darcy x