online class

New portrait painting class begins today...FREE...over on Ustream..

go to Jay's Blog to download the pdfs that go with week one, and then come over to Ustream to watch and chat.

The class begins at 4pm PST....that is midnight in the UK, but its the weekend, so you are all allowed to stay up lol

Go to this post.. to see the 2 portraits that he will be teaching..

Cotton Candy Girls

A while ago I signed up to do an online course with the gorgeous NATASA, I love her whimsy artwork, and when she decided to launch her first course I wanted to join in.

She called it Cotton Candy Girls, and in total we received 5 lessons and then 3 bonus lessons. Each lesson had videos and pdfs, and was well thought out with clear videos and very detailed pdfs.

I didn't have time to do the lessons as they were posted, but as everything was available to download, I was able to work through them at my own pace.

Each piece was done on either canvas or in a journal, but I felt I wanted to work on something that I could actually continue to use. So off I went to the charity shop and came home with some hard backed books, they were only 20p each. For the price of all of them I couldn't have bought even one canvas, so I was very pleased.

At first I thought I would pull out all the pages, and just use the covers...and then refill with blank pages. But then I got to thinking I could just alter the pages.

I really enjoyed painting these and would highly recommend you keep an eye on Natasa's blog for when she launches her next course.

So here are my finished Cotton Candy Girls.

week 1. The Angel

and the back..

week 2. Funky Hair Girl

week 3. Fairy Girl

week 4. Rainbow Girl

week 5. Girl with Cat

and the back...

There were 3 bonus lessons, one was a boy which I didnt fancy doing, so here are the 2 bonus girls that I did.

Bonus 1. Bonus Girl

and the back..

Bonus 2.  Soul Sisters

and now for the insides, so far I have ripped out pages, glued pages together, cut out secret compartments and created drawers. None of them are finished yet, so I shall just show you a few photos of the insides 'in progress' Now that the covers area ll done they will sit on the bookshelf and I can work in them like journals as i need to.. i think it will take a very long time to fill all 7 books, but I shall show you bits from them as I go along.

In this one I glued pages together to make them sturdy, and then at the back I glued a whole chunk of pages together and cut out section for matchboxes to slide into.

In this next one I cut out a secret compartment, no idea what i will put in here..

and in this one I cut out a centre section and added in a small journal..

Obviously there is lots of work still to be done on the insides...

Online courses

So here are a few online courses being run by awesome people.

First up is the LIFE BOOK course, run by Tamara Laporte. As you know I am doing this course and I can highly recommend it. There is still time to sign up before registration closes on Sept 30th, it really doesn't matter that you would be behind, as you can download the lessons and work at your own pace. I am about 20 projects behind, and I know other friends who are even further behind, so you would be in good company lol I am loving the course, and I think you would love it too.

Next I received a heads up about this giveaway from the gorgeous KYLIE FOWLER Go on over to her blog and find out about the way that you can sign up for an online course and NAME YOUR OWN PRICE... how awesome is that, you have till 5th august. ( Kylie is one of the teachers on the course but also one of the Life Book teachers, and her lessons are wonderful)

Finally the awesome JAY is going to be doing some free demos on ustream on how to paint portraits using acrylics. Keep an eye on his blog for up and coming details of days and times.