About Me

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Hi I'm Clare, I live in the South West of England in the seaside town of Torquay. I adore playing with inks, paints and generally getting messy. It is the calm place which fits in between my hectic life whilst working as an outreach support worker, looking after my son, daughter, foster son and hubby. Not forgetting our gorgeous springer spaniel, Suzi.

Monday 28 March 2016

A blooming busy day!

Ok so I've got the blogging bug this week!  I've got two weeks off and I have full intentions of making the most of it.  

I've had a busy old day today all the usual chores,  out for a power walk with my daughter and a family gathering.  I even managed to squeeze in a bit of time in the craft room.  I took some inspiration from Donna Downey, her flower paintings really are amazing and I am often in awe of her work.


I had a canvas board which I had prepared with some texture paste and never got any further so decided to have a little play.  For my background I used Dylusion paints and inks.  I painted my flower with liquitex magenta quinacridone and Dylusion White linen.  The leaves were painted with cut grass layered with some other liquitex greens over the top.


That's it from me for today.  I hope to be back some time soon.  I love to hear your thoughts and comments.

Crafty hugs,
Clare X X X 

Sunday 27 March 2016

Home is where my heart is at

Happy Easter to you all.  Well in true bank holiday style the weather is a tad damp so I decided to find my own blue skies.


I spent the afternoon Dylusion dallying  on a small canvas.  I then had a doodling frenzy. (My favourite part)


As I previously said I used Dylusion paints for this project and doodled away with my posca pens.


Thank you for stopping by today.  Wishing you all a happy Easter holiday.

Hugs,
Clare X X X 

Sunday 20 March 2016

Intuitive me

Hi folks, I finally feel like I'm on the mend and the lurgy finally leaving me so today I dug deep to look for some crafty mojo.


Following a class from wanderlust with Flora Bowley I encountered on some brave intuitive painting.  This is painting without anything in mind but just going with the flow.

I just basically went for it using my favourite Dylusion and Dina Wakely colours.  Me being me, I couldn't resist doodling in some details.

 
So here is the finished article.  Not sure if I can cope with painting so freely but I certainly enjoyed the process even though at a couple of points I nearly washed out my brushes and turned out the light in the craft room.

Thanks for stopping by today I love to hear your comments.

See you soon for some more crafty goings on.

Hugs,
Clare X X X 

Wednesday 16 March 2016

Trying my hand at stamp carving

Hi I'm back today to share with you my recent goings on.  As some of you already know I have been busy taking part in quite a few online classes which I have really been enjoying.  It has been great fun learning lots of cool new ideas and techniques.  One thing I have noticed is that lots of designers who run these classes design and carve their own stamps to use on their projects.   So you know what?  I decided to have a go.



The unique sentiment stamp 'imagine' is from Visable Image http://visibleimage.co.uk

I know it does sound daunting but the process really was quite pleasurable and not at as difficult as I first imagined.  I had already been doodling earlier in the week and so decided that I was going to turn my doodles into stamps. From my note pad I traced my doodles onto some tracing paper and then transferred this to the speedball easy carve lino.



Using my carving tools I carved around my creation.  I inked up my stamp to test and see if any more lino needed to be removed.   As you can see on the photo below there are still small areas that could be removed.   As I have made these stamps to incorporate into my own projects and they will mainly be used in backgrounds I am quite happy for these little imperfections to stay.



As you will see from the photo they didn't turn out exactly as the doodles but nether the less I was happy with my first attempt.  I decided that some of these stamps would be used in one of my DT projects here is a sneaky peek of the background to see the finished project you will need to visit A Sprinkle of Imagination Blog.



Here are some links which you may find useful:
A Sprinkle of Imagination Blog.

Thanks for stopping by today.  I love to hear your thoughts and comments.

Crafty hugs,
Clare x x x