APR BOOKMARKS CHALLENGE

The challenge from Jenn at Artist's Play Room this week is to make Bookmarks.  A nice theme because they are quick to make and manageable even when you're busy. The feather for this one was from a print that I made a few weeks ago and was not happy with at the time, but I like its effect set against a blue background for this bookmark.

I wanted to re-use this fish drawing from my post of 8th July -  Fish Supper - simply because I was so pleased with it, and I thought it would make a good bookmark for an angler.

And now, my pièce de resistance:

I didn't have time to do this really, but once I got the idea I just had to sit down and sketch it very quickly, and I really enjoyed doing it.  In case you can't read my scrawl - I mean the bookworm's scrawl - his words read:

"Hi there!  I'm going through this for my Masters in

Cultural Bookwormology ......

It's been a bit of a slog but I'm nearly through it.

Got through 520,000 words so far -

only 40,000 words to go!"

("You can check if you want")

I shall be away from blogging and commenting all next week.  I'm going to a Summer School at the Tate Liverpool Gallery linked to their current exhibition "Chagall - Modern Master".  It was booked quite a long time ago, and I'm looking forward to it so much because Chagall is one of my favourite artists.

Also linking to Paper Saturdays Paper Saturdays tomorrow.

MINI ACCORDION BOOK - PAPER SATURDAYS

I made two little accordion fold booklets to post to Manon's Paper Saturdays, both painted randomly with watercolour front and back so that each side can be used for drawing or stamping.

FRONTS                                          BACKS

They are only small - 6 inches high by 16.5 inches - cut from a single sheet of paper.  I found these were the hardest things I've ever tried to photograph for a blog post, but I did my best! 

This is what they look like from above when they are folded out.

I wanted to make them just a little different from the usual by angling the top edge of each 'page' on a slant.

Very simple to make, but I like this kind of booklet, and it's easily slipped into a pocket or bag along with a pen when going out, just in case there's something to sketch.

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The next picture is a card I made and sent to my friend Karen a few weeks ago.  I hope she does't mind me showing it here, but I was really happy with the result.

The cow was a cut-out, and I decorated it with collaged hat, scarf and ribbon bow, and painted her 'toenails' red.  The yellow dots were added with a pen, and the cow collaged on to my own painted and textured background.

Last week I made a mess of trying to link up to Manon's Paper Saturday, and found I had posted the link as a new post on my own blog, which I had to delete quickly.  I hope I can manage to do it successfully this week.

WHO'S THAT HIDING IN MY ARTWORK?

The theme for Collage Obsession this week is 'Faces'.  Life is busy just now, and I am cheating a little by using a piece I made a few weeks ago, just for the fun of it, so I hope you will forgive me.

Painted paper 'doily' collage, 

magazine image background 8"x8"

Jez

I started out by wanting to make a 'cut-out doily' as we did when we were children, but with a completely random shape rather than a circular  repeat pattern.

I kept folding the paper in completely different directions to cut out small shapes, which produced this result.  Then I didn't know what to do with it, so I stuck it over the magazine photograph.  Only then did I think of painting it - definitely not planning ahead.

Yes, that's Johnny Depp's eye peeping through a space that seemed to have been designed for him to look through.

Before seeing the Collage Obsession theme for the week I had decided to link this simple piece of paper cutting with with Manon's papercrafting challenge Paper Saturdays, so I shall be linking up Manon too.

Do check out both blogs for some interesting and incredible artworks.