Category: Online classes

Discover Colour - Life Book week 1 - Robyn Wood
Art Journal, Mixed media, Online classes

Discover Colour

Robyn Wood

The first week of Life Book has come and gone and I’ve put the final touches to the first art journal & drawing lesson from Tamara Laporte. Tam themed the lesson around the idea of creating a Happy Traveller, a protective character that leads the way into the new year along with a soul animal or two.

Purple Salt, Robyn Wood, art journal, mixed media
Discover Colour – Life Book week 1

Mine turned out a little differently, as I want to make my online class practices more ‘me’ and less of the teachers this year. My soul animal was meant to be a fox but I guess I was meant to have the cat I ended up with! Never mind, first time drawing an animal like this from scratch so not so worried.

Purple Salt, Robyn Wood, art journal, mixed media

My focus for this year is adventure. Adventures in art making, meeting up with my art sistas, travelling and an all round seeking of new paths. One of these will be learning more about art – so ‘Discover Colour’ seemed to be appropriate for this girl!

Purple Salt, Robyn Wood, art journal, mixed media

I love how she came together, especially the strings of doodles that hang from her hair. Those are pure Tam but I think you will be seeing more in future girls.

Purple Salt, Robyn Wood, art journal, mixed media

Below is a list of the basic supplies I used in creating her, one of the more unique ones is this rubbon – I’ve had it for ages so it was nice to finally give it a home. Leave me a comment if you would like to know what I used in more detail and I’ll try to help. I’d love to know which soul animal you have chosen for this year.

Supplies:

  • Neocolor II crayons
  • Ceramcoat acrylic paint in skin colours
  • Prismacolour pencils
  • Ranger Distress paints
  • Letraset Aquamarkers & Tombow markers
  • Sharpie fine white paint pen
  • Collage paper & rubbon
  • Stabilo All pencil
  • The Crafters Workshop stencils

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The Life Book 2016 year is still in the early weeks, if you are interested in learning from Tam and a great group of artists you can sign up here.

Art Journal, Mixed media, Online classes, Quotes

Art Catch Up – online art class love

Robyn Wood

You can probably guess; I love online art classes – I have joined lots of them over the years with varying degrees of success. Usually, I underestimate the amount of free time I will have or the amount of practice needed to achieve the skills I was hoping to learn. Occasionally a class steals into my imagination so quietly that I barely notice and the next thing I have completed a whole body of new work based around the class lessons. This happened recently with a class by Jane Davenport & Joanne Sharpe called ‘Miss Quoted’.

Miss Quoted combines Jane’s love of drawing whimsical girls and Joanne’s skills at teaching lettering with their joint fascination with the mercurial properties of watercolours. I was lucky to attend a weekend workshop with Joanne at Jane’s earlier this year and was hooked on her style of teaching – you can’t help but learn and it doesn’t seem like work or dreaded practice to complete the lessons.

Sparkle Quote

Miss Quoted starts with a bunch of lettering exercises, alphabets and such based on our own handwriting. I found it a great way to train my hand back to a bit of cursive style – I’ve been printing my letters for years! Lately I’ve been happily writing quotes in watercolour in the cute Moleskine watercolour journal I am using for class.

Milly & Monty

It wouldn’t be a Jane Davenport class without lessons on drawing whimsical girls and this class is no exception. Jane teaches us to draw girls in a variety of ways with watercolour and her Epic pen. Check it out here if you have no idea what I’m talking about. I am really enjoying the process of combining pen and watercolour, there is something quite freeing about it as it can be quite uncontrollable.

Miss Quoted 2

As the name suggests there are quotes involved – or rather lettering in among the drawings of girls, in their hair, their clothing, across the pages they sit on – wherever they seem to fit best. I created this quartet based on the lessons and love how they turned out.

Miss Quoted 1

 

Mixed media, Online classes

Come join me in Joynal….an online class to delight and enjoy!

Robyn Wood

Would you like to enter the world of fairy tales? Of unicorns? Of forest dwellers and mythical creatures? Come and play in the creative world of Jane Davenport and the happy band of students who take online classes in Jane’s Online Art School.

As a student you would share in our joy in learning to create whimsical girls and other creatures under Jane’s excellent guidance. Come join us for the next running of the online art class Joynal, starting September 1. You can find all the details and signup here.

A fairy from Joynal

I’ve been a student in Jane’s school for a number of years and am blessed to count her as a friend. I’ve dipped in and out of many of the lessons in the classes and find them easy to follow and complete. Through learning online, I’ve been able to turn my pretty awful stick figures into beautiful whimsical girls. Finding the time & motivation to practice is my biggest challenge but I love the process of learning.

Although some drawing experience would be helpful for this class, Jane always covers the basics of drawing a face so with some time & practice you will soon be drawing alongside us. Check out my flying fairy that I did during the first round of Joynal, it was a bit of a challenge to do her arms but I was so pleased with how she turned out.

Jane is giving her blog readers a chance to win a scholarship to Joynal. Just pop over here by tomorrow and leave a comment on who is your favourite fairy tale character and you are in with a chance! (By writing this post I also have a chance to win a lovely prize of some beautiful Daniel Smith watercolours & a set of brushes. You can never have enough delicious supplies!)

Good luck and remember to say hi to me if you join up to the class.

Oh and my favourite fairytale character? Little Red Riding Hood – she was a brave girl with an awesome red cape!

Art Journal, ATC's, Darkroom Door, Mixed media, Online classes

Catch Up – the year so far

Robyn Wood

 

IMG_0239Goodness where did 2014 go? Time seems to be passing in a flash and it isn’t helped by the appearance of Easter eggs in our supermarkets before the first week of January was over.

Today I’d like to share a bit of an update on what I’ve been up to since the year began –

Lifebook 2015 has begun and I’ve dipped into a few of the lessons. So far I’ve really enjoyed creating my Beacon of Light girl with Tamara Laporte.  That’s her above – in all her glittery goodness!  I loved doing this year long class in 2014, even though I didn’t complete a large portion of the weekly lessons I learned so much and made lots of lovely online friends.

 

IMG_0095The Documented Life Project is running again. This is another year long activity run by a group of artists called Art to the 5th Academy. Each month has a theme and there are weekly art and journaling prompts. It is lots of fun and meant I could start a whole new journal, just for 2015! More on that in another post.  This girl was from the first week. I love how sassy she looks!

 

IMG_9756Another class that I’m working through is 10x10x10x10 with Donna Downey. It is based on creating collaged abstracts onto 10×10 canvasses, one each day for 10 days.  Abstract is not my forte so this class has been a huge learning curve and way out of my comfort zone but I love how the first one turned out.  I’m looking forward to doing an in-person class with Donna in a few weeks!!!

Ali Edwards has always been one of my favourite scrapbookers, I like the nice clean lines she uses on a page and the way each one tells a story. Over the past few years Ali has been running classes based on One Little Word – choosing a word and letting that guide you through the year.  There is a year long class based around the idea and I find it a great way to get the year started and keep thinking about where it is heading.

 

IMG_0164Another class I’m trying to revisit is Supplies Me with Jane Davenport. I sort of did the class when it first came out a few years ago but never really went through all the exercises properly – this time around I plan to finish as many as I can.

Jane now offers lifetime access to her classes so the already awesome value is multiplied! I learn so much by drawing along with Jane during her online classes – surprisingly you really can learn to draw with an online class!

 

DRD ATC - Jan 15 - Robyn WoodWith a new year comes a new schedule of ATC swaps run by Darkroom Door. I have always loved playing in this monthly swap, the themes are constantly inspiring and lots of fun. It is great to be able to swap with other artists around the work with a common love of Darkroom Door products to connect us.  Check out the themes for the year and all the details here.

Phew! that is quite a list and there are a bunch of other things that I haven’t included like going on an Instameet in the Brisbane China Town area and going to a burlesque/life drawing event! Talk again soon!

Art Journal, Backgrounds, Darkroom Door, Gelatos, Mixed media, Online classes

2014 – New Challenges, New Online Classes, New Art

Robyn Wood

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I love a creative challenge and I’m becoming an online class junkie. Last year I dabbled in a few online classes, some with more success than others but I have learnt something from each of them. I plan to do a review post on the ones I did over the next few weeks.

In 2013, I procrastinated about taking on Lifebook or One Little Word and decided that I didn’t really have the time or focus as I wanted to get my Purple Salt indie business up and running. Time alone during the last days of 2013 made me realise that I really did want to join in the Lifebook movement and I have found myself doing it plus One Little Word (run by Ali Edwards) & The Documented Life Project!

So far all good and although completely different, each share similar elements which will enhance my year. I love that The Documented Life Project has a big element of mixed media in the prompts and challenges.  In a bid to share my mixed media projects more regularly – here is my first one from Lifebook 2014 – the warm up exercise from Week 1 with Tamara Laporte.

 

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Supplies – acrylic paints, Liquitex inks, Archival Ink, Distress Paints, Distress Crackle, Gelatos, Darkroom Door stamps.