A week late and a dollar short!

Like several of my art friends, I signed up for the free Strathmore classes that are now being conducted. This is the only class I have signed up for at this time, because I wanted to learn a few ways Traci Bautista uses all that color, as well as learning to free myself a bit when I make a collage. So I began by watching the first tutorial on Friday of this past week, hoping to learn a few things.


As usual, I didn't have the supplies the artist recommended. I did, however, have a full book of 90 lb watercolor paper (quite the comedown from the 140 lb, 18 X 24 inch Strathmore paper Traci recommended) that I was more than willing to use for this class, along with some grid mesh I think is used for latch hooking. I also had a few plastic doilies I could use.

By the time I realized the latch hook plastic was not going to work,


it was early afternoon. It was then I decided to cut up one of the plastic circles I have. Now I'm not sure where I got these, but I think they came with plastic pegs or beads that I got years ago at a garage sale. But cutting even ONE was very difficult on my poor aching fingers.


I love those circles and used them recently in monoprinted fabric, as you see above.



OK, back to the lesson I'm trying to learn (I'm very easily distracted these days). Using the cut up plastic mesh, along with some that I didn't cut into, I began spritzing the paper with various color mists. I used the manila envelop in the background to help curtail some of the mist.


Traci taught us to wipe our masks and stencils off using a brayer (which I didn't use) and a clean sheet of paper. Instead I used my fingers, which turned a not-so-lovely brown!

I continued to follow Traci's instructions, using feathers, paint, oil pastels, and India ink.


However, since I am not really a doodler, I could not seem to open up. That may be because I don't have the right type of Sharpies, or the proper ink pens. Additionally, my correction pen had dried up from non-use! Of course, it could also be that the weather had turned nasty, making my craft room so cold I kept longing for gloves for my hands. I will try to loosen up with the next lesson, especially if I have some of the supplies.


And even though many people have already shown their first (and possibly by now, their second) lesson, it was all new to me (the CED word for the month of January). Therefore, I am sharing this today at CED.