Marker pen & Washi tape fun!

I work dangerously close to the art shop Cass Art's flagship store in Islington. A few days after payday Cass Art kindly organised a huge sale. It would have been rude not to take advantage and I had a little blow-out on a few sets of Letraset and Winsor & Newton Pro-makers and a little postcard pad.

Yesterday I spent a fun hour or two creating lots of colourful patterns with my new marker pens and Washi tapes from my stash. I must dash as I've got lots of postcards to write!

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Which is your favourite design? I'm feeling the orange and blue abstract grid design (#10) today!

Michael Brennand-Wood Workshop

Michael Brennand-Wood

Michael Brennand-Wood

Ever since seeing one of Michael Brennand-Wood's art pieces at Cartwright Hall in Bradford in 2007 I have been a big fan of his eclectic style. Born in Bolton he knew from an early age that he loved making and creating with all types of materials. His grandparents were a major influence in his fascination with making as they taught him sewing, embroidery and engineering skills. You can see this juxtaposition of delicacy and more brutal elements in his work.

I spotted a July workshop with Michael at the Selvedge shop in Archway earlier in the year I didn't hesitate to book it as a end of school term treat. The theme of the workshop was 'Lines of Thought'. He started by discussing his work, showed us amazing experiments and some of his final art pieces. The main focus of the day was to just be free to try things out and have fun.

Here are some of the art pieces he showed us for inspiration:

There were five of us on the workshop and after seeing the above art pieces we were raring to go.
I started by wrapping a wooden frame with threads, ribbons, fabric and washi tape.

Then I began adding string, beads, ribbon, washi tape, paper maps and wires.

The workshop was lots of fun. We all enjoyed using the hand drill to twist wires to trap and wrap threads, fabrics and other textures. It has been a great taster for experimentation and exploring the properties of different materials that I am sure to develop further in the future.

Check out lots of other cool crafty blogs at #handmademonday organised by Julia of Sum of their Stories.

Arty Easter Cards

Here is a quick tutorial to make some bright and colourful Easter cards.
I was inspired by some pretty Polish painted eggs I bought years ago and it got me thinking about a simple way to create cards with the following things:

• Decorative paper (wrapping paper / origami paper)
• Washi tape
• Plain cards
• Glue stick
• Scissors

First, select your decorative papers and cut out a range of egg sizes.

Decorate the paper eggs with different washi tapes.

You can either trim the excess tape with scissors or fold over to the reverse of the paper.

After you have a few decorated paper eggs arrange them into your chosen composition and glue them down.

Easy and fun. Now all you need to do is write an Easter message inside and send them to loved ones.

Have a great Easter weekend everybody!

Check out lots of other cool crafty blogs at #handmademonday organised by Julia of Sum of their Stories.