Hobonichi February Part 1

So far this month has been a not very artistic one. There is a lot more writing on these pages than in my January pages. The first half doesn't even have any painting because I just haven't had the time to sit down and do painting. I bought my Faber Castell brush pens and they've been a bit help in making things look pretty with minimal effort. 

My favourite parts so far are the painted quote pages. I'll probably be doing more of those. Hooray for actually writing quotes in this month! 

I want to try some journalling prompts but there are so many out there. What are you guys using for your journals? Please feel free to share any good ones with me!

Hobonichi January

I've been having fun with painting in my Hobonichi, but I don't feel I have the time to really do what I want to do. For the moment, I'm testing out painting techniques and trying to get comfy. I like the outcome of some of these things and I'd like to share them with you.

This was my first and probably my favourite painting I did. It is a sunrise to show new beginnings- the New Year and my new journal! I followed a tutorial which I found on YouTube (here), but mine is nowhere near as good as theirs. I still love mine a lot!

Review: KUM Memory Point Brushes

The lovely people at Cult Pens chose me to do a review of the new brushes by KUM. When the brushes arrived, I was really pleased with how they felt and couldn't wait to get started with them. I've never done brush Calligraphy before so I needed to do a bit of practising. I was so majorly excited! 

I'm not normally a painter, but I've been looking at so many different calligraphy styles and always thought brush calligraphy was so lovely. It is hard to do, and there really is a certain knack one has to acquire to pull it off. It was recommended that these brushes be used with water colour, gouache, acrylic, glass and silk paint. I decided to use Gouache paint because I could make the colour more intense, but still have it quite watery.

 I was pleasantly surprised by how swiftly it flowed over the paper (almost too swiftly!). It made it a little harder to control, so my first attempts were a bit wobbly! (It looks like my 10 year old sister did that!) 

 I did get used to it though, and it felt really nice to work with them. The paint brush picks the paint up really well and it's just such a pleasure to work with them. 

I still need a little more practise with brush control. 

The brushes are easy to clean too. Some brushes I've used for other work get paint stuck on the bristles, but that wasn't the case with these ones. The brushes are very light, so it's possible to not feel strained if working with them for a long time. They feel very comfortable. I love that none of the bristles fell out, because nothing annoys me more than a brush that does that! It's all very well made. They also aesthetically pleasing with the cream pearly shine handles. 

Overall, I'm very pleased with them. I still need more practise working with them, but I like them a lot. They're good quality and I would definitely buy them for future works. If you're an artist who does a lot of painting, I would definitely recommend these. 

DIY Time!

The sun was shining and it was finally a chance for me to do one of the projects that I've been needing summer to do! I feel more in the mood to do the big craft projects, when I can stand outside to do it. The sun was out in full force today and it was lovely and warm. So I decided to paint a mirror!

This is what it looked like before. It was wooden with some dated flowers painted around the edges. Someone gave it to me because they were going to throw it out, and I needed a mirror for my bathroom, but this didn't really fit in with the decor so I took it on with the hopes of repainting it.

I went to the DIY shop to buy some supplies! Primer/Undercoat is really expensive, but I figured I didn't really need it because I was sanding this down anyway.

Sand sand! Until it's all smooth and dust off the excess bits.

Look at how pretty the silver paint was when I was  mixing it. It was one of the prettiest things I've ever seen! I almost didn't want to stir it properly because it looked so cool.

These are some after pictures. I waited for it to dry and then sanded it and did a second coat. I'm waiting for it to dry and then I'll sand it again. Then I'll put it up. I'll put more pictures up once it's completely done.

DONE- Bleach Painting

I actually did something that I intended to do. The tutorial for this bleach painting came from Lune for a feature on A Beautiful Mess. The steps are outlined in great detail on there, but here are a few shots I took during the process! 

I need to get actual chalk or fabric chalk because I could only find a white pencil so it was a bit hard to see the outline. Painting it at first was scary because I didn't know how the bleach would react with the fabric, but it all turned out well and now all my family want one! I'm gonna do some more once I've been to buy more dark t-shirts!