Play time with PanPastels

I’ve done a bit of housekeeping on the blog, so that it should now be easier to find things using a more obvious menu system. I’ave also added a ‘reviews’ page under the Workshops tag so that you can read what others have given as feedback about my classes.

And I’ve allowed myself a play day day to experiment with techniques. First on the list was to build on my PanPastel Art Journal that I started a while back with some backgrounds. I’ve recently bought new stamps from Designs by Ryn and Catslife Press that have sat in the drawer unloved and unused – and they are perfect for art journaling. I was also delighted to expand my PanPastel collection with a set of metallics for Christmas (thanks Kathryn & David!). Here’s what I came up with this morning:Here’s a time lapse showing the layers building up:

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If you’d like more information on how to art journal with PanPastels, come along to my art journaling workshop on 3rd May! Here are a few more pages done this afternoon – unfortunately the metallics don’t show up very well on these scans:

 

Perfect in Pastels…

It’s ‘Let’s Celebrate’ theme over at The Crafting Cafe this month, and for my DT post I chose the fantastic ‘Bundles of Hearts’ digistamp from , their sponsors this month.

I had a go at being a bit different, and decided to try and make the equivalent of an embossing folder to build up the image into an embossed one – it worked to a degree, but no where near good enough to run with, and then I ran out of time.

So I got out the PanPastels to colour in Benson Bear, adding shading and filling in the small areas with Derwent soft pastel pencils. I blended those in with a paper stump, which was also quite handy for moving the pastel off the laser-printed black areas. Any pastels running over edges were gently rubbed back with an eraser. I used a spray fixative to seal everything before assembling the card. The sentiment is a peel off, and the coloured card from Bazzill. I love the texture that the pastels give to the fur 🙂

And once I’ve mastered the art of converting a digistamp to an embossed image, I’ll let you know!

 

Playing with PanPastels in a new art journal

One of the benefits of working at the NEC during a craft show is nipping off during breaks and spending money on new materials. This time I went mad and treated myself to the 20-colour PanPastel Portrait Set, mainly for my life drawing work at college obviously. However, I do need to get used to them, so last night I played with them, setting down dry wash backgrounds in a new art journal that I’m dedicating to work with pastels. A quick spritz with fixative spray and here’s how it went:

I love the vibrancy of the pigment-rich colours, and found that they played nicely together when swiped over with any of the tint colours – until then, there wasn’t that much interplay between the colours, but I may have been a bit stingy with the initial application. I applied the PanPastels using a large Sofft sponge.

PanPastels and Christmas Cards

I can share today’s project with you – I’ve been asked to make some Christmas cards to be sold at bazaars across the Middle East, so I came up with this design and made 36!