Arty makes

Well hullo there. It's your friend Horace here. I keep posting updates of things I'm creating but never the finished makes. I thought it was time to rectify that with a little gallery of doings for your delectation.


The first photo is a page in the journal collabearation we are creating with the cub and was my entry. I had to wait until she'd seen the page before posting it and we just swapped journals last week. I used texture paste and acrylic paint for the first layer of background, then inked over a stencil, followed by some random stamping. I then created an odd flower person with Dylusions and Paperartsy stamps, adding magazine images for the facial features. The title is also magazine cut outs, and apt for both this page and life at The House of Bears in general!


Below is a silly creation that came into my furry little head one evening. I wanted to sketch a face, then wondered, what if there was a face trapped in my journal. My furry mind works in alternative ways! An awful lot of black neocolour crayon was sacrificed in the making of this page.


The next page was inspired by an afternoon's splatterthon in the garden. I took my small journal out into the sunshine and randomly flicked acrylics over it, and the grass, and myself.



Once back inside and cleaned up. I added some flowers and eyes ( I seem to be having a flowery eye phase). The flowers are from patterned paper we had in the stash box and the eyes are from Dylusions stamps. The phrase came to me as I created.


Next, a slight change of theme, although still featuring a face. The cub bought us a fantastic stamp set on our recent bearthday. I had to try them out rightaway. This is one of three cards I created. You may have seen my earlier post where I painted giant bubble wrap and pressed it onto a journal page? Well the card blanks had the same treatment, followed by distress stain splatting. I then inked the rim of a plastic lid with the distress stain and randomly stamped that over the card, added some distress edged patterned paper and the fab stamp and hey pawsto, a greetings card was created.


The next creation was made at the cub's. How come someone else's stash is so irrisistable? We always take a journal on our visits, just in case the cub has anything we need to play with. This time it was her Gelatos, smeared onto the background and some of her stamps added. We them pawloined a magazine image and stamped a sentiment to finish the page.


Goodness, am I STILL going on? Well, okay. The creation below was a complete disaster, averted eventually after much wailing, sighing, and baby wiping. I tried to copy a Balzer designs page tutorial, but in my enthusism, I failed to realise that my background was complete at least 3 steps before the tutorial's, and went for complete overkill. Well, it looked like I'd slaughtered several Smurfs with a sharp machete on my page. Thank goodness for baby wipes is all I say. Lots and lots and LOTS of wiping across the pages removed the dead smurfs and took the page back to an acceptable state, whereby I murdered several chicks and one or two smurfs to produce the background below. I hastily added (more) flowers ( no faces this time though.) The tree tag on the page came from some lovely mango wood furniture Wilbear bought us. We just had to save it for a journal page.


Are you bored yet? What? You want to see one final picture? Well, as you asked so nicely. A sketch? No problem. Here's one I drew earlier. This picture was on the back of a latte sachet box, so I thought I'd see if I could repawduce it, first in pencil, the coloured with my watercolour pencils. Her legs are a little long and thin but hey, doesn't everyone want long thin legs these days? I know Podgy does.


I hope you've enjoyed seeing some of the recent creations at The House of Bears. Tomorrow we plan to have a blog catch up day and visit all our lovely friends, to see what you've all been creating.

With love from the bears

WOYWW - we forgot it was Wednesday!

Hola, yikes, Wednesday already? We forgot! It's Horace here again, still in my snazzy new coat, I haven't taken it off yet, not even to sleep!

Luckily I'm mid creation and it's not too late to join in the fun at WOYWW
Hosted by Julia. Go and take a looky, join in, have a sneak at desks around the world. It's fun and addictive.

So, what is on my desk this week? A new art journal / scrapbook, bought by the cub for our recent bearthday. It's a lovely size and I've decided to use it as an arty scrapbook. Here I am, just finishing creating the background of my first pages. You can also see my paint tray, some distress stains and other pawraphenalia needed when getting arty.


I found some giant bubble wrap and painted it up with green and black acrylics which I pressed into my page. It created such a great effect. I then cut and distressed the edges of a piece of patterned paper to use as a photo frame. Finally, before sticking a photo, I smashed distress stain into the page, to create a splattery effect. Oh. I also wiped the rim of a bottle top with the distress stain, to cause a coffee stain effect. Now I just need to find a photo to finish the page.


I think I'll have a little look around the desky doings of other WOYWWers first though. Ttfn.

With love from the bears

WOYWW - double mess

Hullo there, it's Horace with my cool new coat I bought myself from ebear, do you like it?


Being Wednesday I'm guessing you've come to see the desk rather than my latest pawchase though? Today I'm going for a double desk effect. As you may know, we pawchased a new, hideaway desk, with a scrolly bit that hides away behind a pull down bit ( fabulous explanations eh?)



It's a very handy desk, as I have the top to pile lots of doings on, and the roll out bit, which is supposed to be the keyboard shelf, for extra arty doings. This means I can make double the mess. There is a double cupboard under the desk and the majority of the bears' stash fits in here, now that we've had a bit of a sort out.



Also, the bears' bed is just to the left of the desk, so I can pile stash all over that too. On the top part of the desk I have a journal page in mid creation, I haven't taken a close up as this is the friendship journal we're creating with the cub, and I don't want her to see her page before the big reveal when we meet up next week. We also have the ipaw on the top desk, various stash all over the place and of course, a protective plastic cover underneath it all, to protect the lovely new work surface.



I think I'll have a little pad around some fellow WOYWW comtributors. Click the link, check out julia's fab explanations and join in. It's fun and addictive.

With love from the bears

Art Doesn't Have to be Expensive

Well hello there dear friends. It's Horace back with you again whilst Wilbear snores gently in his wicker chair.

Some of you may remember me showing you this fabulous journal we received from a dear friend on our shared birthday last year





Well we only have 4 pages left to fill in it now so it's getting lovely and full





I thought I'd try and finish the journal by our shared birthday this year at the same time as showing you how art journalling does not have to be expensive.

Of course you need something to journal on to, but this can be practically anything. We've used old books, the insides of cereal boxes and cheap notebooks as well as our gorgeous journal. Look around the house and try to utilise your recycling pile.

Next you'll need something to journal with. Well you could use pencils, pens, paint, your child's colouring pencils... I can almost guarantee you will have have something in your house that will do. Even a biro or felt tip is fine, you can create a doodle with those.

I've decided to try and stash bust by using these cheap paints we bought to use on the Gelli plate ( which we later sold)





First I made a disgusting green and white mess on the table (which was covered with a plastic tablecloth then a piece of cheap wallpaper). To protect your surface, again look at your recycling and utilise what you have. An old carrier bag cut up and covered over with newspaper or a telephone directory is fine.





I painted my page with the disgusting green mess ( a paint brush would come in handy for this, but you could use your hands if you don't mind getting messy). I disliked the colour produced by mixing my paints, so I blobbed a lighter green and some white onto the pages





Then closed the book and smooshed ( very technical term that) the paints together by sitting on the book. Of course, you may not want to sit on your book, well that's fine. You could smooth the pages together with the flat of your hand, working from the center of the book to the outer page, making sure you have a protective layer beneath the page as this is bound to spread out of your journal. If you have a brayer or an old rolling pin you can use those to smooth the pages together.





Don't keep the pages together for too long, or all you'll produce is a stuck together mess. As soon as you open the pages you'll see texture created by the smooshing. Lots of lovely little patterns will have appeared.





Now, see all of those plastic lids on my desk in the picture above? Again, this all came from the recycling. Any lids will do. Take these and press them into the still wet paint, to create various sized circles





Don't try to be too neat or orderly, aim for a random pattern as above. I also rolled the ridged side of one of the bottle tops along my page for a different textured effect. Experiment and see what you come up with.

Once your paint is completely dry, you'll want to decorate further. I used rubber stamps for this, but you could cut up images from an old magazine and glue them onto your background. I decided, to go with my Chinese stamps, I'd try some Chinese writing. Hopefully these symbols spell hope!






The most important thing to remember in art journalling is to have fun, experiment, and don't worry too much about the outcome. It's all about the process.


With love from the bears