FUUMUUI NEEDLE POINT WATERCOLOUR BRUSHES Today I got a new set of watercolour brushes. They are rather special. The beautiful box Such pretty packaging! The brushes There are four brushes in the set. These brushes are made in China, and have smooth wooden handles with minimal varnish. So often, the varnish or paint…
HEBREW CALLIGRAPHY PICTURES FRAMED Today the parcel arrived from the online framing shop, with the mounts and frames for my two Hebrew calligraphy pictures which I did during the latest Domestika course. My name in Calligraphy This was the first exercise we had to do on the course. The calligraphy didn't have to…
HOW TO MAKE FAUX LEATHER This is an update of a post I made on my old blog ten years ago. For this project, I made two sheets, intending to use one as a masterboard to cut up and use in different projects, and the other as a photographic background. Introduction Faux leather…
SCRATCH PAPER Having recently started a new scratch paper with gold on tea-dyed paper, I thought I'd do a post about scratch papers in general. What are scratch papers, and why make them? Paint is expensive. I hate waste. I love recycling and upcycling! Watercolour on the palette will dry out, but you…
NEW DOMESTIKA COURSE - HEBREW CALLIGRAPHY Background The teacher of the course is the first female Soferet (Hebrew scribe, feminine) for 250 years. In the introductory session of the course, she shares her background which is extremely interesting, and it's so positive that Orthodox rabbis were prepared to take on her training and…
MARK MAKING ON THE ABSTRACT WATERCOLOUR MINI-ALBUM Shoshi's gone marking mad! I had soooo much fun with this latest project. It wasn't a lengthy project - I could do a page or two per session and just bung stuff down and see what happened. Quite different from my recent highly disciplined projects. Nice…
ABSTRACT WATERCOLOUR AND MINI ORIGAMI ALBUMS Shoshi the Loose Woman! After doing so much highly detailed work recently, I have felt the urge to go loose and splash a bit of paint around. One's gotta loosen up a bit once in a while! This is by way of an interlude before I begin…
DOMESTIKA COURSE - ISLAMIC ART - COMPLETING THE PROJECT This particular Arabesque motif is called a shamsa. Etymology I am fascinated by the origins and relationships of words, and looked up the etymology of shamsa. This immediately rang a bell with me, because of its similarity to the Hebrew word shemesh, meaning "sun." …
DOMESTIKA COURSE - ISLAMIC ART - WORKING ON THE FINAL DRAWING Inking over the transfer After I had transferred the tracing of the drawing onto the watercolour paper, it all looked rather messy. It was hard to see the detail which was quite confusing. To tidy things up, I decided to go over…
DOMESTIKA COURSE - ISLAMIC ART - TRANSFERRING THE DESIGN Following yesterday's session in the studio where I created the first version of some design tracings, I had time to think about how it was working out. I realised I wasn't happy with it, and decided to start the tracings again with a different…
