Art Abandonment at Upfest

 The other weekend we went to Upfest in Bristol.

It is Europe's largest Street Art Festival and this year was the 10th Anniversary.

I will do a proper update of the art work once I have downloaded all the photo's but I thought I would post the art abandonment's and Free Art Friday drops I made during the festival.

This was a small stencil of a spray can on a brusho background

This was one of my hand carved stamps of a fire demon on a inked background

 and other one of my fire demon's but this time on a tag

my final piece was left at the suffragettes yarn bomb!

Happy crafting

Kyla

Gregos and ArtAbandonment

Whilst I was on holiday in New York City I took some of my hand carved devil stamped postcards to abandon whilst I was there.

Most of you will know I am a big fan of street art (its hard not to be living in Bristol, home to Europes largest free street art festival) so NYC was such a brilliant opportunity.

I spotted this 'Gregos' piece and knew it was the ideal place to leave one of my red devil pieces.  Hopefully someone found him and liked it enough to take it home.  

Each piece has an explanation on the back about the Art Abandonment group (its worldwide) and how to contact us if you find a piece, but for the probably 100 or so pieces I have abandoned I have only ever heard back from one finder-but I don't mind as that's not the point of it, it is just a bonus.

Happy crafting

Kyla

Urban Sketchers at the farm

 If you follow me on Instagram you would have already seen these but I was a little slow in blogging them.  Two weeks ago I attended the meet up of the Bristol Urban Sketchers. 

 I have been to a few of their meet ups and its always a lovely group at a local spot, a cuppa and a chat then some sketching and then sharing of ideas etc over a cuppa and maybe some lunch afterwards-very refined.  

This event was at the Windmill Hill City Farm (which only last week end celebrated its 40th Anniversary) and somewhere I have never been.

The wall outside was painted by a local artists Andy Council (I have always been a fan of his work and was even lucky enough to go to his house at a local open art event a few years ago).

 There was so much to see and do from allotments, to chickens, pigs and goats.  I found the goats to be particularly delightful as they stuck their heads through the fence to play with passers by so ended up sketching at that spot for most of the time.

 I also decided to paint a watercolour postcard of the largest goat whilst I was there and leave it as part of the Art Abandonment project (search for the group on FB if you'd like more details)

On the way back into town my husband noticed the Arnofini art gallery has a stamp carving workshop for free and it was just a case of turn up and carve-everything you need was provided.  So I couldn't turn that down so I carved a face which reminded me a little of the Studio Ghibli character Calcifer!  I decided to sketch the process in my journal whilst I was on the bus home (never a missed opportunity).

I recommend local Urban Sketchers groups, they are great way of learning from others and it's always nice to meet up with like minded people.

Happy crafting

Kyla

 

Tea or coffee appears to be a theme

 I have been a bit tardy at blogging recently, mainly because I have been out making art and wasn't sure how to get the photos off my instagram account (https://www.instagram.com/kylacotterell/?hl=en) but I think I have sussed how to transfer them across (just needed to book time on the laptop to transfer them). 

This page of my journal was sketched in a cafe over lunch.  I had spent the morning at a Repair Cafe in Bristol.  A group of volunteers meet in a church and if you have a broken item you can take it along and they have a go at repairing it.  I took my solder iron but sadly it was well and truly broken, however, whilst we were there they mended a large flat screen TV (the lady had brought it previously and they identified the spare part she needed to buy for about £25 and then they fixed it for free).  Such a great resource, and the local church make some money by selling tea, coffee and cake.

Also, over the past few weeks I have been taking part in Free Art Friday and the Art Abandonment groups (search for them on FaceBook for more details).

This tag was a stamp I made and then over painted with posca pens and  stamped the phrase "Imperfection is Beauty".  I left it on the back of the hooks in the ladies toilets of Herbies Cafe in Exeter!

This tag I painted whilst sat overlooking the sea at Sidmouth in Devon and I left it in the Clocktower cafe.

I am enjoying abandoning small pieces or art.  I haven't heard back from any finders (they always contain details of the FB group) but hopefully people have enjoyed finding them. 

Whilst keeping the sketchbook I have noticed that I spend a LOT of time in cafe's sketching though!  Keep your eyes peeled if you spot someone sketching over a coffee-it may be me!

Happy crafting

kyla

Misfortune stamp carving

 On an earlier post I mentioned that fellow coven member Anna bought me some 'misfortune cookies' and Doug (Shaz silverwolf's hubby) suggested they would make a good stamp so I thought I would give it a go.

First I hand drew an image based on the cookie and transferred the image using carbon paper onto a rubber (the fake £50 note...no I am not made of money but these large flat rubbers are perfect for carving and only £1 each).

 Then I carved the image out of the rubber

 I inked the stamp and made a few first impressions to highlight areas that I needed to tidy up and finish off carving. 

 and there you have it, my new stamp

Thanks to Doug for the idea, now I have a new one off stamp and used up some of my ever expanding stash!!

Happy crafting

kyla

365 Journal double whammy!

I am slightly behind with my 365 journal postings so I thought I would do a double posting!

This is Novembers page.  I used POSCA paint pens and glitter to give the feeling of vibrancy and fireworks

For Decembers page I used the traditional colour theme and stamped around the edges with some pine tree stamps that I carved from rubbers.

I added some green glitter for the month and a little gold tinsel on the trees along the bottom of the page (well it is Christmas after all!).

 If you would like to join the 365 challenge then feel free over at the very talented Kate Cranes http://thekathrynwheel.blogspot.co.uk/

Happy Crafting

Kyla

 

Hand carved Stamp and useups

Hi folks, I hope you are all well and are up to date with all your Christmas stuff....there is so much to do isn't there...pressies to wrap, food to buy, decorations to put etc, ironing, dusting etc etc etc...SO much that its hard to find any crafting time, let alone blogging time!

This weekend was extra special as my brother and his new wife came to stay.  They no longer live in Ecuador but (for the time being) have moved back to London.  So, Saturday lunch time we went to a local pub (owned by the local Bath Ales whose brewery is 10 mins walk from the house-sadly the pub is 10 mins DRIVE away!!) with hubby and my mum for an early Christmas celebration lunch.  During the evening the four of us went to watch a friends northern soul band play.  Lots of dancing, laughing and maybe a cider or two!  What's not to like!

Before they arrived I managed to grab some time in the craft room and I did managed to make a card from some papers from my scrap box.

This is a stamp I carved from drawing I did of a seed head (inspired by the wonderful Angie Lewin at St. Judes). 

 I stamped it onto some leftover lilac paper and matted and layered it on some silver card (I have lots of silver off cuts after my Christmas card making session the other night).

I am entering it into the snippets challenge over at http://pixiescraftyworkshop.blogspot.co.uk/ where they have some lovely entries each week.

Happy crafting

Kyla

 

 

Seed head stamps

I recently had another go at stamp carving and decided to try a seed head.  I see all these lovely seed heads by Angie Lewin on prints, cards and fabric I decided to stick with my inspiration and carve my own seed head (a Dill seed head to be exact).

I mounted it and decided it would be perfect for a card.

Truly all my own work!

Right, I need to crack on and get stuff done (I think the housework and ironing fairy has decided to boycott my house!!).

Happy Crafting

Kyla