Makings and Musings Community

This is the recording from last night’s session, and it was such a lovely, busy Zoom to be part of. I always really enjoy these moments of working together in real time, but I also know many of you prefer to come back to the recordings at your own pace and I love seeing all your artwork.

I really love these limited colour palette sessions and I wanted to show that you do not need to stick to natural colours from the reference photo in order to create a convincing landscape. I often find that moving away from reality is where the real joy comes in. I adore a pink sky, and I think it brings such a playful energy to a page. I also have a soft spot for warm yellow or orangey skies, so I may explore that with you in a future session.

Next week we are…

Hi everyone, I love seeing your creations while I’m away both here and the wintery paintings in the courses group!

I naturally took some art materials with me on holiday, a few pens, pencils and a small set of watercolours.

This workshop aims to provide tools for participants to create their own travel records beyond just photos.

Watch here:

Writing down and preserving our thoughts has always been a very human thing to do. Just as with drawing, writing is a way of creating images and symbols that carry meaning. It helps us make sense of the world and leaves behind traces of who we are.

Think for a moment about your own handwriting. The size of your letters, the space you use on the page, the tools you prefer – all of these little choices tell a story about you. In this workshop, we will take time to reconnect with the practice of writing and reflecting, this time through the lens of travel.

You may have seen travel journals that come with pre-made pages for notes, expenses, or itineraries. They can be useful, but today I want to invite…

In this class, I will guide you in drawing your own personal map. Together, we explore how to turn your experiences, memories, and dreams into a beautiful and imaginative artwork. You will learn simple drawing techniques that help you shape islands, forests, mountains, and other landmarks—each one representing something meaningful in your life.

Watch Here:

You can follow along with me, or you can make the map truly your own by adding symbols and stories that matter to you.

I created five themes to help get you started:

• A meaningful journey

In last night’s art class, we created a mixed media landscape of the colourful castle in Sintra, Portugal. It was a slightly more challenging piece than usual—but such fun to explore! We started with big, loose blobs of watercolour and slowly built up the painting with layers of detail using mixed media.

Watch the recording here:

You can add whatever you have—coloured pencils, pens, markers, crayons, or fineliners.

After the live session, I looked at my painting and felt it needed a little more work, so I finished it this morning and filmed that part too. I’ve added that second video here for you.

I finished the painting this morning in another 45 minutes:

Sketch notes, or visual note taking is a fun way of recording your thoughts.

In this class I will introduce you to the basics. How to organise your page, the basic shapes to use for any drawing and we are sketchnoting a route we regularly walk or run.