Stationary And Organisation

This post is a little different in that i suppose you could call it a life style ish post, it is not to do with fashion, beauty or anything of the sort. It is a post on how i like to keep my self organised with school work, blogging and just the general times in between. I have also not posted in a little while as i have had far too much work and still do but managing it, just about. So with my love of pretty stationary, colours and being organised, this is how i work.

I decided to invest in a few different notebooks and planners. I got 2 plain papered notebooks from paperchase at only £3 each so super cheap, but as i like things being colourful, as i mean who doesn't, it just makes it so much more inviting, I also got some very beautiful paper from paperchase for about £1.50 which i have covered the front and back of the books with. 

One of these books i now use as a scrap book where i will start to keep all those memorable moments and a place to draw and doodle when i want to. The second is used for all my blogging needs and ideas, Its an organised place where i can write up my ideas or doodle around them if i wish so that i won't forget anything and is easy to go back too.

Now for school with all my final exams coming up in about 2 months, it soooo soon, i needed a place to help me revise with all my information, so only needing to focus on 2 main subjects with exams I bought 2 planner notebooks with tabs from WHSmith at only £2.69 each. 

One book is for psychology and the other maths, and in each sections in those books i have dedicated to a separate exam to keep everything in one place in order. Again these books were just one plain colour so i bought different packs of stickers and covered the fronts of each, and i also invested in some different coloured highlighter pens to keep this colour co-ordinated inside.

xxx

Oil Painting Project

I am taking art as an A level in college and one of our projects at the moment is leaning how to oil paint, the techniques used etc. For someone that does not paint, ever, I mean my teacher worries when I pick up a paint brush, this project terrified me, but as I have now started I have grown to like it just a little bit, so I thought this would be a good idea to record my progress and share the stages with anyone else who'd like to learn to oil paint too.

I had to chose a painting by an artist already to copy as it is a lot easier to learn that way due to the stages you paint in. I decided to chose a painting of a log cabin in the woods as it slightly linked to my previous drawings done for the course.

For the first stages I did a wash of very watered down acrylic paint of the colour burnt sienna, this makes it easier to pick out the highlights in the painting as you are then not staring at a plain white canvas. This was done in acrylic because it just dries in seconds where as oils will take a long time. I then drew a very basic outline of the painting over the top.

The next stage was to bring out any of highlights and white areas, for this I used just white oil paint and turpentine to water it down, just like how you'd  use water for water paints or acrylic, you have to use turpentine for oil paints. this is just a thin layer and can still see the lines underneath.

After bringing all the highlights out you can then start to add in the black for darker areas and blend together. Again this is done using black oil paint and turpentine still as just a thin layer. For this I used pure black paint but if this scares you and want something less dark I would recommend using paynes grey instead.

Finally I have finished what is the first layer of a grisaille, which is just a monochrome version of the painting. Mine is still a very thin layer at the moment, but I will then go on to thicken this up before I start to add any colour.