Artline Tuesday - English Language Day

Today is English Language Day, a day to reflect on the all the things we love about our language and celebrate the written and spoken word.  I thought the best way I could do this would be to select some of my favourite quotes written by British authors and create a spread in my journal to mark the occasion!

Celebrating English Language Day

It feels like it has been ages since I have done any lettering so I dug out my Supreme brush markers and Artline 200 fineliners and started creating my pages.  For the title and date I used a blue fineliner to write the letters and numbers first.  Then I went back over the down strokes with my brush marker in the same colour blue ink to make them look thicker.  Doing the lettering this way was a good way to easy myself back into it as I haven't done any calligraphy practice for a while now and I'm definitely a bit rusty!

If you are just getting started with hand lettering this technique will give your writing the look of calligraphy while you are still learning all the strokes and what pressure to use for them.

Some of my favourite quotes by British authors

My second page is dominated with a quote from JRR Tolkien, I used the same trick to create this with my brush marker and matching fineliner and I'm really happy with how it turned out!

I decided to add a few doodles to the pages before I filled in the remaining space with lots and lots of quotes.  Some of them are from my favourite books and some I found while researching British authors.  I used lots of my fineliners to write the quotes and add some extra colour, I also wrote some of them in different directions to make the whole thing look a little more interesting.

My full spread celebrating the English Language

Have you heard of English Language Day before?  Will you be doing anything to celebrate today?

Thanks for stopping by!

National Stationery Week 2019 - the countdown begins!

Okay, so if you've been here a while you will know I absolutely LOVE National Stationery Week!  It is a week long celebration of all things stationery related and one of it's main aims is to get people writing and rediscover their love of pen and paper.  Well next Monday is the start of National Stationery Week 2019 and this will be my sixth year as a #NatStatWeek blogger!

Some of my NSW photos from the last five years

The sponsors this year are Derwent, Paperchase, Ryman and Stationery Supplies and starting on the 29th April each day of NSW has it's own special theme and hashtag which are listed in the image below....

This year's themes

If you want to get involved this year then here's some more information for you!

If you are a fellow blogger you can write about National Stationery Week and share the details with your followers.  You can review a new piece of stationery or share your favourite items on your blog and social media.  Make sure you use the hashtags too!

If you are a stationery lover then you can treat yourself to some new stationery and join in with the conversation and competitions online.  Also make sure you are following National Stationery Week on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and search for #natstatweek and the other hashtags in the image above.  I have made a note of them in my planner so I won't miss any of them!

If you are a stationery retailer there is a form you can fill in here to take part and give you access to campaign artwork and posters.  You can run special offers to celebrate NSW, host a giveaway or competition, create a special display (if you photograph it and send it to dan@smallmanmedia.com it might be featured on the NSW social media channels!) and join in with the fun online.

Right now I'm finalising my plans for next week, with a fancy pen and lovely notebook of course!  We are down to 6 and a half days until it begins and I, for one, can't wait!

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Bloglovin' to make sure you don't miss anything and if you can't wait either then you can check out all my previous NSW posts here to keep you going until the 29th!

Artline Monday - Easter holiday activity

The Easter break has started and any day now you will probably hear the dreaded words "I'm bored!" so today I have a fun and easy activity you can do with your children to keep them occupied for an hour or two.... potato printing Easter eggs!

Now, I thought every young child had done some potato printing in the early years of school but my daughter is nearly eight and she had no idea what I was on about when I mentioned this to her!  Maybe teachers don't have time to carve potatoes for a class of 30 children anymore?  Who knows!  But it is still a great activity to do at home.

Potato printing supplies

You will need:

• Lots of paper
• A potato or two
• Artline poster markers (the chalk markers work well too)
• A knife for carving
• Kitchen roll for blotting and cleaning

When you are selecting your potatoes try to find oval/egg shaped ones, you can cut and trim them into shape but it's easier to start with a basic egg shape.

Carve patterns

Hold your potato upright as if it was an egg in an egg cup and then slice it in half top to bottom.  You can either carve some Easter egg style patters into the potato flesh yourself or give them to your children and let them design their own with a child friendly knife.  We went with stripes and tried to make some flower shapes on our second potato but they ended up looking more like splodges!

Adding the colour

Once you have your carved potatoes, blot them with kitchen roll to pull out some of the moisture before adding the paint.

Then it is time for your children to get creative, pass them the poster markers and let them paint their designs onto the potatoes.  

Ready to print

When the potato is coloured in they can turn it over and print the image onto their paper. 

Printed Easter egg

The children can remove any excess paint from the potatoes with the kitchen roll and then paint them again in different colours and repeat the process over and over.

More printing

We made lots of different colour Easter eggs with our potato "stamps" and had a lot of fun!  You could cut out the prints and use them to make Easter cards or decorations or your children could draw in some more details and patterns using fineliners and pens once the paints have dried.  My daughter carried on printing without me and made sheets and sheets of eggs which she has stuck up on her bedroom wall to decorate the room for Easter.  

Our colourful Easter eggs

If you are looking for more arts and crafts to do over the holidays check out these previous Artline posts for more ideas.

Have a very happy Easter and thanks for stopping by!