Wealie's World » patterns

Introducing Wealie Arts Workshops & Parties

Ruth Weal — Fri, 16 May 2014 05:28:11 +0000

I offer adult workshops and children’s parties in a number of different arts and crafts activities. To keep costs down and enable smaller groups I come to a pre-paid location of your choice and work with you and your friends or children to create a great work of art. Prices start from £15 per child for parties and £25 per adult for workshops and are based on a minimum of 5 people per session.

All materials are included in the price and of course you get to keep your finished artwork and the opportunity to buy additional materials to create more art. These prices are based on me coming to your home or a pre-paid location and there may be an additional charge for fuel and materials, which will be discussed at the time of booking. See the sections below for more details about the types of arts and crafts activities I can do with you.

Abstract Mixed Media Projects

Abstract Mixed Media

Whether you want to make a canvas, a box or maybe a mask; I will teach you my all in one decoupage technique.

We’ll be using tissue paper, textured materials, fabrics, ribbons, re-purposed jewellery, oodles of glitter and sequins and anything else you can think to find in your craft draw!

Organic Ink Art

Using glossy card and high quality watercolour spray inks and shimmering mica powders, I will demonstrate how to manipulate the inks and mica powders to create gorgeous one off organic designs

You’ll make excellent abstract pictures and take home some ready made greeting cards to share with friends and loved ones.

Patterning Porcelain

Tangle Patterned Piggy Bank

Using ceramic paint pens I will demonstrate how to draw intricate designs onto the pottery piece of your choice from: plates, mugs, bowls, cup and saucer, tea pots, plant pots, piggy banks, etc.

We can also personalise your design with a name or special words or saying of your choosing.

Tangle and Zen Patterning on Watercolour Background

Tangle Pattern

Using high quality Indian rag paper or quality card stock with water colours, water colour brushes and micron fine liners and specialist gel and alcohol ink art pens.

You can explore your inner patterns to create intricate designs remincient of paisley and zentangle art. These designs make lovely pictures and greeting cards and are a very therapeutic art form.

Embossed Tangle Patterning

Embossed and Coloured

Using quality card, aluminium plumbers tape and some standard embossing tools I will demonstrate how you can make great embossed metal designs on a budget and how to colour them with alcohol inks to bring them to vibrant life.

These designs are affordable and make great pictures, greeting cards and bookmarks with very little materials.

Mono Printing with Geli Plates

Geli Plate Mono Print

Using a gelatin plate I will show you how to make great abstract acrylic mono prints using a variety of tools and materials.

These make excellent tools for those interested in art journaling and wonderful backgrounds for zentangle pattern makers.

Book your Workshop or Party

If you are interested in arranging an adult workshop or children’s party please email me at info@wealie.co.uk with a contact number so I can call to discuss your requirements.

Swirling Doodles Make Great Patterns

Ruth Weal — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 20:15:06 +0000

I’ve been busy doodling again and my current doodling obsession has been back with curves and swirls. I haven’t stopped at just the doodling though, I’ve been making use of my new Adobe Illustrator CS5 skills to make my original doodles into some funky patterns that make saleable artwork. However, the process from a wandering doodle to a vector pattern is not an easy one.

I always work best with pen and paper and rarely doodle in any other way, but transferring those designs to a computer and retaining their detail and textures always has some drawbacks. I scan all my doodles in as bitmap files using my scanner, but this creates a lot of noise and a large file size. I also often use unusual inks, especially bright vibrant gel inks like metallics, glitter gel inks and Zebra Super-Marble Gel Rollerball pens, which give you three different colour inks in each pen. The ink looks great on paper, but some of the detail gets lost in the scanning process. You can buy a pack of 6 Zebra Super-Marble Gel Rollerball pens from Amazon for only £4.69, which I used to create many of the original doodles shown below.

In Photoshop CS5 I do my best to clean up the noise and bring up the contrast so the design is more visible, but to make a pattern that can be blown up and/or reduced in size without losing quality and retaining smooth edges requires converting the image into vectors. To do this I use Illustrator CS5 where I have to painstakingly draw round each of the individuals curves and swirls of a doodle and then colour the shapes. Then I’m able to play around and make my patterns. It probably sounds like a painstaking and time consuming affair and you’d be right, but it is also a labour of love.

For your viewing pleasure below are my original doodles scanned and tidied up in Photoshop together with the vector patterns that I created in Illustrator.

Happy doodle trails!

Wealie x

Swirlycules - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Swirlycule Pattern - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Curlicues - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Firery Curlicues Pattern - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Green Curlicues Pattern - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Swirl Dance - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Swirly Frame Pattern - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Coloured Swirl Dance Pattern - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Swirly Emblem - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Swirly Emblem Pattern - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Octoswirl - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Firery Swirls Pattern - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Swirlpool - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Swirlpool Pattern - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Primeval Swirls - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Primeval Swirls Pattern - Copyright R.Weal 2011

More Patterns Emerging

Ruth Weal — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 01:15:36 +0000

My Adobe (ACE) Course books arrived late last week and I’ve been getting stuck into the basic Illustrator course book. I’m now halfway through and starting to see real improvements in my abilities to play with and manipulate the software. In addition to using Illustrator to adapt my doodles into patterns, I’ve now started creating shapes out of joined paths and using them to create vector image patterns. Here are the first few that I’ve created.

For there is always method in madness and a pattern amidst the seemingly random!

Wealie x

It’s all in the pattern

Ruth Weal — Sat, 21 May 2011 12:00:36 +0000

I’m seeing patterns everywhere at the moment and have become more than a little addicted to
creating patterns from some of my doodles. Below are some of my favourite pattern creations that have
slithered out of my subconscious mind so far.

To see the rest of my patterns visit my flickr photo set Wealie Patterns, just try not to get lost in the patterns like me.

Wealie x

Swirls

Ruth Weal — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 20:11:15 +0000

My latest doodles created using some spiffy new metallic pens on plain white paper. As usual they are very swirly and colourful, with a lot of concentrated detail in a small space! The largest piece is A Matter of Swirls, which is A6, the other two are approximately 50% of A6.

My favourite is Swirly Gig, which reminds me of some kind of primordial starfish like creature, but I’m pretty pleased with all three.

Enjoy.

Wealie x