This month in Fodder School 1 has been food for the soul! As I come from a craft background and then moved into art, it has meant that Fodder School is the perfect hybrid of mixed media art and projects which fulfill both my loves!

For the first half of the month, we worked on creating watercolour fodder – flowers, mushrooms, rainbows and leaves. The inspiration and techniques were amazing and even though I’ve done a lot of watercolour, I learnt some new methods which produced beautiful results! There was also a beginner’s guide to watercolour at the beginning of the month so it’s perfect for beginners and long time artists! Creating the fodder was such a mindful activity where I could just switch off and lose myself in the art.

The project for the second half of the month was to create a Fodder Keeper to store our Fodder! This excited me greatly!! It was so much fun to paint, stick and sew the book (sewing is optional!) and I absolutely loved putting the book together and then filling it up with my gorgeous new fodder! It really felt like this was extremely nourishing for my soul and during a busy and stressful month, it gave me a lovely sanctuary of peace and creativity.

This month in Fodder School 1 has been really interesting as I’ve been using materials I don’t usually work with and I’ve loved the results!

For the first half of the month, we learned the three main techniques to create fodder this month – my favourite of these was creating my own rubber stamps! After years of loving pre-made rubber stamps bought for scrapbooking and card making, it was very exciting to create my own completely unique designs. You can see my botanical stamp in the background of my first image below and some of my house stamps in my little book.

The main project this month was to create a diorama using all our new techniques but another thing I love about Fodder School is that each month you get bonus videos where some of the other monthly teachers show what they’ve created for this month’s project (or extra techniques linked with what we’ve been learning). Wendy Solganik did a bonus video showing that she’d used the project idea but had created a book instead of a diorama, which I loved the look of. So I used this as inspiration and created my own little book using the techniques we learnt this month.

This month in Fodder School 1 has really helped me to get back to play and freedom within my art practice!

The first half of the month was focused on creating layered papers & fabrics, and embellishments – such as paper beads. Aimee is a great teacher who shows you very clear step by step instructions to build up layers and textures on papers and fabric, whilst using your curiosity, intuition and a sense of play to freely experiment. I loved the results and the combination of black marks with pops of colour. She also showed us how to make a great range of mark marking tools all from things around the house, which were great fun to use and created some brilliant effects! I also really enjoyed the optional hand stitching ideas as I haven’t tried this before and I loved the extra texture it brought to my art! I even had a go at dyeing some fabric!

We then moved onto creating different embellishments using some of our papers and fabrics – my favourite was the paper beads – simple but so lovely!

For the second half of the month, we followed Aimee’s clear instructions to create an amulet, which was much more straightforward than I thought it would be with Aimee’s great and easy ways of adding texture to the main frame. The aim of the amulet was to be an empowering expression of our own art style and the freedom to do what brought us joy within our art. It was so much fun choosing the paper, fabric and embellishments to create our own vision. I love my finished piece!

It’s been another lovely month of mixed media with a hint of craftiness! The more I progress through Fodder School 1, the more I am realising how much I enjoy this combination.

For the first half of the month, we worked on creating watercolour backgrounds and watercolour nature and floral elements using stencils. Megan showed us some really interesting ways of using watercolours with stencils to create some beautiful results. I find this kind of activity really meditative and calming.

For the second half of the month, we created beautiful assemblages, combining our watercolour backgrounds with our nature & floral elements along with vintage photos (thanks Jane Chipp for the free downloads). I also chose to add some fabric to my assemblages along with a quick whizz on the sewing machine for some extra texture!

I absolutely loved creating these and experimenting with different colours and combinations of fodder. I can’t wait to create more and use them in art journals and handmade book as a ready made embellishments.

This Fodder School 1 project allowed me to finally try a seascape collage using my fodder papers! It’s been something I’ve wanted to try for ages and it did not disappoint! You could choose any kind of landscape, seascape or a photo of somewhere you love for this project so there is something for everyone!

The first half of the month was spent creating papers for our final pieces. Rebecca blew my mind with such interesting techniques to use on our Gelli plates to create beautiful textures. Because I knew what I wanted to create as my final piece, I created papers using the new techniques to represent the sea and sky of my seascape.

The second half of the month was spent creating our collaged pictures. Rebecca is a brilliant teacher, who gave easy to understand, step by step instructions on how to build up the layers of our composition. I absolutely loved creating my seascape and was thrilled with the finished product.

I had been very excited about this month’s project the minute I found Fodder School (the handmade book of dreams!) – so much so that I jumped ahead a few months (one of the perks of having access to all the projects!). I loved the finished book that Wendy created but I wondered if I’d be able to create something as magical – thanks to Wendy’s amazing lessons, I could and I’m thrilled with my finished book.

The first half of the month was spent creating master sheets, which were very enjoyable and really allowed me to get lost in the process and turn off my chattering mind! I loved the techniques Wendy showed us to age and distress the master sheet as the many layers really helped create interest.

The second part of the month was a deep dive into creating our very special handmade books with an ingenious binding method! Wendy was so generous with her ideas and techniques to really help personalise the books and add so much interest and joy! I honestly think the value of this month’s content is worth the whole cost of Fodder School 1 but you get 10 more amazing projects on top of this!! I absolutely loved creating my book and it’s definitely a project I want to try again with a different size book!

I decided to fill my book with quotes by Cheryl Richardson after being inspired by her wonderful books.

This month in Fodder School 2 has been both inspirational and revelatory!

The first thing that jumped out at me was how Fodder School is both brilliant for brand new artists and experienced artists. I have done a lot of mixed media art courses in the past but not only did the introduction to mixing paint colours remind me of the basics, it also provided a huge golden nugget, that I was previously missing that allowed me to finally be able to mix a unique colour palette, which is tailored to the exact colours I adore and is completely harmonious. This led to a fun afternoon of mixing a watercolour palette, which I have made into a long term palette – using tubes to mix my colours into empty pans. I also used the same technique to produce these colours in acrylic paint, which I will store in jars.

We then moved onto gelli printing – with a huge range of easy and quick techniques to produce beautiful results and amazing textures. I spent a blissful afternoon printing the range of sheets below and I can’t wait to try more!

The monthly project was creating a set of 4 collages using our printed sheets which can be framed and given as gifts or hung on our walls. I have done a lot of collage in the past but the way Rebecca taught composition, values and layout was mind-blowing to me as it was very easy to follow but so effective and I was really thrilled with my set of collages. I have lots of ideas buzzing around for further sets of collages I want to try, experimenting with the methods we were taught.

I absolutely loved the project this month!

The first half of the month was trying lots of new methods and techniques for gelli printing to create papers for the project. Until starting Fodder School 2, I had no idea there were so many different ways to use a gelli plate and it has given me so much inspiration to create my own papers, which makes my art so much more ‘mine’ than when using bought printed papers. I think it’s really helping me fully express myself through my art and create art that truly reflects what I love. We’re only two months in and my colour palette is becoming more ‘me’ each month and even though you could completely follow the Fodder School projects step by step and create a very similar look to what the teacher creates (a great way for mixed media beginners to start), I’m growing in confidence to know what I love and what is my style within each project to be able to put my own stamp on it. Below are my papers using this month’s techniques and methods.

We then moved onto the main project, creating a board book using our papers. It was such an unusual substrate but so much fun to work with and lovely to have a hard surface! I added some Lao Tzu quotes to my book as I wanted the book to be a source of inspiration to me that I’ll look at again and again. I really enjoyed working with my papers to create the book and I was able to incorporate last month’s lessons on value and composition into my page choices.

This month, I really honed my gelli print technique and had great fun with the project!

The first half of the month focused on gelli printing to prepare the papers we needed for this month’s project. Wendy also taught us a great way to create amazing underpaper! I really feel like my gelli printing has taken a giant leap forward this month and I’ve learnt even more methods to create some really beautiful effects, using a method that I could just keep going and going with!

With Wendy’s encouragement and easy to understand teaching, I also became more confident creating mixed sheets of gelli printing. I’ve had so much fun, and the experimenting really highlights how important it is to play within your art practice because you can have some very happy accidents. It also really helps as a recovering perfectionist who loves staying in control to let go and relax – which allowed me to create some unexpectedly stunning results!! I love how through practising this in my art work, it filters through into everyday life and helps me to trust and let go to allow for unexpected beauty and moments of joy. Below are my papers using this month’s techniques and methods.

For the second part of the month, our project was to create cards and envelopes using our papers. I really loved the project and even though I used to make my own cards and sell them, I learnt lot of new, easy yet effective ways to use my papers to create different card embellishments. The most exciting part was learning how to make envelopes and envelope liners – so simple to do but they look amazing with the gelli printed papers! My family couldn’t believe I’d made their Christmas cards and envelopes and said the envelopes were a work of art and a keepsake!

This month was a whole new experience for me in Fodder School using a medium I’ve never tried before!

The first half of the month was spent creating fodder papers. My favourite part was creating my own stamp rollers, which produced amazing results! I absolutely loved creating and working with the rollers.

The second half of the month was focused on creating a collage using our new papers and a brand new medium for me – beeswax! It was quite incredible how this produced transparent layers and a completely different effect to using gel medium. Lucie guided us through the new medium so we could get the best results. There were also some really interesting bonus videos from Wendy and Tiffany on composition, which were brilliant.

This month gave me lots of stencils inspiration and a wonderful way to create an easy but really beautiful handmade book. A perfect fusion of art and making!

The first half of the month focused on lots more ways to use stencils, which were really clever and very outside of the box but created amazing effects. We also learnt how to create confetti paper shown in the image below and it pushed me to think about using different type of paper, which has expanded my art comfort zone!

The second half of the month focused on creating our handmade book. I loved how the individual papers came together to create a really beautiful book full of interest. Using different types of paper really made the book come to life! This is definitely a quick and very effective book making technique that I can use again and again! 

This month has been a revelation in collage and composition. I’ve really fallen in love with abstract collages!

The first half of the month focused on creating papers to use in our project, using lots of new techniques. Julie really pushed me out of my comfort zone this month trying different ways of layering paint, including glazes and thin layers, which created some lovely effects.

In the second half of the month, we used our papers to create abstract collages. Julie is a great teacher and talks through each step of her decision making process so we really get an insight into how she makes her compositional choices. It was helpful to revisit the composition rules but also I had an epiphany, that one of the really important questions was did I love what I’d done. I feel this is a skill that has been hugely strengthened on my Fodder School journey – to make compositional decisions based on joy alongside the rules. Julie also taught us a great trick to check if the composition is balanced along with a completely different way of putting the pieces together.

This month has been a big learning curve in book binding!

For the first half of the month we created our coptic bound handmade books. I was very apprehensive about this as I’ve never done any complicated book binding. However, Di’s calm and clear instructions made it really easy to follow and I ended up absolutely loving the technique and the finished book! A great skill to have in the toolkit! Di also gave lots of methods for fabric printing the covers.

The second half of the month was all about filling our handmade books with watercolour doodles. I’d forgotten the simple pleasure of art journalling and it provided a few hours of blissful peace and flow state! Again, Di gave lots of new exciting methods to try with watercolours.

This month has been a lovely, meditative, calm month!

In the first half of the month, we made grungy wallets. These are great for admin wallets, travel wallets and fodder storage! They’d also make lovely gift wallets for money and gift cards.

For the second half of the month, we created beautiful watercolour florals and leaves. I loved creating these – they were super calming and I could have just kept going! It was also great to see the bonus lessons from other Fodder School teachers creating their version of these florals, including making them into beautiful wreaths.

This month has been another revelation in abstract collage!

The first half of the month was spent gelli printing papers – thinking about solids, neutrals, patterns and transparent papers. For anyone who has done Fodder School 3 without doing Fodder School 2, Barb gave a great recap on colour mixing to create a harmonious palette.

For the second half of the month, we started with some quick abstract collages. Barb gave some great tips and trick to loosen up and let go of the results to start with and then some brilliant lessons on composition and the questions to ask when you’re at the stage of tweaking your collage. These were a great warm up for the main event!

The main event was creating abstract collages on wooden panels with a totally new method which was very exciting. I honestly wouldn’t have ever thought of this method and it was genius and created really fun final pieces. We put into practice the composition lessons to refine our final collages. Barb also gave me the inspiration and encouragement to be a bit braver with my colour palette. I loved the outcome!