I was so pleased to see Mary Beth Shaw was one of the instructors for Wanderlust 2022! I’ve taken class with her before, followed her on social media and own quite a few of her company’s StencilGirl Stencils. Her class did not disappoint!! Below is a photo I snapped in the middle of the process, not quite done. Click on the photo for a full size view.

Mary Beth’s class concentrated on gesso, including different colored gesso. I had only worked with black & white gesso before. It seems to be thicker, more opaque and almost chalky when used like paint in a journal. In this lesson we used an orangey-red gesso (very new to me) and also a gold gesso, wow! Stencils came into play for adding layers and a charcoal pencil for making marks. Various bits of collage paper and opaque acrylic paints were put into the mix as well, covering some of the papers for contrast.

• A close up of the left & right sides, below - Click each photo for more detail

My finished page spread below!

I’m quite happy about how this came out! It feels more “painterly” that my more typical collaged spreads.

May Beth works in a similar way as I do, so it was easy in some ways to follow her steps/instructions. Again, this was another class that stretched me & pushed me to try things I never had before. It’s very good all around! I am slightly behind in my Wanderlust Lessons as I am finishing this lesson up a wee bit late. I have another lesson with Jeanne Oliver waiting for me to jump into and then a NEW lesson will be revealed on Friday! I will do my very best and not worry about it. I so enjoy everything I’ve done already! Thanks to Kasia Avery & Everything Art UK! * Yours creatively, Lenna