Joan Chatfield

Those of us who know Joan look forward to Birthdays and Christmas when we receive her beautifully hand crafted cards. She is a very talented artist having at one time worked at a commercial art studio, illustrated many of the dust jackets for the welsh publishing company ‘Llyfrau’r Dryw’ and been a teacher. Joan is originally from South Wales born and brought up in The Ogmore Valley and living in Swansea for many years. Joan came to live to Rhiw with her husband David in 1987. We have here examples of Joan’s work which are to be published in a book next year, she has already had many articles published in various craft magazines.. Another of her interests is photography and she has been President of The Welsh Photographic Federation and quite frequently judges portfolios for Swansea Photographic Society.

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Raindrops

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Christmas

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Sweet Dreams

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Spirit of the Rainbow

 

 

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Spring

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Summer

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Autumn

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Winter

 

 

 

Create your own "Spirit of the Rainbow"

In addition to basic equipment you will need. Coloured rainbow paper for backing, felt tips, damp brush, coloured pencils, fine pen with sepia ink, gold peel-offs and gold ink or paint. Start with the fairy herself   Draw face, arms, hands and hair with sepia ink.  Indicate the general outline of her dress with a white pencil. On reverse of parchment, colour face, arms and hands with white pencil.  Turn parchment right side up and colour and shade these areas. Once again working on reverse and using felt tips, colour the dress in rainbow bands.  Blend edges of colours with damp paintbrush. Emboss as per illustration and add a scattering of estralina flowers.  Emboss shaft of wand. On right side of parchment, paint hair gold.  Perforate and emboss wings using a multi-coloured pencil for a suggestion of colour. Fix to easy grid and perforate border leaving spaces where needed..  Emboss and cut crosses. Finally, using peel-offs and some spare parchment, cut out and colour butterflies.  Glue these together with some flowers to form a cascade from her wand.

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"Spirit of the Rainbow Template"

These instructions apply to all designs so that each individual design will just show its own additional instructions.

1   Where there is a central design with a grid-work border, work the central section first. This makes it easier for fitting the grid-work around it.

2. For the gridwork itself, fix the parchment to the easy grid with a fine i" sequin pin at each corner.

3. I have used a single needle tool (PCA Unibold) for perforating all gridwork; it's quicker than trying to fit multi-needle tools. Please remember that the diagrams are for lay-out purposes only....use the Grid!

4. All colouring (unless otherwise stated) is done on reverse of parchment.

5. Don't panic if you have made an error or two in your perforations....often what can't be corrected can be camouflaged!

6. Faces.....the stumbling block for many a good design. None of these designs has a face large enough to require a lot of detail. Just a suggestion is far better. One golden rule is to avoid drawing heavy outlines UNDER the eyes.

7.  I favour a hard rubber mat for embossing; the parchment tears less easily.

8  When using the paintbrush for blending felt tips, use the minimum amount of water and have a tissue at the ready!

10. This is the most important guideline of all! Try not to stick too slavishly to these designs. Introduce some of your own individuality. We all see things in different ways. Enjoy yourselves and give your imagination free rein. 

You will notice that nowhere do I use the word 'trace'. The diagrams can be traced if you wish but there is a great deal of enjoyment to be had from trying to draw the shapes yourself.

 

Equipment.

 

This is a list of all the equipment I used to produce these designs.  You will have your own preferred alternatives.

Parchment

Easy Grid

Fine sequin pins

Assorted perforating tools

Assorted embossing tools

Coloured Card

Parchment offcuts

Peel-off stickers

Felt tipped pens

Coloured pencils

Soft eraser Glue  (Super Glue is quick and easy!)

Various inks

A damp paintbrush (for blending felt tips)

Fine pens - Rotring pens are ideal if you find using mapping nibs irksome

Parchment scissors or snips

Punches

Embossing mats

 

Each individual design will need :-Parchment, easy grid, single needle tool, large, medium and small embossing tools, fine pins and scissors or snips.

 

These are not listed for each design as they can be taken for granted!  Only additions or variations are listed.

SUPPLIERS All the materials used in producing these designs is obtainable from Centagraph of Harrogate and Craft Creations of Cheshunt. Both offer an excellent mail order service.

 

We would like to thank Joan for lending us her wonderful collection of cards, which only a small selection we have managed to published here.

 

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