A look inside the artist’s sketchbook exploring the symbolic interpretations of birds and vessels. Mixed media artwork featuring gel plate printing, collage, pastel and conte crayons.
Mini Collage a day part 4
Here is a quick catch up of my Mini Collage a day challenge. At the end of the week I seemed to be drawn to bright, warm colours such as reds, pinks and oranges, as well as imagery like fruit and flowers. At the beginning of the week I experimented further with using text in …
Watercolour butterflies: memories from Florence
This February my family and I took a special trip to Florence, Italy to celebrate my husband and I's milestone birthday. One of the places I enjoyed visiting most during the holiday was the Museum of Natural History, La Specola. This painting is from a photograph I took of one of the museum collections of …
Continue reading Watercolour butterflies: memories from Florence
Mini collage a day challenge part 3
Here is the next installment of mini collages created in my 2x3 inch sketchbook. This challenge, so far, has been a great way to ensure that I show up to the page and create something everyday, even if I only have a few spare moments. It doesn't take long to fill a 2x3 inch page …
Life drawings
A collection of life drawings of model Sophie in conte crayon and charcoal on sugar paper. Gestural figurative drawings and portraits by artist Rachel Crawshaw from @mushroommoondesigns
Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery Open 2026
“Portrait Gallery” by Rachel Crawshaw I was very pleased to hear that my submission for the Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery Open 2026 was given “highly commended” at the opening on Saturday. I was unable to attend the opening but am looking forward to visiting the exhibition and witnessing in person all of the fantastic …
Mini Collage a day sketch-book part 2
Last month I started a mini project in a tiny sketchbook of creating a little collage everyday. Here are days 8 to 14 of the project! During this week I began to explore adding more hand painted and printed papers to my collages such as in days 8, 12 and 14. I also enjoyed introducing …
Life Drawings
Here is a selection of my recent life drawings! Recently I have enjoyed practicing drawing faces and trying to get a likeness from life rather than from reference photographs. This is pretty challenging and has various degrees of success! But I am enjoying the process. I have also experimented with using Conte Crayons, a medium …
Grisaille technique
This month I continued my theme of vessels and flowers, but wanted to experiment with a slower process and a more traditional technique and style of painting. I decided to try out the Grisaille technique. This is a process where you create a greyscale underpainting first to establish light, shadow and tone before adding colour …
Mini collage a day sketchbook
Miniature collages in a tiny sketchbook- creative rituals to help show up to your practice everyday
Mushroom Moon Designs 