Pen Drawings

 Drawing practice - copying things from books

Cat & Gorilla

pen/brush pens

Sock Designs

  I entered these designs for a sock competition - I didn't win.

If you want to see the winning designs click here

Illustration Friday & Toys T-party

The theme for Illustration Friday this week is 'Toy'

above - pen, brush pens, background digital colouring

doodles below would also fit the theme - toys at a t-party

Star Doodles

I started with a basic star shape template for these, drew round them and filled them with pattern. I overlapped the star shape below before filling with pattern.

My friend Helen has started a blog. She creates lovely things with paper and/or fabric. Check it out here.

Rabbit Doodles

Sculpting Hair Wax Resist

My son left home last week and I am both :) and :(  at the same time. There was a pile of stuff that he no longer wants and amongst it was some sculpting hair wax, and rather than just chucking it out I wondered whether it would work as a resist. Above are my experiments, applied with the finger [left] and various tools [right]  roughly painted with dye solution. The same experiments are below with another layer of dye. Conclusion - it is hard to apply exactly where you want it, but it does work as a resist on paper, didn't work so well on fabric.

Sketch Book Doodles

Doodles from various sketchbooks

If you live in London, there is a silent auction being held, the proceeds are to help people in Japan.

 Click here for more details.

Tortoise & Flowers Embroidery

I started with a drawing which I blogged in January [link]. I made the drawing larger and printed it in sections on a laser printer, then I transferred the drawing to a blank piece of canvas fabric using oil of wintergreen. Have you ever used this stuff? It stinks! It smells like a strong 'germolene' and can be quite overpowering. The smell seems to linger for ages too even with the windows open. So I think if I use it again, it should be when it is warmer and I can do it outside. I then painted some of the areas on the fabric, such as the tortoises and grass with liquitex inks and airondack color wash. Lots of freehand machine embroidery came next. The longest time was spent doing all the hand embroidery and beading. The whole shell on the main tortoise is beaded. One of the things I wanted to do this year was some beading so one goal achieved. After finishing all the embroidery I wrapped the fabric around a canvas frame with thin wadding sandwiched in between.

Money Tree

Money Tree - mixed media on canvas - this is a textured piece, the texture was built up on the tree with spaghetti, the dry kind of course, with molding paste then paper. I used acrylic paints, interference paints, metallic paints, iridescent paints and metallic pastels and real coins.

There was some fabric on the landscape part of the canvas from a previous life, this canvas has now been up-cycled twice. First it was a picture with the Angel of the North, then it became my first attempt at the money tree. [see pictures below] The first money tree picture was for sale on Art Gallery co.uk and it had been placed in a shopping basket 27 times but was never actually sold. I was never happy with it so I decided to change it, and I do like it now.

I recycled the angel too, cut up & used on other projects. Most of the green landscape is still on the new money tree canvas to add to the texture. There are more coins on the new version because there is one coin on top of another, although you cannot tell.

Flowery Fish

I started with some drawings of flowery fish, then added more fish and an anemone

then more fish

and more fish........

then tried different effects