Drawing up a storm

As per my last post, I've been taking a bit of a break from crafting to recharge my creative batteries, as it were.

 

I have still been creating but rather than papercrafting, I've been drawing. :)

 

I've done a whole bunch of sketches recently and have turned several of them into digi stamps. All these stamps are now available in the Stitchy Bear Digi Outlet:

 

 

And I've been playing with the original pencil sketches which I used for the digi stamps, colouring them in in different mediums...

 

I coloured in Flora using my Prismacolor pencils (this scan doesn't really do it justice - my scanner seems to struggle to pick up the subtleties of pencil colouring):

 

 

And I shaded in Forest Elf just using a plain HB pencil:

 

 

I've also done some other fun drawings recently... for a "Draw Me" challenge, I responded to a challenge to draw myself as a character from Doctor Who and drew myself as a Time Lord:

 

 

And for a challenge to draw a crossover of Sherlock with a video game, I drew Sherlock and Watson as, respectively, a Mage and a Paladin from World of Warcraft! :D

 

I'm really enjoying getting back in drawing and sketching. Am even looking into possibly taking some art classes in the summer term...

Geisha Girl

This is fun. For the first time since becoming a Creator at Stitchy Bear Digi Outlet, I've actually been assigned one of my own digi stamps to create with for the One Stitch at a Time challenge blog. :)

 

The theme of the new challenge is Use a Digi and my OSAAT teamie Jane picked my Geisha Girl digi as the image for us to work with this week.

 

 

It was a lot of fun creating with one of my own images. :) I've been doing quite a bit of "proper" drawing lately and the thought occurred to me that digi stamps might look quite nice shaded with pencil, rather than coloured in. And I thought this pretty geisha image might be just perfect to try this idea out on:

 

 

I think she looks rather lovely in black and white. :)

 

I teamed her with one of my favourite die-cut frames (a Sizzix die)...

 

 

...and some gorgeous oriental-themed papers by Dovecraft which I've been jealously hoarding (and occasionally forcing myself to actually use) for quite some time! :D

 

 

I finished things off with some thin black ribbon and a couple of pearls.

 

The challenge runs for a week and you can use any kind of digital element (doesn't have to be a Stitchy Bear one) to enter - digi papers, digi stamps, computer-generated sentiments etc. Entries using a Stitchy Bear product will be in with a chance to win our main prize and entries without a Stitchy Bear product will be entered into the draw to win a $3 gift voucher to the Stitchy Bear Digi Outlet.

 

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Challenges and Candies - Clean and Simple
Craftitude - Anything Goes
Crafty Hands Challenge Blog - Anything Goes
Creative Fingers - Anything Goes
Sister Act Card Challenge - Anything Goes
Crafts 4 Eternity - Sketch
4 Krafty Girlz - Anything Goes
Paper Crafting Journey - Anything Goes
Crafting By Designs - Color Challenge Black/Red
Die Cuttin' Divas - Anything Goes
Through the Craft Room Door - Anything Goes

 

 

Sci-Fi Meets Crafting...

I love it when a couple of my different interests coincide/collide... :)

 

I love making ATCs and I occasionally swap a few in private swaps over on ATCsforAll. There's a lot of organised swaps going on over there too but I'd never taken part in them before... however, I've been tempted in recently because there's a Doctor Who-themed swap happening! :)

 

I love Doctor Who. Well, I should say, I loved Doctor Who. I still watch it and enjoy it etc but, as good an actor as Matt Smith is, he just doesn't grab me the way David Tennant did. It's still a great show, but I'm not hooked on it - and fannish about it - the way I was. 10th Doctor will always be my favourite Doctor.

 

So of course, I just had to make my cards for the ATC swap 10th Doctor-themed. I made 5 cards in all (3 for the swap, 1 for the swap host and 1 for myself):

 

 

I had the idea of putting images of the Doctor in front of a "Wrinkle-Free Distress" technique background, as the splodges of colour this technique creates rather puts me in mind of some fabulous exploding supernova or beautiful gas cloud in space. :)

 

I drew the images up into digital line drawings so I could print them the size I wanted and then coloured in the printed images using my Prismacolor pencils. I then cut them out and attached them over the backgrounds.

 

I liked these images so much that I thought I might make a couple of them into digi stamps. One of my OSAAT DT teamies was very taken with the idea as she has someone to make a card for who's a Doctor Who fan so I went ahead and did it and these two digi stamps are now available in the Stitchy Bear Digi Outlet. :)

 

My Whovian BIL has a birthday coming up in just over a month so guess what he might be getting on his birthday card? ;)

Whimsey Girls

I finally this week got around to playing with an idea that I'd had in my head for some time....

 

I made this ATC a couple of weeks ago for the WOYWW 4 anniversary swap... to make it I inked old book pages with Distress Inks and drew a design on, then painted in the image with gesso, to mask out the background, and when dry I coloured it in with Prismacolour pencils. I really liked the effect and had an idea in my head to do the same technique with my own version of whimsy girl images.

 

And so I did! :)

 

 

I made this set of 5 ATCs using the same technique. I love the vibrant colours of the background, it seems to make the images really pop.

 

I liked how these cards came out so much that I decided to also turn them into digi stamps. :)

 

So the 5 whimsy girl images, complete with a text background, are now available as Alipeeps' Art digi stamps from the Stitchy Bear Digi Outlet. :)

 

 

 

 

Loving the Alien

Am I showing my age by referencing a David Bowie song? ;)

 

Anyhoo... I made another quick card tonight (I get very little crafting done when hubby is home so now he's headed back down to London I've dived straight back in my craft room! :D) using another of my new digi stamps which I coloured up this week.

 

This time I used Alien Amour. This dapper little alien gent is coloured with my Promakers with a couple of highlights added using a white gel pen:

 

I decided to keep the card really clean and simple, adding a piece of fabulous glittery holographic cardstock that looks like a starry night sky, and attaching my little alien friend with foam pads. I finished things off with a sentiment stamped with Stampin' Up! alpha stamps:

 

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Passion for Promarkers - Anything Goes
Get Inky - Glitter
Kaboodle Doodles - Anything Goes
Stamps & Fun = Creativity - Clean and Simple
The Crazy Challenge - Use Sentiments
613 Avenue Create - Anything Goes
Lacy Sunshine - Anything Goes

 

Geisha Girl

I printed out some of my new digi stamps this week and had a play at colouring them in...  and I liked the way my Geisha Girl image looked, all coloured-in using my Promarkers, so much that I decided to make a card with it:

 

 

I went with a black and red colour scheme, to match the colouring on the image, and used some red cardstock and some pretty dotted paper by First Edition:

 

 

I punched a border strip from red card and added a doily in the centre of the card and then cut a delicate frame from more of the red card and layered it over the doily:

 

I fussy cut out my coloured image and attached it with foam pads over the filigree frame and finished things off with some beaded stems and pretty flowers:

 

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Passion for Promarkers - Anything Goes
Card Mania - Spots and/or Stripes
Digi Makeover Challenge - Anything Goes
Fitztown Challenge - Anything Goes
House of Gilli - Favourite Color Combo
Platypus Creek Digitals - Black and White and 1 other Color

 

 

Been doodling again... :)

I've been having a bit of a creative frenzy this past week and doing a lot of drawing.... both doodling on some of my card creations... and also drawing some new digi stamps.

All of these stamps are now available in store at the StitchyBear Digi Outlet... and I've also been having a play at colouring them in to see how they look. :)

Alien Amour - coloured with Promarkers:


Geisha Girl - coloured with Promarkers:

Lovestruck - coloured with Promarkers:

Shades - coloured with Promarkers:

Spring Meadow - coloured with Prismacolor pencils:

Portrait 1 - coloured with Promarkers:

 

 

Keep My Secret - coloued with Prismacolor pencils:

I had lots of fun drawing these - and colouring them too! :)