Unfurl and Rolling Stamp 52

I drew the flower for the Sketchbook Challenge - unfurl

I left the background white and thought I would try it in some real settings

in a bluebell wood

near a poppy field

near an unusual fence [I like this one the most]

Rolling Stamp 52 - this one is similar to number 46. I did this one first but the 'repeats' didn't match up at the sides,  I think it was a bit too holey and I'm not very accurate at cutting out. Number 46, shown on an earlier post, the side branches all join up for a neater edge.

Butterflies and Harebells

The butterflies and flowers is a lovely image from The Graphics Fairy. The flowers I've coloured in places and I've arranged it on one of my hand painted rolling stamp backgrounds.

Doodles & collage, turtle, birds & faces

Collaged doodle - the turtle is from a magazine, it's the Wallace & Gromit creature comforts turtle

I collaged the parts of faces onto bits of the doodle that I didn't like

Autumn & Mesmerizing

Three versions of Autumn for the Three Muses challenge

[altered photos, the interesting window in the version below was at Cragside House]

And for the "Illustration Friday" challenge - mesmerizing - I started off with a brush pen doodle and altered it in Paint.Net for a mesmerizing effect [well maybe it would be if you looked at it long enough]

Music & Rolling Stamps [48-51]

The Take a Word challenge this week is the word 'Music'. 

The vintage red music book belonged to my dad.

More rolling stamps -

three of them are made using textured wallpapers and the other is a scored wine bottle 'cork', or should I say plastic or rubber

I cut the wallpaper with pinking shears for extra texture [below]

Cragside House

My sister and husband came to stay for a couple of days. Yesterday we went to Cragside House in Northumberland,  a lovely Victorian house set in wonderful surroundings and built on a cliff ledge. The house was owned by Lord William Armstrong, a Victorian inventor and it has many early gadgets. It is also the first house in the world to be lit by hydroelectricity. One of the gadgets in the kitchen was the dishwasher shown in this advert.

He also planted millions of trees, some of which are the tallest in England.

This is part of a wooden panel in the house.

in the gardens there is a carved owl which is part of a tree

Egg-selent

Digital arrangement.

The bird in the envelope and the egg are from The Graphics Fairy

I've added some vintage text to the egg. The background is a collage of skeleton leaves {can't see much of these} and the other leaf [s] is one I used for printing with the other day.

Leaf Printing

I got together with some friends the other day and we did leaf printing.

I used emulsion [tester pots] for the actual printing, then painted over with watercolours.

The leaf below didn't make very good prints but I like the leaf with the paint on it.

I like the colours left on these two leaves from the paint.

I think I will do something digitally with all of these at a later date.

IF, frog scarf, doodle

My frog garden sprayer has grown himself a scarf [ready for winter?]

Illustration Friday - the challenge this week is 'boundaries'

Another brush pen doodle

Shape Challenge

This is the shape I drew around to make these faces

And together with this shape

I created this pattern

Colouring Challenge & Free Embroidery Pattern

The above is for a colouring challenge by Letraset. I used Promarkers and Faber-Castell brush pens. You download an image they provide, colour it in, then enter it in the challenge to win a prize. Details here.

When I was sorting through a drawer I came across an old embroidery pattern I had drawn years ago and one of the designs was the above. I've stitched it on aida fabric [the fabric you would use for cross stitch] but it could also be stitched on plain fabric. If you are new to embroidery it is easy to stitch on aida and to follow the graph, as the aida is a bit like graph paper. You may copy the pattern to use, click on the image to enlarge.

Rabbit & Butterflies

This is my entry for the Take a Word  challenge - Butterflies

The rabbit and butterflies were images from The Graphics Fairy, altered.

The background [from a doodle] and flowers [from a photo] are my own creations.

I tried posting this yesterday, but it just would not save or publish, so hopefully it will work today. Hope I'm not too late for Brag Monday [Graphics Fairy]

Challenges x 3

I thought I would enter the above drawing for today's 'Illustration Friday' challenge - 'Mysterious

and I have entered a new challenge this week on Take a Word and the word is 'Time'

[the purple/pink thing is a snake if you can't make it out]

I have received my prize from the Fibre Arts/ Mixed Media challenge in July. I could choose from a range of books and craft items and I chose a quilting book by Anna Faustino called 'Simply stunning woven quilts'. And I agree with the title, the quilts are stunning. If you like bright colours you will like the quilts in this book.  The prize was a random win, so anybody could have won, so are you going to give it a try next month?

More from my sketchbooks

I did the above after looking in an English Heritage magazine.

Below - more fantasy creatures I made up

and doodles of the heart