The Sketchbook Challenge

The theme for The sketchbook challenge this month is 'Branching Out - on a limb'

 As you can see from my picture, I didn't quite remember the correct title as mine is called 'Branch Out'.

Also last month I did a second picture for 'spilling over' but I forgot to take a photo of it

Sketches of things seen in books

Polar Bears & Doormouse

Illustration Friday - Duet & Mixed Media Flowers

 The Flower Duet  is a famous duet for sopranos, the Leo Delibes opera Lakme, which was first performed in 1883 in Paris.

I used one of the mixed media  flowers below for this weeks Illustration Friday challenge - Duet

Most of the flowers are painted papers apart from the one I used for the challenge which was fabric. All have freehand machine embroidery.

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.