Merry And Bright

If I had time I'd probably go back through the archives to see if this is the latest I've ever posted the Christmas card.  If it's not the latest, it's probably tied for the latest.  Whooosh!

I'd originally planned to paint this fun picture of Short Round, but as I sketched it out on my iPad and started figuring out the colors on there, I really liked it just as it was so decided to just go with it and use it as an exercise to learn more about Procreate, which is a fun art program built for Apple devices.  

This was my hope when I finished out the 20 year series of folk art farm cards last year.  Mostly I was out of new story lines, but also I wanted the opportunity to learn some new skills.  Once it was finished I realized I could still draw the back as an outline and it would probably work as a cute rug pattern, which is something else I'm hoping to learn more about.

This has been a hard year for so many people.  I hope this funny old ewe brings you some joy and the silhouettes of sheep grazing in the moonlit sky behind her bring you some peace.  The inside of the card this year says "Merry and Bright".

Hooking Handy

In the old days, "Hooking Handy" would have referred to hooking up Handy for a carriage drive. These days Handy is happy to be hanging out in the field with his buddy Hickory, letting someone else take over the hooking. Rug hooking.



I have a couple kind artists willing to test hook my first patterns. I'm hoping for some feedback on the designs, ease of use, if I drew them out and enlarged them properly... I'm also dying to see what they look like finished :-D.



I like the idea of sticking with simple farm inspired designs. Like Handy, for example, walking past as I'm taking pictures of his rug pattern. Not that Aria could ever be replaced around here, but in a hooked rug, she could be easily changed into Hickory. I don't think it would be hard to customize any of the designs.



And, of note, the sun came out! I don't really mind dreary days, but after so many sloppy days of flooding rains...



The sheep (and Hank - do you see him?) were thrilled as well.

The cats haven't noticed yet...all tucked away in the condo.

I'm Hooked!

Sheepmom and her rug hooking cousin partner up to create beautiful rug hooking material... They asked if I would be interested in designing some patterns for them. Sounded like fun. It was!



I started out with six basic designs. You'll recognize Handy and Aria, The Adventure Chickens, Miss Ewenice babysitting Keebler and Graham, Betsy, a few honey bees and "the neighbor kid" at the bird feeder.

Where's Hank? Iris? Comby? Ewen McTeagle? Maybe something with spinning or knitting? I need to do some actual test hooking to make sure I'm not way off target, but if all goes well, I'm really looking forward to designing more. You might say I'm hooked!

Originally I thought I was just drawing plain black and white patterns. When I did a test colorization though I thought they might make cute note cards too and also an interesting way to present the patterns. Saint Tim ran a couple copies for me and I really like them. I'll have a few sets packaged up for sale at the fall Kentucky Wool Festival next weekend.

Next weekend?!?