Drawing Lab Exercise 2

Ha Ha!! :) These are always interesting. 

A blind contour drawing is one that is drawn without looking at your paper in order to train your brain and hand to draw what you actually see rather than what you think you see.  It's a good exercise.

Check out my lab partners' posts too! :) 

Laura 

Kate

Kristilee

Now I'm off to tear up more books for examples for my Altered Books Workshop!!  (Because just like I so often feel the need to make a new costume for a belly dance performance, I felt like re-making all the examples for this workshop. ;) Perhaps it's time to order soft gel medium in bulk since I'm out of the jar I picked up Saturday. Busy, busy, busy! :)

Birthday Things

A birthday banner A and I made DH for his birthday.  A cut all the triangles out of scrapbook paper, put the stickers on and stapled the triangles to the ribbon.  He also used a sharpie ultra fine tipped pen to draw a border triangle around each piece.

A wooden frame A painted and put stickers on for DH's b-day.  He picked the color and everything!

A rotating tumbler A painted for DH's b-day.  He chose the heart stamp and color himself!  The pictures were chosen and cut by me in the interest of time.

A with the play town I made him for his b-day.  Oliver + S Little Things to Sew has the instructions and templates.  Instead of using foam as it suggested, I stuffed them with 90% organic cotton and 10% polyfill. I used the polyfill because I ran out of the organic cotton stuffing, but it really did give them more form, so I would consider it again.  The material is naturally dyed organic cotton, and is slightly heavier than the average quilter's cotton.  The windows are wool felt from A Child's Dream Come True, and the rich colors really made these buildings pop.  

This art satchel, made with a linen/cotton blend was made from instructions in Growing Up Sew Liberated.  Everything always takes longer than you think, but in this case, that's an understatement.  Whew!  But, I'm glad we'll have this, especially for traveling. The material is under Japanese fabrics over at Alewives Fabrics.



A birthday banner I made for A's b-day, the same way as mentioned above for DH's banner.

This is a bad picture of a really cool map.  The fabric panel, "What a World", is from Alewives fabrics.  I backed it with muslin and added ribbon loops at the top in case he wants to hang it up.  Maybe it will work more as a play mat.  We will see.  Right now, it is draped over the settee where he can check it out as he likes.  There are little people in local dress (or folk costume) in different regions as well as things that are common or known in certain places; like alpacas in South America and the Space Needle in Seattle.  Plus, the flags and time zones offer all kinds of learning opportunities.  The only thing missing is Antarctica, but we'll deal with that.  A fun intro to geography in any case! 

Haven't gotten to my weekly drawing exercise yet, but it's coming soon!

Drawing Lab Exercise 1

Drawing Cats in Bed

So, a few homeschooling Moms and I are working through the book Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists by Carla Sonheim.   Laura Gyre came up with the idea and I was keen to join.  The first "assignment" is to draw cats in bed (or on a pillow) to encourage loose, expressive lines and then the "do something further with it".  So, here are my kitties.  :)

I think the one in the bottom left corner is hilarious and looks a bit like a flying squirrel, or Roo from the Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh.  Same thing really. ;)  I didn't intend for it to look hilarious, in case you were wondering.  ;)

I liked this one enough to color it in with pencil.  He's a bit crazed and about to take a nap.  I can relate. ;)  

The March Hare

The theme over at The Altered Alice blog is butter yellow, inspired by the March Hare's use of butter for the Mad Hatter's watch... it was the best butter.

This piece was created in my mini art journal- 4" x 4".  A vintage French book page is the base layer and yellow watercolor crayon provides the "buttery" part.  Paint marker, white oil pencil and graphite pencil  circles are the next layer.  The hare is enhanced with colored pencil and the new table cloth and accent dots (around the Hare) are courtesy of white acrylic paint.  The border is blue metallic paint and the words are written on scraps from antique spelling primer pages.  The Hare's new whiskers and straggles were made with an ultra fine point Sharpie pen.

A Versatile Scarf

When was this purchased?  Don't remember.  Where was it purchased? No idea.  Was it a gift?  Perhaps.  Why do I still have it?  Because I love it.  I love the sheen, the texture, the ragged edges, the fact that it is plum (a color that goes with everything according to me).  Oh, and it is versatile, as the title suggests.  See below:

How I wore it to class tonight- opened and pinned to one side.

How I've worn it most days over the last couple + weeks- twisted and wrapped around the front and then crossed at the back of the neck.


My apologies for missing last week.  I'm obsessing on my upcoming workshops  at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts- Altered Books on May 5th and Art Journaling August 18th.  AND DS's Birthday is next week, so I'm sewing too.  You'll see it eventually.  You know how I am. ;)

Have a great week!