Days 26, 27 & 28

I saw some jellyfish at the aquarium I visited in Crete last month...Although I never want to see them near me when I'm in the sea I like to watch them behind protective glass! There are so many different ways to draw them, here's my first go.

The weather here in the UK has been awful lately, lots of heavy rain, storms and it's been pretty cold too...Its August and my thoughts have turned to knitwear and boots..I keep forgetting that it's actually summer! I need to get knitting really, I fancy a chunky turquoise scarf this year!

Today's drawing obviously influenced by the weather too, a quick pencil sketch colored in photo shop. You can't beat patterned wellies to brighten up rainy days!

Etsy Treasury

The lovely Vesna  of the blog 'My Cherry Tree' has added my 'Yellow Bird' print to her new Etsy treasury titled 'A touch of delicate Beauty'. You can view the treasury here

Thank you Vesna! :-)

Days 24 and 25

Here are some little tortoise like creatures made out of clay that my boyfriends mum brought back from Mexico last week...They are soo sweet and currently sat on my mantelpiece.

Next is a cute old fashioned clock that sits beside my bed, I actually keep it unwound as it makes a really loud 'tick, tock' noise and I can't sleep with that going on!! Shame really!

Days 22 and 23

Update: I decided to enter the cup and saucer image for Illustration friday's word/theme of the week for 24/09/2010, the theme is 'old fashioned'. This is the first time I haven't entered a new illustration and I feel a bit cheeky! However it was only created a month ago and I have just been so busy of late. I hope new viewers of this image will like it. Thanks!

My new (old) cup and saucer and me new shoes, I might use this cup and saucer as a candle holder as the cup is pretty small and dainty.I hope everyone is well, I'm all tired after my days away, had a really fun time though and got to walk on Dartmoor with some lovely people, the moors are so beautiful. I wish I'd taken some photographs, we kept saying it was like being in Narnia or in Bag End from the Lord of the Rings!

Things I love - days 19,20 and 21!

Day 19

Day 20

Day 21

 Hi all, so I've had horses on the brain....! I hope you like, they were just quick sketches, I think these daily drawings will have to be just that.. Its nice to be able to play around a bit, for example I had fun experimenting with the tones and textures in the 3rd image. I hope everyone has a great weekend, I'm heading to Devon to see the family (and the countryside and hopefully the sea too)!

See you Monday!

Things I love - days 17 & 18

Butterflies! I am drawn to butterfly images at the moment so I thought I'd give it a whirl doing some drawings. Pencil drawings colored digitally. I'm not that happy with them but I need to keep these daily pieces in a certain time frame, so for now I'm leaving it at this. It'd be nice to do a piece of lots of butterflies in different positions and of lots of different colours.
For day 18 we have a garden bird, I love the stocky, cute look that they have... I still have today's drawing to do and I'll be posting that one tomorrow.. bye for now :-)

Things I love days 14,15 & 16!

Hellooo there! Well I've got a bit of catch up to do today. I haven't posted in a few days so today I have 3 drawings for you. First we have a drawing of some sewing thread, then  a drawing of one of my favorite broaches. Its actually made of mirror but I'm yet to figure out how to show that in a drawing. Last and for for today we have some nail polish. I'm not the sort of girl who normally wears bright nail polish but at the moment I have a proper 'thing' for it! This week I'm sporting a very bright coral colour on my nails and when I catch sight of them during the day it makes me feel a bit more positive. Sounds a bit mad but maybe there's something in it in terms of colour therapy?

I hope your all enjoying your weekends, bye for now  :-)

Things I love day 12 & day 13....and owl no 7

Hello everyone! I hope you are all well, I'm a bit late with posting my drawings for days 12 &13 but here they are. I'm feeling quite ill at the mo and am super tired so these felt quite difficult to do, but in getting them done I feel better.I wanted to say THANK YOU to everyone who has posted comments for these images. Your lovely comments always make me smile and encourage me :-) so thanks.

Also some other news I have an exhibition coming up soon, I'm very excited, it's been a few years since my last exhibition and I can't wait to get back into the swing of it and I'm very excited to get my work out into my local community...happy me!

Here are those drawings:

 

Day 12 - This is one of my grandads cameras that my nan gave to me, I have three in total and they are either russian or german. They all have their own leather camera cases that I love as objects themselves. I'd love to take some photos using them but I'm not to sure how to load the film in these cameras (it's very different from my modern slr), and my family don't seem to know either. My grandad is no longer with us and my dad last used these when I was a baby. Maybe I should post photos of the camera and you guys may be able to help me out? I'll do that soon I think!

Day 13 - Coloured glass perfume bottles, given to me as gifts. I love how the cut of the glass distorts how you see the shape from different angles...Here we have owl no 7:

I hope your all having a good week? I can't wait for the weekend, two more days to go...!

Things I love days 10 and 11

Hey all, here are my drawings for days 10 and 11 of my project. Day 10 is a section from a tea pot that I own, it's decorated beautifully with elegant birds and different floral pieces, this is my favourite  part of the decoration and it sits under the handle of the teapot.

Day 11 is also my entry for this weeks Illustration Friday 'caged', this is a drawing of an necklace that I own... I possibly went a bit OTT with photoshop on this one!!

Things I love - Day 10 and Owl no 6

So the black pens are back again, I used them to do this drawing of my favorite hat, and I have also put together this image for Owl no 6. I think this owl is my favorite up to this point, I was thinking of a snowy owl when I was drawing him.

Things I love - Day 9 and Owl no 5

Hey all! I hope everyone is well, today's drawing is of some plant cuttings that I took from my basil plant that was on its way out. The cuttings have done really well and I really need to re plant them now, the roots are pretty amazing to look at, like a mane of hair under the water!

And here is Owl no 5 to add to the owl set:

He doesn't look particularly impressed!! Maybe 5 isn't his lucky number?!

Things I love - Day 8

These shoes, are damn nice shoes! They also have quite high heels which is why I have only worn them out of the house once! I'm better suited to me flip-flops or boots really! So instead I just like to look at them looking pretty in my room!

Things I love day 7

Good morning everyone! This should of been yesterdays post but I didn't finish drawing until late at night. Drawing for day 7 is my lovely Singer sewing machine, my poor  sewing machine is really in need of some love...I often look at it and feel guilty and forever on my 'To do list' is 'spend more time getting to grips with the sewing machine'..I really have no excuse and should get on with it! So the black pens came back with this drawing, I'm really happy with how simple it is and I kept the colours simple too.

Any ideas for easy projects that I can do with my sewing machine? I also got another Owl and number drawing done to add to the set:

Cheerio :-)

Things I love - day 6

I adore this necklace! I bought it last weekend when visiting my sister, I have a bit of a thing for over the top jewelery. In fact when I was at university I used to make and sell Jewelery through a craft shop in Exeter. My pieces were always really brightly coloured  and a combination of beads, buttons, bits of old jewelery, things found in antique shops, fabric etc.

I have really enjoyed drawing this necklace in life it is actually quite brightly coloured but for this drawing I wanted to tone things down a bit, to give it a softer feel. So here it is a drawing for day 6..

I have spent a lot of time today updating my website, I am slowly learning how these things work but it is a continuous learning process. There are so many of my images that need tweaking and I would love to have a big chunk of time to just work on it, at the moment progress seems slow, bit by bit..! However I did put together 3 new images today using owls that some of you may recognise from a few months ago. I plan to do ten of these owl images in total with the numbers 1-10, I want to start selling greeting card/postcards on my Etsy shop and this owl project might just be my first. This idea was partly inspired by my Grandma and my Mother who were talking last weekend about their favorite/lucky  numbers. I'm not sure if I have any, how about you?

I think they're sweet, twit twoooo!

Sea Shell print now up in my Etsy shop

My recent Sea Shell print is now up in my Etsy shop, I'm feeling a need to create lots more sea inspired pieces. I really miss the sea, I spent years living right by the sea in Devon, and now I don't..well it's a bit rubbish really! Here's a snippet from the Sea Shell print.

This could make a great pattern too don't you think? It would be more complex than anything I've created previously but I'm up for the challenge!

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside!

Things I love - day 5

Books! I am a complete book worm, when I was at school if I wasn't in the art room then I was in the library tucked in the corner with a book. I always read more than the other kids when you had to do those 'how many books can you read in a term' tasks. I just liked learning and being in my own world I suppose! I seem to have stopped reading so much for fun when I started uni as then reading was always for work purposes and it sort of become a chore. However I adore buying art books and have stacks of them now, one of my dreams is to live on a house boat but to be honest I think I'd need a separate boat for my books! Eeek!

 So here's a few of the books that I love, they are all very interesting so I'd like to tell you a bit about each one if that's okay?

In Praise of Horses - A sweet little book compiled by Stella Walker, published by Fredrick Muller London and printed in 1953. This book is full of illustrations and poems about horses and it was given to me by a university friend who also loves horses, oh yes I'm a bit horse mad by the way just sadly have no time or money for them :-/

Birdfight - by David Ross, illustrated by Jennie Corbett published by Macmillan in 1968. Oh my goodness these illustrations are amazing!! I found this book in a second hand book shop and had to have it.

Weldons Encyclopedia of Needlework published by Waverley, London in 1935. This book belonged to my great great grandmother, it's full of lots of info and illustrations. One day I will become friends with my sewing machine and learn how to do terribly difficult things like make clothes and lace!!

Print and Pattern by Bowie Style, if you haven't seen the Print and Pattern website or this book then you should, lots to drool over!

The Reenchantment of Art by Suzi Gablik   A very interesting but heavy going book, one of my uni reads!

Lion and Blue by Robert Vavre illustrated by Fleur Cowles 1974. I found this book in a second hand market in a town in Cornwall. The pictures are so vibrant and interesting I just had to take it home with me!

The story is beautiful and about a lion who falls in love with a butterfly, I found a couple of copies of this on amazon and Etsy and it's such a great book I'd definitely recommend it as a gift to a child or illustration loving adult :-)

Naive Modernism and Folklore in Contemporary Graphic Design published by gestalten. This is a brand spanking new book that completely rocks! Page after page of gorgeous graphic design featuring artists such as Strawberryluna and Pietari Posti whose work I love. This was one of the last art books I bought a few months ago. YUM!

Last but not least, Francesca Woodman,published by Phaidon compiled by Chris Townsend. This is one special book, if you haven't come across Francesca Woodman's photography you then really need to see it. Woodman was a very talented American photographer who died in 1981 aged 22. I ordered this book before it was released and couldn't wait to get it. The only book previous to this is no longer being printed and prices are in the range of £180 -£300, so waaay out of my range.

Here are some Francesca Woodman images from a Tripatlas.com article and from Studio International.co.uk you can check out both of those links for more images. I studied Photography for 3 of my further education years and her work was a massive source of inspiration to me.

So I hope this hasn't been too long a post for you all? I'm stuck at home feeling ill and it's nice to have something to do!

:-)

Illustration Friday 'Artificial'

Word of the week for Illustration Friday is 'Artificial'. I'm afraid my image for this week isn't too exciting!! It is good however to have a reason to draw everyday items, I need to do this more often I think, 'Sweetness and light', a sugar substitute. Boring, sorry!

What was you favourite film when you were a child?

My mum gave me this book recently, 'Granpa' Illustrated and written by John Burningham, I was so amazed to see it, this is a book of my favorite film as a child. I had this on video and it was the only thing that could help me feel better when I felt ill or upset. If I had nightmares or couldn't sleep then downstairs I went with a blanket and my mum would put this on for me to watch. I had completely forgotten all about it and it's so wonderful to remember it again! The illustrations in the book are exactly the same as in the video, it's such a sweet but yet also sad story. It's definitely worth a view even if just for the art work which is so beautiful. Here are some more pages from the book:

 I've found the video on YouTube and it's in 3 parts, if you fancy a look here's part one.

Day 3 & 4 the BIG project

Hi all, so I'm back from the beautiful Devon countryside... I saw friends and family, had some very interesting and inspirational conversations and didn't want to come back! I managed to get my drawings done for days 3 & 4 and here they are.....Day 3 is a collection of tea cups that I put together at my mums house. I love the house that my step dad and my mum live in, it's full of lots of interesting things and I think I could definitely go there and just draw for a week, there are collections of glass wear, antique cigar cases, tea sets, teddy bears, old tins and lots of other things they also have two tortoises and four crazy cats...So as you can imagine there's a lot of things there to work with!

My drawing for day 4 is of a violin. This is something I was given yesterday by my grandma, she has just moved home so has lots of stuff to sort through as she is seriously down sizing, I was given lots of photography books and some great art equipment (she's a photographer) and this violin. This violin is very special as it belonged to my great grandfather who died just before I was born. He was an artist and a musician and whilst I was growing up my great grandmother kept this violin high up on the wall and we weren't allowed to touch it as it was so precious to her. I remember sitting crossed legged on the carpet looking up at it and really wanting to play with it. I spent a few years at school learning the violin then gave up, I'd love to learn again and now I have my great grandfathers violin to look after and learn on....Pretty special don't you think? I'm very happy about it. :-)

I did a lot of playing around in Photo shop with this drawing and I like this version too:

I feel a violin pattern coming on! Just not today, as it's very late here in the UK. Night all I hope you had a good weekend :-)