Cake, Cat, Valentines, & A Bit Of A Catch Up

Day 40 of the Doodle Olympics - A Nanna's house, although my Nan didn't have a cat, or that wallpaper.

Day 41 of the Doodle Olympics - Cake and tea, that is all.

Day 42 of the Doodle Olympics - Ollie, next door's cat. This is actually from a photo, as he usually puts me off drawing him, by snoring really loudly. 

Day 43 of the Doodle Olympics - Everyone is gearing up for valentines day, and I just feel sorry for the posties, although admittedly, this one just looks like a very popular school boy. 

Day 44 of the Doodle Olympics - From a photo again, as I was struggling with ideas again this week. I think this was at Bury St. Edmunds Abbey. 

Day 45 of the Doodle Olympics - Fubby and I celebrate Valentines Day, but not in a huge way, we don't do presents, just a nice meal at home, and spending time together. Love is so many things, but just for the time it took to draw this, it was sherbet lemons. :)

Day 46 of the Doodle Olympics - True Story. This was a little bit inspired by Lizzie Stewart's diary - Solo, I'm not going to draw my own diary, I am no way, as talented or witty as she, but just wanted to pay homage.

Bunnies, Mushrooms, Hearts and Trees

Well it is the end of another week, and the time in between my last post seems huge, how did time fly by so quickly!

I have been giving the birds a rest this week and have tried to focus more on illustration. I have found it to be pretty trying, once upon a time I felt nothing of picking up pencil, paint, paper and glue and following my instincts, but after training as a Graphic Designer, I'm a bit out of practice. My mind now works around, 'but why are you putting that there, what does it communicate', which I think is quite useful, but it does occasionally stop me from just going with the flow. The worst thing of all though, is desperately trying to teach myself to paint again, with the knowledge that there is no 'history', or cmd z button to help me out should it all go horribly wrong!

The first pieces this week are my bunnies, 'Bunny by Night' and 'Bunny by Day', a couple of mixed media pieces featuring a cheeky little bunny eating all the flowers. Not only was I trying to get back to my painting, but I decided to throw some fabric and sewing in the mix too, hey why not :)

I am also trying to decide what scoring board to buy, so I can crack on with some card making. Do I get a plastic one? Will it warp, bend, move around too easily? Do I get and MDF one? Will it be too bulky and heavy, will bits chip off it? Most important of all, where will I find it cheapest? Obviously I ended up stumbling across a manual mechanical one that I simply cant' afford - but I still want it!

One of my card ideas is similar to this, cup stains! A little cliche, but I thought it could be quite cute to use as a note to say 'hi' to someone you would like to meet up with, that you haven't seen in a while. I seem to have incorporated a bit of hand sewing into this too!

Finally I love to doodle! The only time I relax and stop worrying about making mistakes is when I doodle. I doodle lots of odd things, such as mushrooms...

...and decorative patterns, that usually include circles and spirals, I love circles and spiral, or any organic kind of shape really. I have been drawing by hand, and made one attempt at painting. I actually really enjoyed it, it was very theraputic, but it was here that I realised just how reliant I am on cmd z. I love working digitally, but it is definitely time to get back to your roots when you begin to rely on the computer too much.

I was really pleased with the results of my tree efforts. I removed the original outlines and was left with something quite fragile and organic.

My other efforts (and the mushroom) were filled with colour using Photoshop. I love to see how clean colour fills are corrupted by my sketchy lines, they are busy, bright, and a little bit chaotic and messy.

Well Life would be boring without a little chaos wouldn't it ?

I think on my next post I will take a little break from the 'me' show and take a gander at creative things other people are doing. I will probably start by meandering through my Misi wish list...