March winner!

Congratulations! The give-away winner for the kitty earrings for March was Aminyitray! See the older post for details.

I was able to post a new hedgehog on Etsy and have some owls ready to go. Now I just need the time to get them posted...

New Patterns

I visited a friend a couple of weeks ago and she borrowed a whole bunch of cute Japanese craft books to me. I loved flipping through everything and drooling over all the cute little critters.

I drew some of the patterns out, and in my enthusiasm was able to put them into practice. I started out with two owls and a hedge hog. I had seen the owls in so many places before, and it was nice to make some myself. I got so excited that I cut a whole bunch of fabric out and started 12 more. I had to go to a conference so I could not finish them all right away, but here is where I got so far.
Harry the hedgehog was fun to make. He is very small though, so it took a lot of effort to sew and turn the arms inside out. On such a small scale the corduroy was pretty stiff to maneuver. When finished he ended up turning out just as cute as the hedgehogs. I cut another hedgehog out, but haven’t had time to sew it together yet. It is fun to work on this miniature scale for a change. IT takes just as long to make as bigger stuffed animals, but smaller is always cuter.

The watercolor class I talked about earlier is also a lot of fun. I am learning some new tips, but mostly I enjoy just getting back into making drawings again. After the first week, the assignment was to work on basic watercolor techniques. I am not a very good student, since you can tell I never finished my exercises… I guess I should work on this again.

The next week we were working on shading, and had to bring in a round object. I had chosen a garlic, but had to use 5 cloves of it the night before for cooking, so it ended up being a half a garlic. We were just painting with a gray color to practice lights and darks.

Last week we had to bring an artichoke in and draw that with graphite. Tomorrow we are going to bring the completed drawings in and paint over them with watercolors. I am excited to do that, since I have done a lot of drawing and my prints are predominantly black and white, but don’t really know the intricacies of color in plant life. Listening to the teacher there seems to be a lot of things I never noticed. Apparently on a green leaf the highlights always have yellow undertones and highlights have blues. I would have thought opposite. So after my great attempt at painting this artichoke tomorrow I’ll post it here.

On a completely different note, if you have seen those pretty letter pressed cards in gift shops and wonder how they are made, I will soon post a video from a printmaking conference I just came home from.

Giraffn' Around

Today a bunch of giraffes were born. I was trying to use up the last bit of yellow courdroy that I had lying around, and ended up cutting 7 of the little buggars out of it. Like with the critters yesterday, I wanted to keep some to put up in my shop and give some to my friends store, which I think I'll go visit next weekend. Here's some pics of the little guys, left: seven skins, middle: three done, right: done!

New critters!

Today was a combined art day and craft day. I had some time to do prints, that are still undone, and on top of that I put together a whole bunch of little doggies and one kitty. I love these critters, they all end up having such a personality of their own. I posted one on etsy for now. Three are reserved for a friend to put in her shop next month. I am so proud of her, she has her own store front about an hour from our house, and is selling antiques with art, and more modern things. I am dying to go visit her new boutique. I'll post some pictures when I go down there.

Also in the works are a new design for a plushie for Jessica at the Shiny Squirrel Boutique, but not sure what that will be yet. I have ideas for an owl and a ferrett. I guess it will be a mystery until it is unveiled...