Day 3

Day three equals tree!

Do you think they did that to make it rhyme? :D

Well just a simple drawing today but a chance to try out my new Sharpies

Day 2 Spoonchallenge

Today the prompt was mountain. I had thought that a nice grey sketch might pass for a rock but the pencils had managed to escape! Guess I will find them at some point soon under a mound of new craft stuff or stuffed down the back of a chair ...its not mess it's creativity, honest.

So water colour pencils to the rescue for today:

Taking up a challenge month

After dipping my toe in the waters of drawing again, I feel I should at least try to make a small effort to get used to trying to draw something...anything really.

Then I stumbled upon Spoonflower who not only sell a fab range of materials but also are hosting a monthly challenge to try and give people like me some inspiration (and an emailed nudge) to create something.

So the plan is to post up a pic throughout the days of August with a theme suggested by the Spoonchallenge. Be it a doodle or an actual picture, I think it is at least a step in the right direction to boost creativity.

If you would like to join me then here is the link:
Spoonchallenge for August

And here is my first offering for the theme of Cactus

Water colour pencils

When I was younger I loved to draw and always wanted to try my hand at painting however it was often a messy affair and consequently replace by 'magic painting' as soon as possible. For anyone that doesn't know this basically means using water to paint over some grey pictures to release the colour. So as a kid I was pretty happy with that but it does mean that now I still feel like a small child when attempting to use grown up paints.

Then I started to notice more craft projects were using water colour pencils and wondered if these would help me get back my art groove, and I am glad to say that I am now a convert!

Well thanks to some great inspiration and tutorial videos found on the net.

The pack of pencils from WHSmith that are currently on sale

http://www.whsmith.co.uk/products/whsmith-watercolour-colouring-pencils-pack-of-24/product/28497318

Video tutorial from the fantastic Frugal Crafter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91vHOqZYo38&sns=gp

My efforts after watching the video

And beginning to get a little more practice; inspired by Leonardo Pereznieto  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxLUb0PYmPY

Before adding the water

After the water & added a border of blue around the fish

 My thanks go out especially to -

 Bob Davies for showing the basics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRVkG6HhwBE

Lindsay The Frugal Crafter - For an amazing assortment of craft tutorials & an addictive blog <3

http://thefrugalcrafter.wordpress.com/

Leonardo Pereznieto for sharing videos on his fantastic artwork

https://www.facebook.com/LeonardoPereznieto

Painting practice

So I came back to find my poor lil rabbit in pieces, so I guess I will have to apply a few tweaks next time around.  I was able to stick him back together with some glue but in the process the poor soul lost his tie :(

After a lot of deliberation I thought I might as well have a go at painting them. And I know I am not so good at this but I guess the practice won't hurt and I don't think I ruined them too much. Although I did try to use two tone painting and now I am not  sure whether it adds to the piece or just makes it look badly painted oops.

I think I need a better fine brush before I attempt to paint the clock face but by then I can hopefully track down a leather or fabric scrap that I can make him a new tie from so his neck doesn't get cold :)

Late for a very important date!

Got to start somewhere...

So finally I got around to having a play around with some of the clay I had stocked up. For these I used Fimo Basic Air dry and went along with the Alice in Wonderland inspiration.

My first air dry clay creation:

He is going to need a bit of paint after he fully dries

Then I decided to go a bit more adventurous and set to work on a rabbit. It took a few tries to get  something that was starting to resemble a rabbit!

 The ears needed to be blended better so I am on the hunt for something which might work better than what I have.









Starting to take form but he looked a little too bare









A wax carving hook helped to create the texture for his tail.






Then I felt he needed some clothes to keep him warm and add a bit of movement

A head pin to help keep his stop watch in place

I am quite pleased with how he worked out even if he is a bit rough round the edges & looks a little more Indiana Jones than the Wonderland rabbit :D

A new arrival..

So to add to my ever growing 'I'll get around to it' crafting pile, today I happily received my new bundle of promise.

Today I am the proud curator of this beauty

My new Sizzix Big shot.

Now I couldn't very well put this in the cupboard without a little play on it so I had to test out the new toy.

I opted for the starter kit so I would be able to jump straight into things and I decided to try out the medium dies first, using the supplied card. The loud cracking noise as the plates went through the rollers didn't sound too healthy, however the outcome was a lovely butterfly.

I did discover that I will need to get a tool to poke out and smarten up the holes for the smaller dies in future, as there was nothing in the kit for this. so I set about trying to delicately pop out the bits of card but the smaller places proved too fragile and I ended up with a butterfly with torn wings underneath.

Next I moved on to the Bigz die, and decided that I would try using material to see how well it cut.

The machine had no problem cutting the material in fact I think the material would have worked better if it were thicker or starched beforehand. 

The embossing plate

Using the framelits

I did notice that the cutting sheet on top took a bit of a pounding for these few goes, and wondered why they had not just put rubber on the cutting pads. Guess i will have to invest more soon ;) 

Overall I am very happy with my new machine and after some more window shopping I see that there is a rubber protector available to buy (although it seems daft not to have one included in the start up kit). 

So I now have a new job lot of goodies on the wish list .... this is going to hurt my bank account ;)




http://www.sizzix.co.uk/