My Love Affair with Drawing Continues

Whether it's drawing with the sewing machine or on paper with pen or pencil my love affair with drawing continues. I've been working on ideas for illustrations, doing pencil drawing first then careful pen an dink versions, the second one here was when I added some colour to the back ground using a watercolour wash and extra elements in Photoshop. It's always a case of trying things but also listening to what my heart is drawn to. It's painfully long process sometimes, finding what it is that I want to say, and i'm only just beginning.

Recent Adventures

It's been a very busy few months with moving my belongings out of storage from the house I used to share with me ex and trying to organise and simplify it all. Going through all my stuff was emotional with a mix of highs and lows and also some surprises. I found so many unfinished art and craft projects, and spent quite a lot of time looking at them thinking they were less rubbish than I'd remembered! Some of them I got rid of but some of them I've hung onto with the intention of using them in some way or finishing them off.  I honestly didn't know how much I had. I do however now have a quite a collection of vintage fabrics and some of those were a joy to find and I've started using bits and pieces. I've only just started producing more consistently though after all the upheaval, and I'm also working on my drawings, vegan ideas etc. Here's a little update of what I've been doing:

This is a rather colourful one of a crow after feeling inspired by a commission someone asked me to do which was using a crow image. I think in hindsight I'd like to tone down the colour combos, but learning what I like is all a part of the process and never see things as mistakes just as an ongoing development.

This is was the first stag I did, which I liked very much actually. I've decided stags are one of my favourite subjects because their antlers are such  a fascinating shape and they are so magnificent to look at.

Following how much i enjoyed the first one I decided to do a follow up, I think I'll be doing a few of these!

Little Pleasures

I know I've been rubbish at keeping up my blog but I'm making a promise to myself to start being more consistent even if it just means posting photos of bits and bobs and unfinished pieces that I'm playing around with. It's been bust old month with family commitments but no excuse! I got all my vintage fabrics out of storage last week and I've been having a wonderful time going through them all, I really do love them, colours and patterns just do it or me what can I say!

This led me an intense urge to make lots of pretty little things, like brooches and ACEO cards. I've always had a creative fetish for the small and miniature, no idea for that where that comes from but I love it. I made some of these little ACEO, or ATC cards. I came across the whole ACEO thing accidentally on ebay of all places. It stands for Artists Collectibles, Editions and Originals, a kind of step on from Artists Trading Cards because ether tend to get sold instead of traded. Well what ever, it's an excuse of remaking lovely little things with my bits and pieces, so here are some of my experiments below, soon to be all in my Etsy shop:

Thread drawings from the last couple of weeks

I've been trying  a variety of images and exploring what I enjoy, here are a few experiments from the last couple of weeks:

New Thread Drawings

  I've been trying hard to get into the swing of some kind of routine when it comes to working and producing consistently, which seems to go against my nature! But I'm moving in the right direction as I have managed to be producing on a more regular basis. I've been enjoying my freehand embroidery on the sewing machine more and more. I feel like I've found the perfect way of combining my love of drawing and vintage fabrics, the quality of line drawing with wonderful patterns and colours. I've even managed to start listing things on Etsy now. Slow progress is better than no progress so heres to moving forward!

More Fun with the Sewing Machine

It's a all trial and error, sometimes mostly error!

Just some more 'drawings' from the last week. I've found though that I really need to use a much thicker interfacing, as you can see there is a quite a bit of puckering from where I've worked into the fabric more intensely or when I have set the piece on an embroidery hoop first. some of them have come out well, others not so well but then that's the point, to try different things and see what works.

Freehand Machine Embroidery

I started trying freehand machine embroidery ages ago but hadn't gone back to it for a little while but then these last couple of weeks I'd felt a growing urge to try it again. I think I was feeling inspired after going through bags of my vintage textiles and the simultaneous need to draw. Once I'd given it a go again, only this time with a more ordered process I realised that I'm a bit in love with it!

My process involves lining a nice piece of fabric with interfacing, to make it more stable, and then sewing appliqué pieces from another piece of fabric, usually flowers on to the fabric for added colour and interest. Once that was done I used a pencil sketch, either of my own drawing or of a photo onto thin tracing paper and then with a freehand machine foot and the right stitch setting would 'draw' around the outline of the sketch. I'd then take the paper off, ripping it carefully to remove it from the stitches, and would carry on filling in the details and the rest of the drawing so that most of it really is freehand.

Here are some photos of the results, I think they turned out well, better than expected. I've started setting some of them on embroidery hoops for frames and selling them on Etsy. I intend to do a lot more and experiment with all kinds of designs. I'm genuinely feeling excited about this whole new way of working. It allows me to work with beautfil textiles, patterns and colour AND drawing, it really couldn't get much better in my world! I would highly recommend people give it a go.

Progress!

It seems to have taken me forever to get to the point where I had a few finished pieces that I was actually happy to put online for sale, and even then I wouldn't say I was particularly confident with them. What I've learnt though is that it is so true that you learn by doing more than anything else. I realised quickly that whatever I had planned in my mind about how things would work out with new projects, art, life, work etc were always going to be different from the practical application of any ideas I had in those areas. I think though that just getting over the initial anxiety and actually just making a start is sometimes the biggest hurdle. So today I have just listed two of my prints on Etsy for the first time. It might not seem like a big deal but in my head it was a mountain to climb. Anybody who makes art or creates things in some form or another is acquainted to some degree with that feeling of 'putting' yourself out there. Sometimes though, you just have to bite the bullet and do it!

I'm quite pleased with this particular piece. I did a pencil sketch then traced over it in graphics pen. I then scanned that into Photoshop where I added colour. I've found that I very much enjoy creating drawings with an eclectic mix of motifs, patterns and images, all inspired by my interests in nature, femininity, line and colour. This one uses motifs inspired by vintage chinese fabric patterns and I think it does have a slightly oriental feel. 

This was a fun project. It was just a doodle that turned into something I thought I could actually use. I did the original line drawing in ink then scanned it into Photoshop where I added colour and used some of my watercolour washes for backgrounds. I enjoyed it and I think it makes for a decorative print. I'm selling prints of it currently in my Etsy shop.

Mixing Mediums I Enjoy

This was a quick sketch I did last year that I then scanned into the computer and worked on in Photoshop. I had the idea to make little coloured pencil drawings based on pretty origami paper models that I liked onto paper from a shop bought maths notebook and then cut them out. I then scanned in some vintage fabric and pink lace. I liked the contrast of delicate textures and colours. I'll try and refine the sketch a bit more. This is was just a personal project to try a few things out but I like it.

A Change of Direction

    Finding a Focus

It's been quite some while since I last posted on here but you could definitely say I've been through some major life changes over this last year and a half. One of which has been to decide where to take my creativity and focus my skills and interests. At the moment I seem to have arrived at the point where I really want to be producing art work based on the subjects that I love and homing in on that as a career move while having other interests as side lines that I go to for fun and enjoyment.

This piece was done as a detailed freehand pencil sketch which I then traced over using a variety of  different width graphics pens. This was the scanned into Photoshop for some reworking and tidying up. I wasn't sure whether I should go with a stronger colour palette but settled on a very subtle simple touch of colour to emphasise the colour work and harmonise with the femininity of the pice. This is really my first finished worked up piece. I learnt  a lot from the process about my personal working style and what I need to improve on next time.

Little Birdie Brooch

I 'drew' this little bird on felt with my sewing machine, then had it for ages before deciding to make a little brooch with it. I sewed it on to  another piece of yellow felt, then hand embellished it with some pretty bugle beads. I backed it with another layer of yellow felt and sewed the two together with blanket stitch and put some stuffing in to add dimension before finishing. Lastly I sewed a brooch pin on the back. I wasn't sure about it at first but now I think I really like it.

Drawing with thread

A little soft sculpture also for my brothers birthday, it's meant to be a kind of characature of him. I did however realise afterwards that I'd neglected to put on his poor ears, oh well!

I've been practising my drawing with the sewing machine, I have in mind some ideas for combining my love of textiles and art to make some interesting illustrations. This was just from a random photo in a magazine I had to hand.

Enjoying Textiles

Over the last couple of weeks I've really gotten into working with textiles again. That is my current passion. I'm exploring things to do with embroidery, on the sewing machine, and by hand. I really do love working with pretty feminine things. I get slightly ridiculously excited when I look at my collection of ribbons, beads, buttons and vintage fabrics. The combination of beautiful colours, patterns and textures inspires me to want to create something beautiful, fun, cute, feminine, delightful etc etc.
So I made these little badges/brooches by doing some small freehand sewing on felt, I then added a backing of wadding and another layer of felt and then added details so you got a slightly quilted effect. I always back my fabrics with interfacing so that it's a bit thicker for the embroidery, especially machine embroidery which can really pucker the fabric without it:

I made this quick fun card for my brothers birthday. I did the same thing, I used felt with interfacing underneath. I don't always bother to iron the interfacing on, I just pin it in place, it just saves a bit of time and still does the job of making the fabric more stable to work on:

This is a little purse I made, which isn't brilliantly finished and needs a good iron, is a mixture of freehand machine embroidery and hand embellishing. I used pieces of several different vintage fabrics and layered them on the base fabric, machine embroidering them on and then hand stitching details and adding items such as beads and bows etc to create a rich feminine surface of colour and pattern and texture:

Rainbow Cake

It's my sons birthday party tomorrow and I just haven't had time to make a large fancy cake but my sister did point out a link a few months ago to a tutorial on how to make a rainbow cake! That is, a cake that is multi coloured on the inside when you cut it open. So I've decide to give it a go, since I figure if I was a kid and I had a slice of rainbow cake I'd be pretty happy, even if the outside wasn't something big and fancy!

This is a basic sponge cake mix divided up into six bowls and coloured with paste food colouring.

This is the cake tin with all the different cake mixes poured in, one on top of the other. Sorry for the poor photo, it wasn't done in very good light.

This is the finished result, although as you can see it's been half eaten. I think the kids were pretty happy with it, they were certainly surprised when I cut it open and they saw all that glorious technicolor inside.

Handmade

Freehand Machine Embroidery 

I'm currently going through a textile, crafty phase. I want to try my hand at some more freehand machine embroidery and actually finish some pieces. I've been searching for more artists who use this technique of drawing with the sewing machine, and seeing what they do with it for inspiration. I think I enjoy it so much because it combines line drawing, which I love, and textiles, which I also love. I've done a post before on Claire Coles, whose work I particularly admire, but I've also found some more artists whose work I find inspiring:

Gillian Bates

Find a link to her work here: Gillian Bates

Tugba Kop


Find link here: Tugba Kop

Etsy Seller: Three Red Apples
link here: Three Red Apples