Pansies in progress

Another flower based post I guess. This time a work in progress. 
Currently working on an airbrushed image to go on a fitted sheet. Problem is that when I originally purchased the sheet I was expecting it to be a cloth even if it was mostly polyester. When I opened it up was more like a shower curtain.😕 Oh well, so it forced me to do more steps then I originally planed. So I airbrushed on a separate white cloth. Its going to be sewn on to the fitted sheet later.
First I just free handed my desired images. Then airbrushed them. No masking. Just penciled in. They’re a group of pansies. But I won’t bother cutting them out of the excess material. Just going to sew it on. Its only for me after all. 

Neon Lights Barber Shop set 5

Now out Neon Lights Barber Shop set 5. And now you can grace you place with my dreadlocks and Afros collection. 😊 Its will also be featured on my personal web site soon as well. 

On another note you may have noticed that my what amounts to a small personal T-shirt shop has been closed for awhile. I placed an "under construction" sign in its spot. Well I really was never happy with the store. I had used CafePress for a number of years and felt that it was more of a hassle to have. Never liked how they had a policy of only have a few t-shirts per store. Plus their design algorithm/platform was more complicated then it had to be. Over all if you wanted more freedom to use the site and its things, you had to sign up for their premium services.  Blah and then after awhile I sort of abandoned it. 
Currently I'm trying a new to me place and it has more of what I like and how I like. Hopefully soon you will see a new store with a new name with a new link to in the side menu. In the mean time I'l probably share links to new and experimental things with my artwork on them until I fully open the store. 
Thanks for reading, looking and until next time.  👋😊
 

The unusual home made light box

Darn I think I deleted the original copies of my home fries pics before I could save them to permanent storage. Oh well. No biggy. Technically still have a copy in one of my bloggs for future projects of something. 

Anyways as promised here are pics of my unusual home made light box. (finally shown after several years) Made with lots of recycled stuff such as cardboard and styrofoam sandwiched together with home made white glue. Recipe found here. Then covered or wallpapered with more recycled paper that I saved long ago from my school days. In those days we used lots and lots of paper. We also did a lot of useless homework too, hence the crazy amount of paper. Then I sealed it with some shellac I guess, then painted it all up. I chose red and covered it with some goofy fun labels to make it all sciency but spoofy Otherwise I wouldn't have cared so long as it did its job. Earlier I had purchased a string of nearly pure white Christmas lights LED's of course. Since I couldn't find those string tube lights I used those and secured them on to a removable platform just in case they ever needed to removed. I already had a nice acrylic piece of plastic on hand to use as a surface for things that require tracing.  
Why didn't I just purchase one at the store? Because I already had plenty of materials and plus its environmentally sound. Plus those light box/tables you purchase at the store cost more then they should. Especially around here. So its a win, win, win situation. 

 A fly got into the shot. 🔺

  Close up of the fly. 🔺

 Side shot. 🔺

 Front shot. 🔺

The other side shot. 🔺

What it looks like when plugged in with the plastic cover on. 🔺

Again lit up. 🔺

 What it looks like when not plugged in with cover on. Paper is placed on top for tracing when plugged in. Its easy to see the object underneath for tracing.🔺

  What it looks like when not plugged in another angle and without cover. 🔺

Just another shot of it. 🔺

 What it looks like on my work surface. Although because its pretty tall, I have to use it on the floor. I could not make it any less shorter to accommodate because of the lights I used. 🔺

Make your own basic white glue.

If you're ever in a pinch for large amounts of glue like I was last year, you may wanna make your own and bonus it won't cost you an arm and a leg unnecessarily. Its also a pretty great paper and wood glue too. Even works on Styrofoam. I used it to make cardboard and foam sandwiches. No I didn't make a tasty sandwich, but a pretty useful light box I will show in another post. 
Instructions can be found here. There are several recipes in here but just scroll down for the white glue recipe. Oh another bonus is that you can make it as thin or as think as you would like. 

Please note that if you decide to store the glue in a jar, make sure you air it out if it stinks. Unlike me I was too lazy to air out this jar which formally contained sauerkraut, which made the glue smell rancid. 😝To get rancid smell out just put a spoon full of coffee grinds in for a few days or as long as you need so it won't smell stinky. 🐷The jar not the glue. 😉

 

Humming Bird feeder 2

Humming bird feeder2 is made out of an old Ferrero Rocher egg I collected years ago. Then I burned several holes at the top of the egg and burned an opening at the top as well so that I can pour the food in. I later placed a cork on that opening and as usual glued some nice fake flowers and beads to make the openings for food access look more appealing. Then I put it on another ring of grape vines I collected from the garden together with a small plastic net I also collected years ago. Good for stability. I have yet to see if any of my feeders will attract the little hummers since I was way too busy with yard work this year.

Hummin bird feeder 1

I have yet to make some food for at least one of these. Recently actually earlier this year I decided to make some feeders after years of spotting the little hummers every so often around our yard. I hope to get some nice photo ops. I also hope these things will work and not just leak all of their contents all over the place. 

The first one you see here is made out of an well washed old plastic bottle. I also used a few old plastic flowers that were actually carnations I took apart and made something a hummer would be interested. I made a hoop out of grape vines I found growing around the house. They needed trimming any how. Some twine and an old plastic container. I burned some holes using a small nail I heated with a candle and held with pliers of course. Put it all together with hot glue. Painted the container with green spray paint. Didn't work out as well since the paint was kind of old. Glued flowers and beads and wala a feeder fit for humming birds. I hope.  😃

 

Little Ballet Girl 2 polished drawings

As always here are some polished drawings of the Little Ballet Girl 2 project as I like to call it phase 2. 

I later ended up combining the two in favour of the other head and leg.
Still had a bit of an issue in spots like the skirt.  🐱

Previous post. 

Coming soon to my blog near you. ;)

Coming soon. New animated clip. 
Haven done one of those in years other then a few animated GIfs for avatars and or banners. 
Can't wait to post it. :)

A little something old. Fandome wise.

How do you like my new pillow/cover? 

Finally got this very old project completed, based on a Garfield calendar I got when I was in my last year of grade school. Yup there it stayed all those years in the back of my little yellow plastic basket collecting years of dust together with other odds and ends of threads and maybe a few dreams too. The other half of the pillow still stuck in my head. Well the tiger patterned cover part. Anyways yeah 1988 all the way to 2015 and finished it a few months ago actually. Just never got around to showing it. The majority of the cross stitching was done on the cover but there was just a few spots that needed to be completed plus the cover. I had plenty of the tiger material left over when I actually had a costume made also in the same year as 88.

Oh the reason why I first made it was well, I was stuck in bed for a few weeks with the chicken pox. Well, more weeks then what was required to recover. That was because it was also a very traumatic time and year. It was just my luck that my mother had yet another bout with manic depression. It was horrible. I had to endure lots of strange behaviour and in later repeating years, all kinds of strange actions, sometimes scary and shouting from her, but that's another story. Then of course there was grade school its self. That always was a real hell hole to me.

I was a kid. Who in the world would stand up, be on my side and protect me from all this craziness? No one. No man as in humans anyways. ;) It was all tough nuggies for me.

Actually I did have for awhile my former next door neighbour and best friends but that welcome was busted after awhile. So much for knowing them since I was a toddler. So much for best friends forever. Life goes on. :_(  *broken heart*

Note;

Please note that my mother's issues are no longer that intense since her hysterectomy she had a number of years ago. That and the fact she now sticks to her meds which is just right for her needs, her and ours walk with Jesus Christ. But she still has her occasional weirdness. Don't we all.

Since being stuck in bed for so long, I had already completed other projects and ran out of the pre-designed needle point and cross stitching stuff. (Some of it hangs on the walls to this day. ) I needed more stuff to occupy and distract me instead of vegetating in front of the TV all day so I made my own design hence that's where the Garfield calendar came it.

Back then I was a pretty big fan of Garfield and besides the comics I was lucky enough to get, I tried to get at least one stuffed Garfield. But that was hard since I had no one to gift those to me. That was pretty much common for me. So many times I would make my own stuff based on my favourite things.

Yeah I eventually managed to get a teenie stuffed Garfield from someplace and an Odie from a Mc Donald’s.

I have those to this day sitting in my bedroom on display on an old handmade record (record player) desk I like to call it. 

This pic obtained from an Ebay user/seller who was selling the calendar. But yeah again I have the calendar myself. Just got too lazy to scan my own. Love this calendar. :)

The illustration I used for the project. Image from someone else's blog.

So yeah here it is my cute Garfield pillow based on a favourite scene from a Garfield Year of the Party 88 calendar. Hopefully I won't have any other really old projects to complete. But hay at least I don't give up on things. That has to count for something. Am I right? 

 What the back of the pillow looks like.

Various pics of my kitty Meetso with the pillow. 

He decided to look out the window for any unsuspecting potential victims. Aka tasty little morsels. ;)

 Hay? where's my face on a pillow?

Pillow featured soon on my personal web site as well. 

Deco shelled face plate

Just perfect for summer vacation time, not that I'm going on a vacation any time soon. :(

Oh well but I have gone in the past and collected these wonderful shells from Florida.

I like to use them every now and then like this project for instance. But not all of them. I'd like to save some of them for reference after all. :)

Anyhow I had this really boring and ugly old light switch face plate I had to look at every day for several years now and I finally had it. Since I always wanted a tropical themed design for my house but currently can't, :( I decided to at least add my personal touch to at least my personal space. The bed room.

I took one brand new plain Jane light switch face plate and I first painted it with a special acrylic that simulated the inside of a shell. A sort of a pearly white look. I then glued an assortment of shells and arranged it in a certain pleasing way. Then finally clear-coated it with an acrylic gloss and for the finishing touches added some simulated pearls.

Now I have something to switch on with a bit of class. 

 Before^

 After^

 Some close ups

Projects to be made....

Started working on some new small projects.

1. Is going to be a decorated light switch with some of the shells I collected in past vacations to Florida.

A great use for some of my souvenirs for an otherwise boring object on the wall. Plus I really go sick of looking at that old light switch plate with the plastic corner chipped out of edge. That thing has been there for ages. Also later I can always take my little art piece with me should I need to.

2. Finally got around to painting those fake Easter eggs. I bought them last year but never got around to do much with them. I got as far as sanding down those generic images that came with the eggs and then gessoing them for colour. I coloured one white egg with pink spots. It reminds me of a Yoshi egg from the Mario bro's games.

I hope to colour more in the next day or so. So we'll have to see if I get around to showing them off in time for Easter. Maybe afterwords but that's OK.

3. I'm removing some old patchwork decorations from an old pair of jeans I decorated years ago, The patches are still great so I plan on sewing them back on to an old jean jacket along with another large patch I salvaged from an old jean purse. I think it'll look great.

4. Last but not least there's this really old project I like to finish that I started long ago but sort of forgot about. Will explain later.

Then there's always more vector graphics to be made.

Dunking Dunked.

Just finished my newest and latest online portfolio. I need yet another mini port site since Dunked decided that we can all pay rich peoples money. So I had to dunk the Dunked. Oh well. Just as well this new place is way more flexible and more generous for my needs. At first the impressions I got from this site, snooty, pompous, for overly stuck up design artistes. But then I actually dove in and it wasn't so bad after all. Just to show you that you can't judge a book by its cover. So glad I didn't over look this place. Just hope it stays this way. What a great service for a basic account. Its generous with its space, and with a bit of tinkering very easy to use. One down side is that its a bit time consuming with the layout. Other then that this site is great.

So anyways yeah I needed a decent backup site to show things to people since my main site isn't always that reliable for it to be online. So hopefully this lasts quite awhile.

Check it out your self. ALLYOU

Changing direction.

Well I kind of changed my mine temporarily about finding a new web site after thinking about it. Instead I’m going to use this really nice online portfolio that I found at one of my favorite haunts for fellow artists.
Its really great because its quite generous with its space regarding how much content you can load in there regarding your works. Plus when you get the hang of using the stuff to customize your site, its easy to put together.  So for now going to use this as a mini backup web site for a more stable way of showing the people who are behind these potential job opportunities and not worrying about the darn site being down.
That unfortunately always seems to happen to me when I have stuff to show with my original site. Its embarrassing and frustrating.
So anyway, for a free portfolio site this mini site for me is really great and hopefully stable enough so that in the future, I don’t go though any more of this nonsense.  There’s also a premium part of the site of course but I really don’t need that.
So any one needing a really good and generous place for your portfolio check out dunked.com.

Trying to stay enthusiastic

Looks like I started yet another personal project. Another Spike the tiger illustration this time for the other part of my site. See previous post about the drawings, completed project and renovated creative part of my site. It sure beats, being bummed out over my current situation. 

Oh yeah got rid of the "labels thing"  Felt it was pretty redundant since you can view current and previous art work at my web site. Going to replace that with something else soon.

Where are they????

Ugh what did I do with those tie-dye tees I did number of years ago, You know? The ones that are very similar to the ones I painted dolphins on?  Its so frustrating when you loose something that you really wanted to paint something on.  After I tie-dyed these pink and red glow-in-the -dark tees I put them away for awhile till I could use them for something. But now its like they fell in to the center of the earth and its driving me nuts now. But then so is every thing else these days. Like trying to make some cash. Yeah I know I’m not the only one in this situation ……..Aaaaaaaaack!

Just that I really wanted to paint some butterflies on them but instead I found every other tee I bought for the purpose of future decorating. So I settled on some other tie-dyed shirts that were similar that I also had put away earlier.  But instead of making a nice chalk print on the shirts, I got nothing. Yet more frustration. So now at that point I ran upstairs and made a few transfer prints from the printer and then ironed on those butterflies so I had a starting point for my painting.  Um no, I’m not cheating since I already drew these earlier elsewhere and fixed it up for this purpose.  OK so now I have something ready to paint but I’m still stumped as to where those other tees are.

Free beer inside.

Ok so I forgot about this place but then can you blame me. Freelancing, clip-art making and other things is much more lucrative anyway.  But I’ll give it another shot. I added another graphic to my product line. Its basically based on my very successful clip-art set that’s been out in the market for sometime. I might add more when I have some time or when I’m bored or something which is quite rare but not too uncommon if I was to spend more time online. But adding more graphics is limited on a free subscription. Oh well. Still I wonder if interest is waning in regards to operating on such a place with the average Jill? I mean sure some people are obviously making some kind of income there but still I don’t see too many conversations happening in the forums. Maybe I should try Zazzler’s in the future or what ever its called.
Going to have to check them out.

Little Star the stick horse.

Originally was going to be a finger puppet but seem to fit better as a little stick puppet. Finally got around to finishing it. Not sure if and when I’ll get to make North Star the mommy stick horse or former finger puppet. But eventually I’d like to make that too.  To see what its made out of, the info is available via my web site when you click on the appropriate image in my miscellaneous art section.

Drawn to attention.....Spike the tiger

A little history on Spike the Tiger, how he came to be.
When I was little, growing up  I was teased and bullied a lot. I didn’t have any one really to be on my side. No sisters, no brothers, no grandparents, no relatives. My mother was often sick and my dad was working. Friends/ neighbors only help so much and can’t be with you 24 hours a day. I only had one or two friends if I was lucky enough. I had the occasional guidance counselor at school est but in the end they move on to greener grasses and you never hear from them again. Being separated in to special classes which in my normal class time only creates a feeling of segregation to make matters worse. So often as I did, I  daydreamed in class or any where boring or being in a scary situation. I would imagine something powerful and only friendly to me to be on my side.  Then I would doodle the ideas of imaginary friends in on some paper or in some school book. I would draw the powerful black stallion from the movie The Black Stallion. I would draw him running and have smoke billowing out of his nostrils. I would draw big eagles, tigers, lions and powerful lizards and est. I would doodle my favorite characters from my favorite cartoons of the day and I began to make new characters and stories based on those cartoons and have my own persona character in those stories.  Eventually there was a cartoon called Voltron that I really enjoyed watching as a kid. I just loved how these characters were in charge of these huge and powerful robo lions and fought the forces of evil. I then as always created a story with characters of my own only with giant robo tigers. But over time favorite cartoons fade to black as so many times before, things change and so did my little imagined cartoon and characters. Many robo tigers and their operators dwindled to one beloved imaginary powerful tiger friend who was no longer robotic but something more with a heart and personality something that was just as good as those other things imagined to be on my side but can do so many more things and adventures.  

 In time I added a few more things like a world where he came from, a few more friends and enemies to fight est.  

Also over time I kept him as a mascot, as a learning tool and a wonderful story/cartoon idea.The rest is history and spoilers to be revealed someday when the time is right.

These set of drawings is for the front page of my web site. I'm just going to have to decide which pose is the best. Spike doesen't normally act this way. He normally does the typical poncing, fighting and protecting but he as made an exception to pose for my drawings so I can fix up and refurbish my web site. 
I would like to have Spike's tail to over lap some of the title. You can help me choose if you like. I have left the rough drawings as is so you can see how my ideas were coming along. As you can see, I had a few drawings that I did not continue since i did not like the direction they were going in.  Others were experiments. Also because I have a bad habit of making the drawing run off the page I had to draw extra arm/paw drawings to be added later.

I used a blue erasable pencil that animators and drafters use for the loose sketching part and then used a regular writing pencil on top of that for the details. 

Here below are the rest of the sleeping Spike drawings and a scratching Spike to be used for my new Scratching post banner.

 

Below I will use these potential drawings for my Creative blog banner here. Just have to make up my mind to which is best. BTW he's just gotten in to the paint and is painting paw prints all over your screen. Again not typical for Spike.

Another position for the paw printing Spike. With both of these positions I used some picture reference of small house cats so I can get the look right since I wasn't sure. Spike was a bit stubborn. ;)

I tried a different pose and theme in this one with Spike fighting with an airbrush gone crazy. 
The treasure box drawing is for potential over hauled idea for my treasure part of my site. 

The last drawing is another version of that treasure themed idea.

And that's all folks. ;)
Time for bed.

Small changes big ideas.

Made a few small changes to a bunch of things regarding my web site and banners that I use here which were really begging for it. More noticeable things in the future. As of right now, you don't see much. ;)

A Tool for Artists

Introducing Anti Warp Water Colour Painting Frame
A great tool for watercolour artists to minimize the paper warping after it dries.
There’s nothing more annoying then working with paper that has warped, especially when you have to go back to a spot you painted earlier in order to do some fine details and the paper is all wavy.
This thing is great for wet on wet painting techniques too since the frames are for the most part water proof providing that you follow instructions. 

Sure, I could have used craft paper and glued it on the back of the watercolour paper but I really don’t like it for that kind of paper I use, so that’s why I came up with this thing. 

 

You can download instructions provided by me from my web site or go to Instructables.com and while there see what others have made to share.
None the less, hope some of you can find this useful.