Leopard patch

   I have this purse and I only had it for a few years. This is the type of purse that's a bit on the pricey side of things and I really didn't feel like getting rid of it so soon. So I did a bit of exploring to see what type of patches are out there. Didn't exactly like what I saw. Lots and lots of cheep looking Chinese made patches. Probably only worth 50'cents or lower but sold at a 5 bucks a pop or higher at a fabric shop. Looked in other stores too but the selection was even worse. So I decided to make my own. I first looked at what I had, did some thinking, some more exploring at craft stores est and then looked at my purse some more. Thought to my self. Lets make paw prints and a lounging leopard. I mean why not? I already had found a discarded umbrella cover I saved in my junk box with that same theme to cover up some buckles that always seemed to come apart on my purse. 
So I quickly drew up a cute lounging leopard on some tracing paper. I used tracing paper or parchment paper to first plot out all those holes on my purse. So that's why the leopard is lounging the way it is. The paw prints were for the holes that weren't so close together. So anyways I drew my leopard pattern on the pattern of mapped out holes. Then I found parts of some old jeans. They were remnants that I also saved earlier for these types of purposes too. Comes in very handy. 
I then drew out some paw prints and that leopard on to the scraps of jean materials. I ended up drawing out 3 paws and the leopard. Later I painted them up with some acrylic fabric paint using a regular old brush. I used mostly browns and yellow. Nothing fancy because that would come later. I ended up purchasing some fake plastic jewellery findings mostly shiny gold colour and another sheet of multi coloured gems cause I couldn't just get the right green ones that were the right size for the eyes. Just as well I can save those for another project. So anyways I sewed them all on my now coloured up patches. When finished I gave them a good clear coating for added protection. Later pilfered some "Shoe Glue" from my dad and then cut off the remaining jean material that remained on my embellished shapes. I find "Shoe glue" really great and handy stuff to patch on patches on to things. 
And here you have the finished product. Hope you like it. 😊

 Some different views of my embellished purse with the finished patches.

Stars on my sweater.

Once again here we are in sweater season and still finishing up on the many things I had to do this year with my yard. Not to mention all that house work. I do it all by my self mostly after all.
Anyways here is this simple but lovely fixed up sweater. Well its not entirely used but something my mom couldn't wear I guess, so she gave it to me. I couldn't just leave it be, cause for one thing it made me feel awkward. Well you know "grandma wear?" Anyways I just didn't sew it all together and make this sweater. But none the less I did kind of sew on a pattern of stars on it cause well the blue reminded me of a dark blue sky that stars would love to be in. Also I had this really nice sparkly yarn just calling to me to make something of it. And here it is. I know I should have used one of those round sewing hoops to keep things steady and then the stars would have been more uniform. Oh well lets just call them more on the abstract side. Its still a nice sweater anyways. 
Next post, a nice Thanks Giving card made last year. As always will post this in my personal web site when I can. 

Carved Style Easter Egg Resurrection version 1 Set

New and a little late for Easter but just in time for next season's Easter. 
A new carved style Easter egg set The Resurrection version. It features the cave tomb where the resurrection of Jesus took place with door and angel all in a stylized art work egg carving design. Bonus it also comes in chocolate. Too bad, you can only eat it with you eyes. 😉😁
Comes in regular mono tone, polished with gradients and chocolate version. Another set featured soon. As always it will also be featured in my personal web site too. 

 Polished with gradients version isolated and close up 🔺

Just the angel reg egg version isolated close up 🔺

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 painted up

Now that most of my distractions are taken care of I can post my other painting of the Little Ballet girl. Just as before, painted on canvas in water colour with a bit of acrylic. Painting is 8.5 x11

The original reference⇑

The finished painting.⇑

Close up of face.⇑ 

As I said before, a little different as in position and added a sort of a flower arch in the bg but still in keeping in the style of the other one I painted earlier. I was able to make her more prevent this time around since I did not have to make the skirt/dress as wide. 
As before the original owner was very pleased.  🐱

The previous painting. 

And see the previous process that eventually ended up the Little Ballet girl 2 painting. 
Click on pins. 📌📌


 

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. 

Flamingo Tee shirt.

Ok so I purchase this cheep tee cause I need a tee for mostly when its cold outside. For when its cold out side? Well ya, I like to wear a tee as an extra layer under my shirt when its winter. You know, layers?  But then I'll also probably wear it on a nice day too. You know, hot and sunny? 
So anyways, you know me, when I see a potential blank canvas, and well to me this is a blank canvas, I just had to paint something.  I decided to paint some flamingos on it. Reason, just felt like it. Just haven't gone to Florida in years and well flamingos pretty much fit the bill. Laughing gulls being more of favorite symbol of Florida to me second only to palm trees, white sand and warm weather. But somehow flamingos just seem to fit this tee. 
I decided just to freehand it instead of just putting some kind of guiding lines all over it and just went  at it. Using just pink acrylic fabric paint and memories of the birds applied the paint in a sketchy scribbly style. I went over some spots with more pink paint doubling the line thickness to produce the elision of highlights.  I tried to take advantage of the black tee and the look of the paint as best as I could. Could have finished it in one day but the paint was kind of old and had some difficulty getting it to flow out of the bottle.  So instead of getting frustrated, I just took a few days to finish it, letting some of it to dry while working on another spot. Eventually after completing it, I heat set it in the dryer. 
I think I achieved what I wanted and even got a bit of therapy out of it. 
Not totally realistic but you pretty much get what the point was.

 Meetso didn't really feel like posing that day so I kind of bribed him with some food. Little did I know, it appears he was sick for a year or so on and off. So who could blame him. Eventually in July the sheep hit the fan and poor Meetso was plugged up because of inferior food. He now eats a good quality food, with occasional natural treats, some kitty candy and the occasional wild caught food he him self he catches.  Oh and he finally got the hint of not eating the heads after loosing his meow due to a sore throat in August. Today he his back to his crazy affectionate kitten self. Well he's about 6 years old but he will always be my little kitten.  ;)

Available for viewing at my web site soon.

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

Happy Easter Egg

April showers brought these May flowers, on this egg. OK, so its not a real egg and the flowers are imaginary. The lettering isn't even real gold but it is my artwork seeded by my imagination.

But can't you just smell the flowers and doesn’t the gold lettering just glisten on the Happy Easter part?

I think the last Easter egg in this series is my most favorite which is suprising considering that most of the time my favorite stuff feature animal themes and or stuff with toons on them. 

Yup its the last egg but fear not, new things are always in the making.

Kind of fitting don't you think? 

Bottom of egg^

Top of egg^

 Easter greeting how it was meant to look. ^

See the previous completed eggs.

Polka-dot-egg, Tulip-and-Camomile-egg, Canada-and-Croatia egg, Resurrection-egg, Hen-egg, duck-egg.

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.

Cherub Baby Oops

A little late this time, but for next year's Valentines day, it'll be just in time.

Its a twin version of the NewYear Baby Oops I made a few years ago only in Cherub form.

Also now viewable at my web site. Probably at several different places of mine too. 

Treasure Spike

Yes! Finally completed.

After all those delays due to things breaking like my computer and then there’s the constant interruptions. Its finally done. Speaking of interruptions, still get interrupted while I'm working. Most annoying when you get in the zone and you loose your place or thought possess on how you are going to do something. Some things just have lots of details and if you get distracted well, you get annoying mistakes.

Anyways its another Spike the tiger illustration and this time its for my treasure/collection half of my site which as been under refurbishment for over a year. Of course it will be a bit till I recalibrate things as I said before and organize things. Oh yeah here's the original drawings and previous completed illustration with the same theme in case you're interested. 

 Full image^

 Close up so you can see some details. ^

FYI

The illustration was completed the same way as the last one with PhotoShop using the digital graphics technique. Oh yeah and another thing, in case you haven't noised or maybe don't care, (too bad!)I didn't bother adding the blue spiked collar since you wouldn't really see it properly any how. It would just look too weird and make him look like he had horns and we all know that Spike isn't evil. Besides horns belong on other animals and things like a tyger. That’s a creature that looks like a wolf that has spikes on its back or some place and curly horns on its head like a ram of some sort. A little trivia for you. ;) Also the treasure chest was actually recycled from an earlier project and used on that part of my site originally only now its refurbished. Refurbishing seems to be the thing these days, am I right? :)

Monarch Butterfly tee-shirt 1

Finally got the thing done after many distractions. Actually it was completed weeks ago but only recently got around to posting about it.

It’s a bit of an experiment. I’m using a heat transfer that I designed and for the first time I used it as a guide for airbrushing the artwork.

Pro, it was easy to airbrush light colours on a multi-coloured tee such as this tie dye tee I made a number of years ago. Con, you can’t place frisket or some other paint blockers on to already painted areas on the heat transfer image or you may run into annoyances like peeling paint. With that said with I just repainted those areas that peeled, by hand then reairbrushed the damaged areas.  No problem.  Then I added some very small gems on the antennas for that extra something.  Finally I gave it a few shots of clear coat just to make sure. Hopefully that did the trick for making it last with out scratches for instance.

Over all it looks great but just not sure if I can heat set the design. Still have to figure that one out.

I have another look-a-like in the works and hopefully I can work on it soon. 

Also can be seen on my web site soon.

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.

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.

While I wait.....

Well-p while I wait to start my latest gig, which has to be, any day now I decided to make some finger puppets for fun. I'm making this little black horse out of recycled materials mostly. Doing my part to save the world from more garbage while utilizing idle time. Probably going to make a matching mama horse too.

New

Found a new web site hoster. So far so good even though it seemed a bit glitchy mostly with my web site creator when I uploaded the published site of mine. Thankfully some one was listening when I complained about not having access to something for a bit that I had a right to. Unfortunately I had no way of thinking who ever was in charge of fixing those glitches. So for now I'm using this. Freeweb site. Hopefully I'll be able to utilize it for quite awhile since I hate having to move place to place too often.

As for my book project I'm working on, finally made it to the middle portion of the book. She says that she would love to have me illustrate her other books as well but that remains to be seen and how things go. But its cool none the less.

Oh and I even managed to make a new vector set since I had a gap of time between things. Always nice. Its a bit early for this or late. It depends on how you look at things.

woman at work

The project is coming along nicely, even if progress is a bit slow. But that's ok. Still applying the background and I'm worried that the rocks on the rock face are maybe a bit too dark in some spots, more then I would like them to be so I going to try to lighten them a bit. Hopefully I won't mess them up. I also decided to work with my coffee ink again as a base for many parts of the illustration. It really does work. Over all the paper I chose seems to be working really well. Its not really light paper but it does have a nice light texture for painting details.


From the previous session in my multi purpose studio.

Baked good ness

New tasty vector art. Also worked on the layout of the 3 ed major project. Still have to work on it some more. Its taking me awhile to get the layout just right with lots of distractions doesn't help either. Oh well it get done soon and well worth it.

Dino -bit part 2

Now what to choose. Which one looks best for a logo design?