Friday Inspiration - Drawing

There's one word that can cause beads of sweat to arise on some of the most creative people - draw!  I know that I often hear my 8th grade art teacher's voice telling me that if I'm not drawing representationally, I'm not drawing - and I did not have the skills at that time to draw representationally.  She was wrong!  I now love to draw - and even though I can draw fairly good representations of what I see, my favorite drawing is lines, doodles, cartoon type pictures, designs, ...

I'm currently taking an on-line drawing class given by Alisa Burke, Draw With Me, and having a blast with it!  This is not a how to draw class, but one designed to get you making different types of marks and become comfortable with drawing.  You can check it out on her website here.

Zentangles are a fun way to put pen to paper without the pressure of trying to have your drawings look realistic.  If you haven't heard of them, it's basically super doodling where you make sections on your page and then fill in each section with a different pattern.  CraftWhack has a good beginner's page that includes base forms to get you going.  And for inspiration, this super Zentangle from This Marvelous Facade is wonderful!

I recently started working on an art journal and am incorporating lots of doodles.  I love how light hearted and whimsical they look and they're great to draw in pen and then use colored pencils or water colors to color in.  Rachel at Planning Mindfully has some great tutorials on flower doodling - I've been using a lot of these lately as I get my gardens in shape and then journal about it.

These are just some of the sites that can get you started on "no pressure" drawing!  

Happy Creating!  Deborah

A Lot of Knitting .....

I've been a little hit or miss (with emphasis on the miss!) lately - our seven month old puppy has been having a rough time with something as yet unidentified that makes him lethargic with no appetite.  Several vets have been working on it with not much found out about what is happening, but a lot on what is not happening - that's a good start!  He's doing a better currently - we've seen this happen and before we can breath a sigh of relief, he spirals down again.  Fingers crossed this time!

Anyway, for the last couple of months I've gotten a lot of mindless knitting in while we drive over the mountains to the vet or while he sleeps soundly in a corner of the kitchen.  So it's time for show and tell!

First, I can't believe it's taken me this long, but I finally knitted my first of socks!  For anyone wanting to try socks, but not sure if the stories about them being hard are true, I highly recommend Easy, Peasy, Socks for Firt-Timers by Stacey Trock.  She has wonderful instructions and tips that one just follows along with and suddenly there is a sock!  Still a little like magic to me.  The pattern uses worsted weight to make it easier to see the yarn the first time around, so they are a little thicker like boot socks or slippers.  These are in Dream in Color Classy Worsted in the Flower Drum Song colorway.

These filled me with so much confidence that I'm on my second pair of socks, using a finger weight this time.  I'll write about them later.

Next up, a hat from yarn I bought three years ago in June meaning to knit up a quick hat for fireworks watching on that July 4th.  First of all, our nights are still pretty cool in early July so yes, I do need a hat for that!  Then my plans went the way of many plans and got lost for awhile!  The yarn is Varied Bunting in Mrs. Crosby's Steamer Trunk.  And I used Lion Brand's generic hat making instructions which can be found here.

And finally, I finished up a Tin Can Knits KAL, making two Bumbles in Dream in Color Everlasting DK Tranquil, a pair of World's Simplest Mittens in Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light in Oompa Loompa, and a Snap Hat in Oompa Loompa, Golden Ticket, and Slugworth.

The World's Simplest Mittens really are!  I'm almost looking forward to next winter so I can wear them - almost!  And they go great with waffles ..... 

And Snap is now officially one of my favorite hats - you use any number of colors in fingering yarn and hold them together, switching them out so you get a fade look.  I have several more planned!

So, I'm off to knit more on socks!

Happy Creating!  Deborah

Art Elements Challenge: Tidepools

Living near the Oregon coast, I get to have many strolls along the beach!  In fact, looking for treasures in the sand is one of my favorite things to do - irridescent mussle shells, agates, the occasional rare shell, photos of the tidepools, all make their way home with me.  One of my favorite sets of tidepools is at Cannon Beach - I highly recommend a trip there at low tide!

I've been experimenting with using glass in my ceramic pendants and last summer made several of these "forest pools."  

So when this month's challenge was announced, I knew I had to try using this technique to make little portable tidepools!  Here's what I've come up with so far:

These two are currently up in my store (stoneypointstudio.com) with more to come!

Check out the inspiration post at Art Elements here and be sure to take a look at how others who participated were inspired:

Guests

Raven

Kelly 

Cat

Kathy 

Tammy 

Alyson

Elaine 

Mischelle 

Deborah  

Anita 

Jill

Shirlee

Sarajo 

Melissa

AE Team Members:

Jenny

Caroline

Cathy

Claire

Jen 

Laney 

Lesley 

Marsha 

Niky

Sue

Lindsay

Happy Creating!  Deborah

Friday Inspiration - Cyanotype Fabric Printing

Printing on fabric treated with cyanotype chemicals has always fascinated me - I've dabbled in it a bit, but never really explored it more than that.  With all the plant life returning, I'm getting several ideas using cyanotype printing - hopefully I'll have something to show you in a week or two!

So what is it?  Cyanotype is coating a surface with certain chemicals that when exposed to light make a blue-tinted photographic image.  It's been around a long, long time .... British scientist Sir John Herschel invented the process in 1842 and it was one of the main photographic processes used until the early 1900's when black and white photographic prints became more popular.

British artist Anna Atkins was one of the early users of cyanotype, creating this piece between 1851 and 1854.

You can paint the cyanotype chemicals on a wide range of objects - paper and fabric are mainly used.  I'm especially interested in using the process with fabric!  I've shown this piece of Lotta Helleberg's before, cyanotype fabric pieces put together into a quilt.  This is something along the line of what I'm thinking of working on - I just need to do a little more research into how this type of piece could be laundered.

Entanglement, cyanotype appliqued onto linen and hand stitched, 2016.

detail of the above work

See more of Lotta's work here.

Lynette Miller is an artist who works in several mediums, cyanotype being one.  I love the way light works in this print of hers made with old bottles:

And these are fun gift tags:

See more of her work on her blog here.

Arizona artist Annie Lopez uses the cyanotype prints she makes to create clothing sewn from vintage patterns.

You can see more of her work and read about her in this article from Images Arizona here and the Phoenix New Times here.

Happy Creating!  Deborah