Oracle card challenge............

For the month of March, I took on the challenge of creating an Oracle deck from a prompt every day. For more details see  Kriston from https://over-the-moon-academy.teachable.com/

Here are some from this month so far 

Most of the cards are hand drawn with coloured pencils and then photographed and put into Procreate and arranged on a template of a card. Procreate doesn’t have text and my calligraphy skills leave a lot to be desired so I have been usingAffinity photo for the text this is an app that is new to me and I haven’t had the time to work it out yet which means I then export the text to an app call eraser. The text is then added to the template. I have then made another template of my drawing board and pencil to sit the cards in. When the whole deck is finished I’ll print it out. 

This is a time lapse video of all cards been made so far. The cards are made all in one file. This is my first time doing a time lapse video and I wasn’t careful about which way my iPad was and the last few are upside down 

This time lapse is the cards going on to the finished daily image 

Snow days.

Despite the the title there are no pictures of snow. The Uk has been almost at a stand still with the weather and the internet has 100s of pictures of the snow, so is just a brief tale of my snow days. Due to the Weather I took to my bed. Its warmer there so I was following the heat. 

 My cat came to join me and occasionally lent a paw. Lots of computer work and drawing got done.

One of the drawing I did, my cat Wolfgang (wolf). Yes I know I could only see his back end most of the time. So had to use a photo. Recently I have been using coloured pencils to draw with, ordinary pencils and watercolour pencils. Not sure which I prefer as yes yet both have there good and bad points.

This week was also the beginning of a new daily challenge this one only lasting a month. The idea is to create an oracle card a day from the prompts given. This is run by Kristen from over the moon academy. Look for otm_academy on instagram and join in so far been a lot of fun. Not having any blank cards I did drawings in a sketchbook and the digital made the cards. 

Been a useful exercise as I have used it to experiment with some new (new to me) software. Affinity photo, not that intuitive but promises to be a substitute forPhotoshop. So far its been many using for adding text, but putting some effort into learning it I'm sure will pay dividends.

Been a useful exercise as I have used it to experiment with some new (new to me) software. Affinity photo, not that intuitive but promises to be a substitute forPhotoshop. So far its been many using for adding text, but putting some effort into learning it I'm sure will pay dividends.

Still doing the daily sketch as well not always happy withe the results but they are what they are and as they are quick sketches or artwork that only takes around 10 mins. Next week I'm going to join another challenge to draw 100 people in a week. 

Watch this space will let you know how I get on, I might also give an up date on which type of coloured pencils I go for and see if I get to use Affinity Photo more or stick with Procreate.

Crafty business

Just a short one this week as I have been sorting my craft fair stuff out and getting stock ready for my first craft fair of the year. Not done a lot else.

Firstly the teabages I showed you guys last week got finished.

Did you guess? I made them into lavender bags. As much as I like tea they now smell a lot better that the when they were tea bags

I made a few badges and mirrors up for Mother’s Day gifts.

The badge machine is proving to be good.  As well as badges, I can also make fridge magnets and keyrings

Today was the first craft fair of the year. Was very quiet but was good fun.

My stall and some examples of the “design your own badge” badges. 

That’s all for now.

Watch this space. 

A little slow this week.....

It’s been one of these weeks when I ve spent ages doing stuff but then not much to show for it. It was also half term and my day for looking after the grand kids was changed. The beginning of the week I was working on an order that I can’t show here yet until it has been delivered.  Then had a day with the kids. They were well behaved and we had fun but I was bloody knackered when I got home.

 

Then I spent some time at Henshaws and along with my sister Sara and friend Jayne drawing. Recently I had bought a large set of caran cache water colour pencils. In the past I had used them in a small way but had decided that I should make the most of this investment all be it that I had bought in the Black Friday sale. I watched a few videos and decided to have a go. This months nibblefest comp is all about African animals so to kill two birds with one stone thought I’d practise using that theme.

Was pleased with the results.

Still a lot to learn but had to put the drawing to one side as have a craft fair in a week and needed to start making some stock. This one is the Mother’s Day one so trying to gear stuff towards that.

The sets of note books I made. These are also in my Etsy store.

This is a work in progress lots to do to it, will post the finished items when done. Do you know what they are going to be?

Also a few badges made from a comic.I have some mother’s day badges to make up as well. A few key rings and magnets in the pipeline with my designs on. 

I’ll be back soon, watch this space.

....... there and back again.

This week is going so fast not as yet made it into my studio but at least have been doing bits and bobs in front of tv ie. my daily sketch and a little photo editing. The being of the week I’m often envoled in things with other people and on Wednesday I look after my grand daughter. 

Yesterday had a great day out with my eldest daughter, we had a trip out to the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield. Although it’s not far from where I live I have never managed to get there. It’s set at the side of the Calder and Hebble Navigation canal.

The first view of the building with an old barge and the orange buoys marking out where the weir starts.

Water terrifies me and fascinates me in equal amounts. 

I love old barges but would never step onto one.

 

We passed this scary guy on the way over the bridge to the gallery, perhaps it’s Neptune ? Well he has got a crown!

The galley is modern and there is a feeling of it being spacious. The Artists featured in the gallery are in the main modern artists and Yorkshire artists are well represented. They included Henry More, David Hockney and of cause Barbara Hepworth. Hepworth was born in Wakefield and the gallery is build around a collection of her tools and there’s a whole gallery showing her process and explains different types of casting. 

Some examples of Hepworth work.

We paid a visit to the cafe where we had some impressive roast artichoke soup. Yum yum. Then called in the gift shop and I bought some Oracle cards. I’m doing the “Pull pen paint  class run by Kiala Givehand so thought I’d like to get a new pack. This pack is based around famous artists.

..... a bit of a clear up.

This last week has been about sorting my space out. I’m terribly messy and every now and then have do something drastic about it. First of it was my bedroom, clutter city. Anything that I couldn’t find a home for anywhere else got dumped there. Well it’s about done now and as it turned out was mainly books, most of which I don’t need. They were sorted and are off to new homes. 

It has still been business as usual, getting things ready for the next craft fair, and prepping a few orders. Even putting some more of my Whimsical doodle characters in my Esty shop. 

One of the things I uncovered in my clear up was a box containing 100 postacards of artwork from the “Beano” comic. 

As a kid my Grandad (Pop) used to buy me the comics every week along with a big bag of sweets. So I’m guessing it was nostalgia that made me buy them in the first place. I hadn’t even looked at them so decided would be good to use them and thought I’d make some books. 

I made 10 today. Spent a lot of time umming and ahhing about what binding to use. Decided in the end to use a “perfect binding”. Not a binding I use often but wanted to make something cheap and cheerful for my craftfair stall. So just simple little notebooks. Ideal for throwing in a bag.  

I Still have a lot of cards left so I’m going to incorporate these into some others types of bindings. 

That’s all for now back again soon. 

“ Darkness”

Over the past few months I haven,t made nearly enough “artist” books. This month I thought I would start the year of with joining the #areyoubookenough challenge. This months theme is darkness. Here is what I came up with

This is the front and back of the book. The cover is just plain black card. With a colophon on the back stating Author and date and the inspiration for the book. 

There are 5 double spreads in the book each with a quote about darkness.

This is the first page which originally was going to be the quote on the cover and is the only page which hasn’t a pop up or some sort of interaction.

Spread 2. “Better to light a candle that to curse the darkness “.  Chinese Proverb

Spread 3 “Fear grows in the darkness, if you think there’s a bogeyman around turn on the light.”  Dorothy Thompson

Spread 4 “Everyone is a moon and has a dark side which he never shows to anyone.”  Mark Twain

“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first and is waiting for it”. Terry Pratchett. 

I really enjoyed this challenge and exploring some basic paper engineering crude as my first attempts are. I love being a book artist and I’m very privileged to be able to do this work. 

Watch this space!