How do I.....?

On with the drawing theme from yesterday and here is another one of my pictures from a while ago:

This one was drawn and painted with gouache paints.

Today I did a little cartooning.  I decided to make a colouring in picture for my friend's daughter, Megan.  I had a go at colouring it in too, but I desperately need some Promarkers to do the job properly!:

   

These are just made-up characters.  I would love to know how people go about making and selling characters for greetings cards.  How do you put drawings on to pdfs?  Is that how people sell digital stamps?  Hopefully someone will come along and tell me all I need to know!... 

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

I can draw!

I can actually..as these pictures I made (admitedly a long while ago) show:

I can draw, but I don't any more, and that's a bit sad in a way.  I'm one of these crafty people that is dabbling in all sorts of crafts (as you can see!) but not focusing on any one.  There was an athelete who was famous in 'I'm a Celebrity, get me out of here!' for repeatedly saying 'Focus!' (sorry, can't remember his name!) but, should I?  Should I be focusing, working towards a specific target or is it OK to jump from one thing to another?   This is the question I am asking myself today....

My boys don't do a lot of crafting/painting, except what they are 'made to do' at school.  So today I got them something to fire up their creativity:

It's a large piece of canvas that is treated so you can put it in the washing machine - but you must remember to only use washable paints.   I thought it would be fun in the garden in the Summer to just free them from their 'I can't draw/paint' mindset. 

We had a little play today just randomly making marks and taking a print from it:

Hopefully we will have some more fun with it as the weather gets better!

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Pastel Flower Doodling

I only had time for a quick craft today, we've had visitors for most of the day.  My inlaws have been here and they have taken my boys away for the Easter weekend. They are all going to go on the Severn Valley Railway tomorrow and my older son LOVES steam trains so is delighted to be going (again). 

These were just quick made-up sketches that I made with some oil pastels. They aren't quite finished, 'work in progress' I believe they are called.

This is the two of them together:

and this is the green one in more detail (sorry, I can't show you details of the blue one, the photo I took is out of focus, oops!)

My boys have been enjoying having their dad home for a few days (he's going back to China on Monday) and he has had fun doing things with them.  Today (before his parents came) he was entertaining us all with a humorous singing and dancing rendition of 'Singing in the Rain' (very appropriate) inside with a brolley - which was amusing us all until he accidently stepped on one of my son's pride and joys - a big Lego Star Wars model - oops! [You'll have to use your imaginations here, no photos, sorry!] 

Enjoy your Easter Weekend

qwiksave x

My Birthday, Snow, Chatter...

Well! What a couple of days! I was hoping to come back home yesterday but yesterday evening the snow came down so thick in this part of the Midlands that the car wouldn't have made it! 

Fortunately it was lovely and sunny this morning so we made it back this afternoon when the snow had melted a bit.  This was the scene we woke up to though:

(My mother-in-law is of the old traditional sort though, she actually put washing out on that washing line later to dry!....)

The boys and my husband also made a pretty big snowman in that garden:

It was of course my birthday today, and I've had quite an enjoyable day but unfortunately not much crafting!  I must show you the card Ryan made me though:

Looks as though he made quite an effort!  I also love what he put on the back of the card!:

Quite the enterpreneur!

I have decided to save up my birthday money to watch (and maybe buy!) some of Tim Holtz's stuff next week on QVC, I lurrve his style!   

My mother-in-law also found an old sewing machine lying around so has let me have it!  It needs a new bobbin case before I can be let loose on it but hopefully soon...  (Wonder how you use one..?)

She also gave me loads of icing cake colourings and edible glitters from her cake making & decorating days (out of date for eating), wonder what I will do with that?... 

EDIT: Oops! Forgot to add the bit of crafting I did do which was this bit of doodling:

and these embellishments for cards or scrapbooks:

When I see the cost of embellishments in the shops I often think I should make my own.  This was me making a start. 

Cartoon Caricature

I don't very often do cartoons these days, but when I was little I used to  loved making up my own characters.  When I blog hop I am always seeing characters that have been rubber stamped and coloured in by the blogger and often think I would like to be that someone that invents those characters.  I wonder how you go about getting your drawings into the rubber stamp market?

Anyway, today I decided to have a go at  my long lost hobby of drawing as my craft.

Something I didn't do when I used to draw cartoons was caricatures but when I saw this year's school photo (they don't have to wear school uniform!) on our mantlepiece, I thought I would give it a try:

Here was what I did:

Poor Joshua (on the left), I know you're meant to exaggerate features but I think I got a bit carried away with his ears!  Oops...   Actually, Ryan's ears aren't right either..or his hair!  Never mind... .

This drawing doesn't seem to be much of a caricature, its more like a colouring book page, which is fine in its own way I supppose... Its also not like the cartoons I usually/used to do (see my Jan 1st entry) which  I think is the type I will get back to doing more of  soon...

First Post - Acetate Cartoon

For my very first creative post on this blog, I went back to a cartoon artwork that I made way back in 1997! It was a fun, (original) piece made by drawing characters with a permanent marker onto acetate and then colouring them in by painting on the back of the acetate with gouache paint. A patterned paper or picture is placed (can be stuck) behind the acetate for the background. The idea for doing this I got from an old art book that was written by the very talented children's TV presenter, Tony Hart. When painting this one today, I decided to explore further the feeling of depth so I drew the characters on the front of the clipframe glass instead of onto acetate. The characters were painted on the back of the glass with a mixture of gouache and pva:Some of the smaller characters were painted onto another piece of acetate to create the impression of disappearing into the distance and I placed holographic patterned card into the clipframe for the background. Apologies for the quality of the photo of the finished picture (1st photo) but holographic paper does not photograph well.

This picture shows you how the characters were drawn: A successful day creating my first piece of artwork for 2010.

P.S. Just thought I'd add this picture of what my DH and children have been up to today!:
Weather was freeeeeezing today, so what did they do? They went out to fetch some fallen branches and twigs to make a fire in our garden firepit and then cooked the pasta for their tea in this great big cooking pot!  Me? I stayed in the cosy warm indoors!