Day 27: Drawing on the right side of the brain

Once I was talking to a friend of mine about drawing and happened to say that I think that any artist should be able to draw. What I meant is that an effort is needed in order to make some sort of representation not that it needs to be a wonderful drawing. A lady that happened to overhear what we said  turned to me and said that she can't draw and what I was saying was rubbish. Well, each to it's own.
I am not  great at drawing but I do enjoy it and I am trying to work on my drawing skills. I have been following Betty Edward's technique on drawing with the right brain.
Basically, it is a technique that gets the left brain to finally shut up and stop rushing and judging and let the right brain draw what it sees.

I am showing my attempts here in order to share the fact that drawing does not come down to talent but hard work and understanding of what we see. While I am good at drawing and painting my inner world, I hugely struggle with perception and lines as well as shadows and light. I see my self as 'straight-line dyslectic', understanding straight line as well as numbers poses a challenge for me. It takes me a lot of working out in order to be able to put it on paper while other things I breeze through. But in order to be a complete artist I need both so I there is nothing to it then try and improve.

I am particularly pleased with the chair as it was a real challenge to get it together. I started with the small space between chair rest and seat and worked my way out from there piecing it together. The portrait of my cat Missy was much quicker as she moves all the time. I managed to catch her shape on my plastic viewfinder (basically a plastic overhead sheet that I draw lines on while looking through it and it makes 3d into 2d) and then photographed her while she still sat there. From those two items I produced a much more realistic drawing then my previous attempts. This is also first time I have successfully used erasing technique to create highlights.

Day 26: Death of an Unicorn II

This is my second attempt on the same theme. I have decided that I need to work on my drawing skills so I am battling on. Much more pleased with this version then the one yesterday. 

Day 25: Death of an Unicorn

Determined to get this drawing done today although I am very tired since yesterday. Not my best one, will have to try again.

Day 24: Here's one I made earlier...

naaaa, just kidding, this is an absolute mastery of drawing and it is drawn by Leonaro da Vinci ca 500 years ago. We went yesterday to see the exhibition in National Gallery, London and I didn't make anything at all. My making for that day was looking and looking and thinking, my senses are still completely in an other world. I feel very inspired and ready for new challenges. 

Although I publish projects on this blog, my real work, that takes months to develop, I don't show but I do work on it every day. This blog is more about not being lazy and exploring imagination while my painting is about patience and explorations of who we are are as beings. It is about thoughts and ideas being made visible through medium of art.

Day 23: same,same

I managed another 20 min on my embroidery today while we had some peace and quiet and then things went down hill from there:) going home tomorrow so back to studio. Meanwhile here is a picture of me and my little crafters Sophie and Grace, working hard at cutting some newspaper. As they are only three that was good effort.

Day 22: Horse Embroidery

Today i managed only to squeeze in about 30 min of work due to various other activities like playing with kids. We are still not at home but visiting relatives so the focus in on socializing. I managed to do this while 4yr old William sharpened all of my pencils, about 20 of them,calling himself the Cut Doctor, since he was cutting them 'taller'.
Anyhow the picture is taken from a book of paintings by Leonardo da Vinci but this work is by unknown artist. The horse head is only a detail of a war scene and it is the mane that i like. Hopefully it will translate into embroidery.

Day 21: Finally a start on embroidery

I'm actually not a great fan of classical embroidery as my grandmother plaged me with cross stitch. But as i do like textiles and turning my drawings into textiles so i have been wanting to work on my skills for a while now.
I found this book on embroidery techniques in a charity shop and as we are away and i don't have acess to my studio i had a little go at it today.
Not with great results but still i learned two things i couldn't do before: french knot and stem stitch. So i'm happy:)

Day 20: Inner child satisfied - check!

Some of you might know, some of you don't, but when I was 12 years old, my family and I had to leave Croatia and flee to Sweden due to the war. On the way, we stopped in Germany for three months to catch a breath so to speak. 

Being from an ex communist state, we weren't used to consumerism of Germany and especially as a child my eyes didn't know what to do with themselves from amount of toys and art stuff they were seeing. Of course we couldn't afford to spend one single shilling as we didn't know what lay ahead. So looking was about it. 

At that time or maybe later, I have seen one of those Scrapefoil Gold engravings and thought that was amaaaazing art :), as kids do, but my parents could not afford it. Years passed by, we arrived to Sweden as refugees and had to scrape on the bottom of society as it is common. Things improved, and thanks to my husband's never-dying optimism and encouragement I have a lot of art stuff now. 

So the other day I saw this tiger and all these things came back to me so I thought, damn it, I'm having it, silly as it may be. So here it is...one scrapefoil tiger to satisfy inner child. 

Day 19: Stick-man Pop Star

This stick man is made with papier mache and then painted with guache with some glitter on top. Very pop star..

Day 18: Mystery Object Competition

Here we have a little mystery object, it is about 10 cm tall and not yet finished. It will be a very lovely beaded something. While I was creating it I thought it would be great to have a little competition. The winner gets this little thing and it will be very lovely, I promise!

Rules:
1. Guess what kind of creature this is and what is the purpose of the object? It does have practical use.
2. Post the answer on my blog as reply to this post. If you don't have a google account, it is easiest to post as anonymous but put your name in the main box!
3. Please share with all your friends!
4. Winner and the picture of the finished item is announced on Sunday 29th.
5. Good Luck!


Resolution of the competition:
my blog has only started so I didn't really have any takers. Closest one was my sister-in-law, Clare, guessing it was a bird broche. In fact it was an owl hair-clip. So I was about to gift it to Clare but then a situation came up so I gave it to Clare's daughter Jo, to cheer her up. I might try another competition soon.

Day 17: Stick-monk

This little doll is 3in (7cm) tall and my husband decided it looked as a little monk hence stick-monk. He is made of a cotton bud for head and some loose felt for hair and body is wire and masking tape. His clothes are felt as anything else would fall apart. I had to stitch his clothes directly onto the body because of size. 

Day 16: Feltie fox

A feltie fox today, back to foxes I'm afraid. My practice, at the moment, is to find simple designs and recreate them as one offs just to get my skills going. This is inspired by Savannah Caroll's design. Easy and cute.

Day 15: Clarephant

As the Little K piglet is winding it's merry way to Sweden I have had another request: to make a little elephant for Clare. So here he is, I made one yesterday but didn't think it through and it's not very good but this one is. Particularly pleased because I made the pattern myself :)

Day14: Toy Elephant

Right, so to make a bit of change from rabbits and foxes I made a little elephant. I saw a picture of one and thought "can't be that hard". Turns out it wasn't. I drew the pattern myself for this one. t's bit rough from close up as I didn't think it through properly but it holds together, I need to try another one, sewing it a bit differently. But I wasn't feeling well at the time, so i have an excuse.

Day 13: Rabbit's Cousin Fox

Thought that rabbit should have some company.

Day 12: Folkloristic Rabbit

While looking at different images of a rabbit on internet, I found a card by Karolin Schnoor that I liked. It is basically a cut out card with pins, so I decided to make one taking inspiration from hers. Perfect excuse to use my favourite color combination: super red and super blue with white. He is about 20 cm in lenght, painted with guache on card.

Day 11: HOME

Cardboard letters and some decoupage, meaning paper and PVA glue. This is a really Kirsty Alsopp-ish peace of work, really easy and childishly fun. The paper I used is some old stamps and an old map from Oxfam shop and some nicely printed tissue paper. Good sunday project.

Day Ten: Fox and Rabbit Dancing

Today has been about a simple flip card animation, or so I thought considering that I am still working at it. It seemed like a very simple idea. I have a fox on one side and the rabbit on the other, when you spin the card on the strings the motion is supposed to be like they are dancing. 

After some fidgeting it seems like it works but I'm not sure. I have tried to google it (the answer to everything) but as we live in hifgh-tech times, all information on animation is actually about computer animation,. No one seems to be doing old-fashion stuff.

Anyway after all that, it is time to go to bed and morning is always cleverer then evening anyhow.

Here is the link to the blog where I got the idea from: http://lucymayschofield.blogspot.com/2011/12/dance-card-fred-ginger.html. Thank you Lucy.

Day Nine: Catapoodle

A cat knitted with some sort of shaggy wool that is like a poodle fur equals Catapoodle. Made from 50g Noro Silk yarn, which is really expensive but this particular skein comes from a charity shop. It sort of knitted a bit like a rug but the colours turned out nice. This cat is really easy to knit but as the face was a bit flat I did some needle sculpting to bring out features. It's funny how it turned into a male cat.

 For all of you who would like to make on, it only takes one evening, here is the link, beware of foul language though: http://geobabe.livejournal.com/227621.html

Day Eight: Sketches for Story Characters

Recently I have done some work on story writing together with my husband. Nothing much, mainly for fun , but it seems to suit me. In the stories the main characters are rabbit, fox and eagle. As we have recently written a longer story I thought it would be good to try out some illustrations for it. My idea is to do something with either collage or embroidery but it is good to start with life drawing.

The first fox and rabbit story can be found here: http://www.brankavidovicbutler.blogspot.com/2011/12/magic-feather-story-fox-and-rabbit.html

Initially it was for a project an artist was running in America but I, as per usual, misunderstood the concept completely and went off on to one of my own little journeys. But on the way I found these little characters.

Day Seven: Concept for new painting

So, realised that my previous six days have mainly been crafts projects so I decided it is time to go back to something more artsy and then it became much more difficult. I have this idea for a painting but today has been more about working out how things fitted. It is a painting of a basket, with a girl in it, pulled by five butterflies. My work today was to figure out, if such thing existed, how would it fit together to be believable. Also, a friend of mine, mentioned that she would like something on the theme 'talking to birds' so while I'm working I am also letting my mind wander and think over this concept that I find rather interesting. 

Day Six: Piglet called Little K

Not so long go I was looking through my book with soft toys and thinking will I ever make a pig and then, hey presto, a dear friend of mine requested something with pigs or birds on. Which gave me an opportunity to make a piglet called Little K that is 25cm tall with a cute curly tale. Hope she likes it, I find it one of those ugly-cute things.

Day Five: A Little Toy Fox

A little toy fox, about 20cm, that I made to try out patterns form a book called 'Make your own toys' by Sue Havens. Pretty straight forward and easy. This little chap will make few re-appearances as I have some more ideas for embellishments. 

Day Four: Machine Embroidery

Today a project I have shelved for ages. My strategy is to work away on all things that are half done first to get up to speed and then surprise you all with my new, dazzling projects.

I knitted my teddy bear since, as a child, I never had one, unfortunately I knitted him before I knew what knit tension was so he is a bit long and thin but lovely to me. After I decided he should have some clothes. I made some felt, made a design for a waistcoat and left it. I always wanted to make some embroidery on it but manana, manana.. So here is a plain waistcoat made of felt.

Here is teddy wearing his plain waistcoat, reminding me of a job undone.

And here it is, all embroidered and lovely. I used machine embroidery and except for the hassle of constantly changing threads and praying to higher powers for the sawing machine not to be in one of it's moods, it's quite fun. And a bit dangerous since it's really fast.

And here is teddy wearing his finished waistcoat, much happier as you can see. Tomorrow....god knows what...

And, oh yeah, a bit of design work thrown in..

Day Three: Owl Pin Cushion

While I was working on my book cover (day one, http://365artydays.blogspot.com/2012/01/day-one-fabric-book-bag.html) I saw this cute picture in the same magazine and decided that this is the next project. Can't be that hard to make one.

So step one make a pattern. Here is 10 x 10cm cut out.

Next, decide on fabric. I chose some felt for back and mask, a small scrap piece of yellow cotton for the wings (I had it for ages, knew it would come in handy) and some recently bought left over cut from upholstery store that cost a whole £1 :).

And then saw it together. It's bit crooked but it adds to it's homemade style :).