Busy with homework.

I've started the class and it's so fun!

We started out learning alot about the twinks and made some mandalas. The last one I made I chose to use simple and few shapes. The mix of using twinks and ordinary watercolors is stunning, The mandala below has a background of "flat" colors, while the mandala itself has twinks. I did a proper job while shading and I'm quite pleased with the result. The paper I'm using helps making a great texture. When I study it now, I see I could have done even a little more shading and gained an even better result. That is, if I did shade in the bottom of the spiderwebs, the whole mandala would have been lifted like half a ball.

I love taking this class, and I get so much energy from it. The other students are very supportive and we share alot of work for each other to see.

Dion is a good teacher and she has developed alot of great material to show off and much to read as well. I truly think this will help me develop in my use of the twinks. And it's a joy to start each day doing some homework.

Today I made my very first still life motif. Some fruits on a table. The bowl is as wonky as can be, but I'm quite pleased with my fruits. The banana was just a mess at first, but I was lucky enough to rescue it. Of course I see several "mistakes", but to be my first it's not bad at all. Right now I'm in my second week, and we'll continue for 5 weeks at all. I should have done this a long time ago, but now I'm glad I'm doing it.

I hope you have interesting days as well!

New letter and exciting news.

I'm still making letters, and it becomes more and more fun.

I wouldn't have thought that when I first started. This k is really something of its own. No matter how I tried it wouldn't cooperate. It simply insisted on having shoes, and I can imagine how it will walk away from the rest of the alphabet. How cool it would have been if we had letters like these when we learnt the letters in school. 

Can you imagine the kids, falling in love with their favorite? Perhaps their attention would be too much disturbed by all the colours and fun designs. Well, I'm the largest kid of them all and I love making them.

I have other news to tell you, for a long time I have wanted to take an online course.I have been hesitating because of my lack of technical skills, but now Handyman encouraged me to go for it. I did, and have now signed up for Dion Dior's class: Mastering Twinks 1. How cool is that?!

I'm so excited, I signed in a week after they started but first week is mostly information, and now I'm ready for part two. Can't wait to get started on that one.

I hope you're having exciting days too.

More letters.

 

 

The final solution of how to make my cards.

 

I've been trying alot of different ways, but landed on this one. To keep the card simple with a touch of the frame. I could have left the frame completely, but I liked it so much that I wanted it to be part of it all. I think this is a great way, I can move  the frame fragment around  to find the best suited spot. That will make the cards different, but still have the same last name. What do you think?

 

 

Otherwise I have start making my letters in a larger scale, A-3 format. The letters have the hight of an A-4 sheet. It gives a larger space to work on with more possibillities. I do see it still might be wise to practice each letter before making the final one. A good idea might not be that good after all. Below I made a background design which turned out not so good. In fact it was much better before all the lines in each square. 

 

 

My g has been enlarged too with a little difference in designs. At first I thought it needed something in the background, but now I'm not sure of that. If it was to be framed, it will work as it is. Clean and clear. What I find  most interesting is to take advantage of the original form of each letter and do something different out of it. The outer lines are never changed though.

 

 

It's a nice work to do and challenging as well. The Norwegian alphabet contains 29 letters so there's alot of work ahead of me. If I should work through both small and capital letters, I have enough work for a year. At least I don't need to be out of ideas for awhile now.

Some days ago I received some new goodies to work with as well. More about that in another post.

Have a joyful day out there!

S for Sandra.

 Still making letters.

 

This time I made a capital letter, it's made on a A-3 sheet.

I have needed all the experience of trying, now I feel it's easier to decide how to make them. Instead of making a card, this time I chose to make a much larger one and I like it. This S is meant to be a gift for someone I know.

 

 

When the letter was finished I felt it needed something more, so I added alot of swirls which ends as small leaves in gold. The small dots of gold looks great in person, and I think the end result gained on it. The cool thing is that I always see other ways of doing things when one piece is finished, that way I am able to make the same letter several times without them looking the same.

 

 



 

The last photo is just to show you the difference in size. The card was made before I found the best way of doing them. I'll show you that in my next post.

 

We've had the most beautiful weather the last couple of days. Sun and bright skies, lovely!

Cool lettering.

lways trying to find "new" ways.

Wasn't this how they did it way back in time? New ideas keep coming while I'm playing with the letters. This is such a cool work to do, I nearly can't stop. The next letter I got involved with was the g. The size of the cards I'm using is half A-5. The width of A-5 is the hight of my cards. Now, with the g on my table I saw I had a hight "problem" as well. I keep telling myself that these are only tests, but I'm not sure how it will end. The advantage of testing a bit is that I get to see how the designs work together, and not least how the end result will be.

When I first thought of doing this, I had a clear opinion on how they should look. That was before I knew of the width/hight issue. So, when I keep telling myself this is just testing, it mostly depends on how I was thinking from the start. I simply need to adjust my thoughts.
What do you think? Could this do, there's no point in large spaces of emptyness either. With a larger size cards some letters would seem quite small. In some ways I like it when the letter grow out of the frame, it creates a bit more interest to it, I think, just as if the letter live it's own life. I'm pleased with my g, if I should point at anything though, it might seem a bit top heavy. But then again the lower part is flat like a foot holding it up. Well, these are just my thoughts.

This last letter is a good example on seeing how well things work together. The squares in the frame and in the letter are a bit too close, what I think makes it work inspite of that is the diagonal made squares in the letter. I could also, in any case, have lowered the letter a bit more, that would have made it look a bit more interesting and given it more air on top.

The more I look at them now, the more pleased am I using this size of cards. Mediums used are mostly watersoluble crayons, a few markers and black and white pens.
Just by writing this post I have learned something on how I'll make the next one, do you often experience that too? It most certainly has to do with my conciderations while writing.

Two days later and I have found a better solution to the hight/width issue. Coming......

Weekend....... have a good one!

Tying and stitching.

My latest mandala.

Even though I've start making letters, I still have some mandalas to make. I wanted this one to look like it's been tied together, like as if I had three different parts loosly tied together. 

 

 

I'm not sure I achieved what I was aiming for, and there's something about the center that disturbs my eyes. One thing is the lack of shadowing, but there is something else as well, something I can't put my finger on. Instead of searching for that, I chose to "stitch" it onto the paper and call it done.

 

 

Somehow this one has the lightsource from top left, and that is unusual for me. Normally I use top right for the lightsource.

I'm enjoying making letters, and in some days I'll share some more with you. It looks like I might have found a good solution for the wide ones, not quite sure yet but it loks promising.

 

I hope you have great times too!

Making letters.

This has been on my mind for ages. 

To make my own personal alphabet seems to be what I'm going to do for a while now. The norwegian alphabet contains three more letters compared to the english one, so I had to make my own æ ø å. I believe the english language do have the sounds of our extras though.

Right now I'm in the beginning phase, so I'm not sure how to make them. The a-card is something I did to try out some thoughts. I do have to rethink a bit because some of the letters are much wider than the rest. The w and æ are the widest.

 

It was quite a job to prepare the letters. I cut out letters with a tool, quick cut, draw around them and then go to the copymachine. I enlarged them to 400% of original size.

 I'll probably be testing and planing a bit for a few days.

The other night I couldn't resist ordering some new color pencils, watersoluble, so now I can't wait till they show up. It'll take 2-3 weeks until I'll have them here, so in the meantime I can practice stretching my patience muscle.

What's on your desk this week?