I've been doodling again.

I've seen some people doodling on shoes and tote bags lately,

so I had to give it a go. I didn't have any of the items, but lots and lots of fabric, so I found some meant for lining curtains and used that. I had to buy some fabric markers, and get started.

I didn't plan anything, so this is wonky and not usable as I see it. I've left it as is, and won't be using it.

Next try I planned a bit more, and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

It's a case for my eye glasses. They're fun to make, easy and quick done.
It was kind of hard to know how close to the lines I should put the color down, because the markers bleed a bit. I did make a drwaing on paper first, so I have the patterns and can easily make the same over again.

I had to try even one more time, but I'm not sure I should have. I don't know where my mind was while drawing this, but apparently it was not with me.

I should at least have mirrored the right side flowers, but this is how they are. Drawing with micron pen on top of the fabric. My pencil drawing shines through, so it was easy to transfere it.

Below is how it looked after coloring.

Next two photos shows the finished case. First I sewed a row of buttonhole stitches and then I crochet it together. Easy as that.

 Fun project, easy to make and I have a case for my eye glasses that nobody else have. We can't ask for more, can we?
I'll share this with Paint Party Friday.
Thanks for visiting.

SOC 4 week 6, last week.

It's the last week of SOC 4.

This was my first time playing along, and it has been so much fun. Hopefully I'll play along next year as well. Thanks alot to Kristin for hosting this event, and to all the participants for their art and visits and not least all their lovely comments. It has been such joy to read all your lovely words, thank you all for taking the time, it's much appreciated.

This weeks colors made me so happy, these colors are my favorites. It felt just like a dessert after a five course dinner. Now, what to make of these beautiful colors?
As usual I sat down to play with the colors without any intention of making anything special.

Just doodles and then colors. I also used nib and ink on this one. I knew this wasn't going to be my work for the week so I continued with a quick sketch on the same sheet of paper.

When this were done I realized that my feeling of dessert colors was going to be what I should make. I added the blue for the plate and grey for shadow and spoon.

When I saw this photo I saw something still missing and had to do a little extra work with my pencil.

It's served!

The lemon yellow I used as vanilla sauce. When I saw this photo, my mouth were watering. Fresh berries is one of my favorites in summer. Now, I'm so looking forward to the plum season, I can hardly wait.
Let me finish off by saying thank you to everyone, it has been a pleasure to play with you all. 

Lots of doodles lately.

I have been doodling letters lately.

Doodling is a very relaxing activity, just to sit down and make patterns. The first letter I made was a T. I have a male friend who's name starts with a T so I made it for him. Couldn't add too much flowers and stuff to it, but I think it came out pretty good.

After that I made an E. My mother and her sister both have names starting with an E, so I had them in mind while making this one. It's fairly quick done and very fun doing them.

I had another one in mind too so I gave it a try. This time I wanted to decorate the E with flowers that had the first letter E. Are you familiar with the flower called Edelweiss? This is my attempt to draw aand paint an Edelweiss. The flower is, in nature, kind of hairy and very soft and that isn't easy to capture in painting. At least not for me.

Since the letter is very curved and soft lined, I thought it would be suitable with some edgy pattern. When finished I feel it looks like a snake. I'm not too happy about this one, a bit too colorless I feel.

The two upper ones are from Judy West's book that I got in the mail. The book is very inspiring and shows lots of different alphabets together with lots of different patterns. I know I'm going to be inspired from this book every time I open it, and I recomment it to anyone who love to doodle. Judy sells it from her etsy shop, so it's possible to get a copy yourself.

This is the last week of SOC 4, and it has been a pleasure to join the fun. I'm working on my last piece and will post it later on this week. What are you up to these days?
Handyman is free from work, so my days are a bit messed up compared to normal. But I'll manage to make some art after all.

Enjoy summer everyone!

SOC 4 week 5

This weeks colors gave me some real challenges.

When do I use bright red, bright blue and a bit light blue together? I felt it was impossible to make anything with these colors. They are beautiful, but not together, alone. If I could add some yellow and orange, I would have had lots and lots of ideas.

I simply had to chew it for a couple of days before a thought came to mind. I were thinking of my maternal grandma, she died when I was 6, 50 years ago. I still remember her, how very kind she was and all the things she did. One thing I always were excited of, was when she were making jam and lemonade from the berries she had in her garden.

I stood beside her (4-5 years old), ready to have a taste as soon as a batch were finished. Oh how I loved that. And then I ran out to play. I don't know if lemonade is the right word for what she made, but it was a consentrate of the berry juice. When we drank it, we added water to it.

Do you remember the rubber caps? She always used them, hot bottles filled with hot lemonade and then the rubber caps.

The jam were stored slightly different. Hot jar filled with hot jam, and then she added a thick layer of wax before the cute little fabric hats. I remember her kitchen counter filled with those cute jars. She made jam from many different berries, but my favorite always were strawberry.

She labeled all the jars and bottles, name of berries used and year. I can still remember how I longed to become a grown up and make all this good stuff and decorate it myself. Well, I've done it a few times. The kitchen is not my place, I do make the food we need to eat, but that's about all.

Thanks for visiting, I hope you've enjoyed my little story.

Some news.

I have been playing with Celtic knots lately.

I found some real good you-tube films to learn the basics on how to draw Celtic knots, and then I made one myself. I don't know if anyone have made this one before me, but it's thinkable. Anyway, I struggled my way to figure it out and were very pleased to make it happen.
First one is the one below. It was quite a challenge to draw it, but after some attempts I did it.

When the first one were finished, new ideas came on and on  so I had to do some more. I were listening to a Norwegian band called : Dance with a stranger, and a song called : Everyone needs a friend sometime. Beautiful song that inspired my next try. Can you see the female is blushing?

Next I tried to make a braid, and wanted to put in another bird. He's singing the most beautiful tunes. The light spot on his chest and a bit on the tail is done with twinks, and it has a beautiful shine to it.

Another special thing that happened some days ago, was that I won a giveaway over at Judy West's blog. She asked us to decorate her drawn letters, A 2 Z, which is on the front cover of her new book. I like challenges, and joined in, and my piece brought me to the top of her list. So, now I'm awaiting a copy of her new book to arrive in the mail. How lucky am I? Below is my decorated piece.

And as I were drawing my knots, I made a special one just to say thank you to Judy. Have you ever tried to do this kind of knots? They're very fun doing, and it's hard to stop when first started.

What are you up to? Summer is here, and my mother is home so I'm kind of busy visiting her, and helping out with groceries and stuff like that.
I hope you all are having good days. 

SOC 4 week 4

This weeks colors wasn't hard at all.

One could always paint some flowers, pink and green and a touch of dark green. But, I spent some time thinking of it and found a better idea.
I didn't use too much pink but it's there and I'm pretty pleased with my result. I felt I needed some warmth in my piece, hence the sunflower. It is actually apple green I've used, but it turned out to look like blue in the photos. Don't know what happened. The pink and green gave a beautiful bluish grey, which I've used on the head and feet.

The paper used is handmade, not me, and I dare say it's of a poor quality. Watercolors needs a stabile paper, but this is very absorbant in some spots and not at all in other spots. With that said, I love the look and feel of this paper, it's kind of rustic, which I love.

The paper is tinted, light brown or sepia is perhaps more correct to say. That made my colors a bit different than I had planned, but I think it works after all.

You know the feeling when in the flow and just creating. One is so occupied that everything else is out of mind. I had that good feeling when making this piece, and couldn't do anything but laugh when I saw what I had done. What excactly is it I have made here? Is it a bug or a fly? It's armed and with wings. Oh well, doesn't matter I'm happy with it anyway.

I've used Twinkling H2O's and watercolor pencils to make this. Some shading is done with an ordinary HB pencil and blending stump.

Thank you so much for all the lovely comments on my post last week, it warms my heart. I'm not sure I got to visit everyone else, but will try this week.
I hope you're enjoying your days.

Gone fishing

Gone fishing, Chris Rea, beautiful song.

There's something wonderful about researching for a job one is going to do. I had a good time searching the internet for trouts, colors and how the water is colored. I found lots of stuff to work from, and now I feel I know a bit more about the topic than before.

I sat down and sketched some fishes, still not sure whether to paint one fish or several, on my piece. The biting one is my favorite, so that one has to be painted. I even painted one of my sketches, on sketching paper, just to try out some colors.

I found I would like to make a test, just to see if I really could do it, and get a fairly good result. I used a 100% cotton watercolor paper, and that is the best I've ever paint on. It was so easy to get the transitions smooth and good. At one stage, my piece looked like the one below. It has changed a bit, but this is a good close up.

This is the paper pad. Best ever for me.

Here I'm done, I can see things to change but the wide open mouth is done deliberately. I want people to know that when I'm fishing, all the fishes are lined up ready to bite my hook. LOL.

This photo is very close to my original painting, the colors that is. Mostly I've used flat watercolors, but I've been glazing using Twinkling H2O's. In a certain angle the fish is glittering like it's wet and fresh out of the water. Egyptian Gold, Chestnut Brown and Iscicles are used for glazing.

Let me end by saying thank you all for your lovely comments and visits, it warms my heart ans thrills me to read your words. Enjoy your summer and have a lovely weekend!

I'll link this post to Friday Sketches and Paint Party Friday.