#470

I have some great news! This week, I sold my first ever piece of art! It was a commission for a friend, and she was more than generous in her offer for my skills. I can’t show you the piece I sold, but I will show you what I bought.

My partner and I always agreed that any money I earn doing art should be invested into art supplies, and I certainly lived up to that. In hopes of future commissions, I bought a large pack of artist quality pencils, which will assist in furthering my art skills.

I put off buying expensive supplies, as I wanted to be sufficient enough to feel I’ve earned them. Selling the piece of art was my first set of proof to myself that I earned a level up in my supplies. I am still getting used to the high pigment and easy blending of the pencils, but it is certainly a nice change.

Along with the pencils, I recieved a free mandala colouring book. I usually wouldn’t use high quality pencils for colouring, but this book has thick, textured drawing paper, which was ideal to try my new pencils on while I was thinking of things to draw.

I also picked up some Canson drawing paper, for special pieces of art I want to do, a colourless blending stick, to go with the pencils, a potluck paper pack, two needle felting kits, and a grass growing kit for my cats. 

This journey towards being an artist that sells art been exciting, scary, happy and exhausting, but I am eager to keep going, even if I take it slowly. Art is my passion, I’m going to do it regardless of whether it takes me places.

I art, therefore, I am.

#306

Bowses and roses.
I spent the day covered in glue, as I paper mached my way through ideas, while watching design ideas on Ted Talks on YouTube. There was some lovely ideology and a few methods of thinking that could be applied to my own ideas and projects.
After my nanna nap (the kiddens were frustrating and definitely needed a rest,) I cooked dinner, and worked on my digital painting until my hand cramped up. Unfortunately this didn’t take long at all, but I did get a few key things done, such as cleaning up the edges and swapping the full black background for a transparent one, which will make it better for applying to a t-shirt. I also noticed that she didn’t have much of a wrist, and fixed that.
After a time and kitty cuddles, I was able to move my hand enough to sew. I keep meaning to get out my sewing machine, but I decided I’d hand sew while watching a movie, so I made a bow. I usually use one square and fold it in half to make a rectangular bow, but I realised you get a much fuller bow if you start with two squares. So, I made up the bow, and got out my ribbon box to match the centre to the fabric. Then I had to find my headband box to make it into a headband. It’s nice to have everything clean, but then I have to re-find everything. While I had these boxes out, I found another headband that I had stared a while ago that I wanted to match with my superman shirt. I had glued blue ribbon to the headband base, but stopped there. I got out some red and yellow ribbon and came up with the design above. Half way through the rose making, I was going to give up, because the rose looked weird. I ended up liking the stylised look and went with it.

#239

I we not the local newsagents to get a new black calligraphy felt tip, but they didn’t have any, so I ended up getting myself a magazine. I’m such a sucker for butterfly stamps that I didn’t even realise how beautiful all the stamps are, especially the rose. There are some good design ideas in the magazines, even using a couple of punches and dies that I have, others adding to my crafty wish list, which is growing as we speak. One of the pages had some beautiful free digistamps, but the link they had there, their server was down. Hopefully it was temporary, as the only copy I could find was watermarked. The page was www.jellypark.co.uk, in case it comes back up, or google “jellypark digi stamps” to look at them.
I realised that I buy a whole load of girly type supplies, but don’t make many girly, florally, pink cards. Usually I specialise the card to the person, and not many people I know like that stuff, maybe three if I’m lucky. Maybe I should find another use, or make a bunch of cards for things like selling, or presents themselves. I just have so many things I want to try all at the same time, all while wanting to sort out my craft room. Unfortunately, its been so hot I haven’t had the energy for anything.
Bring on the winter- I can craft under my blankie!

Day #92

Busy in the craft room today 😀

I set my laptop up to play videos under “how to make your own craft supplies” on YouTube, and kept the creativity flowing. I brought a few new craft supplies lately, including a balloon punch, a large butterfly punch, and some stamps, so I had to have a play today.

I meant to sort out some things, after watching a craft organisation video, but when I go to the room, I needed to create.

When I brought the balloon punch, I thought it might be good for birthday cards, and it almost looked like a fish when sideways, so I made a fish with it. The idea of using it to recreate the “Up” scene hit me suddenly, and I had to see it through. I haven’t added any balloon strings yet, as I am unsure on how to do it without overloading the look with a hundred lines. I may leave it as a minimal piece. My Dad would like this, but his birthday isn’t for months.

Many of the videos today were about making your own enamel dots, or something called flairs, which are like domed images for card making and scrapbooking. Last year I picked up some clear domed sticker for that exact use, and I also had the clear vase pebbles that I played around with.

So, between refereeing kittens and crafting, it was a fairly fun day 😀

Day #83

Despite getting a fair bit done today, shopping and homework, this was all the completed art I did. Basically messing around with pens and paper. It started by looking for a hexagon paper punch online, then remembered how many people sell punched out bits of paper. So I decided to punch out bits of paper… mainly to see how much effort and paper went into it, to see if I could add it to my craft stall ideas. Some punches were easier on the hands than others. As usual I began experimenting. I punched cirles then smaller shapes inside. Then realised its much easier to punch the small one first, then the circle. Then I punched from catalogues.  Then I made a tiny rose out of the catalogue. Then I made a tiny rose out of purple. Then after a while I noticed my fashiony sketchbook and kind of drew a dress I saw using scumbling as the pattern. I photographed it then began blogging about it. Then here we are… never did find that hexagon punch at a good price.

Day #1

Day one consists of a rose. A rather tiny one.
To make this rose I used a technique I learnt off youtube using a flower punch and some paper. The video showed much larger flowers, but I wanted to try this for card making. Although it was fiddly, wasnt nearly as hard as I thought it would be. Not sure it wouldnt be squashed on a card, but I’m sure I can find a use for it.