Paul Smith envelopes

Only just found out about this and it only has a few days to run. Paul Smith is opening a new menswear shop and has asked people to send in envelopes which he might then use to decorate his shop.

I think this is a great little project and for the price of an envelope and a stamp it's got to be worth a try, right?

More details here.

  

Virtual tidying up

This week was meant to be about getting the watercolours out and going to see Star Trek but everyone's been ill. We all started feeling unwell on Sunday and the kids have been off school since Monday. It's made it difficult to really get going on any drawing but I've used the time to get on top of computer/internet stuff that I'd been ignoring.

One thing I needed to do was to make sure I'd exported all my blog feeds from Google Reader before it shuts down at the beginning of July. I don't actually use it to read on, but it's the hub of my blog feeds so I wanted to make sure I had a back up elsewhere. For reading, I've been switching between Feedly and Bloglovin. Originally I chose Bloglovin because of its clean simple layout but sometimes the size of the pictures makes me feel like the scrolling will never stop. Where Feedly really works for me is the 'view' option. With this I can adapt how I view the articles to how many there are and the time I have to read them in; cards or full articles for more time, magazine for less. I've not tried the Bloglovin app on the iPad but the Feedly app is very smooth and user friendly, and again there is the view option. I also like the mini Feedly icon that appears in the bottom corner of my screen which I can use to add new pages or blogs to my reading list.

For now I've decided to stick with both of them so I've added a Bloglovin follow button on the sidebar, across there >>>>>>>>>>>>

Another tool that I've been trying to get my head round is IFTTT (if this then that). It's a channel connector, you can build recipes to connect your various internet places together; if I post on Blogger then it gets posted to my FB Page, if I post on Instagram then a copy goes to my Dropbox etc. It supports lots of channels and potentially can save you a lot of time, so it's worth a look.

 

New cards

I listed some new cards listed in my Etsy shop last week; Ribbon & Fish and Scandinavian Vases.

The Vases are a variation on the larger Scandinavian Vases print. When I was working on the prints there were some colour combinations I really liked but didn't use. I'd forgotten about them but when I found them recently I thought they might work well on a smaller card. Ribbon & Fish is a drawing I've been working on, off and on, for about 6 months. It's been through numerous changes but I think for cards it actually works best in this simple composition.

The formatting, photographing and listing can be a bit dull and inevitably takes longer than I think it will, so I was happy to get it out the way. I'm really looking forward to getting some new drawings done before the schools break at the end of June. I don't know if it's the sun coming out (well, now and again anyway) but I've had an overwhelming urge to get my watercolours out. 

 

  

Nothing to show

After all the photographing, formatting and editing I've been doing, I was really looking forward to getting back to doing some drawing today. There's something in particular I've been itching to start but I knew I was going to encounter problems with the composition. I though it would be easiest to work it out on the paper, so I tried one way, then another and another, but I couldn't find a solution. I really wanted to eff and blind and bang some furniture about in frustration but I quelled my inner toddler, put the sketches aside and hopefully a solution will occur to me at some point.

I keep reminding myself that I'm further forward than if I hadn't done any work today, but it's still bloody infuriating to have worked for 5 hours and have nothing to show ... especially with all these Monday holidays coming up.

Anyway, CALM picture of some eucalyptus leaves.

Excuses

Ages since I've blogged, I blame school holidays, the end of the financial year and rediscovering the joys of Ebay. I also lost a day to fighting with my printer (Epson, not person); I still don't understand why it's doing what it's doing but I think I'll need to find a real live person to ask because I'm not up to speed with the terminology, so I don't know how to ask the question ... if that makes sense.... 

I've been wanting to take new photos of my work but kept putting it off because of the poor light and short days. I also realised I had a better chance of taking the type of photos I wanted to take, if I got to know my camera beyond basic 'auto' setting. So, on Monday, I went through the manual reminding myself about f-stops and hundredth of seconds. I did a block of (film) photography at college but all the numbers gave me brain fog, it's less of an issue with digital but the numbers still make my head hurt. So I've spent the past few days applying that knowledge, trying to take photos in very changeable light; clouds blow in - clouds blow away again, sun comes out - sun goes in, etc etc ...  and I'm beat. I've still to edit the photos but I'm going to give my eyes a rest before I start doing that.

The magic of photography; example of what's in the frame (above) and what's outside the frame (below). 

Rabbits

Creative ideas sometimes come from the most surprising places, and when you least expect them. I found the rabbit punch when I was (gulp) tidying my daughter's bedroom then there just happened to be a new packet of felt tip pens lying on the kitchen table. Half an hour later I've got a little (whatever the collective noun is) of patterned rabbits.

I started with the black and white cut outs, then the negative space left by the cut outs, then I started to use colour which gave me the chance to play with pattern on pattern. All very simple and all very quick but enough to give me the beginnings of some new ideas.

 

Scandinavian glass vases - new prints

I'd planned to do so much work in the 5 weeks between the February break and Easter holidays but snow, kids off school ill, high school subject choices and end of year accounts have conspired to take up most of my time ..... but a day before the schools break up I've managed to get a couple of new prints into my Etsy shop. 

I'd been thinking a lot recently about the items in my childhood home, you know, the ornaments, fabric and furniture etc that were just part of the background. One of the things my mum was partial to was a bit of Scandinavian smoked glass and because it was the 70s these were usually weird and wonderful shapes and colours. This slotted in quite nicely to my ongoing interest in vintage glass so I started to work up some ideas and sketches which eventually developed into these Vases prints.

There are two prints with slightly different compositions and colours; Grey Vases and Bright Vases, there are more photos across on Etsy if you want to have a look.  

I've also been trying them out on cards which is going well but I'm still trying to finalise my colour choices which always takes more time than you would think. Too - much - choice......

  

Instagrams & 30 Rock

Holiday over so back to school and back to work. Had a very lazy week; slept a lot, caught up with friends, took some Instagrams, and binged on the brilliantly funny 30 Rock.

Holiday

It's the February Week next week, this is one of my favourite school holidays.

I find dark mornings and post Xmas sluggishness make the first weeks of the year really hard work. The February holiday helps draw a line under all that and gives me a chance to start over in a more positive frame of mind. We never plan much for this week, the kids are tired so they're more than happy to relax, watch telly and take their time.

I don't think I'll get much drawing done but the better light means my fingers are itching to take some photographs. 

Geode animation

Experimenting with Vine reminded me that the Brushes app on my iPad lets me play back my drawing actions. I use Procreate now but I still had some of my Brushes drawings and thought they might be a good way to familiarise myself with the simple video editing programme on my computer.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a way to play the exported Brushes actions, so I had to film it playing back on the iPad, hence the slight strobing. The finished video gives you a good idea of the work that went into the original drawing for my 3 Polyhedrons print and how it developed and changed.