Oddsockworld

Free greeting cards....

A tah dah moment......my Etsy shop is OPEN ALL HOURS and my website LAZYCOW CARDS is giving away free emergency greeting cards and an envelope to put them in..........

Baby...

This is a re-work of an illustration I used for a 'New Baby' card and I'm pleased with it. Why do newborn baby cards always feature 'white babies'? Does this mean that people from ethnicities other than caucasian don't send baby cards because there aren't any for sale on the High Street?

Bamboo sketch 3

Too warm to hold wool today, so sheltering from the sun doodling crochet on my computer...

Bamboo sketch 2

Having fun with Photoshop today....working with a photo of some leaves at Bowood House, Wiltshire....trying out transparency and filters plus other effects. A mysterious little bird appeared in the centre of this one!

Bamboo sketch 1

 

I spent today hiding from the sun. It is so hot here and virtually airless, yet I hear this has been a bad summer from the locals in our village. I have been reading all sorts of Illustrator tutorials, my favourite latest being:50 Illustrator tutorials and learned how to make new brushes and twirls, vaguely how to do a photo trace and vaguely how to recolour artwork easily - or was that in Photoshop.....oh I am confused now, so it is time to go and do something else. I like this image because it reminds me how warm it was today and also, what the foliage and flowers look like on trees and bushes over here - a bit sparse! Also it looks a bit like Fuzzy Felt and I think that's down to the red background making the colours bounce.

 

Being Creative project

I guess all my work is creative and I am happy to share it - hence joining Julia Crossland's 'Being Creative' project.  I dipped into the theme pool and am going with 'flowers' this month! Here is something I drew using Illustrator......I'm going to miss the daffodils this year.

Daffodils

Oddsockworld banner design

How to design a repeat pattern with Photoshop

At last - I have understood the method with the help of a very clever lady called 'SewHeidi' and this is my first pattern repeat:

It's a fairly long tutorial at 9 mins but it's the best one I have found anywhere!

Beetroot icon (2)...

So this is one of 3 icons I drew chosen by the Chiddingly Village Shop steering committee - I'm really pleased they eventually made a decision! A percentage of profits made by using the icons on mugs, coasters etc. will be donated to my charity of choice RNIB.

Elephants...

  
Here's an illustration I made for a little girl who loved pink elephants...

Beetroot icon...

a beetroot from my garden...one of a set for the new village shop

(just found out they are going to use a piece of clipart for their main logo instead...tsk, village politics and all that - no appreciation of contemporary design - still, mustn't be bitter and twisted heh heh!)

Drinking tea...

Another one in a series of logos I'm designing for Chiddingly Village Shop:

whoops, wonky border...

Chicken image...

I'm working on some logos for a new shop in Chiddingly and they seem to be working out very well...two more to go...

Painting of blackbirds ...

Have I mentioned we live in a wreck of a house? Over Christmas, we turned up the heating and lit the Aga - lovely and cosy it was but the warmth has dried out the flexible filler and old cracks are emerging...grrrrr!

Time to decorate the walls with artwork now that most of the DIY is finished...and my lovely husband gave me a fab wooden easel for my birthday, so this is the first of many paintings AND it covers up two of the cracks in the hallway. I was inspired by Natasha Newton's exquisite illustrations

Her work on birds reminds me a little of Simon Drew's detailed pen and ink drawings (Dartmouth, UK)

This is my version of the blackbirds sitting on the fruit tree outside my studio window...

See how it hides those cracks.....

South american style chicken...

Have been experimenting a bit with different painting styles and I always come back to outlining in black for some reason...habit, safety, perfection? This is one for my sister and partner.

Making cushions...

Needed an 'emergency birthday pressie' due to being bored with the offerings of the High Streets near me therefore not wanting to go near the shops. Being a horder (in a good way!) I dragged an old and faded blue cushion cover from the bottom of the heap - being the oldest surviving rag since my last massive clearout! And look what it has become:

From cushion cover bought 20 years ago (yup, 'fraid so) -often washed to remove dabs of kiddy marmite and marmalade fingers - to machine embroidered treasure. This is how I did it:

fabric scraps too beautiful to throw away were glued and machined over to make a picture panel (Happy Birds) then inserted behind a 'window' made like a tailored pocket. Here's a link to a tailored pocket tutorial CLICK HERE which is the clearest one I can find - you need to make the rectangle slightly smaller than the picture panel. Then I sewed a zip into the reverse of the cover and attached a tassle for quirk factor...

Teething trouble...

Having fun making some badges!

Poster design for No Women No Peace campaign 2010

I found a link to this competition on my desktop (who has been using my computer?...) and this idea popped into my head. I wanted to create a simple  'handmade, childlike' piece to portray the message to all people. Using the given logo as a starting point I thought of a gingerbread man turning into a paper cutout woman....and the Edward Scissorhands character in Tim Burton's movie of the same name, was my visual inspiration for the guys with 'handguns'.

To see more entries in the Flickr group click here

I like...

via bloesem.blogs.com

Think I want one...

Spring flower

I think Spring has arrived. A quick sketch of this year's first daffodil! It seems a long time ago that I planted the bulb......