Person A Day 1-31-12

These are not in order, I've been somewhat lax about dating my daily people. Need to start doing that. Also, the gap between 1-16 and 1-20, I did some digital drawings but they aren't done yet. Stay tuned :D

Weekend Peeps

Upside down girl, tiny punk rocker and Leonard from Big Bang Theory.

What's been going on here is that I haven't been doing much with this blog. I haven't done Paisley of the Week for almost a month. My apologies! But I have been keeping up with a person a day.

Both of these girls have have weird awkward arms. I never know what to do with the arms so they end up looking stiff and strange. Leonard from Big Bang Theory new and improved. Notice the lack of arms....

Person A Day Project

I came across this great tutorial by Teesha Moore (thanks Pinterest!) and it has really helped me a LOT. Anyone who knows me knows that my people drawing skills are not up to snuff. (How high up is snuff anyway?) She starts with the eyes and draws the person around them. For some reason this works really well for me. Mind you my proportions are still wonky but overall I feel that I've improved!

Teesha's also doing a 'Drawing a Day' project which a lot of artists do. That isn't much of a challenge for me as I do about 1-3 drawings a day anyway. But it gave me the idea that I could improve my people drawing if I practiced them every day and so I am going to do a Person A Day and post them from time to time. I hadn't formally formed the idea until 3 days ago but I've been practicing since after Christmas. This first one is a sketch dump. I LOVE the girl in the middle left with the black boots and short curly 'do. She came out perfect except for her hands.

You know what's cool about this one is that one of my other drawings showed through when I scanned it and it looks like wallpaper.

Girl by a stone wall wearing a ruffled dress.

Yesterday and today's people, diggin' the zig zaggy sweater. I need to draw some guys.

In Which I do 2 Tutorials I Found on the Web...

...and tell you how they came out.

If you have a 10 (or older) computer game obsessed boy in your home then you'll know what Minecraft is. I made this for my 5th grader who is Minecraft obsessed. This simple design is a virtual creature called a creeper. This shirt was very quick to make using Celtic Mommy's easy tutorial on freezer paper painting. I have used this tutorial before and I really like how simple it is. Freezer paper acts like a simple silkscreen once you iron it onto your fabric. It took me less than an hour to make this design (not including drying time.)

This is another creeper shirt I did for my 8th grader who is also a big fan of Minecraft. I used this tutorial from a great blog called The Craft Patch. I ironed on a square piece of an old black tee shirt using Wonder Under. For the creeper's face I used a piece of light green fabric from my stash, which I then colored with darker and brighter squares in a grid pattern using Prismacolor Markers. I Wonder Undered this over my black piece, marked off where I wanted the creepers face to be and sewed around those lines with green thread. Then I carefully cut away the fabric on top revealing the black. This took me about two hours but I think it was because I had to color those squares onto my fabric. If I hadn't, it would've taken at least a half hour less.

I'm definitely planning other projects using these techniques, they were easy and fun to do! The first one is pretty kid friendly. You do the ironing, they paint inside the design.

New Collection

You know that feeling of I-don't-know-what-I-want-but-I'll-know-it-when-I-see-it? Ages ago, I created the above design "Star Wishes." I was thrilled with it and I knew there was potential for a whole collection with this design as the central piece. I figured it'd be easy to develop a collection around it as I loved the colors and design element of playful stars. Actually took me a whole year. I created designs but they wouldn't quite fit the overall feel. Finally, I found the "piece" that fit and The Star Wishes Collection is finished!