ONLINE ART COURSE - MODULE C - INK PENS Yesterday I started on the next module on the drawing course. I have done a lot of work with my fineliner black archival marker pens in the past but never for "realistic" drawing of the kind we are being taught on this course. Having…
MORE SKETCHBOOK DABBLING, PENS AND DIGRESSIONS, CATARACT NEWS AND SEEING PATTERN EVERYWHERE ...in fact, a bit of a waffle, this blog post! Read on if you're interested in some idle chat about the kind of things that fascinate me. Sketchbook My (almost) daily sketchbook is filling up with some eclectic stuff - experiments,…
2023 - END OF YEAR REVIEW As usual, it has been a pretty eventful year, both personally and generally. See the end of this post for the most important aspects of changing world events and what they mean for us all. During the year, I have had various health issues to deal with…
ONLINE ART COURSE - MODULE B: CHARCOAL - WARM-UP EXERCISES, AND BEGINNING THE FIRST PROJECT Very exciting to be moving on to the second module of the Draw Awesome course. I really wasn't sure about charcoal - messy, imprecise... not me at all! - but I am determined to work through every stage…
ONLINE ART COURSE I am not normally someone who takes any notice of ads on YouTube, apart from getting profoundly irritated by them, but occasionally something comes up which stands out from the rest and sparks my interest. This time it was an online art course called Draw Awesome. Phil, the teacher, has…
PRAYER BIBLE - COMPLETING THE TABS AND EXPERIMENTING WITH DIFFERENT MEDIA FOR EMBELLISHMENT The tabs All the theme tabs on my Prayer Bible are now complete, and glued in place, with the verses highlighted and the respective theme written in the top margin. The Bible is now ready for use as a Prayer…
SASHIKO I recently rediscovered Sashiko online. Some time ago I looked at this form of Japanese embroidery and thought how effective it was, and put it on the back burner as someting to explore further. What is Sashiko? "Sashiko" means "little stabs" in Japanese, and it refers to the small stabbing stitches of…
I MADE AN APRON! Since starting my Bonnie Bags project, I've been getting more sewing videos coming up in my feed. I do follow a few channels which show how to make authentic period garments, and while I am not really into this, I am interested to see how things were done in…
IT'S CURTAINS FOR SHOSHI No - that isn't metaphorical, thank goodness - it's literal! Bedroom curtains In my recent charity shop haul, I bought a pair of pale cream curtains with decorative tops. I bought them primarily for the gorgeous trimmings on them, but then I thought I could actually use the curtains.…
A BLAST FROM MY SEWING PAST Back in 1974, when I celebrated my 21st birthday, my parents gave me a sewing machine. It was a Pfaff 1197, and it was listed as the best sewing machine for the year in the Which report. I had it for forty years, during which time it…
