Kittys Drawings

Hi!
So the zip is fixed and I can wear my new dress. Yay!
Here’s some gratuitous ME shots – with Puss getting in the way as usual.

Scuse my dumb head

Look at that regrowth! Arrrgh – gettin it FIXED on the 22nd – still way too far away!

Yay scallops

So there ya go. Overall I’m pretty pleased. It’s a bit shonky but hey it didn’t fall apart on me when I wore it today.

Bya!

Hi

So like, Happy New Year and stuff. Hope you all had a good one! I spent it down at the Yarra River for the most of the evening chilling with friends and some cool new peeps. Then came back home before 11pm cos the Mr was knocking off work. We watched the fireworks from just around the corner while eating icecream. Then home to movies and beer. Heh. Not much of a big do but I never place high expectations on NYE – that way, its always guaranteed to be good. This plan has worked nicely for some years now

I had high hopes of wearing my new dress – that I made all by myself but alas, it was not to be – due to dodgy cheap zipper and me being a bit too generous sewing my French seams, thus reducing the waistline of my dress by a good inch…which made things a bit tight…so the zipper broke when I tried it on…
I went through the whole rigmarole of picking apart the bodice and letting out the seams. THEN fixing the stupid busted zipper. But of course, it was beyond repair…tried it on a couple more times and then it went up and then it didn’t and the teeth kept popping out of alignment. GRR.
So now – I just need to get a new zip and then it’s all ready to go.
I couldn’t babble on about this without actually showing you my handiwork…so here it is – not looking that good on a hanger…I blame the print. There’s those nice glass buttons I got from my Vogue KK on there too. And it does fit great now I let the seams out a fraction.
All for $20 worth of fabric and thread. They had a sale on at Lincraft….not the best quality but hey this is still a “test” dress – So I don’t fuck up my pretty Tanya Whelan cotton that’s still making it’s way from the States (hoping my postie isn’t being dodgy AGAIN and not leaving a parcel collection slip in my letterbox).

Also…before the Xmas holidays I managed to score a pack of 10 macarons by Duncan (via Syrup & Tang). I can’t remember all the flavours – I know the purple was a violet one. And there was an extreme passionfruit with poprocks in it. Killer
They were all awesome

Oh and I did some drawing. Heh.
Same chick, different pose. Better execution. Shitty dodgy flowers though *ahem*. Probably about 8 hours total. No WIPS because I did most of it in the first session of about 5 hours. I really should save more progress shots of the initial stages so you can see how I start. No lines. Seriously!

Well – I best be off. Only tomorrow left before I have to go back to work. Blah. Seeyas!

Hi!

Exciting day! I just picked up my Vogue Kris Kringle present for the year – weeeee I am so happy! I got utterly spoilt with a whole bunch of awesome stuff from lil-miss. *squeeeee* THANK YOU if you’re reading!
Of course, I couldn’t wait to open it – bugger waiting til Christmas! Hehe.

For those not in the know – Each year the girls (and guys) on the Aussie Vogue forums do a KK. The lovely Purplewhiskers takes the time to organise the whole thing, collating the email forms we send her and passing on those details to a randomly picked forum member. Then we all go out and buy a present and send it off, while eagerly awaiting our own in the mail. I’ve always had fantastic presents and have been participating for about 3/4 years now. I looove shopping for my KK too – it’s never been difficult to buy a stranger a gift surprisingly.
Mine hasn’t been sent off yet – I have been truly behind. The present is all bought and wrapped I just need to go and deliver it.

Now what did I get? I would have been easy to buy for because my Etsy favourites list is immensely long and filled with heaps of items within budget. lil-miss got me exactly what I wanted.

Have a look at all the goodies:

A perfect skirt pattern! Woo! SO versatile.

Yum smelling Lush stuffs. Soap and a bath bomb. They made the whole package smell awesome!

Sewing bits and pieces like some nice hem facing, zips and lace trim. Some AMAZING buttons! They are so fabulous – perfect glass vintage ones from an Etsy seller I’ve been eyeing off for a while.  There are 15 – plenty for a dress or 2. Wow.

Also – she even considered my kitties! They each got a toy to play with which I just know they’re going to love.

This is the lot of it. So stoked!

While I was at the post office I also picked up my latest fragrance purchase. I’ve wanted a bottle of Penhaligon’s anything for a long time and they finally had some stock on StrawberryNET – didn’t take me long to snap some up – for a supreme discount price of $53 including shipping. These are usually $120 or so in the boutiques here (not stocked at Myer etc). Unlike many of my previous perfume purchases from SN, I have sniffed this one before.  I’m very partial to soft florals and this really fits the bill.
And would you LOOK at the PACKAGING!!!

So cute!! Smells divine too – bright and fresh on the opening and then dries down to a soft, delicately spicy warmth.

What I also have my eye on is Penhaligon’s Douro – which is actually a cologne but hey, I wear Bvlgari Pour Homme occasionally….anyway – its all lemony and soapy and incredible. But that’s on the longer wishlist along with Parfums de Nicolai – Sacrebleu and Comme des Garcons – Stephen Jones.

Can you tell I really love perfume???

I’ll stop yabbering now. I actually have a drawing to work on. Spent 4 solid hours on it last night. We’ll see if I can squeeze out a repeat performance today but I’m pretty damn tired. Sooo – till then…

Ciao!

Sup!

I finally have a drawing for you. Which could be more polished but once again I left it too long and by the time I got round to working more on it, I was thoroughly over it. So patchy finish up in the end. It’s not too bad though. I used a photo reference for this instead of a painting reference like the last couple, making all the exaggerations on the figure mine

The purpose of doing all these pinups was to establish a solid working process and build up my confidence with Painter. Which means I need to do them quickly! I want to be able to do something like this in a few hours and be pleased with the result. Then work up to more complex pieces. I’m not sure if my methods will work. I fear having more than one drawing project on the go because I know one, if not more, will be abandoned and then I will never finish anything.
Any artists reading my blog – what do you do? Are you able to work on more than one thing at once and eventually finish everything?
It’s so hard to get over the “I hate it” stage for me. I always make roadblocks for myself – things to stop me from creating something “better”. I wonder if I’ll ever stop feeling like a fraud when it comes to my art. Hmm…It’s like I’m constantly waging war with myself and playing tricks on my own brain via a complicated system of activities which are deemed ‘worthy’ of spending time on and those that are not. And whether I should have any leisure time at all when instead of reading blogs I could(should) be drawing – and then, if what I am drawing is moving along satisfactorily or should I be putting more effort in. Waaa! Can get tiring sometimes – and then what happens, I bludge to put off the inevitable decision ….vicious cycle I tell you.
And that probably made little sense.

Anyways…On to the drawings.

(click to make larger)

WIPS and details:

Next time…I’ll be working on faces. I realise that I’m just not that great at them yet. My refs have been too low-res to really zoom in on the features and make out the specific tones needed. I mean, look at noses – there’s not much to them ‘cept a couple of well placed highlights and shadows. Get them wrong and it’s all off. Plus these eyes are lackluster – and the eyes will make a painting. Eerrrrm so much to learn!
SO – I’ve got tons of portrait refs to choose from in my LittleSnapper. I’ll use one of those.

AND….I’ve finished my first sewing project. If I can con the bf into taking some nice photos, then I’ll do a post. It’s a mint green cotton wrap skirt with big, dark green buttons. I finished it in a weekend – maybe 6 hours total. Even managed to make some nice bound buttonholes – I tell you what they are easier to do than regular buttonholes (using a zigzag stitch). They look really nice too. Yay!
I’ve got some fantastic fabric, buttons and a wonderful pattern all coming in the mail soon – That will be my next project.

Til soon!

Hi!

Guess what? I totally WON the dinner with Audrey! Woooo!! It was a pretty splendid night and I did actually manage to hold some conversation. My photos suck – so I’ll be posting those as well as Jonny’s good ones later. But today I have some drawing completed. Another piece where I was all gung-ho at first…then I abandoned it…then I finished it just to be done with it.

Next time, I think I’ll be ready to attempt something original. And spend more hours on it. Definitely have got the hang of Corel Painter’s tools – now to get over my own self-sabotage.
Some work in progress and (shitty) detail shots….

Not a very high level of detail but whatevs…NEXT.

Seeya’s round (Audrey post up soon)

Hiii!

More life drawing for everyone Colour this time! I had heaps of fun with this lesson and it was good to dig out the pastels – haven’t used them since my uni days! Did LOTS of drawings – the majority of them dreadful – but I have to put the really shit ones up so the half decent ones look a bit better ehehehee.

The quality of photos is absolutely terrible and I apologise in advance – I can’t nuke the levels out of them like I would with a B&W. They look a bit more vibrant in real life – winter sun and all that, crappy camera – hard to take a good pic. But enough of the EXCUSES, time for drawings

The worst first – 1 min and 2 min warm ups:

Contours – the first was meant to be 7 mins one colour and 7 mins the next but I finished early (always going too fast!) and did the next one quickly. Then 10 mins doing a drawing based on shading and using 3 colours. My third was the background colour heh.

Then the final pose – two lots of 20mins. I did the first sketch and realised it was way too big for the page so I scrapped it and started again. Really pleased with the end result – using blue really grounded the whole thing I think. Shame the pics are so craaaaaaaap argh sorry!!

Some close ups

K, that’s enough nekkid man-bum for a day Until next time!

Hi!

All done for this week’s CHOW. I can’t believe I managed to go out Saturday, bum around Sunday, do life drawing today and STILL get this done. Awesome. Oh and I don’t hate it so much either. Omg.

Okay so it’s not fantastic but it’s better than most (all?) my other CHOW entries so I gotta be makin’ some progress. Plus this week’s theme was mega mega awesome.
So onto the drawings…

If you can’t tell – I decided to go with a whacked out junkie as my Dorothy. Tehehehehee. WHY? Cos I can. And you gotta think that whoever came up with the whole OZ thing had to be on something. I know it’s not the original but have you SEEN Return to Oz?? Cray-zee. The first one was bad enough.
Some progress pics (Click it to make it big if you so wish)….

And how was life drawing I hear you ask?? FAB. Loved it!! Much better than what I was expecting. I shall show you my results tomorrow and talk about it in more detail.
Until then – BYE!