Kittys Drawings

Hi All!!

Here’s the latest sewing project all finished. I’ve jumped ahead a couple cos this wasn’t the one I was intending to show you, but I was wearing this Saturday (and Friday haha) so I took pics of this instead. This is possibly the quickest dress I’ve ever made, and I even lined the bodice – so if you skipped that, it’s SUPER easy….That said, I think lining is quicker than facings.

Some Notes:

• It’s made from a sheet – Possibly! Nicole from Circa thinks it might not be as the cotton is fairly thick.
• I shortened it a bit
• I didn’t add the scallops on the bottom because I can’t figure out how to shorten the circle skirt without changing the circumference of the hem, thus needing to change the pattern piece for the scallops (hard to explain!)
• Only the bodice is lined
• This has a side zipper but it isn’t closed at the top so it’s really easy to get into.
• It’s the perfect, comfy summer dress!
• I didn’t need to change the pattern at all except the length

(look at the surge of kitties hehehee)

After reading Elyse’s post on her first Spring sewing project, I notice that I have wrinkles on the bodice of my dress too. I answered her question by saying it could be the lining competing for space…Which could also be the case for my dress as I used the same size lining as the outer pieces. I’m not sure? It doesn’t bother me too much though.

Guess what? I made the green belt I’m wearing too Using a kit from A Fashionable Stitch, I covered the belt backing in some green fabric and hand-sewed it all together. Covering the buckle was a bit fiddly though. It comes with a sticky piece of card that you attach your fabric to and then the other side sticks to the metal front of the buckle. Then you jam in the bottom of the buckle with some pliers. I botched it a little bit but you can’t really tell when I’m wearing it. Then I had to rush out and buy an awl and the Mr helped me bash in the eyelets.
I think I’ll be making simpler slide belts next – eyelets are a PITA.
I’m majorly in love with that green fabric I used. It’s such a perfect shade – and matches my dress so well. I have enough left to make a skirt…And the pattern is coming in the mail so it should hopefully arrive shortly.

After making this dress I think I’m going to hold off on all the DRESSES for a while. Need to make lots more separates – so skirts and tops for my new job (staring tomorrow!!! Eeeep)…but first the ROBE in pink seersucker – or plissé – I’m not sure which it is actually. Yes, there is a difference. More on that later ;-P

Okay so I better run!!

Hiiii!
Gee haven’t I been slack? Two weeks into life drawing and I’m only posting now. And I never did find that memory card so I had to use another camera instead. This is why the photos are REALLY crappy. Seriously I’m ashamed at how bad they are. Should be taking them in daylight but it gets dark pretty early these days.
So this is gonna be a mega post with heaps of cruddy images. I’ll work on making them better for my next life drawing post.
We’ll start from the beginning and go from there. Click to make bigger – I’m trying to keep them smaller this time… Sorry I can’t be bothered formatting them so they look tidy either. Meh!




That was the first week. Notice the different techniques? We had to do some exercises like drawing without looking at the paper, drawing with our eyes shut, with our non-preferred hand and with a continuous line only. Tricky stuff! Oh and the one saying “Sorry” is when we had to rotate and finish other people’s drawings.
Onto this Monday:

Practicing negative space…

Really bad proportions….Yipes

Overall…I am loving the classes! They go for 2 hours and it’s just the right amount of time. My hands get filthy with charcoal and graphite. Awesome. And it’s all kind of freeing.
Oddly enough, out of all the people there it’s only me and my two buddies from ConceptArt that are using tone in our drawings at this stage. Which would be frustrating cos getting lines right with soft charcoal is a pain in the butt. All learning I guess. Ick these are pretty horrible drawings. It feels better to use really soft graphite over charcoal. And I need to get me some spray fixative.

Well I’m off to bed. I should be drawing more outside of life drawing. Slackie. This is invariably what happens when I pick up READING again. I have two books on the go right now so they’re taking up more of my time than they should. Naughty.

Night!

PS…and this is what happens when Puss wants in on the action….

What is it with cats and paper? She was diving under the sheets! Crazy kitty.

Hi!!
Small post today. Some sketches for this week’s CHOW – The theme is Wizard of Oz. AWESOME! Seriously!!

I’m doing a junkie Dorothy whacked out on smack, floating down the yellow brick road. Teehehe. I’ve already done the majority of the linework at home so these are just a few doodles done at work while I was waiting for a (massive) file to save. Obviously working on Toto too – I don’t like those fluffy Terrier things – Boxers are much cuter. So I did a mini one. Not a Pug either mind you! Plus some other random animals heh

Woof!
Awwww so cute. ;-P

Bya!
(blogging at work….shhhhhh!!)

Finally! I have something to show you. Yes – I’m back from my lazy hiatus. Picking up the drawing again.

This time it’s a sketch for ConceptArt’s Team CHOW competition…The theme is Tarot and you must team up with another person from the forums with 2 to 4 people per team. Then you pick two tarot cards to draw, one from the major arcana and one from the lesser. So my team is called “Oh Bother” and we’re a duo…my teammate is from the UK where our timezones are a bit more compatible. We picked The Star, The Empress as the major arcana and Two of Swords and King of Swords for the lesser. Yay! We’ve got all of January to work on them so busy busy. Slow start but kind of picking up now. Here is my initial sketch for The Star. Nothing too flash just trying to get my skills up to an acceptable level again.

Other news: We finally have some KITTIES!! I am officially a crazy cat lady now. Hehe. Last Sunday we went to the Lost Dogs Home and rescued two adult kitties.
Here is Boof:

He is 3 years old and was in the shelter for quite a while. He’s the fluffiest cat I have EVER seen! Seriously! His tail is so floofy that when he walks, the hairs on it swoosh and sway in the breeze. Awww. And look at those eyes!

Jonny’s cat we’ve called Puss:

She is one year old and much smaller than Boof. She’s uber-friendly and loves to get in your face for a pat. Literally! She will cram her head into your nose to get some pats. And she’s really spritely and active and cute.

So they’re our new babies. I am so happy to have kitties finally and happy that our landlords allow them. The good thing with adult cats is you don’t need to train them as they already know where to go. They are both so friendly too. Yay!

Anyways, back to regular posting from herein. And happy 2010!

To make up for the time I’ve been gone!

Nothing finished though. Bad I know. So here are some sketches I’ve drawn lately. Lots and lots to work on! Some of these I might flesh out into finished pieces.

Eeee I love this little owl!

This I will definitely turn into something nice. Like the way the face turned out

Some drawings of my hand. I have long thumbs. Weird huh.

Anyway, I’m trying to sketch every day right now. Try and get better at drawing and not get stuck in a rut. Still at a stage where my hands don’t do what they tell them properly and I can’t draw exactly what I see in my head. Can get extremely frustrating I tell you.
I joined up to ConceptArt.org forums too – there’s so many great artists on there and so many valuable resources. I get majorly inspired looking on there!

Other news – Been getting busy in the garden. YES I have a garden! Well, a courtyard! Put in a couple of little screener plants and got some bamboo stuff to put up on the fence so the neighbours don’t stare at us while we’re sitting outside. Teehee. It’s so nice to have a fairly large outdoor area.
Also been making friends with the neighbourhood cats. There is a gorgeous ginger tom called Mango who I coerced into the yard for a pat. It wasn’t hard – he’s very friendly (and just a little bit fat too) and he ran about rubbing against my legs and being cute.
There is also a fluffy one two doors down who dropped himself in front of the door and rolled around baring his furry belly. But he ran off when I tried to open the door and pat him.
Soon I wont have to harrass other people’s cats cos I will have one of my own! Yay!!!

Well I better be off – make some dinner for the hungry boyfriend. Back to normal posting from now on

For your viewing pleasure.

Well, I have been flat-stick figuring out the WordPress thing. Made a few tweaks here and there. You can see my header has changed (AGAIN omg) – this should be one of the final changes..its how I want the whole site to look eventually. With MY handwriting!
Also, if you click the “About” button up the top there, you can see that page is finished too.

These photos are of my parents’ kitties down at the winery. It can be very hard to take a photo of them as they fidget around a LOT. Possum (the grey and white one at top and bottom) wouldn’t sit still! She just wanted pats! The others I wanted to capture all huddled up in a big kitty-pile as they were but as soon as I walked out the door, they all jumped off each other and ran about thinking I had some food for them.
And Petyi is the big tom – he is a very large cat! And very friendly and placid.

I best get back to drawing – Promise more frequent posting in the week ahead. Even though I do have a lot on. I will be heading to PacPrint on Thursday to suss out if what they mean about letterpress being there, is going to be more than just a teeny stall hidden in the back somewhere. Anyone else going?

I think I like using Flickr to add my pics to Blogger. Much bigger and sharper!

Anyways. These are the kitties that adorn the pages of my diary. The drawings for SJ’s brand logo. I love drawing them! The third photo with the large kitty on the right will be the final one. It’s still a bit too cute but I will work on that. It’s scanned in and ready to refine – just need to find the time!

Mum also wants me to draw/paint some cats for the gallery down in Tassie. I might just do that! Teehee. I hope you like these

On another note…Still figuring out some html tweaking. Widened my blog a bit but can’t seem to get the header to centre even though I did everything proportionally. Hmm. Tell me if this is too wide for you guys! It all fits nicely on my 15″ MacBook Pro screen but if its too massive for most of my readers I’ll change back.