Hello! I am still alive.

Hi everyone! Wow...I've been gone a year...a whole year! I don't believe how much time goes by so fast. Feels like when you are a child, time just crawls by so slowly and when you grow older, it speeds up much to quickly. I am sorry for my sudden departure from my blog, but I am back. I've missed you all so much!

I guess I needed some time away while I thought about my art, where I'd like it to be, where I really want it to go and generally to sort my whole life out. And I finally think I'm ready to tackle tackling the whole art business seriously, because, I realized during my working days at my day job, that it's where I truly want to be. So, I have been around the interwebs on various social sites that are my regular haunts, and trying to improve my work. I think I am finally getting better and to a place on how I want it to look.  I am totally looking forward to sharing that progress with all of you. *big Internet hugs*

So! I guess you could call this illustration my first after a whole year away. Looking at it, it has turned out to be a turning point drawing where I feel I've changed so much.

 

 

 

This little lady is called "Bewitched". She was for an October auction on Facebook last year. I am happy to say that she found a lovely new home. One of my first successful sales in a long, long time.  She was done with pencils and white ink on Deleter Art paper. She actually took nearly three months to finish! But, that was probably due to a hectic work schedule at the time.  When you work in florals, you come to dread the holidays. *laughs*

 

 

So again, so happy to be back! I hope all of you have been well? Cannot wait to catch up on lost time. See you all very soon! Cheers!

Princess Peach

So, a little video game art today.  I've played Super Mario Brothers since it first came out on the Nintendo system back when I was a kid in the '80's.  It's still one of my favourite games ever!  I just wish I had the new Wii system to try the new ones out on. *sigh*  One day...one day.

My inspiration for this one was, I thought it would be awesome to be able to play the Mario games as just Princess Peach herself, but for that game to have all the beauty and game play as the Zelda video games.  I would adore that!

I wish the castle could have looked a bit better...maybe, more Gothic for Bowser's castle.  I should have used a reference for it.  I'll remember that for next time though. ^_^
This pose came from an older drawing I had done a few years ago.  I so loved the pose, but not the actual drawing itself, so I re-used the pose and revamped it for this drawing.  Much better results this time round.

Took my mum to Starbucks for her favourite coffee and a peanut butter cookie....delightful way to spend an afternoon!

Wishing you all a wonderful and coffee filled day! Cheers! xoxo

Springing back to life- Or known As Long art filled post!

Hi everyone! Happy spring to you all.  I've been gone from blogger for much too long now, longer than I would ever had wanted.  Things have been rather crazy lately and I had a serious bout of a very dark depression that robbed me of all motivation and drive to do or create anything. I'm very glad to say now though, that I'm finally crawling out of it.  I've never been in an Art Block before and I hope never to experience that again.  Now, with a fresh, new and happy outlook on life again; I'm overflowing with art ideas and story ideas again and I'm so excited to get started on doing work again!  I don't think I'll be able to draw fast to enough to get all the ideas out. *Laughs*

After this three month break, I'm so glad to be back here and to get back to blogging again. <3

So, I know it's not much of a return gift to you guys, but I have some line art up of Harry Potter, which you can see up there.  I hope to have it finished at some point.  This is a "Thank You" for always coming by my blog with all the awesome comments.  You all rock!

I turned thirty-four on the sixth of this month:

(I'm about eight years old here. ^_^) For the first time, it actually feels weird to be this age.  I kept going over and over that for the last week. *laughs* But, I'll still never, ever act my age or grow up.  I'll leave growing up for six months after I die, far in the future. Haha!  Cartoons and sugar cereals on a Saturday morning forever!

My mum bought me a DVD copy of "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug".  I cannot wait for the final film to come out.

I also did a little bit of  video game fan art last month:

This is "Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time".  It's 8 1/2 x 11 " , pencil and white ink on Deleter Art paper.  It took me what felt like forever to get this done. *Laughs*  I've been playing so much of this game lately, that the art bug bit me quite hard and I wanted to show how much I adore Link and the Zelda games.  Plus it was fun to draw what Navi might look like, outside of a floating ball of light in the games.  

The Great Deku Tree came out a bit darker than I would have liked, but that's alright...I think it still came out wicked looking! ^_^


I also had a marvelous surprise in the beginning of March:

 

 

I was flipping through the current issue of Cloth Paper Scissors and found my submission for The Faces of Mixed Media art call, in their current issue...alongside of some pretty wonderful and creative artists.  I was so happy to see it there!  It was a bolt of sunshine in the chilly March weather.


Also did some random line art for a picture book I've put on hold for now,  as I want to focus on getting back to my novel with no distractions.  And adding a picture book to that makes it hard to focus on one story.

So this is a sketch of the main character, who for now is called "The Grey Girl".  I hope to get back to her when my novel series is finished.


*Phew* Okay, so that's all for today.  There's so much more I want to share, but I'll leave that for another day, as I don't want to bog you all down. *Laughs*  I am going to announce a challenge that my mum has given to me to keep me going next post.  It's worked wonders in keeping my motivation up.

Wishing you all a happy, creative week!  Many hugs to you. Cheers!

Empress: A Royal Elf

Hello! *phew* My bad for not blogging in a few weeks!  My laptop died and I had to wait a bit before I could replace it.  I have a nifty little tablet now, which I'm still trying to get used to.  It's only seven inches big, so seeing things on-line is hard. *laughs*  But I love it!  Been busy catching up with everything, since.

So, how was the New Year for all of you?  I completely forgot about the countdown, (I was busy playing Zelda for, like, six hours), until my mum woke up, she had a bad case of the flu, and reminded me.  I love opening the patio door and listening to the city as everyone makes noise at midnight.  It's such an awesome sound!

Anyway, this little lady here I finally finished!  I had to stitch some of the art together in an art program because it was much too large for the scanner, but I still did not yet quite fit all of the drawing in the frame.  She is going to be included in my book, though, she won't show up until the very end of the series.

As for the book, I am about midway through now and I'm guess that the first draft will work out to be around 90,000 words.  It's very hard not to edit as I write the rough draft, but I have to keep reminding myself to think of it as a rough sketch to stop myself. *laughs*  What I'm enjoying most out of the writing, seeing the characters come to life on the page!  I'm still in awe of them taking over my brain.

Well, my lovelies, I hope you all are having a wonderful week.  And I wish an early spring thaw for those of you going through the terrible winter storms. Cheers!

Tangled-Plus a NaNo and PiBoIdMo update

Oh hi there! My goodness, December already, where on earth has the time flown to?!  November was so crazy busy, but I feel that I got the most done out of all the other months past. Yippee!
I'll start with this drawing here.  I finished this actually close to the end of last month.  She's done with pencil and white ink again, as I'm running very low on my watercolour pencils and the like.

She's inspired by one of my favourite, and a little rare, Grimm fairy tale of  three women who are turned into flowers and only one can return to her good husband at night.  They form a plan and he rescues her from her enchantment.  It's such a sweet little story, and by little I mean very wee.  It's barely a paragraph long.  I wanted to illustrate something that might go along with it, so I hope I did it a fair enough composition.  Hmm, it might also make for some lovely writing paper.

I also participated in NaNoWriMo and PiBoIdMo this year as well.  It wasn't a challenge juggling the two as much as I thought it was going to be.  For NaNo, I managed to make it just past the 20,000 mark by the end.  Which I think is still quite good for my first try, since I didn't quite know what the heck I was doing in the first place. *Laughs*  But, I have a super awesome start (finally) to my first middle grade book.  It's all very exciting to see the characters, settings and plots come to life.  I'm still writing strong and have a goal to make it to almost 50,000 by this month's end.  (I'll try my best at least, so no biggie if I don't quite make it.)

And I totally completed PiBoIdMo! Woo to the Hoo!  I have about 40 ideas written down for a children's picture book and I've narrowed it down to five ideas now.  I've two really rough manuscripts started and I'm currently noodling around with some rough concepts for the illustrations.
It's a brave new world and experience starting for me and I'm very much looking forward to see where that sails me to.

I never knew at first that I would start to head in this direction of children's books and writing, until last year I took a serious look at just who I was reading out there in blogger land.  I was very surprised to see it was mostly mums who were writing, illustrating and crafting, but the largest majority was children's writers and illustrating.  That actually surprised me, as I've done comics for so long.  It's weird how you don't always know yourself, isn't it?  So a change was in definite order.  The thought of being able to one day inspire a little one (maybe one of own one day too), fills me with a joy I never got from doing comics. I just can't wait to get started!

Oh no! I'm rambling...I'll be quiet and leave you to your lovely tea! *laughs*

I've been doodling a lot lately.  More so than getting to finish pieces, really.  This one here, "Forest Elf"  is for my middle grade novel.  She's a lot nicer looking than she really is, so don't  be fooled too much by that elegant face. *wink*  I'm almost done with her, I just hope my colours will last long enough for me to finish.

And one more sketch to show you...

This again is for my middle grade book.  I'm calling her "Empress" for now.  She doesn't show up until the end of the series, but I wanted to draw her so I can flesh out her details in writing a bit better.  She a very nice young elf lady and has a twin.  I'm going to have to use pencil for this drawing, I wont have enough colours left after I finish with another drawing.

How was all of your Thanksgiving my dear American friends?  Did anyone dare to go Black Friday shopping?  Omgosh, I never do that kind of shopping, I'd like to keep all my limbs intact, thank you very much indeed. *laughs*  This is why I'm very grateful for having Hanukkah early this year.

Wishing you all a very merry and candy cane coloured week! Cheers!

Featured In Art Doll Quarterly!

Hellooooo! First I want to apologise for last week's sorta dark post that I wrote.  I've made a note that when feeling lower and low and not my happy self, leave blogging till that passes. *laughs* So, I'm also sorry for not going around to visit. Forgive me, please! *Giving Sad Puppy Eyes*

Anyway...I'm feeling sky high happy today, which is such a great feeling to have again. I think I said some time back that I would have some news in November? Riiighhhtt?? And if you've been with me on Face book during the summer, I kinda blabbed early, but I was so excited!  I'd like to announce now that one of my paper dolls, Toko has been featured in Art Doll Quarterly!!!  I'm still excitedly waiting for the issue to arrive in my mail slot, but I just couldn't wait to share!!

And here's the little lady:

And the gorgeous front cover this the winter issue:

I'm just so super happy to be part of this issue, with all the marvelous doll artists that are are always in there and to share a page with them is such and honour and treat that I could ever hope for!
So, in my uber excitement, I'm going to create some new paper dolls this weekend.  I have one here that is actually part of the book I'm working on:

Her name is Fable and I'll have a better photo shot of her up a little later on. She's fully articulated, her wrists, ankles, head, torso, knees, elbows and shoulders all move.  My first time making a larger paper doll.  I have another one waiting, for the past two months actually, to be inked and coloured, then put together.

My gosh, I still cannot go on about how happy I am.  I've spend the last four years really pushing at the direction I really want to go in.  Submitting things and submitting things and feeling like I've been getting no where. No even getting rejection letters....just a void of silence.  But with this, I strongly feel a change in that, I see a light at that dark tunnel's end.  Seeing that email in the summer, that joyful acceptance letter....someone saying "yes" and thinking that it fits in with their publication, has given me the courage and strength to keep fighting for longer now. You guys have given me that too! So thank you all and Art Doll Quarterly!  The future looks bright again!

Ooh! Before I go, I'll share a little sketch:

I originally posted this on Face book. This is "Juliet" from William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet". Just a simple pencil sketch while watching a movie.  I always liked Clare Danes outfit from the 1996 film version and I wanted to draw something like it.

Well, that's all for today. ^_^ Wishing you a wonderful, happy and creative week! Cheers my friends!

Little Red Ridinghood

Happy November 1st everyone!  How was your Halloween? Did any of you dress up or take your kids out?

I stayed in, my street is a little scary to actually go out after dark on that night. So I stayed in and watched the Charlie Brown Halloween special on TV and also watched Paranorman. There was a ton of fireworks going off right outside my apartment! Just happy nothing caught fire. *phew*

 

So, as for this young lady you see here, this was done close to the end of last month. I wanted to post her up yesterday, but just plain forgot. I'm still feeling a little blue. Anyway, it's my own little take on the Grimm's fairytale, Little Red Riding hood.

I wanted the whole drawing to sort of tell the story and I purposely made the lines of the house a little off to make it seem like there was something not quite right about it. I'm still not too happy

about how the wolves look....but, I'm going to spend some time practicing drawing animals. This took so long to draw! A little too long, about three weeks and 1/2...I think. *laughs* 

 I did this with a mechanical pencil and white ink.

 

So, I've also joined a few challenges this month.  I'll be doing PiBoIdMo this year, and already have about ten ideas so far! Yay! I also signed up for NaNoWriMo. (wow...lots of acronyms! *laughs*) After my head nearly exploded from plotting my first book, I think I'm ready to start writing out the first rough copy of it. Don't know if I'll get to all 50,000 words, but I do my best!

 

I finally  started up my Face book page ! I'm doing this all in the hopes to get myself and my work out there. I desperately want to do this for a living...I want so much to be able to do children's book and write them too! I want someone to at least see that I can do good illustrations and I want to share that with so many people that I admire and hope I can be part of their ranks one day. I'm not good at marketing, but again, all I can do is try my best and see what happens.  Hope this doesn't sound like I'm complaining,  never would, not that kind of person....I just want this more than ever to be a dream come true. Thank you my lovely friends, for always being my sunshine and I hope I show as much support for your work like you always do for me. Much Love to you all!

 

Wishing you all a lovely, and creative weekend ahead! Cheers you awesome people!

Captured Butterfly ATC

Wonderful evening to you everyone! Man, it's super foggy out tonight, the fog horn has been going off for quite sometime now.  At first I thought it was the movie I was watching, only to poke my head out and realized it wasn't. *laughs*

So, this has to be one of the smallest drawings I've done...ever!  It's on a 4" x 4" square card and I used a mechanical pencil and white ink.  I did this for a reader challenge call, "The Faces Of Mixed Media", over on Cloth Paper Scissors.  I have to get the original mailed off, but, if it doesn't make it in time I went and shared it on their reader forum today.  I had originally titled this, "No One Suspects The Butterfly"....buuuttt...I wanted something that sounded a bit more ethereal.

This one was done close to the beginning of this month and took about a week from start to finish.  I can't believe I forgot all about it sitting in my closet until I was tidying up and it fell to my feet. *laughs*

For a little size comparison:

Thank you all for the wonderful comments you guys always give me....I love reading them and they always make me smile. I've been feeling a little more up beat this week and I can't wait to feel like myself again.

So that's it for tonight....I wish you all a lovely creative and happy week! Cheers!

From My Messy Desk: Part Two: More Sketches On the Drafting Table

Hello you wonderful people! How are you this week? Halloween is coming ever closer, which leads to the best thing about this scary day....horror movies and chocolate! I'm partial to "The Shinning", but if you want cute scary I'd suggest "Paranorman", which is insanely cute and has one of the best heartfelt endings ever.

Which leads me to this drawing you see up there. This month's auction over on Femme Thou Art Collective is "Grimm's Fairy tales" and Halloween just a few weeks away made me think of Little Red Riding hood.  Which is a nice combination of sweetness and darkness.  I like the original French Folk Tale, which in that case the wolf is really a werewolf and there is no wood cutter in that story, but for this illustration, I wanted to put in Grimm's version as well.  I made it really detailed, so I hope I can finish in time.  The auction starts on the 21st of this month.  Doing this made me realize that I really have to improve my skills on drawing animals.  I found trying to draw the two wolves really difficult, to make them look right. So it's to the library! Tally-ho!

Here's the other sketch I'm also working on getting finished:

I call this "Tangled", as I was going for the idea of a summer nymph caught up in her own growing spell.  Weird thing about this one was it was already there is my head, and it just wouldn't let me get anything else done until I sketched her out.  It was the strongest impulse I had, and I haven't felt such a pull like that in a year. Which is awesome.  I think I might make thins into some fancy writing paper when it's done.

I wish I had more to show you guys, but I've been in a bit of a depression for the last two weeks due to some situations and I haven't been motivated to do much of anything else, other than just sketch.  I won't go into it, cause I'm not out to make anyone as depressed as I am. *laughs*

So my dear friends...

I wish you a very happy week ahead and the coming weekend. Love you all! Cheers!

The Little Prince

Afternoon all you little wonders out there! The sun is shinning, it's a beautiful day and the crisp fall air is deeply tangible now....ahhh..and, I'm getting very excited for November to roll around. I'm sitting here all giggles and smiles, but I can't tell you yet what it is. But I cannot wait! I feel like an impatient child with a brand new dress, but not allowed to wear it just yet.

So, leaving you with that cryptic message, let me introduce you to another lead character  for my middle grade novel.  Of which I'm just starting to plot out...it feels kind of daunting and scary to plot, but I've got a number of books out to help that path along smoothly.  It'll be awesome to see where it leads to.  Then, I'll move on to the actual writing part....which will be very messy and I'll have to learn to not edit as I go along.

Anyway, this young man right here is Nemo. (Again, I'm going to be mean and not mention his last name...because I love doing word play that incorporates the story) The male lead and is Sandy's closest companion in her strange new world.  He's not actually a prince, he kinda looks like one though in his white and gold finery.  He is twelve years old and has been in this other world for so long that he no longer remembers what his last name is, how he got where he is and only partly remembers where he's from.  (Shh, just between you and me....he's from Cornwall, England. *winks*)  He loves battle games, sweets and stories.  He enjoys being a bit of a joker and playing pranks on certain people that scare easily.  He's headstrong and very independent after needing to fend for himself for such a long time.  But also he's kind and gets great pleasure of helping those in need.  He becomes very protective of Sandy and will stop short of dangerous heroic acts to aide or save her from harm.

All that black hair of his came out slightly more Emo than I thought, *laughs*, so I hope that aspect will somehow work out in his favor, a young man that's already unusually stylish.

I used watercolours pencils from Faber Castel used dry as they give a wonderful air brushed look along with a colourless blender to smooth things over. In all took about three weeks to finish.

Currently I'm working on a drawing for a friend.  He runs a comic called "Reynard City", which is so cute and zany to read.  I'm making for him a decorative writing paper drawing:

 

Colouring is about halfway through. Yay!

 

That's all for this week my friends, I'll leave you now with some words that I hope will inspire you all to go for your dreams!  I saw this in a car ad, I believe and it got me so charged up, I cut it out and stuck it in my inspiration journal.

Wishing you all a very happy and wonderful week! Cheers!

The Dreaming Elf

Good evening!  I hope you all had a splendid week and are enjoying a good weekend.  It's been a busy few weeks for me.  There's been a lot of planning and preparing for Rosh Hashana this past week and now upcoming is  Yom Kippur. I wish you all a very happy L'Shana Tova this new year!

Phew, man, I didn't think I would ever finish this drawing...it has taken me at least three weeks to finish. I've been so obsessed with my current book project, that I have to remind myself to also juggle the other illustrations I have started on the side as well.  She's done with mechanical pencil and white ink.  I wanted the chance to brush up on my pencil and shading skills with this piece and it reminded me how much I love to work in black and white...and...with pencils too!  I found the pose in an old hair magazine and I knew I wanted to incorporate it in a drawing somehow as it was such an elegant and dreamy pose.

I wanted to have a background that sort of reflected what she was dreaming about.  Some far away land that maybe she had not seen in a long time, and missed.  The bird represents my own dreams where I'm flying and the egg meaning to represent unhatched ideas. (At least that's the best way I can describe it.)  An elf who has horns?! Well, I just can't help it, I love to draw horns on about everything...and you never know, maybe some elves do have horns. Right? *laughs*

Anyway, I've been taking daily walks down to the pier park in downtown New Westminster for a little inspiration and quite time to just sit and think by the water.

Ha ha..well, I'm not the best photographer ever, but I think I need something better than just my phone one day. I love going down by the water, nothing is more relaxing than watching the water lapping against the rocks. I'd love to make it out to Stanley Park one of these days.  I haven't been there in a very long time.

Wishing you all a very wonderful week ahead! Cheers!

The White Lady: Drawing Up For Auction

Good Sunday afternoon to you all!  Hope you are all doing well and have had a good week that's now past and headed into a new one.  The cooler weather here in New Westminster has been a very grateful relief after a nearly two month long heat wave and endless sun.  I love the sun, but I also love cool, cloudy days like now too.  Where I can curl up with something warm and watch the day slip by.

So! This lady up here will be up for auction tomorrow evening and all next week until next Monday at Femme Thou Art Collective on Face book.  This month's theme was "White Lady".  The thought I immediately had for this theme was a white elf of the night who can swoop in the moon with one twirl of her mantle.  I wanted the beads on her head-dress to mimic the stars.  The jewel on her forehead is inspired by Ozma from the Wizard of Oz books, she wears the same piece of jewelry on her head as well that very stylishly spells out "Oz".  (I have a lovely old copy of "Rinkytink In Oz")I loved it so much that I wanted to put it on this lady as if she too could have come from the Emerald City royalty.  The ram's horns just sort of snuck themselves in there...so maybe she's half ram as well. *laughs* 

I did the background digitally...in part to save some time and also in part that I thought something digital would look very cool.  This was originally supposed to be a black and white ink drawing, but I had a thought that just a single pair of red eyes would had something interesting to the black and white inks....as you can see....I totally gave way to colouring entirely!  I just could not help myself...so maybe she wanted to be in colour after all. *laughs*  This has taken nearly two weeks from start to finish.


I was going to share some photo's of a little trip I took to the Pier Park in downtown New West....but for some reason blogger will only let me up load this one drawing, so, I'll try and share those pictures with you loves next time.

Until then, wishing you all a wonderful week ahead! Cheers!

The Little Birthday Girl

Hello all and happy Friday!!!  Wow, it's August already...which means the changing of leaves into those beautiful fall colours and feeling summer cool away.  I can't believe how the year is now at halfway point...it's all going by so quickly.

Anyway, remember awhile ago I was talking about working on a middle grade novel? Well, I still am.  I've been drowning in research for it for almost eight months now and it's still growing.  I'm still developing the plot and subplots, characters, backgrounds, settings and mythical creatures for the book.  I still want to do a blog about it, which I thought I would have up this past April, but as it turns out...I wasn't ready for that just yet.  I want to make sure I know the In's and outs of my story fully before posting about it.

For now, I bring you my lead character: Sandy.  She's just turned ten years old and is a sweet, rambunctious and imaginative young lass.  She's from the town of Bagshot in England, and lives during the Edwardian Period. (If you're thinking that the town of Bagshot sounds familiar....you're right!  It's my tiny salute to J.K Rowling and the Harry Potter books, which pushed me forward to try writing again.)  She loves, sweets, bedtime stories of fairy tales and myths and will spend innumerable hours making up her own fairy lands, imagining all the adventures she'll have there.

I really wanted to get the feel of old style illustrations from that time, so I did a fair amount of research on children's books of the 1900's and found that most young girls were always coloured with very pale to pastel colours, while the backgrounds would be deep and rich.  Oddly enough, that would make the central figure stand out.   I remember as a kid myself, that I would love to read books with illustrations that were insanely detailed and would stare at them for hours trying to 'see' everything hidden in the picture.  So I intend the same this for my book, which I hope will go over, at least, moderately well.

I'll keep you guys posted on the other characters as they become finished.  Wishing you a lovely and creative weekend. Cheers and love to you all!

Two Little Mucha Babies: Splash the Sea maid and Little Su the Cook

Hello luvies! Happy Monday, I hope yours went like magic.  The last two weeks here have been crazy hectic.  Got my apartment painted and some things fixed up by the manager and building owner. So there's been lots of people coming and going.  Haven't got much done in that whole while, outside of a new paper doll and lots of sketches and some drawings that are currently on the colouring table.  Including one for Summer Of Colour run by the lovely and talented Kristin of the wonderful Twinkle, Twinkle blog. (Which I highly recommend you go check out for some delightful and inspiring art awesomeness!) Which sadly I missed because I just can't seem to draw fast enough. *laughs*

So today I bring you two little paper dolls.  I'll start with Splash, the little sea maid.  She was created for Cameron of Paint Myself Pretty during her Mermaid swap last year. I'm still so in love with the piece she sent me.  I thought I had already had this little girl up on my blog, but when I did a search, I couldn't find it.  And I'm much happier now, knowing that I've corrected it. Ha ha, yeah!  Since I've been busy with my book project lately, and had no time to create something new, I was also going to submit this to the July Auction for Femme Thou Art Collective .  I missed that too darn it! My laptop hasn't been feeling well lately, so I couldn't get it posted in time.  But I have next month to make up for it.  Splash is the largest out of my dolls, probably due to her very large tail.  Her tail is sort of based on the movements of a washcloth underwater.  You know the kind you used to play with as a kid at bath time.  And she holds a small trident, ready to jab in the bottom anyone out of line. *laughs*  The background is one that I had on my USB file and can't remember where I got it from...but it suited this little maid very well.

Second little doll I have for you is Su:

Su is from the children's manga, "Shugo Chara Chan!" (English Translation: Guardian Character Chan!) There are four of these super cute characters in the book.  I chose Su because she has to be the most girl-y and sweetest one out of all of them, and well, she also happens to be green, which is one of my favourite colours.  She loves to cook, eat and clean...but I think eating comes out on top for her.  And boy, is she ever the master little chief!  She can cook anything, a skill I can only dream of.  Now, unlike Splash or any other of the little dolls, she's my smallest.  I couldn't make her as tiny as she is in the books, about 10 inches, I think, but I could bring her about as close as.  Even with that she'd still be larger than the manga character. *laughs*

I made a little wire whisk and a green bowl, to match the egg she hatched from (yes these little girls are hatched from very tiny eggs in the story), full of whipped cream.  For the background I used an opening title page from "Curly Locks" from one of my children's rhyme books.  The saying at the bottom really goes well with Su's personality and describes her to a tee.

Well, that's all for this week my dear bloggie friends.  Thank you always for coming by to visit.  Wishing you all a wonderful, creative and delicious week. Strawberry Cheers!

Life From Decay

Hello there, Happy Monday! Like promised here is the drawing I did for the auction over at Femme Thou Art June auction on facebook . The auction ends today at 7 PM.  We're already deciding on next month July auction...can't wait to see what it will be!

Oh man, this took me three weeks and four days from start to finish.  I'm a slow artist, so something this detailed takes me a super long time.  I put everything else I was working on aside to get this finished.  Next auction I'm doing only a very small, Art Trading Card size work, which will take me far less time than this one did.

I used a mix of my trusty watercolour pencils, which I always use dry on Deleter paper, because it gives this wonderful airbrushed look. I also used some gold pens to finish off her beads and then pulled the finished work onto CorelDRAW and added in the butterflies, moths, assorted flowers, rocks and ferns. The final file was huge!  I'm glad I saved along the way as my laptop kept crashing on me due to its hatred of my art programs. *laughs*

I am not sure if I handled the theme right, but, my original thought for this was a beautiful spring fairy emerging from the decay left behind by the melting of winter snows. A fairy that brings life to all she touches.

So, can anyone spot the squirrel hidden in the trees? Or the bunnies...oh, well they're pretty easy to spot. *laughs*

That's all for now my lovies.  Wishing you all a creative, brilliant week! Cheers!

I Will Wait For You: Coffee Sketch

Good Wednesday to you all!  Hope you are having a good week.  So far so good in keeping myself to stick to a proper schedule of blogging at least once a week, woo to the hoo! I've been so busy in getting the drawing done for the upcoming June Auction over on the Femme Thou Art Collective Face book page, that I've quite left behind my other projects for the moment.  I've never been apart of an auction before, so I'm equal parts nervous and excited.  I have until this Sunday to have it done and up, and I'll be posting it here with a little link as well.

Anyway, I feel a little sad that I've just left the last end of the short story unfinished in the editing stage, and, still have put it up for you wonderful people to read just yet.  Once the auction is over for this month, I'll get right back to it.  The poor prince has just been left to sit quietly on the sea, I am a cruel writer.

As a thanks to you all, my bloggie buds, I took some time out to quickly paint a "Thank You" picture....as, well, a thank you for waiting and always sending me honest and cheerful comments.  I truly admire all of you....you are the butter to my bread. So thank you!

I know it's not much, but, I had some extra coffee grounds laying about in the cupboard.  They were too small to even make up a small cup, so, I brewed it and set about painting with it.  This is my second venture into painting with coffee...it always smells super nice for a few days when it's done.  I added some dark brown to the coffee to help darken some areas and taking a separate tiny paint brush, started brushing in white for highlights.  The coffee removed some of the ink I had laid down earlier, so, I had to add those back in after this was totally dry. I also used heavy Arches Paper to avoid too much paper wrinkling. Later, I dragged this onto CorelDRAW to clean this up a bit more and to smooth out some stray lines.  I would love to turn this into a journal notebook cover, but I have no idea how to do that. *laughs* Something new to learn! To the Library!

Psst....I hope you enjoy the new banner.  Felt like a change was needed.

Wishing you all a creative weekend ahead. Cheers!

A Birthday Gift Basket and a WIP drawing

Woo hoo it's June! I can't wait for the days to turn warmer and hit the beach with my sketchbook again.  I think what I like best about summer is its long days of sunlight, where at almost 10 pm the sun is still just setting. Ahhhh, I'm so excited for summer in all its green beauty.

Anyway, as I work on the final edits to the short story, I'd thought I would share what I did for my mum on her 66th birthday on May 20.  I wanted to do something really nice for her this year, as last was rather tight and I couldn't afford to give her anything in way of a present.  This year has been better, so, I took about a week to decide what to do for her, and came up with the idea for a gift basket after seeing some pretty ones in the store.  I made her write up a list for me of some small things she might like and went out for a day of shopping.

Here's what I came back with:

Far Left to Right:

A Journal from Papaya at the local book store, a gorgeous sea grass basket that I just could not pass up for making this, as you can see Reese's Pieces, Marzipan chocolates, socks( yes, socks....she liked them that much), Darjeeling black tea, a very pretty ankle bracelet that she uses as a wrist bracelet, Indian Chai scented candles, Lilly of The Valley Soap from Crab tree and Evelyn, a little treasure trunk, a awesome square class mug and a little blue bird candle in a sweet cage.  As well as some fancy paper, ribbons and yellow and pink roses to decorate the basket with.

I started off with wiring the roses into the basket:

Please forgive the mess in the background, I was later going to put up some bamboo blinds to cut out some of the hot sun my apartment gets. *laughs*  I wish I had picked up more roses, it would have looked nice to have had the entire rim covered in them.

I then wove through some white crepe paper and also wound it around the handles, then added the first layers of tissue paper.  I forgot to pick up the floral foam, so I added paper to the bottom of the basket to lift up the gifts inside.:

I placed the little marzipan chocolates inside the treasure box....which wasn't that hard and I found that since they weren't going to be travelling very far, I didn't tape them down:

I later took out the jewelry and draped it over the chocolates, to make it look like actual treasure.

I forgot to take pictures as I was going along trying to pack the basket.....which I did several times over!  Getting everything to fit nicely was harder than I thought.  But, after the fifth attempt at it, I finally got it right and it came out like this before I wrapped it up with some fancy cellophane:

Finally I added the cellophane and the fancy ribbons:

I attached the card I bought for her. I should have made one, but I didn't think of that until I had, like, no time to make her one. But, I thought this was much prettier:

I also took some time to make her a bouquet of Anemone, pink tea roses, hydrangea and ivy, with a tiny bit of bear grass:

All together, she was so very happy when she got her gifts:

Happy Birthday Mum! Here's to a great year and more to come!

We later had some very yummy chocolate cheesecake, white wine, rice pudding, went for some coffee and watched some movies in the evening.  Quite a good birthday for her, the closer she gets to 70 the more grateful each year that I become that she is still here with me.

For right now, I'll leave you wonderful people with the next drawing I'm currently rushing to finish, as it will be up for auction at a group I'm now apart of called Femme Thou Art Collective .  It's been a pleasure getting to know these other wonderful artists.  The auction in June is called "Life springing from Decay".  Here's a WIP of what I came up with, I'm still inking it:

I'm doing another gift basket for a friend who also had a birthday last week...it's so much fun to create these baskets.  Wishing you all a wonderful, creative week ahead! Cheers!