Doodles and what to do with them.

This is a page out of a sketch pad that sits in my back pack in the car. I tore it out and folded it in half to make a quick little card to go with a gift.

Drawing these crossing leaves/fronds is a beautifully mindless relaxing doodle to create. It might be obvious how this develops, but in case it isn’t – here it is, step-by-step.

I start with a line – not much thought goes into it

adding more lines whilst thinking of branches

and then joining them together – as you can see I don’t feel the need to be exact – little mistakes don’t matter

The bit I like most is drawing these wiggly fronds to go under ones already drawn.

I can drift off into a reverie whilst drawing these, so absorbing.

And then the colouring in …

and adding a few spirals and dotty flowers to the background, ready to tear out and

make another little card.

Not great art, but very enjoyable to do in odd moments.

Scrap Happy

Joining Kate at Talesfromchiconia for her Scrap Happy gathering on the 15th of every month.

A friend’s birthday was approaching and I knew she would appreciate the recyle/reuse ethos behind this meme, so I went to my vast collection of bits of crochet I have made as experiments with either pattern or colour.

I have a similar collection of art experiments with acrylic paint on paper, so I chose one of these for the basis of the card

Folding the card into 3, I tried out a couple of ideas

I decided to use the flower which is the centre of the Amanzi block, I lined up all the ends and marked the positions of the holes I wanted to make in the card

sitting it atop a ball of yarn to pierce the needle through

Then I sewed the threads through and tied them at the back

Ta dah!

The present was some handmade soap I had bought in St Davids, Pembrokeshire, from the force of nature that is Julia Horton-Mansfield who owns the Really Wild Soap Company.

I first met Julia on one of her guided wild food foraging walks

The soaps and card were wrapped up in a page from an old magazine

Pop along over to Kate’s to find others who can inspire you to usefully use up bits and pieces of this and that.

Happy Scrapping

Mandala Magic

I am taking part in my first online class.

Dipping my toe in, I have started with Alisa Burke’s mini-tutorial entitled Mandala Magic.

It’s fun, and concentrating on one simple form suits my need to dip in and out according to the weather and other stuff going on right now.

Alisa has a very distinct style and at first I thought my mandalas would turn out looking like hers, but no – not at all – I immediately went off in my own style adding colour from the start. The course provides some wonderful prompts and is hugely inspiring. I’ve started in a small ring bound 6″ square sketch book, so that I can carry it around easily and doodle in odd moments.

I had Miss E and Little Bro here this week. We were mainly in the garden, but needing to dodge the showers we retreated to Pippin (my little caravan in the garden) and did some mandala drawing together.

Here is Miss E’s so far

And Little Bro’s

 

 

 

and because Miss E enjoyed drawing a mandala so much and has a birthday coming up soon I have made her a card that she can continue to embellish herselfAnother experiment for the Etsy shop me thinks – maybe others would enjoy colouring this pattern as well, you never know!