Central Download: birds

Showing posts with label birds. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Birds series

Bird 1 Toucan 2011

Leather

Bird 2 Mallard duck 2011

Leather

Bird 3 Swan 2011

Leather

Available link for download

August was Coreys month in the Ringo Pie patchwork bee,
and her theme was "Quilts on a line." I must admit that
I struggled for a while. It is such a great theme, but
I have never hung my quilt on a line once before, so it was
a bit hard for me to be inspired by the theme. Totally my bad!
So instead of hanging quilts from a line tied to trees, I
decided to let birdies hold a quilt. Corey makes such
lovely things with bird appliques/embroidery, so I figuredshe wouldnt mind welcoming a few more birds to her house ;)
(have you seen this pillow she made? Unbelievably adorable!)

bird8

Making these houses was the funnest part!!
Each block is paper-pieced and is so teeny tiny (a 1 5/8" square).
It was so much fun going through my stash to look for
fabrics with teeny prints, and of course I squealed
when I found the cute penguin of the perfect size!

Teeny Houses

So these houses are supposed to be birdhouses.
Those birdies are getting sick of their worn-out
birdhouses, so they are presenting a catalog of new, pretty
birdhouses for Corey in case she would consider
building new ones for them :)

bird3

Hmmm...

Corey may come to a conclusion that the blue bird
doesnt need a new birdhouse, because hes got an
antique sewing machine in his current birdhouse!
No new birdhouse can be better than that, right!!

Thank you for stopping by! I will be back in a few
days with more birds-related projects :D

P.S. I have listed some more Japanese fabrics in my shop!
As usual, let me know when you come from this blog -
I will include extra fabric for you!

Have a lovely day~!

Available link for download

Birds Trees Nursery Mural

hi! I hope everyone had a nice weekend. I did!

Last week, I felt like I completed two weeks worth of work into one. It was super-busy. I worked at three different clients houses, and also at the studio one day on some artwork.

One of the houses I painted at was this kids room (currently a nursery but converting to "big girl room" status soon ;)).

We did pretty trees with birds in them. My client had a really beautiful, sophisticated house, and she didnt want the trees to look too child-like or whimsical. She wanted it to be an elegant mural.

We took inspiration from Heathers mural I did a few months ago:

photo eb2d5dc2-7e03-4e3d-9dd0-18fbcc8638bd_zpse6c10969.png

It was getting dark in the room by the time I was leaving, so my photos are kind of hard to see. This mural was also supposed to be a lighter and airier, and less contrast than Heathers... so that also doesnt help with pictures!

I did the birds in a really soft gray-lavender, and the tree trunks are a grayish brown. I did highlights in silver (instead of gold like Heathers) to match the soft, cool palette.

I did one tree in between the windows - your vantage point when you first walk into the room.

Available link for download

Birds of a feather

Hi there.

Owl are you today?

Way toot much going on here,
so I’ve escaped to my little den above the garage!

Wednesday is when we look at life from a different angle,
clear the mind, focus on the now.
So let’s do that and learn something together at the same time!

Remember a while ago, we looked at the Magnificent Owl in our Colouring Book, and focussed on colouring in his eyes?

Well, let’s concentrate on his feathers today...

How to create feathers.

I think that using the super fine lineart as a guide line - a shape line rather than confined lineart, is the way forward.

If you look at the head here, you will see that I have flicked lightly along the top line and outside the line using a pencil.

While we’re here, let’s do the beak next. Don’t forget the nostrils!

Move down to the collar, use the lines which Melanie drew originally as shadelines.
Flick flick flick, and lightly does it.

Step back and check

Moving down, it’s time for the chest feathers....

Grey pencils. Light feathery strokes, almost like tassles

Use a Faber-Castell eraser to fade out the tassles in the collar.

Time to try something different:

POINTILLISM

aka dot dot dot.

Lightly tap the tip of the pencil into the area.

Want shade? Use more dots and a darker pencil.

Next, start flicking a grey pencil down the chest lineart.

Lightly does it, to the left and then to the right.

Light grey first.

followed by a darker grey.

Flick flick flick. Light feathery strokes.

Now let’s add some dots again.

Light taps with the tip of the dark grey pencil.

Then the black tip to add shade and depth.

Using the dot dot dot technique,
we can now introduce wing feathers...

I want to join up the white speckles on his chest now.

Again, by dot dot dotting along from one to the other,

this creates a feathery pattern on his chest.

I could go on for hours here.

I am totally engrossed in the colouring in process.

However, my neck won’t permit it, so I shall have to stop a while.

Happy thus far though.

I only used greys, black and sandy coloured pencils.

When you look at his two mates either side,

it is interesting how such stylised lineart can give me such a brilliant guideline for my real owl.

Delighted to tell you our Feathered Friends Colouring books

are selling well now.

I guess people are beginning to see how special they really are!

We even got nominated for the International Award

Best Colouring Book, although without a massive distribution engine to put us in WH Smiths and the like, I don’t rate our chances on that score! However, to be even in the ball park is super flattering.

One more thing I wanted to tell you about:
The made-to measure Mount-Frames have landed.
Remember we showed them off on telly when we launched the books and postcards etc?

Well, both the A5 size for the Postcards

AND the 12" x 12" Colouring Book Masterpiece

are now available on our website.

They come in packs of four, and include a top spec back board too.
And they are in a launch pad bundle together at a better price: