My Creative Space: Pinked

 I treated myself to a pair of pinking shears the other day and I've been having fun using them on fabric brooches.  I screenprinted some huia birds, sewed them to an old blanket strengthened with interfacing, pinked the edges and sandwiched some ribbon in between.  They've turned out quite military, I wonder what they could be medals for...

 I've also made some without ribbons - some round, some oval.  With their pinked edges they remind me of Shrewsbury biscuits!

Joining in with "My Creative Space" today over here.

Happy Thursday!

Birds of a feather

I drew these huia birds the other day as a birthday present for my dad.  The huia has always intrigued me...and sometimes I wish I had a huia tattoo.  I wonder what they were like before they became extinct?

Pink birdy

Playing round in Photoshop - this is actually going to have a blue background and red lettering, but I'm having a play with some other combinations...

My creative space: birds of a feather

I finally finshed the drawing I've been working on at lunchtimes:

And today, on my day off, I coloured it in Photoshop:

 I'm going to get it printed A4 sized like these ones.
Then I went up the road and had a coffee and started the next one in the series:

How about you, what have you been working on?

 Happy Thursday to you!

Joining up today with "My Creative Space" over here.

My creative space: Cardinal

Today in my creative space I've been working on this drawing:

       

 And giving it a makover in Photoshop.  

I was going to treat myself to a coffee this afternoon but I decided to spend my coffee money on a couple of tea towels from the op shop instead.  The colours of this one kind of match my drawing:

I think the tea towels are destined to become pouches.

I've also been enjoying my uncharacteristically tidy desk.  Don't worry, the rest of the house is still a tip! 

Here it is while I was in the middle of redrawing this picture.  I'm hoping to get it, and the cardinal I've been drawing, printed soon.  

Oh and I'm going to be stallholdin' at Kraftbomb's 4th birthday this Sunday!  It's 11-2 at the Grey Lynn Community Centre on Richmond Road.  I'd better rustle up a few more pouches for my stall before then!

Joining in with "My Creative Space" over here.  

Happy Thursday!

My creative space: a bird's eye view

For my creative space today I've got a drawing that I did in good old black biro, then played around with in Photoshop.  It's an idea that I've got for a new zine...which I want to call "Birds Saying Bird Sayings."

 Here's the original before I coloured it in Photoshop

 

Speaking of birds, kind of, I just finished this great book Show Me a Story.  It's a whole lot of interviews with famous picture book illustrators, including the great Mo Willems of Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus fame. I highly recommend it. 

How about you, what have you been making? Read any good books lately?

Joining in here with "My Creative Space" today.

Happy Thursday!

My creative space: a bird in the hand

 This week I've been making a tiny bird painting, small enough to fit in the palm of my hand:

 It's a kind of prototype - one day I want to make a giant painting like this.  The background is acrylic on a tiny canvas that a friend gave me and the bird is ink and gouache on a piece of brown parcel wrap.  I glued it on and varnished over the top to keep the bird secure. 

And I've been tracing the pattern for this dress:

 from this book:

It's called the "too cute tunic dress."  Sounds promising! 

To see more creative spaces take a look at the "our creative spaces" blog. 

Happy Thursday!

My creative space

I stole a moment in a busy day today to paint myself a little bird on a post-it note. Sometimes you've got to use the materials you have to hand!

Now my drab old calendar looks a bit more cheery!

What have you been making? To see more creative spaces take a look over here, at the "our creative spaces" blog.

Happy Thursday!

My creative space

In my creative space today I've got some finished bird ladies, all ready to be sent off to the printers and made into greeting cards. They're the ones I was working on here and here. There was another one, looking all pirate-like with a parrot on her shoulder, but I decided that she looked too belligerent to be on a greeting card. I couldn't decide what kind of occasion she'd be appropriate for!

Right now I've got the proofs from the printers sitting beside me, exciting!

To see more creative spaces, take a look over here, at the "our creative spaces" blog.

Happy Thursday!

My creative space

Another week, another bird woman, with a crow this time. I'm working on a few of these at the moment and I'm going to make them into cards, collaged with old fabric. I was really excited to find this fabric on an old mattress in the inorganic rubbish collection over the weekend, and ended up with *ahem* 74 photos of it. And a little strip of the fabric. Just in case!
To see other people's creative spaces take a look over here.

Happy Thursday to you!

My creative space

...this week is all about showing off the stamp I designed for Mr. Millicent Crow for his birthday. It's for giving people stamps at the door when he plays, and for sundry other stationery uses. To make it, I drew this bird:
added some text, shrunk it down and gave it to my favourite stampmakers and got them to work their magic.

And if you're at Meow in Wellington this weekend you might just get stamped with it!

To see other people's creative spaces pop on over here!

Sweet sweets

Mr Millicent Crow and I made coconut ice, Russian fudge and peppermint chocolate crackle for Xmas presents this year, and I drew this wee bird to make into a label for them.

Here they are all labelled

I had forgotten that making sweets is a bit tricky, with soft ball stages and crackly stick stages and all that...but we ended up with enough successful batches.

Now to keep myself from eating all the chocolate crumbs...

Doily bird

A little sketch I did last night. Thanks for your lovely doilies Agnes Curran.