Current Art Stuff (A Sort Of WIP Wednesday)

I debated not even having a WIP Wednesday, but then I decided even though I don’t have a ton of actual art to share, there are a few things I’d like to talk about! So really, a few of these things are even in pre-WIP stage, where I’m still just working on concepts for projects.

One of my biggest goals this year is to find a direction for my art. I feel like while I love creating, I don’t really have a sense of DOING anything with my art. I like to draw portraits. I like to make paintings. But I feel like I’ve just been bouncing around from individual project to individual project with no real goals for my art. And I’d like to change that! I will still absolutely be making portraits, paintings, and probably lots in between. But I want to give myself a bit more focus for the year, with an actual intention for my art as opposed to my “let’s just draw something” mentality I’ve been rolling with up until now.

FOCUS #1:

Sketch more!! Seriously, I am awful at sketching. I bought a new sketchbook in mid-2014, and there are maybe ten pages filled in. Three of which are from this year. Oy. I really need to work on just sitting down to sketch, without a massive project in mind.

Two sketches from this year – fellow blogger Margot Meanie, and a quick cartoon-ish sketch of Mary Doodles while catching up on her YouTube vids!

FOCUS #2:

Drawing without a reference! This heavily ties in to my above focus of sketching more. Every time I sit down to sketch, self doubt always kicks in and screams I can’t possibly draw anything without a reference photo! I NEED to work on getting over that hump. Especially as I know, YES, I CAN draw without a direct reference. I actually have a super top secret idea I’m working on right now for a personal comic, and I can’t wait to get it going. You guys here will definitely be privy to the process – it’s really only super top secret from my family. And since they don’t read my blog, I can share it all here, muahahahaha! Anywho, you’ll be hearing lots more about it.

Other projects? I need to finish my Neil Gaiman portrait, as well as the painting for my hubs and I’ve got some plans to do a Victorian steampunk piece, just for funsies. I think I’d like it to eventually be a painting, but I’ll probably start out with a graphite drawing to get it all down first.

Hoping to get this finished tomorrow!

I’ve been ignoring this piece, as the entire bottom half of her body needs to be redone when I paint….not looking forward to that. But I need to suck it up, and get some more work done on it!

That’s what I’ve got on my art plate for now – what are you working on lately?

A Very Small WIP Wednesday

I am in massive super crunch time mode for art lately. There are EIGHT DAYS LEFT UNTIL CHRISTMAS. I have no idea how that happened. I started making presents in September. How is it that I’m still behind?!?!? In spite of that, I am actually feeling relatively okay about being able to complete the last two gifts I have left. Anywho, let’s dive in to the WIPs.

Finished the kitty plush! I used a Pusheen pic as a ref for the pattern I made, and finally got her all finished up yesterday. Keep an eye out – I’ll be posting a tutorial on how I make plushies this Friday, and this little kitty is my example!

The next time I decide to do an oil painting on a deadline, please kick me in the face. I am the slooooowest painter, and this is taking me so much more time than I planned for. But I am ALMOST. DONE. At this point, all I have left is adding in the bowstring, and then detailing out her midsection and bow. Then it’s just a couple detail revisions and a bit of reworking on the background and DONE. I’m hoping two more sessions will complete it. Which sounds great, except oils take a long time to to dry. I have serious doubts that this will be dry by Christmas so I think I’ll just be placing it ever so carefully in a box, giving to my brother and saying, “Hope you love it, but don’t touch it!” 😀

Below is a quick comparison of what it looked like last WIP Wednesday.

I fixed the proportions (aka no more giraffe neck and looking like she just got her wisdom teeth out) and also added more detail to things – gloves, dress, and so on. Definitely SO much happier with it now.

And that’s all I’ve got for this week! My next WIP Wednesday won’t be until 2015!! But hopefully by then I’ll have some new stuff to show you. I’ve got lots of art plans for the coming year!

Life In Photos #20

Edgar watching the living room antics from up on high. The bookshelf is definitely a favorite cat spot.

I had a brinner party for some friends this week and it was a good time. I love to make food for people! Lots of laughter, as seen by my hubs about-to-burst-out-laughing face. 😀

She was watching a new episode of My Little Pony, and there was a ‘scary bad guy’. She’d pull the blanket over her head when it was too frightening – so cute!

My grandmother gave me this blanket which was handmade by one of my great great aunts. Eli loves it. He goes out of his way to sit on it and if you’re using it, he will find a corner just to rest on. Blanket love.

Completely forgot to do an Instagram roundup last week, oooooops.

Going clockwise. . .

1. Finished the bookmark for my hubs! He loves it. 😀
2. I’ve been posting lots of bookish photos on Instagram as I’m taking part in a Book Photo Challenge for August.
3.We had a big game weekend at my BFF’s house and it was a blast. This is a shot from Lords of Waterdeep – one of our faves.
4. I’ve been back into making omelets for the little and the hubs in the morning (not a huge egg fan myself).

Planting, Pots, and Painting

Spring has finally arrived here in NH. 90% of the snow is gone, the temps have hit 50+, and it is so gorgeous! I can’t wait for everything to start greening up.

We’ve been going on a bit of planting spree to get our seedlings started (we grow all our veggies direct from seed) and get some flowers and herbs going in pots. I wanted to do some more things indoors this year, so we decided to do a few new attempts.

First we snagged some plain terra cotta pots for my little to have. Of course, they had to be decorated. She was thrilled to be able to use ‘grown up’ paint and pick out her own colors.

One painted, we planted radishes in the bigger pot, and marigolds in the small pot, which will eventually be transferred to the garden. Marigolds are pretty much the perfect garden plant – they attract bees to pollinate, but deter harmful bugs and pests. We’ve got more pots of them growing for transplants too!

Then we took some mason jars (we used tall quart size, but any big size would work) and planted some basil, lavender, and cat grass! The cat grass is more an experiment to see if our cats would actually eat it. It has grown incredibly quickly, and our kitties love it! We are now planting more in a large planter outside so when we take our big kitty on outdoor excursions he can munch away.

First basil sprouts!

Lots of lavender coming – gonna need a trim!

In regular seed starters we’ve got our tomato and broccoli seedlings going. The little went just a tad overboard on the seeding, and this batch is clearly going to need some thinning!

Our first broccoli sprouts just popped up yesterday. We are going to be building our first raised bed in the coming weeks – I’m so excited! Posts on that adventure for sure, and definitely more plant updates!

If you have a garden, what do you grow? I’m looking into adding a container raspberry bush and planting strawberries – any advice?

-Kayly

Life In Photos #8

What’s that up top? My new spring header! I know spring started two weeks ago on the calendar, but around here it’s just starting to feel like spring now. The snow is mostly gone, the temps are in the forties and up range steadily, so I figured it was a good time to make the switch. I just LOVE it when the lilacs start blooming around here. We have a couple lilac trees in the backyard and my kitchen table always has a vase of blooms! So fragrant, and such a lovely shade of lavender.

Anywho, despite my lack of blog preparation this week, I did take some time on my kiddo-free day yesterday to throw together a fun new layout in PS for my Life In Photos series. I like this better as it I can post bigger pictures, yay! So without further mumbo jumbo. . .

Om nom nom! One of my favorite spring/summer desserts. Dip, eat, repeat.

My little was so excited to paint her own new pots. There’ll be a bigger post about our planting day soon!

Preschool homeschool has been going well. Last week was animal week, and here she is assembling her ‘Z for Zebra’ craft. We learned things about zebras while putting it together – she loved it!

Planting her flowers and radishes in her newly painted pots.

Edgar is very protective of the tomato plants. . .or he just likes lounging in the sun!

I’ve been plowing away with art as well – more portraits done for the Blogger Portrait series mainly. I’m so ready to do some new fan art though. Since Captain America: Winter Soldier entirely blew my mind with awesomeness this past weekend, I think some of that may be in order!

– Kayly

Christmas Wrap-up & Handmade Gifts

Did you know there is a difference between handmade and homemade? I learned a couple years back that handmade refers to items or things while homemade refers specifically to foods. Fun fact of the day!

I hope everyone’s holiday was excellent – ours was as usual. Busy, but wonderful. I love to have a couple days completely filled with family, friends, and food!

Every year, I always try and make presents for people. I grew up hand making presents for people as long as I can remember. My mum and grandparents still have paper ornaments I made when I was three. I still remember making cinnamon dough ornaments with my mum to give as gifts. It’s something that has always been extremely important to me, and therefore it’s something I want to pass along to my daughter. Since she was a year old she has been making presents for people and I hope she grows up enjoying it!

For her gifts this year, we did a combination of photo gifts, and ornaments. My family loves photos, so these are always a winner.

These were incredibly simple to make. We sat down with watercolors and salt to make the backgrounds. Then she looked through photos of her and Daddy and picked her favorite, and of her and Mimi and picked her favorite. For Mimi’s gift I did a little ‘interview’ with her about her Mimi (what Mimi likes to do, her favorite thing to do at Mimi’s house, etc) and wrote it up under the photo. Then I snagged two shadowbox frames from Target, assembled them together, and voila! Perfect gifts from a toddler.

For the ornaments I made a cinnamon dough, and we rolled and cut out shapes together with cookie cutters. Then I used got out some ABC stamps and she helped me stamp the letters on. Once they were all dry (a few days later), she painted them (I did the letter outline in white of course). The little ones were strung up as garland for our living room, and the big ones will be gifts. As you can see, I didn’t turn the snowman quite enough as he was drying so he got a bit curled. Adds character right? Right.

As for my handmade gifts, I did some drawings and paintings for friends.

  

And also some Doctor Who bookmarks! I definitely made one for myself as well – who wouldn’t crack up seeing that face sticking out of your book?! On the backs of each bookmark are the words ‘Property of (insert recipients name) written out in Gallifreyan (aka the Doctor’s language for those non-Whovians out there). I found this awesome Gallifreyan translator on DeviantArt; it’s pretty fabulous.

And being somewhat of a crazy cat lady, I made a couple new toys for our two kitties. Again, very simple. I cut out two pieces of felt and sewed a button and a bit of detailing on, then stitched around the edge, stuffed ’em full of catnip and sewed the rest shut! Pardon the wobbly stitching – I don’t hand stitch things often. One of my kitties could care less about them, but our other one is OBSESSED with them! He wrestles, chews, throws, and generally tries to destroy them to get at the catnip. It’s hilarious.

I WANTS IT!!!

As for my homemade gifts (aka yummy treats) tune in for my Holiday December Baking post on Monday!

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Daughter’s Big Girl Room Reveal!

Ages ago I posted about redoing some rooms in our house, and this past weekend her birthday party occurred and we FINALLY got to put together my little girl’s new big girl room! I’ve been assembling bits and pieces of the room for months, and I am so excited that it’s finally here! Since she turned three, we decided to upgrade her nursery to a big girl room, complete with a brand new big girl bed.

We opted not to make this a complete surprise. She knew she was getting a new room, and a new big girl bed, but had no idea what was going into it. I think it would have been to much to come home from a sleepover at Mimi’s the day of her birthday party and have her entire room GONE with no warning. But she was thrilled with the idea of having a big girl bed and a new room and boy did she love it. She was literally shaking with excitement, wearing the biggest grin I’ve ever seen!

The quilt on her bed we had handmade by D. Rix Creations. I really wanted her to grow up with a one-of-a-kind quilt that was made just for her, and she got one! There will be an Indie Shopping Feature (a new series on the blog coming soon!) post about the quilt, so I’m not going to get into it too much here other than to say I love it, and totally want one for myself now!

I went with a lilac purple for the main room color – very girly and feminine without having PINK everywhere. I’m not a huge pink fan, so I was looking to stray away from that color. The accent colors in the room were based on the colors in the quilt so it would be cohesive.

I stripped and repainted her dresser, and then repainted her bookshelf to match. This was first time I’ve ever redone any furniture and I am SO HAPPY with the results! They came out exactly the way I wanted, which almost never happens on your first try, especially with DIY!

I painted all her wall art myself, and the bulletin board with the photos I got at a yard sale for $1 and repainted to match.

This dollhouse came from my mother – she got it at a yard sale and I scrubbed it up into tip top shape. Good old vintage 80’s Fisher Price! My daughter loves it – I think I like the camper with it best of all!

Her new bed was a birthday present from Grandma (assembled by my super hubby and friends who came to help with the big setup!!). I added some photos from our family pictures this year, along with some book collections and some of my favorite toy decorations from her old room. The mirror was made for her by her great grandfather and her name blocks I snagged from her block set and painted!

I am totally in love with her new room. It came out just the way I wanted, which really makes me happy as I am not at all confident in my interior decorating ability.

And best of all, my little miss loves it!

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Watercolors

I spent $1.50 on some watercolors the other day when I was at Michaels getting myself some art supplies, and it was a darn good investment. My little miss has been absolutely loving them!

This is also a great way to continue her learning about mixing colors to make other colors. Our other method of doing that is when she has yogurt for lunch, we dye it with food coloring and practice mixing colors that way.

I also let her sprinkle some salt over her some of her paintings so she could see the effect it makes – it has become her new favorite way to paint! We’re going to use some of them as backings for some Christmas presents which I’ll reveal after the holidays.

All in all, I’m happy with that $1.50 spent!

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Wall Art

So if you’ve been following along you know we’re in the process of converting our daughter’s nursery into a big girl room since she’ll be turning 3 this year. I whipped up some new wall art for her walls, and here they are!

     

The colors match her custom quilt we’re having made for her – I can’t wait until that’s finished! The penguin isn’t my original design, but I wanted to paint it myself so it would match her room. The original print can be found here. I tweaked a few things from the original (besides the colors) so it would suit her room better. Now to continue work on the dresser, shelves, pick a bed, design her reading area. . .the list just goes on!

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From Nursery To Big Girl Room: Part 1 {of many}

If you saw my previous post about our home redo, we are fully revamping two rooms in our apartment: our daughter’s room and the living room. We are working on them simultaneously  so I decided to split up the redo posts into the two rooms. Given that we want my daughter’s room finished by the end of this year, hers is the focus at the moment.

So right now I am in the very beginning stages. I (heartbreakingly) tore off her nursery border of wallpaper, then spackled and painted all the walls to their new color (which is White on White by Glidden in case you wanted to know). Her walls are completely bare which makes her room look really empty, but she doesn’t seem to mind! Next up is the furniture painting.

Firstly, the dresser.

This dresser was my mother’s. She’s had it since she was about seventeen and living in Alaska. I love it. I love it’s look, it’s wood stain, all of it. However, it no longer goes with my daughter’s room. So with her permission I’m stripping it down to repaint it. I will also probably update the drawer pulls, though I may just paint them too – we’ll have to see.

Waiting to be stripped! . . .That sounded far more awkward than I intended. . .

The second major thing right now is this chair.

I know it’s ugly. I know it’s ripping. But it is THE MOST COMFORTABLE recliner I’ve ever sat it. No joke. Plus, it’s fully reclines so you can lay down in it. And since it’s huge, it’s basically like having a recliner/twin bed. I could not have lived without this chair when my daughter was an infant. I hate rocking chairs – they make me super nauseous ever since I hit my adult years. But this chair was so perfect for nursing, or snuggling when she was sick, or those rough teething nights (which we were lucky enough to only have one or two of!). You may be getting that I love this chair.

That being said, it’s freaking giant. It takes up a huge amount of space in her room, and she doesn’t need it in there anymore. But I’m not at the point where I can bring myself to get rid of it’s ugly, ripped self so we are cramming it into our master bedroom until I can find a spot it fits! Both the hubs and I agreed that until we are done having children we are not getting rid of the chair (he loves it as much as I do).

Those are my current projects! I’m also hoping to get a few wall art pieces finished this week for her room. More posts about it in the coming weeks!

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