Halloween

My sister and I were fairies for Halloween. No kidding. Correction: my sister was a high spirited avenging fairy with a sword. No, I am not kidding.
I even made our wings and dresses myself. :D Oh, and you don't even want to know how much greasy blue and green makeup we slimed onto our faces. Yeah, it was definitely gross.

Steering away from Halloween, I started working on another animal portrait, an approximately 9x7 inch Border Collie on Student watercolor paper with Prismacolor pencils.

For those who also want to see my fur tutorial for this project, check out this link.


Okay, I've got to go now and make dinner. My many thanks for reading this blog. :)

Early Christmas Mania and an update on Halloween Cat card

Here's a quick update on my Halloween Cat card. I've really been enjoying doing this, I'm already thinking of another one that I could do. What does anyone think of having these kind of Halloween cats turned into greeting cards? I went to check out the Halloween stuff the other day at Michael's. They were having a whopper of a sale for their usual spooky decor. Would you believe that they're already playing Christmas yard art on display again and again? Jingle Bells was forced through my head so many times, following me around the store no matter where I went. I felt as if my head would explode by the time I got to the checkout. Or maybe implode. Definitely one of the two. People, please save for Christmas music a little while longer. Just one more month.

something different-pen with pencil!

For the past week I've really wanted to do a cutesy Halloween illustration-so I did.
I completed the ink part of it this morning. I struggled with the idea of leaving it in black and white-but my extremely fickle mind changed courses and I decided to color it in instead. It's about a fifth through the coloring process-maybe a sixth. I'm actually pretty glad that I decided to give in to my color cravings. I feel more comfortable with this piece, and so I'm going all for it with the color-thus the strong orange on the tabbie, who's our own Vinegar, and the cobalt blue on the wizard's hat.

I found some interesting Halloween pumpkins too. They're must-sees to say the least.

One huge pumpkin. In Britain, a spankin' new record.

A rather huge burger.

A fascinating WIP on a wonderfuly detailed, agonized pumpkin.

A heavy pumpkin.

An ugly but huge pumpkin. Why do they even bother making these things so huge that they practically squash themselves?

a sock! and a sweater!

I can't talk for long-I've been so busy my hair's been practically singed at the ends.

I did get my first sock done, and you know the sweater I was knitting for my toddler niece?

I finished it!

(click, click) knitting away

Aspromised,
I have a photo of the little green baby hat that I made, salvaging a sock project that went bad. I also have photos of another knitting project, a mottled blue sock. I read the instructions. Reread them. I researched the art of knitting socks on the internet. I thought I was covered.
Uh...no.

It looks like the sock will turn out okay for a first sock-but I have to tell you, I didn't think that at first. Well, maybe when I was doing the easy cuff, but when I got to the heel flap, the whites of my eyes were beginning to show. By the time I got to turning the heel, I was definitely concerned.

Anyway, I made it through. Admittedly, it is a bit lumpy, but it's a sock! Well, almost, I have to get the toe in first. As a young girl, I always wanted to knit socks, an impossible feat in my eyes.

So for me, this sock is a nice surprise.

The Eyes Miss Nothing (a WIP)

I Igot back into another pencil project again a couple of days ago, and completed this fun piece quite speedily: 3 1/2 to 4 hours. I used an 8 1/2" x 3 1/2" piece of Bristol Smooth paper, using Prismacolor pencils. My new favorite burnishing color for colored pencil pieces is rose beige, it doesn't the drawing to light like the pure stark white pencil does.

I tried knitting a sock yesterday, in my favorite color, naturally: green. A nice sagey green to boot.

I totally scrapped it.


It was completely twisted past the point of redemption. I had to peel the whole mess off the one needle. But fortunately I did salvage it. I haven't taken a photo yet, but I turned it into a cute little baby hat with a tassle attached to the top of it. I will post a pic in my next post. Speaking of knitting, check out these hip runway knits. Apparently they're really in this year. Old Navy has come out with lots of knitted stuff too.

I loved doing this portrait. I've alway enjoyed doing the eyes best on a person or a dog, and I thought, hey, why don't I just do them by themselves then?

Halloween is drawing near. We have begun pulling out our Halloween supplies. I'm striving to make it the the most... decorated Halloween.

I want lots of webbing! I want it on the doors. The ceilings. The sink. Me! I love fake spider web to excess.

Not so fond of the real stuff, though...

lots of knitting

Okay, here are my progress shots of my two knitting projects. One is a long scarf for myself. I'm making the design into large squares of color, and I'm eventually going to put tassles on the ends. The other project is a sweater for my three year old niece, in a nice sagey green color which I think suits just about anybody! I've been having a lot of fun especially with the block scarf, it's so neat seeing the colored blocks come together!

If you have any questions about how I did these projects, just leave a comment, and I'll answer as best as I can. :)