Some New and Older Works

Tatted a new ginko leaf, but does it looks like one?

The light bulb design looks cute, I tried to do 1 myself and thought some tatted flowers would add some interest.

I have problem drawing realistically and on the other end, doing abstract. These are some attempts on 4"x6" cards.

These 3 are done with alcohol ink marbling for the base colours, topped with spreading distress ink using baby wipe, accented with dimensional pearl paints and coloured glues. Titles: (From left to right) Junctions, Receiving, Want to Dance.

Another attempt.  Again, I used alcohol ink with water for a marbling effect as the base, added some fabric scraps, used coloured glue sticks and textured paste (DecoArt Paper Perfect).  Titles: (From left to right) Unveiling, Possibilities, Shimmering.

Although I am quite pleased with all these, I don't think they qualify to be called abstract art, do they?

Kristine did the polymer clay charms all on her own, including those for Teachers' Day presents. Baymax of Big Hero 6 is about 3 cm tall.

Found more of Kristine's drawings.

After so many failed attempts on her own ...

I decided to accompany her to a class, ...

and finally, some decent macarons baked by Kristine!  Italian method does work better than French method.

 

Blind Contour Drawing, Anyone?

At the ATC session on Thu, Moses introduced us to Blind Contour drawing. I'm not an arts student, and have not heard of this before, so I read up a little bit on it. This is a method of drawing popularized in part by Kimon Nicolaïdes in his book The Natural Way to Draw(1941). Apparently, Blind Contour drawing is a favourite with drawing teachers to develop hand-eye communication, and it's an effective training aid. Contour drawing is essentially outline drawing. Blind contour drawing means drawing the outline of the subject without looking at the paper. The end result is not important, rather what is crucial is to observe the subject carefully. The student, fixing their eyes on the outline of the model or object, draws the contour very slowly in a steady, continuous line without lifting the pencil or looking at the paper. The student may look at the paper to place an internal feature, but once they begin to draw it, they do not glance down.

Sound easy? Perhaps. But it sure took some courage and a lot of persuasion before my little girl dared to draw anything! It sure breaks away from convention, and the result, an abstract drawing:)

The theme for the month was Chinese New Year. I found an used piece of transparent wrapping paper in my stash, cut it up into ATC size and backed with a painted card. Next I traced and cut the boy from cardstock and painted him with water-colours, added a brad through all the layers, and his head, body and legs could move. Here are my cards - "Fun with Fire Crackers"!

Traded 2 of them for these - Rita's stamped card, and Sekina Yeoh's origami bunny.

I was jumping with joy when Cathy Vigor's mail came in finally after a month - it contained the last piece for my Zodiac collection, and also the last piece for my Leaf collection. Cathy actually did a replacement for her first piece of leaf that never came after a long 3 months. Here are the 12 Leaf ATCs ...

... the left one of the last row is Cathy's and the right one is my tatted leaf.

And the Zodiac ATCs in the order of the signs. Awesome set, right! Cathy did the Virgo piece, and I did the Pisces piece.

And an "U" is for Union Jack ATC from Sharon Scothern (UK). The Union Flag, also known as the Union Jack, is the flag of the United Kingdom. I love the lacy effect!

And here are my "U" cards. It's not U for Butterfly, but Ulysses Butterfly. What's that? The Ulysses butterfly, also known as the Blue Mountain Butterfly, or the Blue Mountain Swallowtail is a large swallowtail butterfly, endemic to Australasia, and used as an emblem for Queensland tourism. I designed this little critter and tatted them with Size 40 Olympus threads. I think they didn't turn out too bad.

(Round 2 of the 25 Motif Challenge) Motif No. 3 - Fireworks on Paper Clip, More Paper Cuttings, Game and Drawings

I don't tat with wire often, but I'm trying to get the effect of fireworks, and so here's the result of combining wire with sequins. This fireworks paper clip is on Georgia Seitz's Online Tatting Class, you can get the pattern by clicking the link here.

These ATCs featured my Chinese-style paper cuttings, which I did with both penknife and scissors and acid-free 80 gm paper. They are relatively simple ones if you have seen those that I bought (in my last post).

This is the end of the school holidays, and the children are going back to school tomorrow. My DH bought a new TV for my parent's place, it was delivered a few days last week. When I went home that night the TV was delivered, the box housing the TV set had already transformed to this:

The Pinball Game, the brainchild of my boy, Ivan, with the help of his 2 sisters.

The marbles would roll down different paths and into the tunnel at the bottom to be collected with a tray! Do you call this recycling of scrap materials !?!

The children were drawing too in the holidays. I'm so amused by Ivan's ones.

This was done with marker pens, while the next one was done with pencil.

Joey did this for her school project with her classmate-cum-best friend, in mixed medium (poster colours and crayons).

This was done by Joey and Kristine together with marker pens.

And this last one by Kristine in marker pens. A bit messy, but very cute. I'm no expert in drawing but I think, she filled up the whole paper quite well, and good mix of colours too.

Terrapins, Drawings, Doll and Tatted Flowers & Butterflies

It had been a busy week - my office work is piling up, the children's revision for the final examinations, the new terrapins, changing maid, ...

Here are the terrapins my DH bought for the children, but they ended up my charge. There are actually 3, but the third one isn't well, so we have put it into another container separately.

Found some of my children's drawings. These 2 are drawn by Kristine, I think she can draw better than the other 2.

These are drawn by Joey, she thinks so, apparently they were drawn some time ago.

Found this piece of fabric in a shop. I remember these type of fabrics were pretty common when I was a child and my grandfather made me one too, but of course, the doll was long gone. I'm going to sew this up for my girls.

And these are what I tatted up this week. My children and I love Vicki's ones so much, I tatted more with Anchor size 5 pearl cotton threads, and experimented with 2 sizes of the magnetic beads. The flowers progressed from left to right as I tried different stitch counts. Now to split them with the girls.

Motif No. 13/25 - Butterfly Bookmarks, New Shuttle, Ivan's Drawing

I bought some butterfly hairclips recently and have this sudden urge to tat some butterflies. These are the first 2 I came up with - the pink one was tatted with Flora 20 threads, and the other with Manuela 20 thread. With a ribbon weaved through the body, I think they will make a quick bookmark. What do you think ? Watch out for 1 or 2 more variations. These will be part of Motif No. 13 for the 25-Motif Challenge.

Next is my latest acquisition from ebay - a 1 1/2 inch Irish bog oak tatting shuttle that used 4000 year old Irish bog oak and inlayed with a simple Celtic swirl design in Malachite.

And here's the feeding device Ivan drew from the basis sketch I talked about earlier. Ivan went through with me how the machine works (if it works, I wonder), but well, I'm still impressed!

New CQ Books, Doily for Exchange and Ivan's Alien and Machine

List mom, Sue, is going to start a CQ Challenge on the HBT group, and I want to join to learn something new. I just had to get these when the bookstore was offering a 20% sale over National Day. Now to digest them.

My latest tatting project is a doily for an exchange. Although I had intended to come up with an original when I first signed up, I couldn't resist doing something from Iris Niebach's books since I got them now. Perhaps my tension is tight and my doily is just shy of the 5-inch requirement, I went on to add my own outer round to Iris' design, and here's a peep at it. Still need to block it and it will be on its way to its recipent.

Ivan has been doing some sketching, here's one alien, and another is a first sketch of a machine. He has done another bigger one with annotation, but I haven't taken a picture yet.

Kristine is Drawing and Part 2 of Motif No. 11/25 - Simple Snowflake Bookmarks

I found this drawing in my bag, drawn by Kristine, I thought it is quite cute - a pig playing the keyboard and a thunderstorm outside.

And these are simple bookmarks using the snowflake motif, and tatted with Manuela 20 variegated threads:

Still working on the package for the summertime exchange. I managed to get it (it is one of my favourites), and there will be a bit of everything - in all colours, in all mediums, in all shapes and sizes. Got a cut and shed some blood, but still rolling out more tonight, and hope to get everything done by the next 2 days or so!

More Drawings Done by the Girls, Ivan's Skeleton and Lace Buttons

More drawings from Joey and Kristine.

Joey was so happy she got the star pupil's bear in school (after being a star pupil for 2 consecutive terms), she drew it out with crayons:

Kristine done this herself. I liked the way the whole thing is presented, and the arrangement of the spaces, though I can't really understand what's the theme: 2 boys praying to Buddha (that was what she said), the new Chinese word (meaning green vegetables) she just learned in school, and the fish bone shape of the paper!

Next is what my boy has been doing during his leisure time - assembling all these pre-cut wood pieces together. This is just one of them:

Gina was talking about all those cute buttons, I too bought some at the start of the year, and completely forgot about them, they were still in the envelope that came! Maybe because they are still in the plastic wrap that came and due to the humid weather here, look like the edges have start to rust a little.