I've added some inspiration to my art blog. Even if you don't join my in my crazy art project come have a look and grab some inspiration. At the very least please have a look at Suzi Blu! You'll either love her or hate her, but I'm hoping you'll love her and get the same contagious inspiration I feel when watching her videos. http://myartsketchbook.blogspot.com

Tomorrow I'll be talking about some resources you can use during the month - some good tutorials for beginners that I'll be revisiting myself, and some excellent resources to keep you inspired so you don't run out of things to draw.

I only have one drawing friend...
I have TWO beautiful drawing friends!
- Monica from Canada! Her blog is here.
- Morgandea from Brisbane, Aus! Her blog is here

Do you want to be my drawing friend too??? (say yes!)

All skill levels welcome. Lets make bad art together! - no guilt, no self consciousness, just the joy of making art for arts sake and shedding the fear of not being good enough!

Can't draw but want to try?
Scratched around with some paper and pencil but want to get better?

Need motivation??

.......Want to draw with me?

Earlier this year I challenged myself to draw every single day for a whole month. One month turned into 50 days before the drawing challenge was abandoned.
It is time for another one month challenge.

Why did I do this challenge?

I wasn't happy with any of my drawings for sewing project ideas. I was scared of putting a pencil to paper thinking other people would judge me. I wanted to improve my art technique and conquer my fear of making art.

Why drawing every day?

The challenge aims to have you putting pencil to paper every day in a conscious effort to practice without prejudice. This means that you allow yourself the pleasure of art with the only goal being making some marks every day and without a specific intent you free yourself to make mistakes, practice, improve.

In my first monthly challenge by the end of 30 days I had seen improvement in the way I saw my subject and while day to day I noticed no changes, after a whole month my techniques had certainly improved. Most important of all, I felt comfortable taking a blank page and making marks all over it.

Everyone can be IS an artist!

What should I draw?

If you’re a complete beginner, then you should start with life drawing. You can start with things you see around you - things on your desk, your opposite hand, flowers... Drawing things from life helps you to learn depth and size relation which is a core skill needed to start and improve drawing from imagination. I can also point you to a couple of good tutorials you can complete in the first week or so if you like.

I will be drawing from life. I might draw from photos some days and something I can see on other days to keep things interesting. If you would like to do life drawing of people and don't have a willing model, I have a link to an online album full of beautiful naked bodies for artists in a range of typical poses. (don't be shy! They're only poses, no erotica!)

When do we start?

My plan is to start next week and it would be great to have some people to share with this time. We don't all have to start at the same time, so if you would like to do this challenge at any time please do! But, make sure you can commit to at least 30 days in a row!

Ok, I'm committing to a date... I'll start on Sunday the 21st of November for a minimum of 30 days! That means I can stop just before Christmas if it gets too much, otherwise I'll be going for as long as I can.

How do we know you're really doing it?

I post all my drawings in a blog to keep me honest, though there were a few days last time that I didn't get the drawings up straight away due to time constraints. I'll try my best!

My blog is here: http://myartsketchbook.blogspot.com
Warning: Blog contains some nude sketches.

You can make a blog yourself by going to http://www.blogspot.com - Let me know where it is, and if you'd like me to link to you so that other people doing the challenge can see too let me know.

Who is the challenge for?

Anyone... Everyone! You could be an absolute beginner or a seasoned artist looking for a challenge.

The only thing I ask is that if you do want to critique someone’s work you do it positively. I am happy to accept comments that may help with my technique, but first and foremost this challenge is about allowing myself to draw, not about making fine art.

Want to join me?

Comment below!!

You'll need a 2B pencil and a sketchbook
(any pencil is ok, but a softer pencil is easier to create depth in shading)

 

Hi everyone. I am looking for some interstaters who are Spotlight regulars who are willing to have a quick browse for me next time they are there.

I have bought some fabric, but it is not going to be enough. I need help!!

This fabric comes in packs tied together with a red ribbon and is usually found with the fat quarters, or somewhere near the quilting fabrics or nearest checkout counter. Some stores, it is easy to find, some stores it is more ellusive.

They have a lot of different colour packs, the one I'm looking for is pictured, and they are $19.95
I've been to all the spotlights around here (yep...) and they are out of this colourway.

For shipping, I think you could take the bundle apart and pop them as flat as possible in an A4 envelope for the cheapest method and I'll reimburse you. Let me know if you can get it so I don't end up with too much though (lol). Let me know if you need a mobile number, or leave me a message here.

I have 4 bundles, but if I can get a few more I can make a queen-king size quilt... if not I'll have to make a smaller one.

So blogger has been fantastic for me so far. It has a simple setup and is much easier to customise the look than livejournal with a cleaner and quicker admin area as well, and if you have multiple blogs you can see them all via the dashboard. I love the "followers" setup instead of "friends" and you can comment from a variety of logins as well, including with your livejournal id.

The only thing that annoys me about blogger is their lack of comment moderation/deletion section. I imported my blog, then chopped out a bunch of posts to try and clean up the content relevance and reduce BS. lol... I thought since there was no comment moderation area, any comments linked to posts I deleted would be removed too... NOOOO it is not as simple as that. The comments stayed in the system, so when I tried to use RSS feeds to do some fancy things that will be unveiled at a later date, I had all this old irrelevant stuff coming out.

Questions to their help forums went unanswered... three days of searching google finally gave me an answer :D

If anyone else out there has a blogger/blogspot journal then here is a cool little app for comment moderation. You type your blog in and it will display all the comments, even the orphaned ones. Then you log in and delete the ones you don't want with the little trash can icon. I tested in both browsers and found that it works better in firefox than it does in IE - less error messages.

http://lvchen.hostse.com/deleteAComment/Delete_A_Comment.html?lang=en

So there you go.

PS: you can look up anyones blog with this thing, but you can't delete comments unless you login with your blogger password and have admin authorisation.

PPS: Oh yes... I am moving things around again because I have too many hobbies and too many opinions!
I have a couple of new blogs set up: (I've been a little secretive, just like Rena)

http://costumewardrobe.blogspot.com
Moving all the costume related posts over to this blog from my website.

http://thequiltedhen.blogspot.com
All of the quilt related posts have been moved from my site in to this blog.

http://happybobbin.blogspot.com
All the embroidery related posts will be moved to this blog, but I haven't done that yet

http://backyardhens.blogspot.com
My beautiful hens blog and all their chickeny business!

5 eggs from my lovely hens. New Record! I think everyone is laying except Elsie, but she still looks like a baby compared to the others.

Baby peach tree is blossoming! So pretty.

Hens are dust bathing

And I made quiches to try and use up some eggs! They're laying too fast! Hopefully my "chicken egg pies" are a success.

http://backyardhens.blogspot.com/

Mark says I'm still cool...
Actually aside from teasing me for having a chicken blog he says it is a good chicken blog... so nya :P

http://backyardhens.blogspot.com/

OMG quilting is hard... ok, not so much hard as awkward and time consuming and is giving me a pain in the shoulder somehow. I have to re-look at my posture/setup to try and take more of the weight of the quilt. I think I will just need to do an hour at a time... especially as I am having to barricade myself in on all sides to give myself enough table space for maneuvering.

I have quilted the two centre blocks... 10 to go... I am doing "stitch in the ditch" style around all the coloured areas. I shall have to do something more on the black border too... not sure what yet.

I saved money and wasted money at spotlight today too... I found 200 safety pins (for holding all the layers together) for only $8 which saved me about $20... It also saved me another trip to spotlight as the other packets would have only given me 75 or 90 safety pins and I ended up using 96! My wasted money was my purchase of bicycle clips for $10 which are supposed to help hold a rolled up quilt together... and nope... didn't work for me. Too difficult to turn the bugger around in the machine with the edges all rolled up. I could definately see the benefit if I ever want to hand quilt though.

I can't wait to get to the binding part, even though that is hand sewing... mainly because I know what I'm doing there (I think) and won't have to make it up as I go along anymore...

My computer is now completely dead. If you need to contact me I shall have intermittent access to web-mail, but I can't access anything anyone has sent me recently, so if you were expecting a reply, please resend!