I Can Draw!

Who knew?

I guess you really can accomplish a lot if you actually try. I was looking through the Beginner Inchie (and ATC) Swap R2 gallery the other day and saw a really cute robot.

So I decided to see if I could replicate it. I think it turned out kinda cute, so I added a dog.

I wanted to know if I could draw something else if I had a picture to look at so I kept my eyes open for something that would work. Turns out my hubby's Spanish book has some really cute simple drawings in it. I made a photo copy of this one

to add to my black and white art journal and decided to try copying it. 

I have to admit that the level of excitedness for how well this came out was pretty excessive. On top of that, my hubby leaned over when I was just about finished and said, "WOW babe, that looks great!"

An unsolicited compliment! It was probably a good thing I was tired or I would have been dancing around the house with how happy I was with how this turned out. 

So...this is my latest obsession to go with my latest obsession. If that makes sense. 

I love black and white line drawings (I have no idea if that is what they are called). I love the simple and clean look of them.

When I looked for more things that I could try to draw, I was happy to find this.

I actually had this saved in a word document to use for other crafty things, but decided to try drawing it. 

I think I may be getting the hang of this drawing thing :)

I have always been fairly good at drawing trees, and I have recently dabbled in flowers, so I am happy with how these came out.

Sorry for the sideways view

Then I tried drawing cartoon faces. With a normal Sharpie marker.

Not super excited by them, but I decided to keep even the pictures I don't like so I can see my progress.

Doodles

More doodles on scrapbook paper

While I am not comfortable trying to imagine and draw my own person (faces and hands intimidate me), I was happy to try and draw my own little city/town scapes. 

Emma (my 5 1/2 yo) helped me with this one. Can you spot the house that she drew? And the birds?

Then Emma decided to show me how to draw a horse.

She thought mine (on the top/right) looked like a long neck :)

I decided to try a landscape type picture as well. 

Emma informed me that the horse needed to have lines to show where the hooves are. Such the critic already.

With all this drawing, I am finding that I really like the uni-ball gel roller pen. The one I have done most of my drawing with is a micro tip (somewhere between a .1mm to .3mm). So, I went to Staples today (I thought they would have the largest selection of pens to choose from) and looked through all the pens they had. 

I really wanted a variety pack of different tips, but thought I was going to have to settle for a 4 pack of all the same size. I was having a tough time deciding. 

Did I want the same tip I am using now, or do I want to try the next size up?

Oh look! They have the pen I am looking at in bold! Do I want these instead? 

I probably held 3-4 different packs of pens in my hand for about 20 minutes trying to decide. I was shooting to spend around $10 (cause you know stay home moms really don't make enough money, and having a husband in college doesn't really pay much either) so I couldn't get more then one pack. 

I finally decided to go with the fine tip (which was a .7 I believe). 

For the heck of it I wandered off to check out the watercolor paper. Just cause I was curious after signing up for these free art journal classes on line.

And while I was over there I found a 4 pack of pens ( I thought) that all had different tips. They go from .1mm-.7mm. A few dollars over what I wanted, but I liked it better then getting 4 of the same pen. 

I got home, took a nap (I hate naps but some days I just have to) then got up and experimented. 

Uni-ball eye Micro - Staedtler .7mm - .5mm - .3mm - .1mm - 

I was a little sad when I noticed that the pens are felt tip, like my Sharpie markers. I really like the way the gel roller ball thingy looks. Oh well. 

Here is the picture I drew today (while outside no less) with the .7mm pen.

Not too shabby. Not to shabby at all. 

Hand Print Gift Ideas

I don't need to remind anyone that times are tight right now. Lucky for me though, I love crafting and giving. Even better for me, most things I make I created from recycled items. A great way to cut costs even more.

Holiday gifts will be handmade this year. I even convinced my sister to jump on my band wagon :)

I have to tell you, I love my daughters hands. Ever since she was a baby, my favorite thing to do with her, is trace her hands or paint them and make hand prints. It is a great way to follow her growth in a fun and different way.

So, here are a few projects we have made. I have added a link for where I found the idea, and they all over tutorials, so go on over and check them out!

Hug Pillows (found here: From An Igloo)

This will be a pillow for one of the grandparents (if you happen to be reading this, pretend to be surprised at Christmas). We have 4 of the 6 grandchildren on here.
For this project, I actually purchased fabric. I really try not to purchase fabric, but if I do, I make sure to shop in the clearance section and use a coupon. Some of the fabric for this pillow did come from clothes destined for the thrift shop, so I guess it can be considered partially upcycled.

For the hug pillow, I also created some less...formal ones.

These are made from upcycled clothes. The stuffing and thread are new.

High Five Pillows (just a slightly different take on the hug pillow).

These are my nephews pillows. Emma and the boys had great fun using them for a pillow fight.

This project came about due to an oops. A few weeks ago I had Emma and her 3 cousins make some tie dye t-shirts. In a moment of laziness, I bought each of them a package of 5 plain white under shirts. Apparently, they run small :( The shirts for Emma and her youngest cousin, T-Bear, didn't fit. We were able to use the shirts from Emma for T-Bear, but I wasn't sure what to do with the shirts from T-Bear. My sister suggested making them into t-shirt pillows. I loved it! Having 5 t-shirts, and 4 kids, I made a t-shirt for each. I thought adding their own hand print to their shirts would be fun.

Hand Trees (found here: At Second Street)

My oldest nephew didn't want to make one of these so it was just Emma and two of her cousins. I was a little frustrated that Emma and G-Man didn't want to add more leaves, but it is their trees, so I decided to butt out (and not add more after they left the table).

So, this is some of what we have been up too. I hope to get more pictures, but it is slightly slow going as my camera eats batteries. I manage to take about 10 pictures before the batteries are dead. So, now I remove the batteries after each picture taking session. I hope that helps.

Thanks for reading, I hope you find some inspiration here!

Wordless Wednesday

What do you see?