Pen and Ink Dwgs from Christmas Vacation

I usually go to visit my sister in Chicago for Christmas, this year being no exception, though this year I decided to take the train instead of flying. Flying has gotten expensive and no longer fun, what with the hassles with security, having to be there 2 hours early, and since I can't afford first class, seats that are sized so that only a kid under 12 would be comfortable in them. Anyway I thought why not try the train, so I did. I won't deny that it takes longer by train, but other than that I enjoyed my trip. I would have been happier on the trip out if I had taken more liquids with me, and I should have checked my luggage, but having learned on that trip I did both on the return trip and was much happier. Since I have retired the one thing I have is more time, and I enjoyed being able to look out a window to see actual scenery instead of clouds.

So what does the above have to do with artwork, nothing. But planning for Christmas and then travel did get in the way of my making art and updating the blog in December. Course once I was in Chicago I did have both the time and energy to do some art work. Nothing fancy or elaborate, I just wasn't in the mood, but I did make several pen and ink drawings. Actually more than I want to put in one post so I will spread them out over a couple of updates.

The one above is the only one I used color on and these are colored inks. My sister loves pineapple (well I do also) so it has become a tradition that we have one for over the Holidays. I borrowed it for a bit along with an apple and a pear to set up a small still life to draw.  It is my usual small size (4 x 4 inches) but worked in one of my sketchbooks instead of on Bristol Board. I used various pens for this and am not dissatisfied with how it came out. The pineapple was kind of fun to draw. The apple is sitting in a small glass basket that was really only big enough for the one apple. The oblong fruit in front was a red pear, Red pears don't have the typical pear shape so I suppose I would have done better to use another apple instead. Ah well done is done and it is what it is, too late now.

I had taken my technical pens along for my vacation, and if you have used technical pens you know that they need to be "exercised" every few days to keep the ink flowing. Above is one of my pen exercises. Done with all of my technical pen tips. Just a doodle I didn't have any particular plans for this when I started and just let it develop as I went along.

The star above is another technical pen drawing. This one I did do a bit more pre-planning on prior to starting and have to say that I like this one better than the more free formed doodle above.

Since I arrived prior to Christmas Day and still had a bit more shopping to do we spent one day in the loop at Macy's (former Marshal Fields store) shopping and eating lunch. The photograph above shows a decorated down town Chicago with crowded sidewalks full of Holiday shoppers dressed for the season.  I will be sharing more of my Chicago photographs both here and on my facebook page if you are interested.

That is it for today, my next update should be in a couple of days instead of the weeks between my last one and this. I want to extend to my readers a belated Seasons Greetings and wish you all a Happy and Healthy 2015. Hope that you all got at least one gift during the Holiday's that you truly wanted. In the meantime per usual comments are welcome.

Happy New Year and an update on bags

I want to take a moment to wish my readers a Happy, Healthy, and Safe 2013. May this coming year be a good one for you, your friends and family.

It has been way too long since I posted an update here, but I was in something of a quandary. I wasn't doing a lot of drawing, except for my weekly figure drawings and I don't like to post those as my featured image but I was doing a lot of sewing. The problem with posting what I was sewing to the blog was that my family reads my blog and the sewing was for Christmas gifts, bags to be specific. Well now Christmas has come and gone so I can post these photos to the blog for all to see.

Above is the knitting bag I made for my sister, Japanese fabrics along with some batiks. You can't see the inside but I incorporated pockets on both sides. Several narrow pockets to store knitting needles, and a large pocket on the other side for patterns. The handles are braided fabric strips with D metal loops to attach the strips to the bag. All sides have batting between the lining and outside fabrics. For the photograph I put some of my own yarn balls into the bag to make it stand up. Size is 15 inches x 14 inches x 6.

This second bag is larger and also of simpler construction, just a lining fabric and the outside strips, no batting, though I did reinforce the bottom with a non-woven stiffener to provide a sturdy base. This one is about the size of a large shopping bag, 20 x 19 inches, and is 6 inches wide. The one above is actually my prototype, I made 3 more for family members. On theirs I applied a zig zag stitch to the raw outer edges which finishes them off a bit more. I use mine to haul clothes back and forth to the laundry, not sure how my family will use theirs.

I was also working on more bags to wrap Christmas presents. You can see my Sister's tree in Chicago with the fabric wrapped gifts. They make a rather colorful sight. The best part is there is very little cleanup after everything is unwrapped. The bags are saved and will be reused next year.

This will be my third year making bags. I figure I need to do at least one more year before we will really have enough to just recycle them from year to year. I originally got the idea from a fellow member of a Yahoo group I belong to, my family and I have found it to be a wonderful idea, much the easiest way to wrap gifts (and you often don't even need those pesky boxes, just put the article in the bag with a tag and your good to go). I purchase the Christmas fabric for the bags at the after Christmas sales which does cut down on the cost.

Last but not least one of the figure drawings I was working on while doing all that sewing. This is from early in December. I am only semi pleased with this one, but I do have a couple from last month that I will be posting that I am quite happy with.

One last image, a photograph of Millennium Park with the Chicago Skyline behind it made from inside the Art Institute of Chicago in the fairly new Modern Art wing.

I did enjoy my visit to the museum, though I have to tell you that I have no love or understanding as to why solid color painted squares or rectangles are considered Art and given space in a Museum. As far as I am concerned they are color studies not art, but then I am not a critic so have to admit I might not be a good judge. On the other hand we saw some wonderful textiles from around the world, and some works on paper that I do consider art. I may post some more images in my next Blog update.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.

Tags, Calendars, and a figure

I haven't been drawing, well not much anyway, only my usual Monday night figure sessions. But that doesn't mean I haven't been doing any art. I have just been working on the computer with Illustrator or my photographs. Above is a Christmas tag I finally finished using Adobe Illustrator. I started this last winter just after Christmas and got most of it done but only in the past few days I actually finish it off.

Lots of layers and I know I should have more reindeer but... other than that I rather like it. So not like my drawing style that it was rather fun to do. I used photographs of a sleigh and of reindeer to draw my sleigh and deer, course the both are simplified versions, and the colors are my own. This makes the 4th gift tag I have designed in Illustrator, have to think about what I want to illustrate next.

My other computer project was to finally assemble the calendar that I also started last year. But this time I found a script on the internet that would create the layout in In-Design for the days of the month. I added the photographs. Photos are from the past 2 years and each photograph was made in the month it is representing. That was fun to do, and I am very pleased with how it came out. The photo above shows units in the process of being assembled, a finished calendar, a bone folder and the printed sheets still waiting to be folded.

I am working on a butterfly calendar to go with it and basically h ave that one done also, just need to head out to Staples to get it printed. I set it up to print on legal sized paper so it is smaller than most commercial calendars but otherwise I think it looks pretty good. Selecting photographs is almost the hardest part of creating a calendar. If I can focus on my animal drawings I would love to create an animal drawing calendar for 2014.

I am thinking about putting them in my Esty Store, but haven't figure out how to show them off.

Above is a week ago Monday's figure drawing. Not totally happy with it, though parts aren't too bad.

I finished what I wanted to do on my drawing a bit early so did another pen sketch, I think I got her head a bit too large, but feet and hands are almost better than in the graphite drawing. 

The photograph above is the one I have used on the calendar cover. It was such a beautiful sunset and I was lucky enough to be at a location where I could photograph it without any buildings or man made objects in the way. It can be very tricky to photograph a sunset without telephone or electric poles not to mention buildings sticking up in the middle.

That is it for today. Hope everyone here in the States has a wonderful Thanksgiving Thursday. Per usual comments are always welcome.

Sketchbook Project Dec 31

Christmas Un-wrapped

Nothing like a deadline to focus the brain. As you can see from today's post I am still working away on my Sketchbook project drawings. There are still a lot to complete before the deadline, but there are fewer then there were. As you can see I am going for simple rather than complex, and I am trying to make drawings that don't require much in the way of research. Props from the kitchen work, and are fairly easy for me to get my hands on. Course it would help if I were a better speller, just realized that I should have 2 p's in un-wrapped. ACK, well maybe I can correct it before I send in the book.  This was inspired by Christmas and all the left over paper and boxes. I was the only one in the family who made fabric bags this year, so there was still plenty of wrapping paper and ribbon being tossed around. I will leave this years bags for my sister to use next year, and I will make more for my gifts, eventually we should really reduce the amount of paper wrapping.

Pop Corn Surprise

I did have to do just a bit of research on this one. I haven't seen boxes of Cracker Jack for ages, but remember buying it as a kid. I wasn't all that fond of the pop corn inside and even when I was a kid the prizes weren't very good. Don't get me wrong I loved pop corn, but preferred mine freshly popped with real butter on it. In fact for years it was our Sunday evening dinner, pop corn and milk. The whistle isn't the right size to have been in the box, but hey it is my drawing and I can do what I want, right?

Is it soup yet?

My sister and I will eat fairly large meals for lunch when we are out and about, either shopping or museum visiting so supper is often just soup and maybe a sandwich. So I was inspired to draw the page above. The drawings aren't my best, but it is done, so I am not going stress over it.

Tea Time

I am a tea drinker, never having acquired a taste for coffee. I thought a tea bag with a cup of tea would fit in with my theme. My first though was to have a small pile of loose tea, but decided to just go with a cup of tea instead. My sister suggested the clock showing 4 o'clock, tea time.

Enough, I need to get back to my drawing. Still I don't want you to think that I am spending all my time drawing. Monday this week my sister and I visited the Chicago Art Institute, and on Wednesday we went to the Field Natural History museum. I had the camera with me on Monday, but left it home Wednesday. When I get home next week I may share a few photos and write a bit more about the museum visits, both were most enjoyable, if exhausting. Until next time. I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year, may 2011 be a wonderful, productive year for you and your family.

Christmas Projects

I have been busy working on Christmas stuff, presents I am sewing for my family, bags to wrap those presents in, and as you see above a tag to identify who the gift is for.

I belong to several Yahoo groups and on one of them there has been a lot of discussion about making fabric bags to wrap Christmas presents in. They are reusable, and over time cheaper then buying wrapping paper. I have a stash (just a small one) of Christmas fabrics and almost no Christmas wrapping paper left from past years, so I decided that I would make bags this year to wrap my gifts in. I can either leave them with my Chicago relatives for them to use next year, or I can bring them home and reuse them myself next year. They are so easy to  make that I have made around 9 or 10. They are just flat strips of fabric (I have been using fat quarters, or half yards) folded in half, sew along the bottom, sew up the side, leave a gap in the side sewing about 1 1/2 inches from the top which is about 3/4 inch long. Then fold down the top on the inside and stitch it down to make a casing for a ribbon or whatever you want to use to close the bags.  See photographs below for some of my bags and one "wrapped" gift.

The top image is the name tag I created for these wrapped gifts to indicate who they go to. I used Adobe Illustrator to design the tag, and stopped when I liked it. They are printed on Bristol board so are heavy and shouldn't tear off before Christmas morning. I used a small hole punch to create the hole that I can pass the ribbon tie through. Not very fancy but I think they look as nice as some of the sticky tags that can be purchased. They were sort of a pia to print, the printer doesn't really like the heavy Bristol board but I managed to get enough printed that I should be all set.

I have decided to join another Sketchbook Challenge for 2011. This is a blog created by artists on the Quiltart list who will post a monthly theme that artists who are following along will use to create pages in their Sketchbooks and then post to their blogs or to I think a Flicker account. Since I don't have a flicker account I will probably just post to this blog.  I should get a new sketchbook for this project, but will probably wait until after Christmas to do so. Anyway visitors to my blog should notice the new block identifying my blog as a participant in the Challenge.

I have also been attempting to make a Facebook page for Katwalk Designs, not sure I have succeed with that or who I should ask to "like" it. But it is a way for people to link to me on Facebook without becoming Friends and being subjected to all my game activities.  I will explore this a bit further next year.

Enough for today, per usual comments are always welcome I am always interested in hearing what my visitors have to say.