PlanetJune

In case you hadn’t guessed from the above, I’ve been working hard on some new designs, and now I can finally unveil big brother Elephant and pals, the Hippo and White Rhino:

Click for larger picture

The Elephant, Hippopotamus and Rhinoceros are all made with bulky weight yarn (like the AquaAmi), and are each about 6″ long. The three will form Set 1 of a new range, once I have written up the patterns. I’m going to call them AfricAmi, which gives me plenty of scope for future animal designs - there is a lot of interesting wildlife in Africa! Do you like the name?

I also painted a new backdrop to stage these guys. It took a lot of painting to get the background to stop looking like a big green board and starting to look a little bit like foliage, but I think the end result was worth it.

I hope you enjoyed the story! And look out for the AfricAmi patterns… coming soon to the PlanetJune store

So, Drawing Day was yesterday. Pencils (brought all the way from the UK and never once used in the 5 years since): found, after a bit of a search. Sketchbook (ditto): at the ready. Time and inspiration: sadly lacking. So this is really as far as it got:

Ah well, all is not lost. The materials are ready now for when I do find the time.

And if we count digital art as drawing (and I will, so I don’t feel like a complete failure) I’m very happy to report that I’ve finally got the hang of the basics of vector art, so I ‘drew’ the mouse for my PocketAmi logo (it’s a vector image, so it’s scalable to any size - very useful!):

A crocheted mouse drawn using a computer mouse, haha

Speaking of which, the PocketAmi sets are almost ready for publication - expect the announcement tomorrow. And it’s my 2 year blogiversary this coming Thursday, so check back then as well, to enter my birthday contest!

Ever get that feeling where there is so much you want to do, and not enough hours in the day?! I just found out from Drawspace that this coming Saturday is Drawing Day 2008. It’s been years since I’ve drawn anything, but this is really tempting me to get some pencils out and have a go…

According to the website, “Drawing Day is a worldwide drawing event encouraging everyone to drop everything and draw for the sake of art. The internet is an open canvas. Help us create 1 million drawings online this day and boost online art communities.”

I used to be able to draw (at a very, very slow speed):

I drew this cat in 1992… 16 years ago?! How old do I feel now…

There’s more of my old stuff in the Gallery if you’re interested.

I wonder if I can still even do it?! I really want to try, and Drawing Day seems like the perfect excuse! Anyone else interested?

One of my personal challenges for my other blog, Crochet Along, is to come up with a banner design to reflect the new blog theme every two months. I try not to be influenced by my personal preferences for colour, style, etc and I think it’s helping to improve my graphic design skills.

I thought I’d share how I came up with my design for the new Summer Crochet theme.

First, find source graphics. I looked through stock photography sites for royalty-free photos that matched my design concept (’orange’ in this case), and made sure to only save images that had no copyright restrictions or required credit to use - no copyright infringements here!

When I had saved about 20 images, I looked at them all together on the screen and eliminated them one by one until I had narrowed them down to my final source images (I took the crochet hooks photo myself):

After that, it’s time to cut, paste, resize, arrange, change colours, erase unwanted backgrounds, and add some text. Here’s the end result:

If you’d like to see the full sized banner, or you’d like some Summer-themed crocheting fun, head over and join the Crochet Along!

One of the things I most love about my blog is the opportunity it gives me to ‘meet’ other artists and crafters and people who make things. One such person is Christy DeKoning, a talented artist who I recently ‘met’ online but coincidentally also lives in Ontario. She paints watercolour portraits and also sells small ACEO-sized paintings in her Etsy store.

When I visited Christy’s website I fell in love with the most adorable ACEO puppy painting I have ever seen. A few days later, and I now own my first piece of original artwork! My painting “Puppy Dog Eyes” is, in reality, even more special that I had hoped for - look at that eye! And I just love the colouring.

I’ll be framing it soon and I’ll hang it somewhere in my craft room. Christy also accepts commissions, so I hope my furbaby Maui is feeling photogenic, because he’s about to become immortalized in watercolour…

Whilst venturing deep into the heart of the jungles of Ontario, I managed to photograph these two monkeys in their natural habitat (click for full-size images):

…Okay, so what gave it away? The ’natural’ floor lamp the monkeys are clinging to?  

I decided to try making something a bit different for a change. Don’t worry, the cute fuzzy patterns will still keep coming; I just wanted to see if I could make a more realistic animal (as more of an ‘art’ thing).

I made these from Patons Carmen (possibly the softest yarn in the world!) with Bernat Satin for the faces and feet. I wired all the limbs and the tail so the monkeys are poseable, and daddy monkey can carry his baby on his back, just like in the real world.

I know these won’t have the same universal appeal as the Fuzzies, but what do you think of them? Please let me know in the comments or by e-mail…

And, on another note, thanks to everyone who has entered my contest so far! You’ve given me some great ideas for my next patterns. Current favourites seem to be cat, dog, monkey, skunk and penguin. There’s still time to enter, if you haven’t got around to it yet - the contest is open for another week, and remember, there’s a free pattern of your choice up for grabs for the winner!

Here’s my work in progress for this week. I’ve wanted to paint a portrait of my cat, Maui, ever since I got my paints for Christmas, but haven’t got around to it yet. As this will only be my second painting ever, I’ve been too nervous that I will mess it up. This is going to be a long process before it gets finished. So far I have I underpainted the canvas, sketched the outline and blocked in some colours. I’m really encouraged because, even though it’s very rough, it actually looks quite like Maui already!

Hoping I get a change to work on it some more soon. More to follow…