a little lime

This is the project that I was working on before this weeks challenge, and, being fickle, I just dropped it cold whilst I frolicked with blind strings. I was very excited to get back to it again today. I love, LOVE drawing morning glories. These are a highly stylised, simplified version - went well with lots of mooka vines, though I might have gotten a little carried away with the mooka lovin'. I am loving this colour blend on the flowers - as my marker collection has ballooned, I have started marking out colour charts on the journal pages so I can remember what I've used. These flowers are super-easy and fun, I have included a step-by-step. the steps: hx

This daisy design was 3/4 complete when I aborted it to work on the pods , and it uses the same string - different orientation. So, tonight I finished up the colouring and added a bit more detail. I don't really love it, but I find the contrast of the two designs using the same base string really interesting. hx

What strikes fear into the heart of control freak like me? Has me waking up in a cold sweat? Well, I'll tell you.........having to cede control (well most of it), by closing my eyes and drawing a string, THEN figuring out what to do with it! Hmmmm....this is not how I normally operate.......I thrive on preconceived ideas, and this challenge turned that on its head. So, I closed my eyes, and tried to stick with organic, flowy motions (sharp corners are not my friend). Unlike some of the amazing strings/results that I have seen from this challenge, I kept my string continuous and fairly abbreviated (yup, I was running scared). I worked on one piece (which I am still yet to colour/shade and will upload later), but before completing that, I was compelled to switch gears and go in a different direction (o.k.,I did scan and print out a couple of copies of my string - did I mention ...... control freak...). I started with some cones (I LOVE, LOVE drawing cones) and went from there. ...

a bit of daisy love....... hx

right at the end of winter, for a few short weeks, we get the most amazing display of wattle trees in bloom all over hoddles creek - it's the sign that trudging through the mud to feed my 2 pigsters (muffin and puddin') and the cows (too many to name) is almost over, and spring (please, oh, please) is almost here. I haven't been feeling particularly inspired with my drawing this week, so when I drove down the road tonight to pick up my daughter and the wattle was EVERYWHERE, I knew I had to draw some. I also couldn't help but to stop and pick a whole bunch of the side of the road to stuff into a vase - it won't last long, the blossoms will drop and make an awful mess in a day or two, but, so what. This was quick, simple and cruffle-icious. hx

I've been playing around with this combination on and off through the week, though my first challenge response (violets) is still my favourite. I like to put patterns into circles to see if I can get the shape and perspective right - I wanted to try this with assunta because it was a little hard to incorporate easily with the mooka. I wanted the result to look like a mooka flower with an assunta centre, but I think the circle looks a bit like a world globe propped in the middle - I probably needed to shade the surrounding mooka to make it sit in the design a bit better. ah well I'm happy with the dimension of the "ball". Purple and yellow again on this, I am loving this colour combo right now. Similar idea with a larger assunta centre. One I worked on at the beginning of the week - I wanted the mooka to weave in and out of the assunta, so a lot of stopping and starting to avoid crossing lines. not quite 50 shades of grey............. ...

I love coneflowers. I want them ALL over my garden and have tried to grow them several times with no luck - this year I am giving it another go and have both purple and white coneflowers in the ground (currenly dormant), and (I hope) rearing to sprout as soon as spring comes around. So, for now, I have to appease my need by drawing them. This morning, I was totally inspired when I opened my email and found a link from tangle patterns to this gorgeous pattern: cruffle . I am even totally in love with the name - so cute - the next cat I get is going to be called Cruffle (sorry Skittles, Tigger and Tabby - you're just marking time, y'all). O.k., so back to business, as soon as I saw this pattern I thought CONE FLOWER CENTRES! and started drawing them out right away, unfortunately I work for half the day on Thursdays, so I was rudely interrupted, and just got back to it this afternoon. Anyway, LOVING cruffle for the flower centres. I drew a similar feather in this draw...

after playing around adding a new post to my blog tonight, before I headed to bed - I clicked onto the diva challenge to check out if there were any more entries from last week's challenge and "surprise" the new challenge was up. As I'm in Australia I don't normally get to see these until Tuesday, and then with work, etc, don't get to have a play until Wednesday or Friday. As soon as I saw these two challenge patterns I thought of violets in the grass - and, because it usually takes a while for an idea to pop, I decided to just go with it. hopefully I'll get to experiment a bit more a little later in the week - I love mooka, but haven't had much of a chance to play with it yet. so, at 11.59pm Monday, Melb time, I have finally done a Monday challenge... hx

Spring is coming, I have the proof in my garden - the anemone's are just starting to flower - super excited as I planted around 50 of them this year, with 100 ranunculus to follow up. Can't wait to have these beautiful, bright flowers all around the house in a few weeks. Right now I am having to make do with the daffodils and jonquils. yep. I'm suffering. after a walk around my garden, I couldn't wait to start drawing. The result was this anemone/windflower bouquet (these don't come out in my garden until summer), I love their shape. Another feather on this one, too - I am loving drawing these at the moment. would've liked to use blue/green tones for the leaves on this, but had to work with what I had - I am awaiting my final order of markers & when this arrives, I'll have all the colours (I think) I need. I have chosen more muted/pastel tones in this order as they seem to work best for the soft, watercolour look that I like. hx

Because I'm perverse, I like to try and find a way to use the pattern framework to make something a bit different - it hurts my head, but I kinda enjoy it! Took me a while to think of using the brayd framework as a feather, but I love the end result - a sort of (very) frayd brayd. lol. I am still totally LOVE, LOVE, LOVING my promarkers, and am (I think) getting a little better at blending with them. I do have a bit of a problem with run over/seepage - and am slowly getting a bit more control by colouring a little bit away from the edge. I have plans to spend some time online today ordering one more set of 12, then I (really, really)should be happy. the left "feather" is based on a quilting stitch design I found online when I was googling braids, a bit of a play around, and the result was another braid-style feather. hx

When I was doodling brayd ideas, I made a mistake on the overlap, and sketched my lines a little too big, I just kept going and really liked the outcome - as if the brayd was threaded through itself. So, then I decided I would sketch a big loopy string that crossed back on itself and try to create this effect more deliberately. I'm happy with the result, love the idea and will definitely use it again when I can be a bit more patient with my directional lines, etc. many are pretty haywire on this, along with my erratic highlighting. lol. I LOVE playing with those scrolly bits at the end.......I could do that all day. Simple little dragonflies to add a bit of balance to the design. anyway here is the result: hx PS....accidently linked to my blog page instead of to the post for my previous challenge response, and, since I cannot change my link - I have predated this one so that it appears earlier - if you want to check out my other version of brayd, you'll need to...

based on the same idea as my previous post just using different patterns, I think I prefer the daisy version, though do love any excuse to use my two favourite colours, lime green & hot pink, in a design. I love the way that mi2 lends itself to having part of the pattern escape from it. hx

I wanted to create something where the design kind of erupted between 2 laced elements. Happy with how it turned out, I'm also playing with a mi2 version. I completed most of this design yesterday, just had to colour the daisy petals, still I knew that: head cold + permanent markers + colouring in fine detail = likely disaster, so I just went to bed. Fortunately tonight the hands are a little steadier, so I thought I would finish this off. I could not find my journal anywhere - after exhausting all the plausible options we found it in my daughter's school bag (she had picked it up with her homework), just a little creased with a few marks that I could rub off - whew! hx

well, I am attempting to master my promarkers......but, needless to say, they are still the boss. I had some fun playing with my blender pen, though. once I had sketched it up, I decided to go with bit of an australian christmas theme and just colour in red and green. I need another shade of red to be able to blend with the "poppy" (love this colour!) hx

This weeks diva challenge was......well.....challenging for me. I have seen zendalas before and admired the work and control that goes into them - but, as control is a hard thing for me I think this will probably be my one and only. I need the backup of being able to create a scroll or something else if one of my lines goes skewiff - and believe me - many, many of my lines have a tendancy to do just that - it is as if my hand has a mind of its own, there I am with a plan, pen ready to go, and my hand will not co-operate. What is that? So, the challenge. I LOVE flowers, and a lot of my drawings are of flowers, so I wanted to draw....yep, you guessed it.....flowers! It took an intense staring showdown between me and the zendala string for the daisies to give it up, but they eventually revealed themselves - the result is a pretty simple and easy pattern. The bonus was that I got to colour it with some of the new promarker colours that I got last week. This probably could...