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, as soon as I saw this pattern I thought CONE FLOWER CENTRES! and started drawing them out right away. I drew a similar feather in this drawing too, and, though it is pretty straight-forward, thought it would be fun to do a pattern for it, so here it is: You can also see a video demo of it here. hx