Sticks and stones...

It's been an unusual week for me. After fourteen years I have handed in my notice at my job. I'm feeling a little ambivalent about it at the moment; nerves are overriding the excitement I am feeling, so I flit between the two with startling regularity. Even with that, I have managed to do some crafting.

A simple bracelet, made with items from the latest Beadhaul box and a clasp from my stash.

I made a set of drawers, starting by adding some moulds, then some glass beads and art stones.

I then painted it all black, including the inside drawers. I left the inside of the set as I have found in the past that paint tends to make these swell so the drawers don't fit in.

I then painted the whole outside gold.

After painting it gold I painted it with one of my chalk paints, wiping off the excess and using prima gold and silver waxes to highlight certain aspects. I was going for a faux patina look, as if this piece had been dragged up from the depths of the ocean.

I also used a Tando Creative paper tray with my G45 Masquerade papers. Started off by painting it black and inking the edges with prima waxes to extend the harlequin feel. I fussy cut a lot of things, adding them with foam pads, and finally used mini gems in various places for a bit of bling.

advance from stick men
master paper and pencil
attempt to make art

This week I was planning on doing something else but time got away from me, so I decided to learn how to draw something. Now I am patently useless at art when it comes to drawing. I only ever got an A twice at school and neither times was it for typically drawing. (Have to admit I was surprised each time - they used to put the top ones on the whiteboard and I always had to have it pointed out to me) I tried to draw two things here; one was a failure, one wasn't.

This was the one I tried first. I got the body right, but the wings are lacking, both in detail and general shape. So I tried something else.

I starts off with a basic shape. This was off one of those wikihow articles.

Next thing was to add details to the spine of the feather. From there it went to finishing the bloody thing with not much help except ' fill in the details of the feather'. Not very helpful. However, there was a picture so I decided to give it a try.

Not bad huh? I could see Samuel Pepys using this as a pen. The trick is not to make the strokes of the feather uniform. I don't think drawing is for me but I might try again in the future. I'd like to do a silhouetted tree.

Ems

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What to do when you hit a wall?

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The Introverted Crafter

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