Digital Drawing day and Ooops. I forgot!

I have been so busy the last few posts, that I forgot a major milestone!  I have passed 500 posts!  wow.  I never thought I'd get this far, especially with all the stops and starts last year, but I have finally got here.
Wonder where I'll be when I hit 1000?  Mind you, I do have a friend who has been blogging for over ten years, so she beats me there!
If you saw my post yesterday, you know I have been playing with a new toy.  I have a brand spanking new embroidery machine and have been playing with the commercial designs that come with it.  But since today is Digital Drawing Day, hosted by Terry.  (She and Joan will post Sunday U.S. time), I thought it was the perfect opportunity to do two things at once.
Terry's prompt for this week is 'put a bird on it', so I drew a blue wren with my digital tablet.

I didn't put a background, or anything for the poor bird to stand on because I had something special in mind for my image.  And I didn't use the pastel tool for this, I used the watercolour brush because I wanted clear solid colours.
I took my image and digitised it into an embroidery design on my computer.  I thought it would be difficult, but it wasn't.  What will be difficult will be all the tweaking I need to do now that I have stitched it out, because there were problems with the stitching,  but here it is!

As you can see it is far from perfect, but I think that this will be a great tool to use in my work.  Imagine being able to stitch out my own designs into my pieces!  Any way I think it will be - when I have tweaked it a bit.

Happy Creating!

Digital Drawing Day - The worries in your head

If you are a regular visitor to my blog, you will know that this topic, from Terry and Joan over at andsewitgoes (Terry will not post until sunday U.S. time) for this weeks digital drawing, is particularly apt as I am trying (vainly) to get myself organised for the Australasian Quilt Convention this week.
The biggest worry in my head, has been getting landscapes suitable for my workshop with Gloria Loughman, drawn up and ready.  Usually, in my photographs, I am looking for foreground detail, but for this course, I need lots of hills in the background!  So I have gone back through my old photos (actual prints, they are so old) and found a few that I might be able to use. I had to exaggerate the background in a lot of them, and also, I needed colour to decide me what to do with them.
I have narrowed it down to two.

This first picture was taken in the high plains of New South Wales at Cabramurra.  There were lupins growing wild all over and I took lots of photos.

As you can see, I have exaggerated the background mountains and the number of lupins, and then.

I altered where the tree was.  The tree was just a quick scribble as my hands were beginning to ache!

This was taken on the Snowy River, just inside the Victorian border, but south of Thredbo.

And this is where I got with that one.  I left out the large pile of rocks and wood at the centre right as I knew it would be too fiddly for a workshop.

I have finally got the hang of using layers.  And it did make things so much easier!  As usual, I used the pastel tool in artrage as I was in a hurry, but now I have my landscapes worked out.  I won't bore you with the line diagrams, but they are done and all I have to do is print them out!  Yes!

But of course, I still have a ton to do, including two assignments due before I leave home and only two days to go!
I will not be able to post a digital drawing next sunday, but I will try and post during the week.

Happy creating!

digital drawing day green and growing

This weeks's theme for digital drawing day from Terry grant is 'green and growing' (I am a day ahead in Aus, the post over there will not be up until tomorrow).
I have been working on some green and growing things in my landscapes for my 'Working in a series' class with Elizabeth Barton, and I have been using the graphics tablet to play with my designs.
Here is a value study of a design I am currently working on.

This is obviously not green!  even though the subject matter is,  but I can tell you a grey scale sketch is very useful especially with picking colours.

Here it is with the colour added.  It is a scene a few minutes walk from my house.  The photo I used was quite blurry, but since I know the scene so well, it worked ok.
As usual, I used the pastel tool in Artrage, but I used lots of layers to get colours to lie on top  of each other.
I am finding more and more that it is easier to draw these sketches for my fibre work digitally.  It is more forgiving and you don't have the limitations of the real thing eg pastel.  Also, all you need is computer paper, not thick watercolour paper and sketchbooks! (Although I do love playing in them still)
This one is going to be heavily stitched, so the scribbly mark making is like a practice of free machine stitching and thread painting, which is always a good thing.


Happy Creating!

digital Drawing Day - Something that pleases

The topic for Terry's Digital drawing this week is 'Something that pleases'.  since I have been doing so much work on landscapes, that is what pleases me at the moment.

You might remember this transparent landscape I have been working on.
One of the things I like to do when working on a project, is to play with different techniques in my sketchbook.  I looked at this challenge as a way to look at my landscape from another point of view.

And this is what I came up with.  I put in the colours with the airbrush tool in Artrage.  When I set the opacity lower, I found I could get some transparency.  You can see in the foreground, where I have overlapped the lines of greens.
Next I used the Marker (Texta) tool to imitate my free motion stitching, doing scribbles for the horizon trees in two colours and scribbles for the grasses.  Then I continued to add some simple hand stitch ideas, some running stitches in the sky and some french knot dots in the foreground.
I am quite pleased with how this came out and think I will most definitely use this to create stitch diagrams again.
If you are not a digital drawer, you could simply open your photo of the work in a program like photoshop or Gimp and using the pencil too, just draw all over it, or if you are not computer savvy, you could do as deborah boshert does and just photocopy or print your work and then draw on it with real markers.
I think It is a great way to audition!

Make sure you visit Terry sunday US time to see hers and joan's  digital drawings.

What's on the table

I had forgotten today was Sunday.  Well here in Australia it is,  not quite there elsewhere, I think.

So of course it is digital drawing day.  Terry has been hosting this over on her blog on Sundays (US time).  I haven't heard that she has stopped, but her post will not be up for a while yet, but drop on over later to see what she and Joan have been doing.  The theme was 'What's on the table?'  and for me, that was pretty easy.  What's on the table are the courses I am doing at the moment.

So I drew a sketch of my sketchbook.  I said  last time that I was relying too much on using the pastel tool, in Artrage, so this week, I did two things.  Firstly, I used Layers and secondly, I used some other tools,
I did the background with a palette knife tool.  That was fun.  then for the sketchbook, I used the watercolour brush tool.  when I wanted to blend, I used it without the instant dry feature and when I wanted a sharp line, or a dot,  I used the instant dry.  I think it will take me a while to get the hang of blending the layers,  but I am happy with my little drawing.

I did say yesterday, I would show you the quilting on my Tangled Textiles piece.  It is finished and I will be posting it tomorrow on the TT site, and here.   But I will just give you a little peek at some quilting.

I thought this spiral design would fit in well with the 'Vincent van Gogh' idea.
I love the way the chiffon blends in after being quilted.

Happy creating!

Digital drawing day

Today I am joining Terry and Joan at Terry's blog for their Digital drawing day.  Obviously,  My post is a day ahead due to different time zones, so don't go looking until tomorrow.  But make sure you do as their discussion about the sketches are very interesting.

The theme for this week was food and being the boring person I am, I simply got some out of the fridge and put it on some fabric.
I know I am getting a bit stuck,  having been a pastel painter in another life, I keep using the pastel tool. Perhaps if I promise you that net week I will use a different tool, ...... I will.
This painting was done with the pastel tool on artrage.
Now that I see it up on the screen, I don't like my pear much and my orange is bit little and mean.  I played a lot with blending in the background.  It was fun playing with the shades and softness of the pastel.  I have found that to lay a lot of colour down, it is best to use the softest setting, but then go back with a mid tone on a hard setting to blend.
I am using Artrage on a UGEE tablet.  This tablet is quite cheap compared to the wacom and I was disappointed when my hubby got it, but  really with the beating I am giving it, I am sure I will wear it out.  It or the stylus, anyway, so perhaps a cheap replacement is a good thing?
I have tried other programs and actually have Sketchbook pro and Corel graphics studio, but they are large programs that tend to hang up at times.  Art rage has similar features to Sketchbook pro and uses a lot less memory.  Another feature I love is the rotate paper tool, which allows you to have your paper at the right angle for what you are drawing.

Another thing I would like to try is to use different filters, as Terry did in last week's post.   I don't have the app she was talking about, but I could certainly use the filters I already have in gimp and corel.

Happy Creating!

Digital drawing day - two domestic items

I have had a few days with a bad tooth.  Hopefully to get fixed tomorrow.
So I am a bit late with DDD today.
The theme for this week was two domestic items speaking to one another.  I thought of "the pot calling the kettle black"  and this was my quick half hour sketch.

Have a look over on Terry's blog for hers and June's interpretations, which were much more imaginative than mine, but perhaps I can be forgiven as pain is not very condusive to creativity.

Happy creating!