Why I Love Taking Part in The Global Talent Search

A lot of illustrators will already know about this competition run by Lilla Rogers from Make Art That Sells. Especially ones that are active online in social media. (Is Instagram your favourite too!?)

Mini prep assignment; sampling colours from one of my own photos

It's The Global Talent Search that she runs once a year to find a new illustrator to represent through her agency Lilla Rogers Studio. That's one big prize!

This is my second year taking part. In no way do I have any delusions of grandiose, (winning the comp... but one can dream!) but the main reason I'm taking part is because I just enjoyed it so thoroughly last year.

Mini prep assignment: Lettering practise. Illustrating the letter 'S'.

Every time you get an assignment (she has devised these mini tasks that are called GTS prep assignments) you get pushed out of your comfort zone. Like challenging yourself to use new colours, or to illustrate something that you may not initially be drawn to illustrate. I always find, even if I'm not totally keen on the subject, that I always learn something. Growth happens, and I find new respect or admiration for something that didn't interest me beforehand.

That once happened when I was commissioned to do a painting and my customer requested that there be some purple in the painting. I never really used purple before, and wasn't even sure how to mix the best hues. So, I had to learn. I researched and bought some new paints. For a colour that never sparked much interest before, I found that I actually enjoyed using it, and now purples and shades of pinks frequently appear in my artwork! I would never have started doing that if I hadn't have been pushed to try something out of what I was already comfortable with.

Mini prep assignment: Filling in the blanks within a paragraph that Lilla wrote about being a dessert. Who would expect anything less of a quirky assignment from someone that represents artists!?

Another reason is creating new folio pieces, practising my craft, and just plain fun. You get to connect with other illustrators & creatives through social media all over the world and spur each other on and that's a really nice bonus. You also get feedback from others which, let's face it, if you're an illustrator you need to be making art that other people enjoy so it's good to get that positive feedback.

Mini prep assignment: Illustrating my favourite drink.

So now the mini preps are done I'm ready for the first main assignment and am waiting with bated breath. Bring it on Lilla!

Jules :)

DIY Geo Origami Mobile

Want an easy craft to do that has big impact for little effort? Go these origami geo shapes. So fun and effective.

You can even make these origami shapes and hang them randomly around your house. They are a little addictive :)

I made all these geo origami shapes then decided to hang them from fishing line onto a triangle of branches found in my backyard. The branches I cut were about 40cm (16") in length.

You'll need scrap book papers, small branches, string or twine or wool & fishing line, scissors, and a hot glue gun.

Ok, so here's what you do in picture form:

Hopefully my pictures are self explanatory. Let me know if you get confused! Once you have made one, make another the same size. For each geo shape you need two pieces that will glue together. Poke a small hole in the top of one piece and thread string/ wool/ fishing line through with a decent knot in one end to hold it up. 

The next part is a bit tricky where you place the two parts together using your hot glue gun to join. I think it's easy to go around and do one 'point' at a time, until you've glued all of the points together.

Then, go crazy! Hang them from twigs like I have done or dot them throughout your house :)

The beauty of this project is you can customise your papers to suit your own taste and style. Of course, I have used colourful decorative scrap booking papers for mine. My largest geo shape is made from two standard sized scrap book papers. The rest I cut down smaller than that. Play around with different sizes. The small ones look so cute!

Have fun :)

Weekend Retreat at Warburton

Recently I had a weekend away with a couple of long time old friends of mine. Between the three of us friends, we have acquired seven children. We managed to whittle that down to just one for this getaway! 

I won't go on much in this blog post. It was a very relaxing and rejuvenating stay. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Inspiration was all around especially in the quirky creative town of Warburton, which we stayed near. Couple that with the Australian bush, cafe visits, warm cups of tea, a fireplace, yummy food and good company and we had the recipe for a perfect getaway.

This house we discovered in the main town of Warburton was like a creation straight from the pages of a book I have by Taschen called Fantasy Worlds (Which I love.) Very intriguing. And I hear the owner & creator sometimes comes out and talks about his home. It looked like a grown up manifestation of a childhood cubby house/ fort. 

The Fantasy Worlds book is available here. (affiliate link)

Now you would think I'd be full of inspiration to create, wouldn't you? Nope! I have been creating lots of food though. (Bread, sauerkraut, homemade nutella, cashew paste, broth, soups, cakes, muesli, coconut yoghurt.. the list goes on..) My kids have been on school holidays and now that school is back, I still have one sick at home. I'm hoping to get right back into it very soon with the start of a new school term, Jess Van Den's Year To Thrive program which I will be taking part in, and the Global Talent Search, all starting very soon.

I'm looking forward to it all and hope that my little spark of creativity flourishes into a big furnace again with the help of those programs!

Here's hoping your furnace is firing too :)

Jules x

Disclaimer: Affiliate links help me earn small commissions on products (at no extra cost to you), which helps support my love of blogging and sharing creative things. You can be confident that I only ever recommend or link to products that I'm genuinely into.

Musings on The Art Process

I'm going to talk about an aspect of the art/ painting process again today after a blog post I saw yesterday sparked some thought on it.

In my studio: Works in progress

It was this post by Pam Garrison, where she's showing the work process of some paintings. (Beautiful colours!)

A gorgeous little loose painting of a bird appeared, and then she said that for better or worse during the painting process, it had disappeared under another layer.

how beautiful is it..!?

This happens to me so much, and was it was interesting to read this process from another artist. I've been working on a painting recently, only quite small, about 8 x 10", and the layers it's had are plentiful! There's been flowers, birds, shapes... but I never stop until I've reached a point where I'm happy. I do love the texture and history that builds up in the process, which is a positive that comes out of this process.

And sometimes that means loosing something that you quite liked along the way.

And you can never look at a painting and guess how long it took to do. Sometimes they come out quickly, and others are a struggle. A lot of hidden hours can be layered under one piece.

Here's some images I lost in the painting process. (These were a painting challenge I did which you can read about here.)

I still haven't got over the fact that I didn't leave these paintings as they were!

And these are under paintings completely made to be painted over. I quite liked the second one as it was, but it's gone now.

And who knows where it will end up.

My sketchbook where I repeatedly cover images over and add layers

This is the one that has lots of layers, there are birds and flowers and fronds all hidden away in there :)

A close- up so you can see some of the built- up texture

So I hesitate to put a good or bad label on this aspect of the painting process, as I think it's sometimes an integral part of the process, depending on your painting style. Sometimes it's sad when you loose a certain aspect, but painting is not a linear process. Art is not created in that way. The rules are elusive, it's formula is hazy. Something that worked before may not work again. You can apply the same rules and come out with something fantastic, or something mediocre (as subjective as that may all be, anyway.) The universe takes your previously successful methods, churns them up and spurts them back out at you just to keep you on your toes. Because I think if we ever end up truly understanding the art process it wouldn't be Art anymore. 

Don't you think?

Jules :)

Sewing Tutorial: Scrappy Happy Doll

Hello!

I have a sewing tutorial for you today. A scrappy happy doll :)

Download your pattern to print here. Make sure you print your file at 100%.

Skill level: intermediate

You will need:

-Some plain calico fabric
-A few small pieces of pretty/ colourful fabrics
-Sewing thread/ cotton
-Sewing needle, scissors, pencil, pins, small safety pin, sewing machine
-Embroidery thread in various colours
-Wool for hair
-Felt in similar colour to chosen hair colour
-Stuffing

Now, we made three dolls at the one time, as Miss 5 and Miss 7 saw what I was doing and had to join in. So photos may not always show the same fabric/ colours! Even though this is intermediate sewing level; I always find the kids can help out with cutting and sewing straight lines. Mummy takes over for the tricky parts, but having them choose their own fabrics and help me with parts here and there, they are still proud of their finished creation and feel that they have made it themselves :)

Instructions:

Print your pattern out at 100%.

Cut your paper pattern templates out along the lines. The lines will be where you sew, so the fabric will be cut larger than the shape you draw. You will use the templates to trace around your pieces onto your fabric.

You only need to draw the body outline once. Cut the fabric around it like shown, and then cut a second piece of calico the same size as the first one. When tracing, mark your hairline, leg guides and opening as well. Your markings are on the wrong side of the fabric. Turn this same piece of fabric over and carefully trace the facial features onto the right side of the fabric.

Using the hairline guide, place your piece of felt on the plain fabric piece lining up as shown.

Sew it on in matching thread close to the edge in matching colour, as shown in the second photo. (So messy! No matter.)

Use your pattern to draw a faint line on the felt. This will act as a guide for when we sew on our hair. 

Next, just below our hair, we are going to sew on some patterned fabric. Fold the raw edge over and sew it close to the folded edge. Do the same for both pieces, making sure they are lined up to each other. Note that the sewing outline is on the other side of the fabric here. Our sewing outline needs to be on the wrong side of our fabric.

Trace around your arm and leg shapes two times and then cut out adding seam allowance. Add a second piece of fabric to each piece and sew them together like shown, back stitching at the ends. Trim shape about .7cm (1/4") from the stitching. I like to use a small stitch length when sewing toys for extra security.

Turn legs and arms inside out. I used a chopstick to poke the ends in. (A tip is to lick your fingers to grab hold of the fabric above the chopstick to grip it and start pulling it down over the chopstick.)

Stuff arms and legs using your chopstick or similar leaving 1cm (3/8") empty at the ends. Turn the ends of the ARMS ONLY in, making sure both arms end up the same length.

Take some wool and lay it across the centre of your felt as shown. I drew a little line at the top so I could see where the middle was for sewing. I cut lengths that were 25cm (10") long and lined them up and sewed them down. (I went over them twice to make sure they were all nicely secured in.)

Now you need to move the sewn hair out of the way and sew pieces of hair around the edge of the hairline. Loop pieces over measuring to match the length of the hair already sewn.You do not want to sew the hair on the hairline but a fraction outside of the hairline you drew earlier. It may help you to have your wool lengths ready to go and place and sew them gradually at the sewing machine.

Embroider your face using coloured embroidery thread in your chosen colours.

Now we are going to pin everything together. 

Place your two body pieces right sides together, positioning all the hair as best you can into the centre of the shapes. Matching up the sides of your patterned fabric as best you can and use your hand to flatten everything down and then pin everything into place. The pattern is very forgiving, so just do your best :) It feels very awkward. Your legs need to be placed inside of the shape with about 1cm poking out past the bottom sewing line. You can feel inside of your body shape to check if they are at the same length. You don't want one leg longer than the other. You may need to adjust if not. (Ignore my sewing lines on my pinned doll, they are slightly different to the final pattern.)

Carefully sew around the shape, making sure you don't catch any loose pieces of hair/ wool in the sides. You will, of course, be sewing over the loops of hair at the top of your doll (just inside where you sewed the loops of wool down). Leave the side open, backstitching at the start and end. Trim your fabric around the edges, snipping close to the stitching at the corners to reduce bulk. Once again, I have used quite a small stitch length for this, around 2.6- 2.8.

Now for the fun part! The big reveal! Turn her in the right way, add some stuffing, and hand stitch up the opening you left folding the raw edges in as you go.

Hand stitch the opening of the arm holes together using small neat stitches, then hand stitch them to the sides of her body.

Then you get to play hairdresser! Give her a hairstyle and trim. 

You can make a scarf by cutting two pieces of fabric (use a stretchy type fabric like a knit or jersey (t-shirt type fabric) or felt so that it doesn't fray. I cut two pieces 37 x 2cm (14 1/2" x 3/4"), blanket stitched around them in contrasting embroidery thread and then hooked small pieces of colourful embroidery thread through the end stitches with a small crochet hook, and looped them through themselves.

Make a skirt by cutting two pieces of fabric 15cm x 10.5cm (6" x 4 1/8"). Place right sides together and sew side seams with a 1cm (3/8") allowance, zigzagging raw edges. Zigzag raw edges at the top and bottom, then fold top and bottom edges in 1cm (3/8") and sew down with straight stitch, leaving an opening at the top seam to add some elastic. I cut a 17cm (6 5/8") piece of elastic. Pop your elastic in using a small safety pin, sew the ends together overlapping 1cm (3/8") and finish sewing your top seam. You can get creative and add an extra different coloured hem like I did, or sew on a fancy ribbon around the bottom edge, or even add some contrasting pockets. The more you add, the more scrappy and unique she becomes :)

I also made some socks out of some stretchy material by tracing around her legs and hand stitching them on the wrong side of the fabric, then turning them out the right way.

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and please show me a photo if you make one of your own! 

Happy sewing!

Jules :)

ps. Please let me know if there's anything unclear in this tutorial so I may rectify it, thank you!