Still playing at iPad 2 trees with the Brushes App and still don't have as much control as I would like...


The top one is the tree I see from my window, I have been trying to add more colour and use different brush widths.


The second one is from a photo in Dulwich park.


I am trying to decide how to simplify what I see while showing enough of the subject...

Oh dear I have been so busy making Sylvanian clothes* *http://thesylvanianfamiliescatwalkcollection.blogspot.com/
that I have neglected this blog, I am obsessed!

However, I am pleased to say that my mixed media piece Mind Games has been selected for the 12th South Holland Arts Exhibition, 29th February to 6th March at the South Holland Centre in Spalding, Lincs

Sylvanians - dressmaking

Dressed Sylvanian mole - for my granddaughters - I'm gradually working out patterns...

More iPad drawing

My daughter says that there must be a rush on people buying iPads and the Brushes app after seeing the Hockney exhibition. They will then go off creating loads of dodgy landscapes on it. She is quite right! Thanks dd!! Hence my latest go at the tree from my bedroom window... and I am even copying Hockney by drawing the same tree over and over again  (but without his technique of course!!)

I have now found out that I can use many layers to do a slice at a time and go backwards and forwards to work on them.

I did the background last of all and tinted it to get rid of the stark white background.

The foreground tree was done first with a layer underneath to fill in all the tree with a creamy colour - as otherwise the background layers of the pond, trees, ice and snow showed through the trunk where there were no marks made...

I am also playing with the built in brushes now...

I have a Bamboo stylus to use as I found using my fingers very hard.

I have always been reluctant to take a sketchpad out with me as I was afraid of making a complete mess of it - but I am now hoping to use the iPad instead of a laptop when we are away for emails etc etc but also as a discreet sketchbook...

Life Book 2012 - image transfer whimsical self portrait

Life Book 2012 self portrait project; this is an image transfer technique using a reverse photocopied image of myself which was then transferred using acrylic medium and used as the basis of a whimsical picture of myself with crazy hair.

The hardest part was choosing from a given alphabetical list of positive words to write around the self portrait!

I find positivity a real challenge:( - and whimsy!!

More knitted cacti

I must stop now, this is becoming obsessive:(
I promised my daughter-in-law I would knit her a cactus and I have obviously gone mad.
They are still basically different lengths of ribbed tube, gathered up, stuffed with a cardboard base inserted in the bottom of each one and stitched over. The flowers are crocheted in rounds. Fluffy wool made fluffy cacti and also I crocheted on some extra fluff! The Cleistocactus straussii* centre back has knitted flowers rolled up into tubes. (*I know this name because we have a cactus nursery!! I could give them all Latin names lol)
They are all now stuffed into in clay pots.

Knitting cacti and trying to draw with the iPad

My blog has been rather quiet - but I have been knitting ribbed tubes which are drawn up at the end to make a curved top; then they are stitched together and filled with stuffing; then I crocheted flowers - just a chain and a row of double crochet.

I have also been in London to see the Hockney exhibition, it was fantastic and genuinely uplifting...

It is not often you see something genuinely celebratory.

I am now playing with the Brushes app on my iPad  - 2 views from my window and a self portrait from a photograph - but I have a long way to go....