Big Boys And Pizza Packaging (Sketchbook Challenge)

After the disaster that was potato printing I have been keeping my eyes out for other print block making materials. I have even eyed up lino blocks and cutting tools online, I used to love lino printing at school, the danger of the sharp little diggy-outy tool and the fact that it never quite cut how you planned but looked cool anyway. I think I may invest in some bits for Christmas card making...... a plan is forming.....

Anyway, with eating in the bedroom we have gone for things that make little mess that can be eaten with fingers and kitchen roll. The other night the children had pizza and salad. I folded the bases in half to a satisfying pop as they snapped and then thought, oh, I wonder;


They were big enough for me to draw my images on with the wrong end of a paint brush;


I covered them in some whispers ink from my stash and printed away;



I quite like the look, I think that the base was a bit soft and flimsy and the ink didn't cover as well as it should but I like the textured look of the prints.

I also managed to enlarge the images of my boys;


Something went wrong with Sebastian's lip, don't know what happened, I redrew it a few times, went back to my tracing and checked the small squares, went back to my original image to double double check. It seems he was pouting all along but I didn't notice until he was 'big'.

I mixed some water colours and made two new shades (tints?) of purple and mixed some grey tones for their background;


Simon is back at work today so the renovations will slow down now, we're going to do some washing, do a food shop, see if a friend's in for a play and get back to 'ordinary' life.

What are you doing today??

Daisie xxx

Sketchbook Challenge #2 (Well, #3 Really)

Well the printing was a disaster, either it was the potatoes I was using, the ink or paints I was using, the papers I was using or just me. It didn't work one little bit. I was most disappointed as I spent ages chopping with my very tiny very sharp knife. When I have an idea of what else I could use around the house to cut a printable image with I'll come back to it.

The enlarging was fun, I did as Gina suggested and used L frames rather than a window;


I focused on the front of the children's faces;


I have, so far only enlarged the girls;


Mainly because I used L frames my windows were a little wonky and weren't a regular number of any measurement (metric or not) and it made my brain ache to enlarge the squares when I had divided them up!! There are lots of other factors that have made my brain ache this week but I'll come back to that later!!

I used a pink/purple again for Francesca as she is a bit of a pink princess on the sly;


And added some blue to the mix with some white (sorry to have called this a shade last time Gina, I have read your teaching words and now know that adding white is a tint and adding black is a shade!) for a more blue/purple look;



I am really rather proud of myself and think they look fabulous *blowing own trumpet* and will do the boys as soon as my brain recovers!!

Daisie xxx

Sketchbook Update

Pictures wrong way round again, need to have a play when I get some time as it's infuriating me now!! I must also apologise for the two pictures of my clingfilm wrapped pages, they were pretty but not so sure you needed to see them twice!!

Anyhoo, I was pleased with how the boys looked and wanted to extend the images to make them actually kiss. I drew Nathaniel again and again removing detail each time, it became like a visual echo. My plan was to do the same with Sebastian but I thought it would make the page look busy and spoil the effect I had already achieved.

I then mixed some children's add-water-paint-block in a luverly shade of purple and painted his full face, I then mixed in a little white each time to lighten the colour on each of his echo phases (that sounds a bit poncey but my words are not working well this morning). I painted the girls too, adding some magenta to the mix for Francecsa and a little blue for Elizabeth; that picture has disappeared all together!!


We haven't had a go at printing yet, am trying to think of something other than a potato to print with.......? And we are once again packing our life into boxes and retreating to part of the house while the last section of the house is demolished and rebuilt by Simon. I'll explain more in another post......

Oh, and one question, where has the sunshine gone? Have you got it? Want to share??

Daisie xxx

Sketchbook Challenge #1

Blogger being difficult again, not sure why it doesn't like me at the moment so the pics are out of order yet again :(

I have bought myself a new sketchbook that has a deep purple cover with the image of a tree on it, will see if I can get a good pic at some point but it's not really about the cover. Purple is my chosen colour (suprise, suprise)! I don't have a supply of good arty materials but we do have an endless supply of felt pens, crayons, and coloured pencils (see above) so am going to work with what I have and see what happens......

These were the things I used last night for my first pages;


A ranekin of luke warm water, a decorating brush and some free-with-a-magazine Barbie paints.

I brushed away on the page and covered it in clingfilm before bed;


I did some scribbling on the first page so I'd have a double page spread for each inspiration from Gina;


When I read what the title was to be for this year's challenge I instantly thought of the children. They are my home. I love our little house and little garden and all the things we have collected together over the years but it all amounts to nothing without them. We could live in a one room flat or a cardboard box and they would make me happy. It may just be a bit ambitious but we'll see.....

The first inspiration was to look at outlines so I trawled through the photos and found one of each of the children in profile and printed them out in monochrome;


I then did some jiggery pokery with some greaseproof paper from the kitchen drawer;


And then some more jiggery pokery to transfer the images into the sketchbook on my beautiful (if a little pink) rippled surface;



I love the page with the boys, they look like they are getting ready to kiss each other.

Here is my book with the clingfilm in place;


The children's images still need some work, I'm going to improve the image with some purple ink pens and maybe do some shading with chalks.

Watch this space......

Daisie xxx

PS: Please excuse the rather tired looking ironing board cover but it was in a good light spot in front of the window!