'mail' - illustration friday

although it's probably a tad late to be doing christmas cards, at this time of year this is the best mail to be getting :)
have a very merry and arty christmas all, and a productive new year!

only a week... A WEEK!

a week til christmas, i know it always comes round quickly but this year it really has! so here are some little 12 days of christmas drawings i've been working on, which in hindsight would have made great cards if i hadn't already done and sent them. maybe for next year...

on blitzen! on prancer! you get the idea...

one of my sister's presents this year, finished! and it didn't take as long as i'd thought, probably about 5 hours (if that!) so he has been wrapped and placed under the taylor household's tree ready for christmas morning. i have some more creatures i want to make for various recipients, so more posts to follow!
i got the pattern from the lion brand website which has TONS of free patterns. well worth registering!

(also, i'm hoping my sister doesn't read my blog, if she does then merry christmas sarah!)

gingerbread

christmas is fast approaching! so here is another card design i doodled today at work. i have also started crocheting a little something for my sister, but details cannot be told as it's a surprise! hope everyone's christmas preparations are going smoothly and arty!

christmas crochet!

this year has proven to be an expensive one, so i thought i would make some gifts instead of buying loads. i love getting handmade gifts and am hoping this is the same for my closest family and friends! the little gift boxes are paper mache ones from hobbycraft that i have covered in paper, and inside will be these crochet decorations cushioned in tissue paper. i decided on crocheting some stockings, wreaths, candy canes and christmas puddings which i think have turned out incredibly cute indeed! perfect for hanging on the tree. they may not have been expensive to make, but they have taken alot of time (but i reckon they'll be liked so it's worth it!)
the patterns for these i got from pottage publishing which is also where i got my crochet starter book and kit! so have a look if you want to learn or make some decorations of your own :)

'savour' - illustration friday

nom
nom
nom

illustration friday 'savour' sketches

first thing that popped into my mind when i heard this weeks word, however took 2 attempts to get him looking hamster like! the first try looked more like a chinchilla. will hopefully finish tonight along with some crochet updates :) happy monday all!

'sneaky' - illustration friday

my detective's back, looking sneaky as ever...

NASA to space chimp one...

Ok, it's my friends birthday this weekend so another card was needed. However there is a story behind why she will find this funny! After a night on the town me and some friends were round her house and she decided to listen to her voicemail messages. One was a text that someone had sent to her landline so had the robot lady reading it. It was a joke about chimps being in space with a woman, but the text had obviously been too long for one message so we only got:

NASA has sent a woman and two chimps into space.
Radio messages were as follows:

NASA to space chimp 1 - Optimise life support systems and recalibrate radiation monitoring equipment

NASA to space chimp 2 - Check trajectory and compensate if required using formula (m2-3n) + (5-m3)

and then it stopped, and because we were hungover it was officially the funniest thing ever. We still laugh about it to this day. And that is why her card has space monkeys on it. Have a good week all!

busy-ness leads to just doodles, sadly...

still not had alot of time to do much this week, but i aim to change this! in the meantime, here's a seahorse i doodled and coloured. have a good week!

the grip of Call of Duty...

yes, it got my boyfriend too. instead of sitting around bored i decided to draw him. which in turn distracted him... mwahaha!

'afterwards' - illustration friday

"First he wrought, and afterward he taught." - Geoffrey Chaucer
Thought this quote was rather relevant to me at the moment. As much as I am loving being back at college doing a teaching course (alongside re-doing my GCSE maths, ugh!) I forgot how much hard work is involved in learning! This also explains why this week I have only had time for a sketch, better than no drawing at all I guess. I'll get there eventually and it'll be worth it :)

crocheting lace (i must be insane)

Yes that's right, I've started learning the very slow yet amazingly addictive process of crocheting lace! Doillies all round for christmas presents this year...
Am using the book 'Kyuuto! Japanese Crafts Lacy Crochet' which is fab, although the patterns take a fair bit of studying for a semi-beginner like me! Highly recommend if it's something you want to try, although beginners may want to learn a teensy-bit more before attempting this stuff. So here is my first try which after many hours is still not complete, but oh it is so pretty! And yes, that is a crochet hook. It's a 2mm one (this is indeed very fiddly stuff!)

'spent' - illustration friday

as most of my time recently is spent crocheting, what better than to have it the subject of this weeks illustration friday?
in particular my mum's purple scarf birthday present took me forever to do, but she was so happy with it it was worth it!

it's november?!

before you know it it's christmas, and i do not want last years panic of 'i haven't even started my christmas cards!'
so, i have started already! here are the sketches of the first 2, i'm not sure how many designs to aim for (as many as i have time for i guess!)

happy halloween all!

i love the smell of bonfires and the crisp mornings this time of year, don't you?

'racing' - illustration friday

here it is, finished on time for once! unlike this little guy, who probably finished a couple of weeks late...

sort it out woman!

i swear the past few weeks have been RIDICULOUSLY busy! so lack of posts is going to get sorted out starting now. the crochet-ing adventure is still continuing so that's taken up a lot of my time recently. made me m'am a scarf that was 74 inches long when finished! i've also started a hat for my friend that she would like for halloween (we're going as supr mario bro.s and she's toadette!)
anyway... here is my progress of this weeks IF 'racing'. when i eventually get round to colouring it i can submit! until then, another moleskine scan :)

grand opening of my Folksy shop!

yes, i FINALLY got round to listing some prints. more shall come soon! have a peek http://www.folksy.com/shops/loulaa

some colourful jellyfish!

still haven't had time to do my plan of lots of these... but here they are in some pretty pinks :)

jellyfish-ness

started as a doodle, but now i'm thinking i want to have tons of them all over a page. i simply can't stop myself drawing them...
would also make an amazing animation, flip-book style perhaps? hmm...

beneath, finished!

thought i would finish this one, so here it is!

finally a completed peacock!

'beneath' illustration friday

this is always a possibility in my mind whenever i'm near water... scares the jeepers out of me! apologies for the moleskine scan, haven't had the chance to colour it yet. will do soon!

'old-fashioned' - illustration friday

i remember my nan having loads of silhouette's in oval frames dotted around her house, was the first thing i thought of with this weeks topic!

peacock progress...

finished drawing, just needs colour!

peacock!

for my sister's 18th birthday card, feathers are taking a while!

coop!

finished birthday card

so many birthdays so little time...

for some reason, september and october are choca-block full of birthdays. and not enough preparation has been done for cards etc! so here is the first of many i'm sure... no colour yet! thinking of doing navy blues and whites... hmm.

'proverb' - illustration friday

"a stitch in time saves nine..."
liked doing this one, although the patchwork took ages to do as i am not yet a total whizz on my mac!

foxes

'dessert' - illustration friday

mmm... yes, my entry for this weeks IF. haven't blogged for what feels like weeks, need to get back into my routine!

immovable progress

haven't posted for about a week so apologies for that! been so busy plus been doing lots of crochet... will upload pics soon. in the meantime, here's my sketch for this weeks IF - immovable :)

pattern progression!

more pattern ideas, one inca tribal sort of look, the other really 80's! going to do a variety of different styles and after discussion will settle on one route (hopefully the tribal thats my favourite so far!)

sovio competition...

my attempt at a sovio wine label design competition. the main focus is on the fact it's a lighter and less alcoholic wine hence the flying wines! quite simple, went for the 50's coca-cola look (i've been watching too much mad men recently) didn't spend as much time on it as i would have liked due to an incredibly hectic few weeks, but you never know unless you try aye!

my pattern urge has re-surfaced!

i may possibly be doing a collaboration with a friend and amazing fashion designer garry james butterfield using my patterns, so here's one of the ideas.
so happy to be producing these again!

'star gazing' - illustration friday

'caged' - illustration friday

my entry for 'caged'. going to try and do more and make it one big zoo of some sort.
they look quite cute... but if they were really that cute why are they caged? hmm...

really need to get my time management sorted!

this is another work in progress for illustration friday's theme 'caged'. think i might try and fuse a few different pages together to make loads of caged creatures. could take a while though... but it's getting there. not much more crochet going on at the moment due to hectic august, plus its my birthday on sunday so it'll probably continue to suffer til next week. so much to do so little time...

'artificial' - illustration friday

the artificial heart (or love factory) is finished! really liked doing this one.

illustration friday progress - 'artificial'

this weeks theme got me all excited as i have an odd thing for anatomy and the like. decided on going for an artificial heart but wanted to make it like a factory, recycling it's intake and producing lots of love (daww). so here is the pencil sketch, followed by a photocopy of said sketch with lines gone over with pen. will add colour tonight (if i don't get sidetracked by crochet) however i really like them black and white so we'll see what i can do to it with the magical mac...