New Colors!

For about the last 15 years or so, I've had the same travel watercolor set.  I had taken it with me on trips here and there and all over.  Then, without even noticing, it was gone!  I looked for it to take with me on the last couple of trips, and thought it was just misplaced.  But, after a pretty comprehensive search through the earlier part of this week, and no gold, well, I gave up the old set for lost.

I was bummed.  Really bummed.

Then, I went to the art store with a friend and she went to another part of the store while I asked a shop employee for recommendations on a suitable replacement.  The set nearest to the one I lost was a bit too compact and had a water reservoir attached to it which was cool, but it was so limited in pigment pan space, that it just wasn't right.  She then showed me the set she has herself.  It's a set with 12 pans, but with space for 24 and fits a brush of regular size, too!  I was sold.  I bought two additional pans from their Horadam line - Manganese violet and a Dark red.

I don't know about you, but when I was a kid and received a new box of crayons, I tested out each color... So that's what I did here.

Yay! New watercolor set!  

Schmencke Set 75412 AKADEMIE® Aquarell, Solid metal box
with 12 half pans and space for 12 additional half pans

And, in 15 years, watercolor pans have changed a lot!  These pans are so much smoother and less grainy than before.  The pigment cakes dry way faster, too, and the colors flow much more like ink.  I'm kind of glad the old set retired itself.  Otherwise, I might never have known!

Weekend Update

Based on my last few posts, it might seem like I'm not knitting or sewing.
But I am! Really!  I just haven't been as diligent with taking photos and uploading them.

I was also recently commissioned to make twin baby blankets for a pair of recently born fraternal twins.  So, that was taking a bit of my spare time thinking how I was going to make it happen by October.  Enter the knitting machine manual, a garter bar, and I'm finally on my way.  I'll be using Cascade Yarns Heritage Sock yarn thanks to a friend who wanted to de-stash and some local stores that are carrying it!  I still have to figure out what will happen with the border, but I get ahead of myself...

Here's the plan:

the plan of action

The new mom likes purples and pinks for the girl twin, and greens for the boy twin - check.

The swatch says it will work!

I had to figure out how much yarn was actually needed so after an initial gauge swatch to choose the best tension on the machine - I liked 6.25 - I did a test run.  The test blocks revealed that each 6" x 6.5" block takes circa 8g of yarn.  Which means when multiplying 8g x 48 blocks, 384 g total yarn is needed, and I have 400g of yarn (100g x 4 skeins).   In the plan, there's 12 pink blocks, 12 purple, and 24 white so it should be enough yarn!  Same with the greens: 12 dk green, 12 lt green, 24 grey blocks.  

yarn with previous plan of action

I'll probably add texture in the form of cables and random garter stitch just to change things up, but we have the main knitting settled.  Crossing my fingers it'll be enough yarn.

 lilac, pink, and white

greens and grey

If not, I'll reach into my stash and make it work...

I've also been working on a skirt which is eluding completion due to the fact that I somehow thought it would be a cool idea to have a side seam zipper as well as side seam pockets.  Yeah.  I'll see how that works out.
Have a great weekend!

Playground Memories

The recent Lilla Rogers competition featured a playground theme...

Illustration Friday, Jungle Theme

This week's Illustration Friday theme was "jungle" and I was back at the drawing board early in the week and then again mid-week.  I was back and forth on what to do, but then I saw this poster by A.M. Cassandre, the French illustrator, painter, and commercial artist.

I really like the airbrush texture in his work, and wanted to see if I could somehow capture a bit of the grittiness in my own digital work.  Some of what bugged me about the spring horse illustrations of last week was that I couldn't capture the right texture.

Another thing I wanted to address was the lack of variety in the spring horse illustration.  It felt a bit blocked.  Maybe it was too much time on the digital work from the get-go, and not enough sketching.  This time, I had a goal of illustrating 20 different elements in one illustration.  I got close... I illustrated 16 different elements.  Baby steps!  For subject matter, I picked my fave jungle creatures and rolled with it.  This sounds corny, but I tried not to try so hard.

Okay, that's all for now!

Here's my sketch in case you wanted to see how this started.

one of the sketches for "jungle"

Logo Summer

Here are a few logos I've designed this summer...

For a website called Knitting Rose Yarns.  The owner hand-dyes her own line of yarns, has a podcast, and is quite active in the fiber arts world.  Knitting Rose's owner, Lise, shows her yarns at conferences like Stitches Midwest, and fiber arts festivals in the southwest.

Adriprints for Knitting Rose Yarns, 2013

Knitting Rose Yarns website with new logo

Knitting Rose Yarns website with new logo, podcast with logo

Lise, the owner of Knitting Rose, and I were working with some very specific ideas inspired by the text of her company's name and the resulting logo is one I'm really happy with.

Another logo from this summer is for a sex coach.  We wanted the logo for CSC, to be friendly and approachable, but serious.  We wanted there to be an openness to the botanical elements, and a damask-like symmetry to the logo so it can work alone or as an all-over pattern.

This logo was a lot of fun to make because I hadn't made a repeating pattern in a while.  I love tinkering with the elements and seeing what happens in different repeat motifs.