My latest pencil portrait ~

This work was completed on Friday; a gorgeous drawing of two sisters who adore each other! It was a pleasure to work on and I am more than happy with how it turned out! What do you think? :o)

This Quirky Bean has been a bit out of sorts recently, but the crafty goodness is coming back soon I promise! I have plenty of ideas for new tutorials, you'll love them ;)

Xox

FLASHDANCE CURLS for the win! Busy weekends, photography and fun hair do's!

I am completely pooped today! Another practice photo shoot, skating, bowling (both of which I sucked at), dinner with a friend, many many games of Labyrinth, 2 hours and 45 minutes of Sing Star and three nights of not being in bed until after midnight! I don't think I've done quite so much in one weekend in..... I don't even know when! How old and boring does that make me feel!?! And I got absolutely NO housework OR gardening done! It was all fantastic fun though :o)

A HUGE thankyou to my model, Cerry for volunteering on Saturday!! These are just a teeny weeny selection of photos from the shoot! Ain't she just the cutest thang? You can check out the rest of the photos at Pretty Things Art and Photography if you'd like!

I uploaded a few photos of my watercolour paintings too! Go check them out and tell me what you think!

Oh! And I posted my Round 6 granny squares today to their mystery location! This exchange has been oodles of fun, it's fantastic receiving a pair of unique crocheted or knitted squares in the mail with no idea of where they came from!

This is Labyrinth...sooooo much fun! It's seriously an awesome board game!

Tomorrow morning at 9am I have my last practice Portfolio shoot and then *SQUEEE* I can do my price list and actually start (hopefully) getting a little bit of business! I hope I'm good enough, I'm certainly not qualified but I don't think that matters much these days...as a hobby I mean. If I was wanting to go into it professionally I would be getting a hold of that Diploma in a heart beat (and when I win Lotto coz there is NO WAY I could afford it at the moment) I have absolutely no idea what to charge but I guess with a coffee (or two) and a bit of thought I can probably think of something..... I don't really want much, just enough to cover the batteries in my camera and the time editing really :o) Is that ok do you think? People tell me I undercharge for my drawings too, but if I'm not a professional I don't see why I should charge someone a lot of money for something...I want to stay as affordable to everyone as possible!

Hmmmm what else... oh yes! My Pinterest hair experiments! My aim was to test out if this.....

Source: Uploaded by user via Candylove on Pinterest

and this
.....

Source: theglitterguide.com via Destiny on Pinterest

would work! So I did! And here's what happened! Will braiding your hair and running a straightening iron over each braid a few times get you waves in thick hair? Nope, not really....not unless you're willing to put a BAZILLION little teeny weeny braids in and personally that's a tad too much effort BUT will putting your hair in braids whilst your hair is damp, letting it dry for an hour or two AND THEN running over each one a few times with a straightening iron work? Sure will!!! And they'll hold nicely too! See? SUCCESS!!

 Onto the next experiment.... FLASHDANCE curls! Now I don't know about you, but I'm a sucker for curly hair.... I LOVE big bouncy curly hair do's and they are just soooo me! So this one I was super excited to try out! Soo I did this...

Before I went to bed I put my hair into little wormies whilst my hair was damp, and bobby pinned the crap out of them to hold them down (I have UBER thick hair)...

Had THE WORST night's sleep trying to get comfortable on all those hard little bobbles and the next day...

I quickly went over my whole head with a hair dryer to set them a little more, then I took out the bobby pins and had these really cool tight little springs for hair! I carefully pulled them apart and VOILA! FLASHDANCE curls!! Was I totally in love them and feel like a million bucks? I sure was!! And I sure did!! Was it worth the terrible night's sleep...probably not, BUT I feel like next time I try this I'll work it out so that the uncomfy bobbly things are on top of my head and not in the way when I sleep. ANOTHER SUCCESS!!

So if you are like me and have super thick hair but still want to try out some fun experiments, these two methods are fantastic! If you happen to come across another hair do on Pinterest (or wherever!) you love but aren't sure about it in your thick hair, email it to me! I'll test it out for you, blog about it and share it with everyone else! :o)
So now...I'm going to trot off and do some research for tomorrow mornings' outdoor shoot, find something comfy to wear and get started on some 'to do' lists for the EPIC declutter and organisation adventure I'll be doing to my flat soon! Stay tuned for more on that! I'll be sharing my favourite DIY storage and declutter solutions, creating a few of my own and generally cutting the crap out of my living space so it feels more like home and I can take pride in it instead of resenting it and leaving everything all icky. Sounds like a plan right!?

Nighty night!!!

A few failed attempts but I got there eventually! Drawing in uggies

Morning guys! Here is a grainy schlumpy iphone photo of me today rocking tights and uggies... it's freezing here today!! *waves!* hello!

As you may know, recently I held a little self-hosted giveaway here at the QC Shmoogle Bean where I offered, instead of an item, the chance to win a hand drawn pencil portrait. A huge thankyou to everyone who entered by the way!! Hopefully you'll keep your eyes peeled! I'll be running another portrait giveaway in the near future! Or if you're a fellow nerdling and zombie lover, get an entry in our current giveaway! As it turns out, our resident Caffeinated Army Wife was lucky enough to be our winner this time and sent me a photo to have turned into a drawing. I'm here today to share the process of the drawing being created! I procrastinate a while before I get started..I'm always nervous before I start drawing...which is weird coz as a hobby you'd think I would enjoy it more! Im always worried it won't turn out, or that my mood won't be stable enough to handle mistakes (believe me, it happens!)

It starts out looking much like a Mr Squiggle!

Then I do battle with a violin. Man I didn't realise how tricky those things are to draw!!

I realise how terrible I am at drawing hands and begin to lose enthusiasm... look at it and decide I've got the composition all wrong, get cranky at myself for not seeing it to start with and realise that I need to start over. At this stage my husband calls me and says he is having trouble focusing at work and is grabbing a coffee to bring home for us both. I decide to pick this up again after coffee. I then find myself debating whether or not I should continue with the drawing at hand to see how it goes before I start all over. CONFLICTED!!! I was right, my current mood and bit of brain that lets me draw aren't speaking to one another like they should be... how childish!

So I put on a load of washing and here I am again sitting at my desk willing my motivation to make a comeback....

Nope it's gone. Kaput...vanished... hope lost, kicked the bucket and gone to meet it's maker.

*SIGH*

 Start again :/

And not looking much better

Worse than last time :(

Start again.

I got there in the end :o) I hope you like it Jessi! I'm getting it laminated for you this arvo and in the mail on Monday!

Also I was bored thismorning and took a photo of a bottle cap. It's truly a masterpiece! HAHA

Oh deary I need more coffee :p



Grouchy catch up - craptastic craft stuff and general crankiness

Having a royally sh** day and seriously couldn't care less if the world imploded and all that was left was an army of nuclear-enhanced cockroaches. I have cramps that could kill people, my usually cynical outlook is now plain vindictive and it seems everyone is out to test how far my temper stretches. There is not nearly enough chocolate in the house and I feel like the Good Year blimp right now, bloated, full of hot air and a huge eyesore!

I could go on complaining in more detail but the specific people who are currently annoying (I very much wanted to use a more colourful word but I didn't think you'd appreciate that) me off might get narky... or at least more so than their usual kind loving and considerate (BARF) natures.

Anyway, here are some photos of things I've been doing recently. I feel like I haven't blogged about anything crafty in a while. I am barely bringing myself to formulate sentences but hey, you get that on the big jobs.. DAMNIT i'm mad. Ah who cares...sorry, on with the catch up stuff.

I made a tiny crochet top hat..

I drew a chibi Jade from Homestuck - if you don't know what that is, I'm not explaining because it's all insane..just enjoy the pretty picture

I drew some portraits

I made a pair of baby booties

I took a Hipstamatic of my dog

I finished a baby blanket I was working on

and I took a silly photo of myself on my webcam.

That's about it! Now I'm going to go make myself French Toast DRENCHED in sugar because I am hungry and already feel like a fatty so I don't care. So what if all my blog posts aren't all happy cheerful grammatically correct stories of wonderment and joy! That's just life sweet cheeks!

Hope your day is less... infuriating...

I love the feeling of a completed artwork :o)

Isn't he just the cutest little munckin you've ever seen? I hope my client likes it :o)

If you would like a portrait drawn, I'd be happy to do one for you! Pop by my page and say hello!
'Pretty Things'

From blank paper to portrait!

I asked a local fellow crafter today whether she would mind me drawing a portrait of her and her daughter for a little practice, it was such a beautiful photo of them both and an absolute dream to draw! I'm not good enough to try and draw a portrait from life yet...maybe one day in the future but definately not anytime soon! I usually find working from photographs works best for me, I like to spend time studying it and getting a feel for the subjects...I think if I were to draw from life my subjects would get a little freaked out with me standing an inch away from them inspecting the curve of their face or the shape of their nose!

Working in the preliminary sketches and figuring out what needs to go where...I always find this the hardest part of any drawing! Especially faces!

Slowly beginning to add in areas of major shading and smaller details

Working in the facial features...I always leave the trickiest part til last, in this case the baby's face

At this stage I'd been at it for about an hour, nearly finished! Just a few more finishing touches to add.

And then suddenly everything comes together!

I always feel a strange mixture of things when beginning a drawing... first and foremost it's me worrying that the finished product won't work out, or that I will make some major unfixable mistake and end up ruining it. Logic says to put it aside and try again but my patience and expectations tell me 'not going to happen!'. I am by NO means a professional, nor am I particularly acurate with my portraits...I know when something hasn't been drawn right, I notice it only at the end and by that stage I'm just so glad it mostly worked out that I don't mind too much. I keep telling myself perfection will come with practice and practice, practice practice is what I intend to do! The other feelings usually consist of anticipation...not to see the end product, but anticipation of what will come out of the end of my pencil along the way, how I tackle each section; I ALWAYS feel nervous..I don't know why! Whether Im drawing for a commission or just for fun I always feel nerves! Like someone is watching me and ready to pounce on any mistake although that's probably just my paranoia getting to me. Then at the end I get confused as to whether I should feel relieved that it's over and it doesn't look like a stick figure, if I should feel accomplished and proud of my work or whether I should discard it and start over again. That is very contradictory of my previous comment, I never ACTUALLY discard my work and start again (even though sometimes I should) but that doesn't stop me feeling like I should. My oh my there goes my cup half empty attitude again! I can't just be happy about it can I? haha ohhh well... I guess that's why I blog! I've shown you the basic processes I go through to produce a drawing, perhaps you can appreciate it for me? :o)

My poor drawing pencil was being neglected!



What happened to the days when I used to draw all the time??? Why have I suddenly stopped doing what I love most?! I guess my mojo went on holiday.....I don't know when the last time I drew a portrait was. I decided today was a good time to see just how rusty I'd become and look what happened!

 I am glad I did it and am really looking forward to getting in some more practice! I've never had any kind of training in this area...I did try to once but I fairly sure my teacher hated me, EVERYTHING I did, in her opinion, was wrong while the rest of the class was perfect :/ So in a nutshell that didn't last too long. Maybe I'll try going through professional training again one day but definately not at the same place!

I'd done a few drawings for friends in the past, I found copies in a folder on my computer recently and had almost forgotton I'd done them at all!

I was a bit taken aback at first, I had a moment of 'did I really do that??'. I will definately be striving to get some more practice in and hopefully even start selling some custom portraits!