here's one for you....

...   a little waif in the Art Doll Quarterly magazine ... one of those sad, kind of slightly creepy things I guess... some folks don't like this sort of thing for sure.... but, in a way I find them kind of cute and sad.

Thought I would give it a try in my simple rendition of drawing with pencil and coloured pencil.. I will eventually try to add a bit of Shiva Paintstick colour to this one, along with a few others....

.....

........................still snowing................

...................so ....................I'm still playing.....

Made this face shorter and rounder and placed the nose, lips, and eyes closer to the centre of the face to have her appear younger .....

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also had a play in the kitchen...with some leftover strawberries from the last batch of Mr. BV's lunch muffins I made.  Last time I was at Safeway, I saw strawberry/white chocolate scones and now...I wanted to try them.  But, the tv was on blaring away the news... all bad...and I wasn't concentrating I guess (on scones that is...) .... so, all of a sudden I realized I hadn't added the sugar to the flour.... rectified it....but, then...just as I popped them in the oven... saw the egg still sitting on the counter... dammit..... and further insult... what the? ...there sat the white chocolate square as well... still wrapped.  Sheeeesh!!!

And, then... even worse, for me ... (not for Mr. BV ) ..he loves overcooked baking.... I turned off the oven while I stirred some soup and began toasting big slabs of home made bread to eat with it...I forgot the scones!   After all that...I can't believe they were even edible...but, they are ...and very tasty too, I might add... even without an egg... how is it possible?  Guess I can bake them that way if I want next time I'm out of eggs....hahahahhaha....less cholesterol!  Bonus.

Look at this crumb... still great...

I prefer them a bit lighter than this ..

'specially on the bottom.... but, ehh..... they're okay....

And, I bet some of you noticed.... white chocolate drizzled on top... I was not going to do without that after I wanted it inside them in the first place.... so, I popped the square in a baggy..... put it in a bowl and poured boiling water on top of it... melted the white square and snipped off a corner of the baggy...and drizzled it on instead.  Lovely....

..... plus... had some ginger/apricot biscotti that I just baked the other day and thought I'd give the last bit a try on a few of those as well... haven't had one dipped in my tea yet....just off to do that now...
wanna join me? ... ....

... and, then?? ...I better do about 40 minutes on the treadmill !!!!

Shiva Paint Sticks

Perhaps just a bit tentative yet... but, it does make a nice difference and I'll try to get it a bit thicker next time...

Here is the first one I tried ..
You can see the coloured pencil lines quite clearly..

Then, ...mix up a bit of the paint stick colour... easy to do, not messy and no smell.  What fun sticks!  I just need to learn to put more actual paint onto my paper.  Mix a nice colour for the skin....

...apply to the face ... et voilà !  Smoother and prettier looking ..... Martha used more I know, because portions of the graph lines are not noticeable in many of her whimsical girls....I'll get it.....

New online class

Drawing the Girls...with Martha Lever.

Here is my first attempt.... hair seemed to be the hardest part for me...  must look at some styles .. and practice, practice, of course... haven't done any eyes for ages....  since I did my dolls ... they'll be a bit tricky for a bit too... but, these are just fun gals... done on graph paper as you can see.  

The graph is to get a feel for the positioning of eyes nose and mouth and to more or less get things in proportion....  although, they are not supposed to be anatomically correct.... they are just fun.... still looks a bit like an alien.... 

..... I'm back... with my second attempt... and I like her...

I fiddled less with the eyes and used much lighter pencil strokes in the beginning.... although, now that I see her in a photo... I may just add a bit more depth to her eyes....

And... I might just leave the hair like that... my own little idiosyncrasy or style or whatever.... seeing as I don't really have a way to colour it how I want.... yet, anyway.  I may come up with something later .... . what fun just drawing the girls...

Button Babe face

Been working a bit on a new face... one of the larger 2.5 inch buttons again...I really like that size because there is more area to work on the eye colouring... you can see how I start....lots of doodling and trying to get an eye I like...then cover the button with a nice colour fabric...and begin to draw the features on there. Then... colouring and now...choosing some hair or fabric for a fancy hat or,,,,,, something.....










...leaning towards something like this to go with the vintage look of the face.... I'm pretending she is a famous movie star.....

The "How to" of a Button Babe...

Cabinets for the laundry room are being constructed today... but my hands are not needed for each and every step.. so, while I wait for the "okay... I need you now" call.... I usually do some cleaning, baking or playing.. today I chose play.

Thought I would make another Button Babe ... and I do use buttons for the heads.

This is smaller than the last one I drew and picci'd which was a huge button at 2.5 inches. I prefer the larger ones because there is so much more "eye" to play with on the larger faces. I love playing with a lot of colours to get a pretty eye.










1.5 inch self cover button. Pale shell pink polyster fabric that is satiny on one side and crepe on the other... I'm using the crepe side.










Cut a circle of pretty much any fabric you like for a face colour. However, check with some light strokes of your pigma pen to see if the fabric lets the ink bleed too easily... slightly is not a big problem..you just have to do lighter strokes and wait for it to dry before moving on.










You can use either pencil or some type of disappearing pen to draw the main lines of your face. I prefer pencil... probably because that's what I used to make my first one. Creature of habit, me. Then... when you are happy with the look of the face, go over the pencil lines with a very light stroke, using .005 brown Pigma pen. When it is dry... I use a soft white eraser to remove the pencil. You can even use slightly less detail than I have here...it does make it a bit easier to cover some errors or to help to resize eyes ..things like that. Invariably I get one eye larger than the other...and quite honestly, sometimes my own eye doesn't really pick up on it til I take a pic and look at it on here. It is glaring in a photo where as we don't always notice some of the tiny differences with our own eye . I may go over some of the brown pen strokes, but will wait til later in the colouring to do it... you can do it whenever you like or not bother.










For the colour I'm using Derwent water colour pencils. There are several different brand names available. I colour in the complete iris with my lightest shade of whatever colour I choose... in this case Water Green. I always have to put some lipstick on right away... a girl can't be seen in public without it right? ..but that is just me..you can do it whenever you like. ... Rose Madder Lake, to which I will add some Crimson Lake later in the process.










Another thing I find strange is that in a photo I can clearly see the grain of the fabric... in real life... hardly noticeable at all.










Now I add some Emerald Green to the side of the eye that I am going to pretend is the furthest away from my light source. If the sun or a light were shining on her right side, the left would appear to be a bit more shadowy... or slightly darker. Put the darker colour on the top portion of the iris and down to where the pupil will be... and along the left edge of the iris ... I almost cover the left half of my iris.










I add a bit of the darker green colour or one a shade darker yet...Mineral Green to the outline of my iris... covering or using the brown pigma lines...sometimes they even smudge a bit as I draw over them, which I think looks fine.. I don't mind if the line is not hard and delineated. It is a bit difficult to tell...but I also add a bit of the mid green colour just beneath the pigma line of the upper eyelid where it meets the white portion of the eye. It is like making a slight shadow beneath the lid...it adds a bit and continues with the colour you have chosen. You can see I have also been playing with my white pencil in some areas of my iris. If I decide I want it lighter in some areas..I like to use my white to lighten.. I also now use the white pencil on the whites of the eyes ... this can even help to enlarge some small area ... or make smaller other areas where I may have over coloured or made a bit of a mess. My white hardly shows up when shading... so I end up licking it a bit sometimes when I want something really white.










Use a very sharp Burnt Umber ('specially on tiny eyes) or even a light line with black pigma pen .005 to darken the upper eyelid line. I like to draw in my pupil at this point using a black pigma pen......but most people leave it til much later. I like to work with it there... to play around it with my colours.... but it probably is easier to leave it til the end. I find I can even draw out some very fine lines (with my very sharp coloured pencils ) from the black pigma pen used for the pupils...instead of having to draw them in later.










Outline the lower lid with brown pigma pen .005 , beginning slightly away from the actual corner of the eye. Close to where the iris begins...










Shade down the sides of the nose with a colour that blends nicely with the colour of fabric you have chosen. I began with a colour slightly darker than shell pink... Pink Madder Lake, then reinforced it by going to a darker shade... a light reddish brown called Venetian Red... I also begin to add some shading around the eyes and darken the nostrils with brown pigma pen.










Darken the pupil... add eyelashes (for a light face and lighter eyes I usually use a brown pigma pen...for darker skin and eyes...black eyelashes... and now is when I might put in some fine lines radiating out from the pupil like the spokes of a wheel... again...brown pigma pen for lighter eyes or even darkest iris colour using a very sharp pencil... black pigma pen for darker eyes.

Continue refining and adding a bit more shading ...I like to use pictures of catalogue models to help with the shadows.










.... am still playing with a bit darker green, Mineral Green and a greenish blue called Jade Green as well as some Blue Gray at the tops of the iris...and following the line of the upper eyelid when it meets the whites. This is an opportunity to continue with recontouring to make sure the eyes are the same size.




















Some more shading with pinks and reds for cheeks... add white highlights to the pupils... even a bit more in an area where you may see a bit of shine from a light.... how about an area on the bottom lip to make it look like it glistens....










.... and....here she is! after a bit more playing .... smoothed, made up and ready to go....

I want to give her something pale and pretty for hair or a hat ... similar to this soft gold yarn... or perhaps with some greens and pinks .... hmmmm ... time to pull out some stash containers and have a look what I might have that I've totally forgotten about .. ....