Busy as a bee

I offered a colleague at work some craft makings of her choice, in lieu of Christmas presents, as she doesn't celebrate it.

Recently, she mentioned that her Dad kept bees, and that a bee related bit of quilling would be nice, so I set to work...and made her Dad a hive :)

Bear with me

A friend asked me to put together some tinywriting text, forming the shape of two bears holding paws...so here it is!

Something a little fishy

A friend asked me for something specific - a Pisces style pair of fish, swimming in a circle. At first I thought they meant a drawn and doodle-filled fish, but then I got the hang of what they wanted, and set to work.

So, I needed to design a fish, and be able to replicate it as an exact mirror image of the other. I sketched, and then started experimenting, keeping note as I went along of paper strip lengths and how they fitted in the design.

And...here they are, with the addition of a multi-layered central circle, to give them a focus for that endless rotation. I also decided not to glue the fins and tails down, but leave them free to give more of a feeling of fluidity.

I hope the recipient enjoys it: it was a fun challenge to make :D

Land of ice and...ice

After my last map of New Jersey, the next one was slightly more of a problem, mainly due to lack of animals! Iceland isn't well known for its excess of animals, so for this I had to make some specific decisions - nothing recently or deliberately introduced, so that ruled out reindeer, and escapees like rabbits. Damn.

So, that meant doing something I don't normally do - include marine life. They don't quite fit with my idea of what should be on a land map, but I needed animals, and they had been suggested by the commissioner of the map, so in they went, and I think they worked out well :)

So I figured out ways to draw them, sketched a pencil outline of the map with my lightbox, drew the animals in pencil...

...and then drew over them in pen, and began doodling.

And doodling.

And doodling.

And doodling.

And now, the finished map is available here. Yay!

Down to a T

Recently, someone I know online posted a blog entry, explaining that he hadn't blogged recently because there had been some stressful and draining family events. He also posted that a few songs had really been special to him during that difficult time. So, cos I'm a bit odd , I decided to make him a wee gift, using a letter that was important, and one of those songs to create the shape.

So, I found a Gothic style T that looked nice, and used my lightbox to add the rough outline of the letter. Then, I went a bit freestyle with the actual shape, to work with the fact that I'd be making the lines out of tiny words, and ended up with a pencil sketch that looked like this:

From that, I began filling in the lines with the lyrics of the selected song:

And from there, it was a few hours work to repeat, and repeat, and repeat, and repeat... these photos show it before the pencil under drawing was removed.

I think it was well received - at least, the recipient wasn't too perturbed by the fact that someone who they've never met decided to make them a rather personal gift!