Crafting through the coughs

I picked up a bug from my boss last week, and had to call in sick for a few days. Between the napping, coughing, exhaustion and feverishness, I wasn't fit for much mentally, but I was itching to use my hands, so I got on with some crafting I had outstanding.

I'd been asked if I could make two Totoro characters in quilling, one in pink and one in grey, for a first wedding anniversary gift. I researched, I experimented, and after creating a first design that I was happy with, I made the pair:

When I posted these on my Facebook page, another friend asked if I would make her a No Face. Now, I'm not a Studio Ghibli fan (I've seen My Neighbour Totoro and Spirited Away, but only once, and years ago), so this involved more research to check just what was being asked for! After that, I made a first version in "plain" quilling:

I offered to put a back of black strips on the body, and the recipient wanted this, and it turned out looking good and finished it off nicely :)

Meanwhile, I'd remembered that I'd promised a goose to someone else ages ago, but hadn't had a chance to get one designed. So, I designed and made a goose...

Which would have been fine...if the recipient had actually wanted a goose, rather than the white duck she'd asked for! Luckily, she was happy enough to receive a goose instead :)

A friend had been talking about Malcolm Tucker' sweary quotes from The Thick Of It, and how entertaining it would be to have one of them as a quote on their front door, for departing guests. So, I tested out my basic cross stitch skills to make a simple word design, and set to work. This was the end result:

I had also promised hand-drawn postcards of dandelion clocks to the people who sponsored me to do an abseil a while ago, but I hadn't had a chance to get to do those either, so I was able to make a good start of getting them done.

And today I took a trip to the Post Office with a LOT of packages, including a RAK for someone as a wee cheering thing (hopefully).

So, being sick isn't always an entirely bad thing, if you can keep your hands occupied :)

London love

An appropriate post for Valentine's Day, as it's about love: in London, and for a husband.

A week or two ago, a friend asked if I'd be willing to do a commission for her. It's coming up for her 1st wedding anniversary, which traditionally is "paper", and she wondered if I'd be able to do a map for her to give to her husband, based around places in London special to them. It would involve stylised drawings of important locations centred on a specific area of London, and for the look and method, I was given free reign. It was a bit intimidating - I've not really done a streetmap style map before (I've mainly done whole countries rather than areas), and you always have that lurking worry that what you do won't meet their expectations, when you're doing something new, and specific for an individual. It's made even worse when it's something being done for a friend and you really don't want to let them down! I'd also not filled such a large area of paper with filigree before, and my hands need regular breaks when doing the filigree to stop them from hurting, so I couldn't just do it all in one sitting, and it'd need to be fitted in around everything else in my life.

So, ignoring my worries, I got on with it as fast as possible, as it was needed reasonably soon. I decided to use the main streets of the area as divisions to split the map up, as otherwise it could be an overwhelming mass of doodles. There was also a canal involved, so I had to decide how to differentiate the different areas. I decided on stippling for the roadways, and bubbles (appropriately enough) for the canal.

Basic map with roads and canal

Then I had to figure out how to draw, in very small form, the buildings my friend had given me the information on. This took a bit of research (she very helpfully gave me the links and info though!), and some doodling and asking people if they could recognise what they saw. On such a small scale, it can be hard to include the detail that makes things recognisable, so they inevitably become stylised and sometimes, to show things that are recognisable you have to go slightly away from the actual reality. This is what I had to do for St Pancras station, as I had the hotel and the train station to show, but couldn't really duplicate the drawing in different locations. Then I had to make sure I was placing them correctly on the map, which involved a couple of "whoops, not quite there moments (it's tricky when you're not familiar with an area)...

Camden Town Hall added

Then my sketches were replicated on the map in pencil, drawn over when I was happy with them, and the pencil underdrawing removed:

Main drawings added

After the addition of some relevant text on a couple of the roads, I began filling in the filigree, dots, and bubbles.

First filigree, road text and road stipples

More filigree, and canal bubbles completed

Corner filling up

Roads without stippling yet

Almost there!

Just the roads to finish...

And, after 10 hours of work , it was finished! Forgive me if I indulge myself with too many photos here, but I'm quite proud of this, I think it's ended up as a really interesting looking drawing from a distance, that gets even more interesting as you get closer and realise the detail it's made up of. I hope it's well received on the anniversary!

The finished map

Roads

Roads

Roads, canal and buildings

Quilling on canvases

It's November, so that means it's time to be sorting out Christmas presents. Not mine though: I have a few commissions I need to sort out that are going to be used as Christmas gifts, so I need to concentrate on them.

Before that though, I did a few other quilled items to put in my Etsy shop, one's a new design for a commission, and the other one I've done plenty of times before, but not for a while. I like doing the mini canvases, they frame the quilling really well, in a compact space. So here they are! :)

Rabbit

Ladybird

I suppose I'd better get back to those commissions now - I love commissions, but they can be tricky to do when you're being asked to do something that someone else is imagining rather than you!

A rather pleasant pheasant

My neighbour, who commissioned me to make a duck as a gift for a friend of hers, then followed that up with asking me to create a male pheasant in flight for another gift. You can tell what one of her hobbies is!

So, a distinctive bird like a pheasant is good in some ways, and bad in others. It's recognisable enough that it can be stylised into certain shapes and still be recognisable - good. But if it's so recognisable, it has to be done well in order to look right. - bad.

So, on Sunday, I spent 7 hours sketching, experimenting, and fiddling, until I finally made something that I'm kind of proud of!

It began with the eye and head/neck. I needed to roll two colours of paper as one strip to get the green/blue tone I wanted. I tried doing the red area and the green/blue area with metallic papers to begin with, but the don't stick well to each other at the best of times, and couldn't cope with the pressure I was putting them under.

The head then gained a white neck section, a dash under the eye, and the distinctive narrow beak.

This is what took all the time: translating that drawing there into a self-supporting multi-level 3D piece!

This is the nerve-racking stage: I know what I want it to look like, I just have to believe that it WILL end up looking that way, despite appearances!

I completed one wing, and I really quite like the "powering forward, wing caught mid-beat" effect that a single wing gives, but I'd got everything ready for a second wing, so...

I completed it with two wings, yay!

Fly, little pheasant, fly!!

And, of course, what's better than one pheasant? Two pheasants! 

I created a duplicate bird to check how long it would take me to make it again in future, and have a blank to work from if I want to do another. It took me over 3 hours to make the duplicate, so I think this one will never really be cost effective to make, unless people would be willing to pay £60 or so for a paper bird!

A personalised map of South America

A friend wanted a memento of his daughter's travels around South America, marking events and places personal to her, so he asked me to create a personalised map relating to her trip. It was an ongoing process, as we worked out how it was going to work, so to begin with, I started off by doing the outline of South America...

Then, it was decided that rather than doing the whole continent, I'd only fill in the countries that the daughter had actually visited, so I went back, and outlined the countries. I also got information on the things that the daughter had been up to, and I started working out which of those I could recreate recognisably in a tiny stylised way, and began placing them in pencil around the map in the appropriate places.

Once the main items were in place, as I waited for more information on Brazil activities, I began to darken the country borders to make them clearer when the doodles were in, and began doodling in the edges. I really quite liked it at this point, with just touches of filigree at various random places.

Once I had the final bits of information, I got going on the filling in. So, 8 hours of work later, this is the final map, incorporating llamas, quad bikes, cycling, wineries, lots of drinking, Gay Pride, many credit and debit card losses, a capybara, a boat ride, Machu Picchu, a bungee jump, a piranha, a inter-peak cable basket, lots of hiking, a sloth, an anaconda, a cockroach, a phone in a drink, a waterfall, and the staple of travellers everywhere, table tennis.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and hopefully the recipient will be too :D