Tantrums and Photos

I’m trying to write this as souricette 2 has a tantrum next to me.  It’s kind of funny.  She only screams when I’m looking.  Little mousy is very angry and she wants me to know it.  Still, the noise makes it hard to concentrate…

For some reason, I thought I was going to have more to show for my time this week.  I want to change the blog’s background to something more personal.  I’ve drawn a few things and scanned them but I need to assemble them and I’m not sure I’ll get that done this week.  I’ll try to get to that Saturday, I guess…

Souricette 2 let me take quite a few pictures yesterday.  All inside though.  If I didn’t have her with me all the time, I would try to find good stuff to shoot outside.  Like the bunch of Canada geese I saw during my walk on Monday.  I didn’t have my camera with me and even if I did, souricette 2 would have screamed at me for taking a break from walking.  Not the most relaxing situation…

First off, remember that painting it took me two weeks to paint?  Here it is, with some detail shots.

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It’s all acrylic paint.  The background is black + white + a tiny bit of raw umber + some kind of slow-dry gel medium.  I originally wanted a smooth, even background and I was going to use some leftover house paint and apply it with a roller. No leftovers in the colour I wanted.  Since I had to make my own paint, I decided to embrace the imperfections.  I used my widest brush (maybe 2 inches wide, max) and applied the paint in patches.  Because if I hadn’t mixed enough, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to reproduce an exact match and I wanted the background to be evenly uneven if you will.  I did have enough in the end but I made sure to keep the brushstrokes visible and all roughly in the same direction.  Then, I drew an outline of a tree/branch.  Off center because I like it better that way.  The idea was to able to use the canvas horizontally as well as vertically.  I used 5 paint colours for the tree : raw umber, burnt umber, raw sienna, burnt sienna, gold.  In that order.  I used the raw umber first to do the whole tree and then I added layers of the other colours on top.  I really like it!  It isn’t a work of art on its own, of course.  It’s meant to be a background so it shouldn’t attract attention but it fits in well with the esthetic I want.  Someday, I should create some sort of mood board to give you all an idea of my esthetic…

And then, I figured I’d try my painting out as a backdrop!  These are the circle weavings souricette 1 and I made.  I glued felt to the back of them so they could be used as trivets.  I also chose to photograph them in bright sunlight instead of looking for a spot with indirect lighting.  I like the way the shadows add to the composition.  Souricette 1 wants to make more circle weavings.  Maybe I’ll do a tutorial.  It’s a fun easy project.  The weaving takes a few hours/days but souricette 1 really kept at it!

And finally, this week, I sewed up a cushion for the playroom.  It’s from Sewing Bits and Pieces and I love the technique for the back of the cushion.

That blanket? I knit that. And the drapes? I designed and sewed those up.  You can’t see it the whole length but the top third has another fabric and I made and inserted my own piping between the two.  And they’re lined.  I reused some of the bottom drape fabric in the pillow.

I’ll try to get my background finished tomorrow.  I don’t know how feasible that is though…  In the meantime, I’ll upload some of my images to the illustration page…

Oh, and the tantrum is over.  She’s busy making a mess now, not doing this :

And just so big sis isn’t jealous :

About deuxsouriceaux

Creative mommy at home to two wonderful little girls, trying to juggle family, sewing, exercise, family, knitting, photography, and did I mention family?