STEP ONE: SKETCHES

Quick sketch of the squirrel and bird.

SMOKIN' DEER

Here's some pics of the deer. This piece is pretty large. It measures 21 x 12.5. I thought this plaque was just screaming for a deer with antlers. It fills up the space nicely.
So now I'm working on sketches of my squirrel head and bird head and I promise to show my progress as I go along. These will be considerably smaller and much faster to make. The plaques for these are only 5 x 7. I wanted all three to be some what proportional in size.

THANK YOU VANNA

I finally finished the scarf I started back in August. I blocked it last week and I'm happy with the results. I saw this yarn on an end cap at Michaels when I went in to get embroidery thread. It's Vanna White yarn. Yes the Wheel of Fortune Vanna has her own line of yarn. Who knew? It was an impulse purchase for me. I thought the colors looked good together. So thanks Vanna!!

I'm so close to being done with the deer. It took a little longer to paint the plaque because I decided to paint all three to save time and make sure they were all the same color. I still hope to have a pic taken this week. I keep meaning to show a piece in progress from beginning to end. I will try really hard to do that with my next two, the bird and squirrel. I get so in the zone that I end up going to far to even beginning documenting. I'll write myself a note :)

PLUSHED ::ART GONE SOFT::

I've been working on three new plushies this week for this show. The show is called PLUSHED::art gone soft::. It is being held at Purdue University from Jan.21 - Feb. 1. I'm working on a deer head, a small bird head and a small squirrel head. They'll all be proportional to each other so the deer head is quite big. The plaque for the deer itself measures about 12"w x 20"h. The bird and squirrel are about 5"x7". I hope to have the head of the deer done by the weekend and I can share it with you. Because of its size it is defnitely taking a while.

I just thought it would be fun to do some ubber cute forest animals and give them some sort of twist. I was watching the show MGM on Boomerang last week and got the idea. The MGM show is just a collection of old cartoons. Bugs Bunny, Tex Avery, Tom & Jerry...that kind of stuff. You kind of get the idea from my sketches. When I post more pics you'll understand the inspiration.

WORK PROCESS

I'm currently working on 3 new pieces for a show in January. I don't have a whole lot to blog about so I thought I'd share my process with you.
I always start out with a sketch. It's not much more than a doodle really.


Then I do a quick color comp on the computer. This one is especially rough. But I just do this to get an idea of what colors I want to use and if I need to go purchase a color I don't have.


Then comes the technical part, the pattern. This usually takes a good part of an afternoon. I easilly do 3 or 4 versions before I get it right. I also sew up a quick dummy thats about 1/4 the size of my actual piece. Time consuming yes, but in the end there's no guessing or ripping out seams when something doesn't look right.



After I feel my dummy looks pretty good I blow up my pattern, print it out and begin. Then the fun begins.
As you can tell I'm currently working on another head on a plaque. I'm really enjoying these. I love the idea of plush hanging on the wall and not stuck on my shelf. I don't have more photos to share right now because my deer is in the process of being stuffed. I'll share more and explain more about it later.