Tag Archives: #animalart

needle felting like crazy

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Lately it seems like all I want to do is curl up on the couch with my ‘work tray’ and coffee table and stab wool with sharp implements.

Maybe it’s because it’s been really cold and windy and not at all inviting out there…

Maybe its cause needle felting is a more immediate way to create sculptures – for instance, it’s so much quicker than papier mâché which needs to be done in stages with long periods of drying in between.

Plus, working with needle felting gives me the opportunity to make miniature stuff – something I’ve always had a passion for.

Whatever the reason, I’ve been working on these little figures most afternoons and evenings and listing them in my Etsy shop.

Here is baby boy mouse with his bunny and milk bottle.

And the baker mouse with her fresh loaves of bread and her baker’s cap.

A middle aged couple on the way to the beach with towels and soft drinks in hand.

A little gardening mouse in her ladybug boots.

A homeboy mouse with a hoodie, untied sneakers and snacks.

A ladylike mouse whipping up cream to top a pie.

And last but not least, the best Elvis impersonator of the mouse world, Elvis Mousely.

These little guys are so much fun to make. They’re done in a couple of days mostly, depending on the time I have to spend on them and the bits I need to make – like the shoes and any props I can’t buy. Sometimes I make my own clothes (like Elvis’ jacket and the aprons on the cook and gardener), or footwear which means I have to let the air dry clay I use in most cases dry. And any painting I need to do… But they’re quicker to make than the papier mâché dogs I had been making in the past. Not to say I won’t be making more of those!

My needle felting workshops are doing ok as well. Given this is a small island and a lot of people leave over winter and are too busy to do any crafts in summer, I never expected these workshops to take off, but they are great fun for those who do join in.

But I have to get back to painting and not spending all my time stabbing wool. I have 2 commissions and the series I’m working on waiting for me!

z

busy with my etsy shop

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Etsy sale for the month of January 2025.

I have been absent but that seems to be the way I roll lately.

I roll out of bed, walk Vincent, have coffee, get online, do minimal housework, walk Vincent, do some errands, roll onto the couch…

However, despite my seemingly endless nothingness, I have been busy needle felting. The couch has become my new workstation. As you saw in my last post, I have been infected with the needle felting bug again.

I have been spending almost every single evening with a pointy weapon in hand, stabbing at innocent balls of wool with wild abandon.

And experimenting.

So far, here is the first lot which I have managed to put up for sale in my store:

They look so cute in a group.
Bird lover and bird watcher fox.
A fisherman Jack Russell terrier.
Shy, tea drinking hedgehog.
A rabbit with his morning coffee and newspaper.
Shy teddy bear with his bunny rabbit.
And of course you’ve already met the little rat with his heart in his hands.

You can see more pics and details of each of these guys in my store.

My store has been very quiet lately, so it was time to put selected items on sale and promote it more, so please visit and share it with friends. I offer commissioned work – paintings, remade dolls – wall art for a nursery, felted and papier mache sculptures… all kinds of things.

This is a hard but wonderful time of year. I have the time to create, but no regular income. I’m loving the time at home and being able to experiment and play, but having to juggle bills sucks. Luckily, I have tons of art and craft materials on hand thanks to my inability to stop buying it! I think I have enough to keep me busy for MONTHS.

z

two shiny schnauzers

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Another commission to share today, one which took me forever to do. I mean, I started them fine, back before summer… but then it was summer. Busy with grooming and mom being sick and visitors and all sorts of busy summer things.

Up to that point I had only done the structure of them, ie cardboard, masking tape and wire so I needed to move onto the clay or papier mâché part. Since the buyer didn’t want these finished in fabric, I decided to use air dry clay for the whole thing.

And I’m glad I did cause I love the way they turned out.

Given the brief for these guys was ‘something easy to dust’ I opted to spray them with white gloss paint, something I’d never done before as a finish for my work. But I’m really happy with the result.

What do you think?

z

dizzy – a commissioned dog sculpture

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This is one dog I especially loved doing. He belongs to a friend of mine and he’s a beautiful boy with a lovely personality and serious ball addiction.

He’s some kind of terrier mix with huge ears and a crazy coat.

Here is a close up of his face and those massive ears.

And a little 3D visual.

So, how did I achieve that coat you ask? Well, I thought the best thing for it would be to use gauze. I raided my medicine cabinet and took out some gauze which I dyed by soaking in coloured water: the black was diluted acrylic paint, and the tan was… you guesed it! Black tea!

I then cut up the gauze strips into sections and laid them over the figure in a way that matched Dizzy’s colouring and the direction of the coat.

I then brushed the gauze to loosen it up and give it a more ‘hairy’ appearance.

It worked out pretty well even if do say so myself.

Mind you, the coat is not soft and flowing. I had to fix him with PVA glue to make sure he stayed intact, but he’s a sculpture, not a toy, so I figure that doesn’t matter.

The friend that commissioned him asked about his eyes. I don’t do eyes on my dogs. I’m not really sure why, they just seem better that way. Maybe its because I don’t feel I can do them justice this way, not like I can in my paintings. Maybe its cause without eyes you can project your own eyes onto them, your mind automatically fills in the blanks and imparts the emotions that you want to see in the figures.

Maybe I’m full of crap. But I’m the artist, so I have creative license. Ha.

z

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getting back on track. or trying to.

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I figure its time to get back to sharing art and creations. This is one I did while I was in Athens last.

Its taken me a while to get back into the mood to post…

The house still feels empty without Lainee next to me and I can’t remember how many nights I slept with the door unlocked cause it was always the last thing I did before bedtime: walk Lainee and lock the door when I came in. Without her to walk, I’d just go to bed and forget the door. So now I try to lock the door as soon as it gets dark.

I’ve been busy. I did what I said I’d do: I made my home into an art studio/gallery. I’ve had a couple of open studio days and they went well. I’m grooming. And when I have free time, I am as creative as I can… Most of the time. I still have lazy days. Thats life.

Now I have to organise myself and decide what days I’ll be ‘open’ and what workshops I want to offer… It seems like an easy decision but I have a mental block. I can’t decide…

Hopefully the fog will clear soon.

Looking forward to sharing more art soon.

z

march 5. a month of daily art.

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Another quick sketch using tea plus red wine. Turns out the red wine is a huge disappointment. Nothing red about it… just a stain. Not a particularly good one either, I admit I was hoping for something redder.

So its back to pencils, tea and the new acrylics. I ended up buying a box of 36 small 20ml tubes cause that way I have all the colours to play with, and when I run out I can always buy what I need. This set is to keep for use in Athens, since it looks like I’ll be here quite a while this year.

I have tons of paints on Paros, but of course, you always need more paint… especially favourite colours. But I work bigger on Paros than I do here, so the mini tubes are fine for here.

I really hate having two homes. You sort of need two of everything if you live in more than one place. Sure, my HOME is on Paros, but since mom lives in Athens I’ll always be here for some time in winter to be with her… not to mention the constant renovation projects I seem to attract.

So, till I go back to Paros, hopefully by the end of this week, I’ll continue working on smaller works for my daily art. Bigger ones are more like weekly art than daily. Sometimes monthly…

z

march 4. a month of daily art.

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Seems I’m not quite done with the tea bags.

This one might actually be my favourite one yet. I mean in terms of pencil and tea. I loved the donkey as a pencil sketch on its own, not sure if the coffee improved it, but this one works. The patchy cow and the splotchy background are a perfect match.

I’m happy with this.

Seems I’m on a sort of barnyard animal streak. Not sure how long it will last, but I’ve always loved animals and cows, donkeys and hares have always been favourites. Though I’d never tackled a hare before.

By the end of this month I think I’ll have to work on finally selling stuff online. The sketches are small at a little over A5 size, easy to post, and totally affordable, even if I sell them with a mat board.

I’ve been looking into restablishing my etsy shop, which has been opend and doing nothing for months or looking into an art online shop. Its a lot of reading and research and testing and it will take time to work it out.

On a positive note, my new smaller/newer/more portable laptop has arrived finally and this is the inaugural post using it! YIPPEE! And so far it seems the WordPress app actually words properly on it!

Its so much better and faster than this ancient old tablet and so pretty! I’m donating the old tablet to a nephew to play games on. He’s happy. I’m happy. Win win.

z

march 3. a month of daily art.

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They say it takes 30 days to form a habit. Let’s see… maybe after a month of daily art I’ll keep at it and not take long unproductive breaks. Hope springs eternal.

Then again, with summer coming up and with it being the busy season on a tourist island, who knows…

Today I share a quick sketch of a hare looking startled to be featured on a blog. This time I got bored of working with boring ol’ pencil cause I can’t really smudge and work it with my fingers, and can’t get the depth of tones I’m used to with pastels or charcoal.

So, I started to wonder what I could use to give it that extra dimension, given I’d already donated the crappy acrylics to some underage budding artists, and had no other art supplies on hand.

I found tea bags. Handy as a beverage and an art material.

Never one to knock back the chance to work with tea (having stained my share of fabrics and doilies with it) I decided to give it a go. Thing I discovered about using tea as an ink is that tea gets darker as it dries, so bits I thought looked too pale and went over ended up a little darker than expected.

Still, I rather like the effect. Art meets clumsy tea drinker.

Meanwhile I thought I’d give coffee a go as well. Since we don’t have any instant coffee at home in Athens (my go-to for coffee staining) I asked mom to make me a greek coffee to paint. She thought I was going to paint the coffee cup and even put it in a nice cup with matching saucer. Instead, I dipped my brush into it and added a bit of dimension to the donkey I drew on Day 1.

Its a totally different colour and unlike the tea, it doesn’t darken as it dries. Its more of a WYSIWYG medium.

(‘What you see is what you get’ for those unfamiliar with the old fashioned graphic design term. Pronounced wiz-ee-wig.)

I got my new acrylics today but not sure if I’ll jump right in or if I’ll play with tea a little longer.

Depends on how many black tea mom has.

I’m also eyeing off her red wine…

z

march 2. a month of daily art.

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If it wasn’t for the last minute nothing would get done around here!

Today’s contribution is a pencil sketch of a donkey. It brought back memories of art classes at Campion school, working with soft lead pencils. Its been a long long time since I worked with pencil only.

Even before art school I sketched with charcoal. There are so many types of charcoal to chose from… willow, konte, pitt, in stick or pencil form… there’s never been a need to pick up a plain old fashioned pencil for anything other than scribbling a quick note.

A few months ago I saw a shop that sold more than those horrid HB pencils, so I got myself a 2B and a 4B. Since the traumatising experience with the crappiest of crappy crap acrylics I bought by accident, I had no choice but to venture down memory lane and remember how to work with pencil.

It not only brought back memories of high school art classes, it also reminded me of sitting at my desk in 4th grade, sketching horses and tall skinny girls with my best friend as the teacher droned on about history or math.

It wasn’t too painful… (sketching with pencil, that is. Math was painful!) I might try it again.

Although I ordered proper acrylics to pick up tomorrow.

z

ps… I worked on the donkey a little more, adding a touch of greek coffee to give it a bit of depth. Seems rather appropriate – greek coffee for a greek donkey.