I’m getting better at blending and learning a lot more patience when I draw. I used Copic markers and Copic multiliner pens to make this one and I like it quite a bit. It is the first thing I have made that I am really happy with. Not bad for a beginner 🙂
I am moving at the end of July – internationally, to Panama! Since I am taking very little with me (two suitcases… that’s it!) I have to either sell or use up my soap and perfume making supplies. I decided to make myself some solid perfume. I usually make it in small slider tins like a lip balm sized container… but I have these three ounce jars and I figured why not.
So, I made my favorite scents in supersize. I didn’t bother to make them pretty, as I am not selling them, but they smell great. I usually have a fairly active Etsy shop where I sell lip balm, perfume, soap, lotion, body scrubs and other wonderful smelling things but during the move I am putting that on a back burner until I get settled in Panama, then I’ll see if it is a viable thing to continue doing as a business. The ingredients I use are a bit expensive and hard to get in Panama, plus shipping products I sell internationally would be an unfair cost to customers and a hassle for me.
I am considering getting my mother-in-law to be a distribution point for me. I would just send her a big box and she could do the shipping from her California address. Lots to think about. But in any case… delicious smelling things!
My mother-in-law is an antiques dealer and through her I occasionally come across things I like enough to add to my oddball collection of curious treasures. This is a score keeper for playing Bridge. It is made of brass and has really beautiful embossed design on the front cover. It was originally made by the company Beau Brummell which was a British men’s clothing and grooming company.
As beautiful as this heavy brass piece is, they likely thought of this as a kind of toss off give away to entice customers. Kind of like getting a toy with your happy meal. Buy some expensive things and they’ll toss in a free gift. I love that this is so. Look at how serious they were about making a simple thing that in the present era would be a cheap plastic thing at best. I often long for an era in which things were made well and made to last, rather than the mostly disposable items of our time.
That being said, it is heavy and sturdy and brass and just sitting there since I don’t play Bridge. So I cut up some watercolor paper and voila! It is now my little watercolor journal.
Experimenting with watercolor inks in a moleskin journal.
More experimentation. Can’t say I am happy with the outcome but I’m figuring out my tools. Yay.
I wasn’t really trying to make anything. I layered some watercolors and watercolor inks over a failed ink drawing to see what would happen.
A Zentangle-ish doodle. I timed this one, giving myself 30 minutes total. I am happy with the result. I feel my lines are getting more precise.
I took this picture a few years ago and found it tonight hiding away on my computer. This was early morning, with fog rolling in over the mountain which is a dormant volcano.
My very beginner attempt at drawing some of the things I saw in Yosemite. Using Copic markers.
This is my first attempt at re4ally trying to draw something that actually looks like something instead of abstract. I still have not taken an art class or done any serious self study. It is all intuitive at this point. I have some pencils, markers and paper and there you go. It is wonderfully therapeutic though, to make something, to sit in a meadow in Yosemite and just draw.
I just returned from a 4 day mini-vacation to Yosemite National Park with my husband and mother-in-law. After struggling with some deep depression for months, the awe inspiring beauty of Yosemite was a healing balm. I am trying to get more serious at photography, though admittedly in a casual way. These are some of the landscapes I took in Yosemite.
Clockwork Gypsy's Creative Space 