Mad! Patterns

The amazing Jessica and I do a weekly art theme together where we pretend to be planned and organized.  :p  I have more work I could show for this week's theme, actually, but none of it is cuter than this, so I'll just show this for now.

I found my apron recently so I was wearing it, and guess who else wanted aprons.  Made the pattern with some freezer paper and they turned out really well I thought.  Scarlett def needs more pencil pockets, though.  Can't have enough pencils.

(Scarlett on the left, Toria on the right.  Note the ballet poses, as well.)

Mad: Whatever

This week seems like Jessica and I were on the same page...sort of; she didn't post any art and I messed up in not getting my post up, ha.  Well, here it is!  :)


A lot of people think the desert is bleak and despondent.  I see it as just the opposite.  It contains the clarity of the color of atmosphere itself, the invitation to open new horizons into potential. 

ACEO,  Inktense blocks and watercolor crayon
on some old Strathmore Gemini watercolor paper that I'm not sure I've ever used.

Mad! Fabric!

This week on crazy-mad-artists, Jessica and I are working on fabric.  Well, okay, I'm absolutely certain Jessica is only metaphorically working on fabric (unless maybe she used some canvas, but I'd put money on the idea that she didn't).

But I really did.  Lovely fabulous fabricy fabric.

First, I finally sewed up a sleeping bag that the cats thought would be fun to put their claws in once.

Then, I fixed this poor lizard's tail who likewise had been waiting some time for some attention.

 But then, oh then, I finally got back to work on this little toy blanket I started for Gavin years ago.

The silly thing is, the dinos have actually been finished for some time; I just haven't put it all together yet.

Each of these squares is about 3x3.5.  I designed them, drew them, transferred them, appliqued them, and embroidered them by hand.  I still need to put the backing on and then quilt them, but...so close to being done!

Yes, lots of work.  Very meditative, though, and I admit I'm positively tickled by the results.

Also, I have declared my downstairs to be Usable Now.

Mad! Nirnroot

For those of you just tuning in, Jessica and I have a weekly theme we do together.

Our theme, keeping in our patented ridiculousness, is nirnroot.

Nirnroot is a glowy harvistable root in the Elder Scrolls games (notably, Skyrim). It sounds pretty when you are near it.  You just can't walk by a glowing, charming root like this and not rush to pick it, especially when you need to harvest like fifty of them for some lazy alchemist over in...somewhere.

Mine is on matboard, and I think it might be 11x14 or some such.  I have been debating how to properly achieve its unique qualities, so it's not done.  (Not because I started this late, no, certainly not.)

"Dragons were never gone. They were just invisible, and very very quiet."

--M'aiq the Liar

Mad! Spiral

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”
― C.S. Lewis

 For those of you just tuning in, Jessica and I have a weekly theme we do together.

I sincerely hope she made some of these, too.

 There are moments I wish for others so much that I end up failing them utterly.

I wish to help lift others up.  And I can't.  And I'm not meant to.  And I break things over and over.

And I must leave them with their pain and their desperation and their despondency, but still--I will hope.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves