We obviously have a little archivist in the making around the house! Every day I find little collections of things, neatly arranged, in practically every corner of any room. They are my favorite thing to tidy up 🙂 (definitely better than making the bed…)
Kat
It might be early autumn in real life, but it is definitely spring in my head! More flowers and notebooks, each and every one with a new idea to try, new shapes to play with.
In my limited time, I don’t have the luxury to just draw and learn very often. I have to combine it with actual making, filling a need for practicality to make the most of time, resources, even inspiration. I can’t afford to “waste” a good design by leaving it languishing in my art journal / draft pages, no matter how useful it would be for me to have them all in one place to go back to. In fact, it is my dream to take the time and create a library of my favorite shapes, add to it when I come up with new ones I like to make over and over again, so that I can refer to it whenever I am thinking of a project. But that falls under the luxury time I don’t have. So I take photos of what I make and give, even if it is at the very last minute, after I have already given them as a gift!
Kat
A while ago I had bought this SunArt paper kit and was eager for some free time to try it. I asked the boys to gather some treasures with interesting shapes from around the house.
They came with mostly stuff they had gathered for me during our walks (I love that they do that!)
I came up with some more objects, and arranged them all on a sheet of blue, photo sensitive paper. We found a sunny spot on our kitchen floor, and waited about 5 min.
After a quick bath in water with some lemon juice and a quick dry (it was a very hot day), we ended up with quite fun results!
Here are our 2 pages in blue, amidst other recent artwork by the boys.
Everyone really enjoyed the process and the end result, and learned a lot about shapes and light (and even perhaps a bit about patience!) Next time we ‘ll use letters and numbers!
Kat
It all started with a notebook I was writing at both front and back, and I wanted to mark which side was which. I drew a couple of flowers on one side. I liked what was happening, on the paper and in my head, so I kept going. I added color, and after that I just couldn’t stop!
I have drawn about a dozen of these since, which went out before I even took photos. I made them for myself, for friends as gifts, and since I seem to still be enjoying the process just as much, the next goal is to make a bunch for Christmas gifts. I feel very organized and forethought-ish, if I may say so myself! 🙂 And if I still want to make more, I will go with the flow and make them for the shop.
This sequence of things seems to be my usual way of doing things. I get inspired by necessity or love, wanting to make something, needing to give something, and finding a solution to both. If it works out, I keep with it for as long as it takes me, until all my friends are flooded with my latest obsession and I have no one else to give to. Then, I make more, putting them up for sale, feeling confident that after as many as I have done for forgiving recipients I have learned enough to offer them to someone who might wish to pay money for it.
For now, I enjoy making, and learning, and giving. All blessings in and of themselves.
Kat
One of my favorite things to make is baby gifts. There is just something so special to have handmade, one of a kind things for your baby, and they are sure to be treasured by the parents. I usually try to make things that can last for a while, perhaps a lifetime, so they won’t be buried in the piles of newborn stuff but hopefully played with and enjoyed for years.
However, I also like to make things for the parents, but not in an obvious way. Of course, we all know that newborn clothes are for the parents, as babies don’t really have much of a fashion sense. So when my old roommate had her baby, I couldn’t resist making a little shirt with her cats (her two babies for many years now!) and the new baby on it! I hope the new addition to the family will not outshine the cats for too long 🙂
I used non-toxic fabric paints and a permanent laundry marker to draw on a plain white onesie. I had some left over paint, which I never like to waste, so I cut a piece of soft flannel enough to make a pair of pyjama pants for the boys, and drew little squares on it. Photos of the new pyjamas will follow soon, hopefully!
Kat
Bookbinding is one of my latest obsessions. Books are attached to our lives one way or another. I like to hold books, observe their cover, touch the pages smell the paper, share the ideas written. What do books mean to me? Can i think of at least 5 things that book represent in my life?
Those 5 came to my mind on the spot:
1. I start my day reading one page of a certain book,
2. Certain books, have managed to move me and i share those feelings with others,
3. I still like to read bedtime stories to my daughter when she desires it, although she is in high school.
4. Favorite books have bookmarks on chapters and pages i like to run to, in order to remember a truth they shared.
5. Books with pictures are and always have been my favorite.
The pictures below are form a course i took on bookbinding a photo album or a sketch or drawing portfolio. Actually i took four courses on bookbinding in order to be able to create a picture book with my friend Kat in the near future i hope. Although the procedure had a difficulty, the outcome worth the effort.
We’d be interested to know why books are important to you, so don’t hesitate and share 5 thoughts. Maybe we will create a small book on books together!
We had a great time making bus passengers with the boys today. They chose the subject, clothes and colors, and I executed. They kept asking for more and more, until it made for a very crowded bus! Patience ran out by the time we were ready to make up stories with them, so they are all waiting in the bus for, what I suspect, their quick demise in the hands of two very destructive 3-year-olds!
Kat
The boys got duvets for Christmas from grandma and grandpa, and yesterday I made 2 duvet covers for them. I used 2 very soft and cute sets of flat crib sheets we have had for a while, but didn’t use much as I prefer fitted sheets for their mattresses.
It was an easy project with minimal cutting, as the sheets were the perfect width and already hemmed. All I needed to do was to cut the excess fabric and join the two pieces together. I used the hemmed side at the bottom for the opening, and sewed along the side hems all around. For the blue one, I sewed along the top and bottom of the yellow band, but for the off-white one I left the bottom side open, thinking they might like to play with it.
I am really happy with the result, and so are the boys!
Kat
Do you know the story of Ανθούσα, Ξανθούσα, και Χρυσομαλλούσα? Probably not. Well, it is a classic folk tale, about a prince in search of his bride, who turns out to be living in a tower without doors and the only way one can get in is if she hangs down her hair from a window at the top of the tower. In classic folk tale logic, he is cursed to his mission of looking for her by an old lady, “who wants to eat lentil soup. But on one day she has no onions, another day she has no lentils, another she has no oil… After a long, long time she gathers all the ingredients and sets up her cauldron by the river. The prince happened to come by on his horse. The horse was startled by the fire, and bang! kicked the cauldron, there goes the lentil soup… ‘Ah, my prince,’ the old lady said, ‘as long as it is taking me to eat my lentil soup, so long should it take you before you find Ανθούσα, Ξανθούσα, και Χρυσομαλλούσα.'” So, the prince immediately runs back to the palace and sets off for his journey…
Starting a drawing diary has been one of those lentil soup quests for me. I may feel as if I do not have the right drawing pad, or the right tools, or the inspiration to start one, so it has been going around my mind for a long, long time. But every now and then I declare for myself a period of intense wish fulfillment, and this February I managed to gather all my ingredients!
The process has been fun, grounding, and due to my blatant lack of drawing skills, very humbling. Hey, when you start so low, you ‘re sure to see much progress with time and practice, right? So, here’s to enjoying the process without judgement of the outcome, and measuring success by the calming and inspiring effect, not artistic expertise. On these terms, my daily drawings are a raving success!
Kat
I love owls! Owls decorated our coins in Greece ever since i can remember. It is a symbol associated with wisdom and the ancient goddess Athena. Its figure was used in the ancient coin of teradrachm from 480 BC. and it never stopped being there, on coins, for more than 2500 years, either on drachmas or euros.
Yet the reason that owls appeal to me so much is because I’ve seen a real owl up close, and fell in love with her. She had fallen from the sky on a friend’s balcony. She was alive and my friend had put her in a box to take her to the vet. I slightly opened the box to look at her. Her round yellowish huge eyes (compared to her tiny body) were extremely expressive and penetrative. I was hooked! She looked like the one in the photo below, which I found in a Greek blog.
It is a lovely bird and a tremendous source of inspiration of all kinds! So I was thrilled when I attended my weekly crafting workshop “Atelier textile” in the coffee shop Κουμπί last weekend and we did a project on Owls. I created a small pencil case or for any other use case/bag and gave it to my daughter. It’s an original design and still open to experimentation! :-).
The weary owl and Bobo the sleepy cat!
With a velcro opening this poor thing was given to my teenage daughter. Hopefully she liked it!!!
You can find Kat’s drawstring bags as well as zipper cases in our shop.
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