wooden spoon | The Contented Crafter

It sure has been a busy week! I thought I’d share a few of my little adventures with you all …..

First up, I’ve been taking a class with Claudia Rossi. [Don’t, whatever you do, Google her – you will get a million listings for a porn star of the same name!] If you know of the mixed media Claudia Rossi, you will be familiar with her ‘pretty girls’ and her art journals. I’ve been watching her on You Tube for at least a year on and off, she is verbose and funny and real and I enjoy her random prattling and gorgeous artwork. Claudia’s girls are kind of opposite to mine – I draw big eyes – she draws big mouths……. I decided to take her class, not because I want to draw a ‘Claudia Rossi’ pretty girl – though I have – but because I think that learning is important and the more skills you pick up and add into your kete [a woven bag] the better, it all helps define your own style. Besides I got a discount coupon offer and so couldn’t resist!

It’s been slow going for me as I have so many other things I am busy doing. But when I can I work in the evenings and use my TV as a giant computer screen while I watch her and then work on my own version. I still have to finish my girl – but here is what I’ve done so far. This is the pencil sketch, following a quite complex grid pattern:

Here she is with her shadowing in place – you may notice I made the mouth smaller as I made it much too big in the first place:

And here she is with the skin-tone glazing done, the eyes and lips and hair too: for once underway I could not stop:

You can bigify it by clicking twice if you want to see all the minute detail – shes not too bad for a first attempt.

I think Claudia is a good teacher and I enjoyed taking this class – if you happen to be thinking of it – or just want to learn how she does her faces – I do recommend her class!

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Next I got some more happy mail this week too – only this time it was something I had bought for myself. I splurged big time and bought myself a present that I had lusted after for a long, long time but never thought would be available to me – then ‘Fishpond’ one of our on-line book-and-everything-else-you-could-ever-possibly-want-or-need stores came up with an Ikea Raskog. An IKEA RASKOG people!! It was one of those moments when while the voice of reason was saying ‘Oh dear, what a shame you can’t afford it’ the impetuous bohemian artist had already stuck her fingers in her ears and was singing “La-la-la-la-la!” at the top of her lungs whilst hitting ‘Buy Now’………..

So, many, many weeks later and after a lot of restrictive belt tightening, on a wet and gloomy day this arrived:

I’d already ripped into it with a knife before remembering to a) take some photos and b) practise ‘anticipation’ – but blow that – too late, sorry Linne 🙂

His Little King-ship had already retreated to a safer place

And there he stayed until ….

the clanging of metal on metal became too much for his sensitive sensibilities and he is about to do his Elvis impersonation and ‘leave the building’….. I am about to put something together with just a pictorial diagram:

And I did – thirty minutes later:

And off we go to the Create Joy room and fill her up – here she proudly poses alongside my other indispensable – my pretty bucket of paints

Everything I use on a daily basis sits in the top within easy reach

Middle shelf holds containers of coloured pencils, pens, glazes, mediums, tapes and watercolours

Bottom shelf holds a selection of my favourite and regularly used stamps, stamping paraphernalia and masks and templates:

And of course the Day Card commemorated the event:

It’s fabulous, I not only have everything to hand beside my work bench – and more free space on my work bench – but when I want to play around in the evening and watch a You Tube video, or a movie, I can wheel it in to the lounge. Well worth going without a few meals for 🙂

And His Little King-ship also gets a wee treat:

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If you are a relative of mine and go by the blog pseudonym of ED stop reading and go away now please. [Yes Joanna, it’s you!}

Some of you may remember my ‘Box to Book’ project which is now into its second year – the beginning of the story can be found here and here and, sigh, here. It was put aside when I went back into mixed media painting, not altogether forgotten though – I had made the decision to keep it for a birthday gift rather than the Christmas it was originally planned for. I’ve been working a bit on it whenever I can find a decent block of time:

Still got heaps to do – must keep at it, must keep at it, must keep at it ……….

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And the week has concluded extremely happily with the unexpectedly early arrival of more ‘Happy Mail’ of the real variety. From the lovely Fran and the even lovelier Steve at Serendipity Farm comes this bit of gorgeousness photographed on my table in the early morning sun:

Can you see that heart shaped point on the handle end of the bowl? It is just exquisite and makes my heart sing! It is like the point of a heart so I will think ‘Love’ every time I go to use it and all my cooking will be done with an extra added ingredient and we will all grow lovely, just like Roald Dahl said we would!!

Look at the bowl of the spoon – it is exquisite craftsmanship!

It feels smooth and satiny, it looks beautiful and it smells good too – how can I possibly use this to stir my pot of rice or my cheese and oat cakes?

Here it is sitting in the broken plastic jug that serves as my utensil holder beside the newly made weeks supply of cheese and oat cakes, which I had just finished making when the mail arrived [and which is my bread substitute, just in case you are interested].