Cards in the mail - balloon and boxes, iHanna swap 2012

The cards are in the mail! I made 13 cards, a bakers dozen. Ten to swap, one to keep, one to give away, one to sell. If you want to buy it you can find it at my Etsy shop.

This one I am selling

So the cards are on their way to:
USA: Iowa X2(the same district!), North -Carolina, California X2, Arkansas.
Canada
South Africa
Sweden X2

The illustrations are called "balloon and boxes". Illustrating a girl holding on to a yellow balloon. You however may see something completely different.

This one I'm keeping. ................. This one is on it's way to some lucky girl.

The cards are made on watercolour-paper.

The card has a light coat of varnish on to prevent smudging.

I do not recommend direct sun light as this can make the cards illustration to fade.

I also made a little stamp to go along with the cards, see the picture of the envelopes. The envelopes are embossed with the sun/star.

Medium used: stamp, gel pen, watercolour, modelling paste, ink, ink pad, string, distress stickles, vinyl paint, alcohol and varnish.

A postcard from Laila

I got a postcard from Laila! Yeah! I love mail! Last year I "met" Laila through a swap. To my pleasant surprise she sent me a card. The mail man manage to put in in my neighbours mailbox, but I have nice neighbours and the gave me the card :) Isn't it sweet? Every time I look at the card, childhood memory's comes flowing, who can forget the song Edelweiss from The Sound of Music? Thank you Laila!

Sketch for the iHanna postcard swap

Sketch for the iHanna postcard swap, 2012 is ready. Playing around with the design. The girl, I've cut out of an eraser. The plan is to stamp her and give her a background. We'll see tomorrow how the cards turn out.

Worklist form week 10, until week 22

Yes, under all the clutter is my worktable. No, it has not dropped a bomb, nor have I pulled out every equipment I own. I have just been really bad clearing away equipment before I took on new things.

So this is my work-list from now until week 22:
*Cleaning my work table, - 30 minutes.

*Illustration to text from Eirik - a bit stuck.

*Postcard swap, 10 postcards, iHanna - Not started, deadline 12th of March!

*Marionetts, learning to make some dolls, 400 hours. - about 70 hours into the project.

*Educational illustration - almost done, about 4hours left.

*Carving a stamp/linoleum - just the fine tuning and printing/stamping.

*Install shelves in the studio - not sure of the hours, 6 racks, 3 done.

*Moly_x, - one journal entry every month.

*Rakels picture, - adding text and varnishes, deadline 1.may.

*Art journal - 15 minutes everyday.


If I find the time:
*Blog, somewhere in my head there is a connection between what I know I would love to share, and finding the moments to put my self down and typing it up in English.

* Lifebook classes

*Editing the videos that I have filmed.

*Make 10 ATC and find someone to swap them with!

*Sample book, making an overview of the techniques I know.

*Ballerina painting, - adding the detail and shadows in the dress + varnishes, deadline 1. august.

*Geo Caching, need some fresh air.

I think that's it. You know anything I forgotten?

Joining the iHanna postcard swap

I am joining the iHanna postcard swap http://www.ihanna.nu/blog/2012/02/diy-postcard-swap-2012

Here's what I did in 2009.

This will be the third year I am participating. I have gotten so many sweet and fun hom-emade postcards. Love em'.

This year here is a small fee, I hope this will make people that are joining more serious and they will send out there cards.

You'll be making and receiving 10 postcards. I love to see the different styles. The swap has a Flicr group http://www.flickr.com/groups/postcards2010
send to! Connect, share and spread creativity into the world – that’s the swap slogan!

Here are a glimpse of last years postcards.


DIY Postcard Swap 2012 at iHanna is a very loose swap. No theme, and no set size of the postcards. You can send the postcards in an envelope for protection if you want to, but you don’t have to. You should write a message on the back, add stamps – and put in a mail box! That’s it!

Sign up for the swap closes March 7th 2012! Are you joining?

Moly_X_3 Emma's book

I am participating in the moley_X_3 project. Here are the entry for Emma's book. To follow the books journey you can go here moleskinex3.blogspot.com

For Emma's book I was inspired by the floating movement of balloons. How much fun it would be to go for a ride.

Mediums used: Pencil for sketching. Medallion permanent marker for lining. Distress ink for shadowing. Colouring and pastel pencil for the houses and face form Faber-Castell and Derwent. Odourless white spirit. Acrylic paint for the balloons, mouth, glasses and hair. Leaf gold dust. Nail polish for the scarf. Distress stickles for the sweater and scarf. White gel pen from Sakura.

Art Journal - no uterine cancer

The relief flows through me! Finally got the message: no uterine cancer! This has hung over us for many months. There has been much concern, despair, frustration and grief.

NO: Lettelsen strømmer gjennom meg! Endelig kom beskjeden: ingen livmorkreft! Dette har hengt over oss i mange måneder. Det har vært mye bekymring, fortvilelse, frustrasjon og sorg.

Medium used: pencil, permanent marker, acrylic paint, distress stickles, promarkers and watercolour.

The old lonely socks

So how are you celebrating the start of the new year. I guess most of us have a party with good friends or family. But do you have other things you do?

I throw all the old lonely socks. You know those socks that partners have disappear in the laundry. Last year we were not home at Christmas, so we forgot the lonely socks. So this time it was extra many are actually 60! The distribution was as follows: Mine 9, my dear husband 13, Zack 17 (he is 10 years), and last but not least, Tobias 21. I do not know how we do it.

Movie Monday#43 A Social Network Christmas

This year's postcard

I got a question if I was going to make postcards this year. Yes, I have made one design that I got printed. As life has smacked me pretty had this year, especially this fall, this is the only one I got printed this year.


Here is a picture in progress

Potato vacation - Norwegian culture

In Norway, all schoolchildren have autumn vacation. This vacation is also called potato vacation. In the old days, the schools had two weeks potato vacation in the autum. Now it is reduced to 2 days, related to a weekend. As the name says, it was a school holiday for school kids to participate in the harvesting of the potato crops. In today's society the family do not depends on the help of children's hands in the harvesting, and the schools' autumn vacation is often regarded as outdated.

Many parents take time off work to be with their children. Some actualy harvest the potato, while others take their children to the mountains(cabin) or the Mediterranean, there are also some who for various reasons stay home. For those who can not take time off, or if it is just the best soulution, send there children on vacation to aunts, uncles, grandparents or other close friends of the family. My youngest boy, Zack, went on potato vacation to his grandmother. This gives him and his grandmother a great opportunity to tie good relationship. It is from this potato vacation that my illustration is inspired.

Norwegian:
Potetferie - norsk kultur
I Norge har alle skolebarn høstferie. Denne ferien blir også kalt potetferie. I gamle dager hadde skolene 2 uker potetferie om høsten. Nå er den redusert til 2 dager knyttet til en helg. Som navnet sier var det skolefri for at skoleungene skulle få delta i innhøstingen av potetavlingene. I dagens samfunn er ikke familien avhenging av å få hjelp av barnehender i potetsinnhøstingen, og skolenes høstferie blir ofte ansett som utgått på dato.

Mange foreldre tar fri fra jobb for å være sammen med barna sine. Noen tar opp potet, mens andre tar med seg barna til fjells eller til Syden, er det også en del som av ulike årsaker må holde seg hjemme. For de som ikke kan ta fri eller bare for det passer best, drar barna på ferie til tanter, onkler, besteforeldre eller andre nære venner i familien. Min yngste gutt Zack dro på potetferie til sin bestemor. Noe som gir han og bestemoren en kjempefin mulighet til å knytte gode relasjonsbånd. Det er fra denne potetferien at min illustrasjon er inspirert.

Hello, my lonely blog!

I'm a bad blogger, leaving you here all alone. We can't all be amazing bloggers, all of the time. I guess this is just a period of time in my life where other things have taken priority. Lots and lots of other things. Well I got distracted. Hopefuly I'll be on track. I really miss blogland.

W.I.P. Wednesday 060711

So work in progress, well I am playing around with a home made stamp. I have to make them from erasers, unfortunately nothing else to get a hold of. I was luck to find some larger erasers so I am making a girl, inspired by the local festive costume, Bunad. I an super happy with the first stamp of, still more to cut but so far so happy. What are you up to?

Moly_X_3 Rowland's book

I am participating in the moley_X_3 project. Here are the entry for Rowland's book. To follow the books journey you can go here moleskinex3.blogspot.com/

Got a bit of reflection. Lots of play and mediums going in to this entry.

Mediums used: Pencil for sketching. Medallion pen for lining. Promarker for the face colour. Phebo gesso for the sock and hair base. Colouring and pastel pencil for the eyes and hair form Faber-Castell and Derwent. The pink and blue is a vinyl paint, it gives a beautiful matt finish. The yellow, orange and green is Galeria acrylic paint from Winsor&Newton. The hair tones are colouring pencils, pastels, charcoal, and a bit of acrylic paint. The red mouth is uni posca pen. The greens on the pullover is a mix of the vinyl paint and Galeria acrylic paint from Winsor&Newton on top.

If you have any suggestion on a song that is under the Creative Commons licence and that is between 6 and 10 minutes let me know and I'll put together a video of the illustration process. I know http://www.jamendo.com has a lot of songs but it take time to listen through, so if you have a suggestion it will be appreciated.

IF shadows

Sometimes the shadows can be overwhelming.

Mediums used: pencil, charcoal pencil, eraser, tinted charcoal pencil and permanent marker.