Week failthirteeen!

Week 13 challenge came a bit late...and unfortunately it was a disaster :( For some time I had the idea to make a nice watercolour of an old chinese teacup and a saucer that I got from my parents. I've seen many pretty drawings of cups before and decided on a style...that it should be not perfectly round and realistic, rather linear, clean and bit chunky. The teacup I have is made of very thin porcelain, the one you can almost look trough. It has beautiful dragon decorations. Because it is very old it's not perfectly round and it has defects from the time it was baked. And I really did my best to show that. Unfortunately after a while I realized that my brush, even though pretty thin isn't THAT precise and all my painting was just a big mess. It was so chunky I couldnt see the pattern:( But I'm not giving up and if the time will allow me, I will buy a  set of super thin  brushes and start it over this week:)

Even though my challenge didn'g go so well I still have something to show this week :) And it is a pair of cute plates I made to order :)

 

Week 12!

Whole last week was crazy with work and other things that came up so I was really longing for this weekend. I needed relaxation, silence and something tasty to eat. This post will be about some other sides of creativity :)

When my parents visited me over a month ago, they brought with them a lot of polish food, that I can't get here in Sweden. One of the things was polish white cheese, made by a local producer close to where they live. It's very tasty and cheesecake made out ofalways turns great. I still had around 1 kg of it in the freezer and thought it would be a great idea to bake something out of it. Out of 100 recipes I picked one for the vanilla flavoured cheesecake with brownie bottom and raspberry mousse on its top. Sounded fantastic:) Especially that the raspberries that I was going to use were from my parents garden and brought to me in a form of thick ultraraspberry jam that my mom made:) Awesome! The recipe was pretty advanced since I had to bake it in water bath in the oven for around 2 hours, but with the help of my boyfriend everything went sound:) After the cake spent the whole night in the fridge we tried it this morning and it was really good:) Not too sweet, super creamy and with lumps of raspberry jam hidden here and there inside the dough. Perfect way to taste some summer when the weather outside is not very nice!

From other creative updates this week, we also framed my Totoro watercolour and hanged it in the hall just next to the entrance to the appartment. Very good spot! It will remind us to take the umbrella when it will rain outside .

We also solved the problem of light in the whole, since we only had one lamp there, and it was still pretty dark. We hung up a light chain and we covered some of the bulbs with small plastic balls, so we got kind of snowball effect on them. 

Week 11! Presents :)

I think giving and getting presents is one of the coolest ideas ever. I'm more likely in the group that loves to give much more than get them. Especially when they are unique, picked by me, or made by me. I always spend alot of time thinking of what to give to someone. The closer the person, the easier it gets :) But it always has to be perfect, something that I'm sure will make the person happy...sometimes something I would like to get myself. Oh...presents for myself...from myself...Yeah, that's happens often too. When I'm sad, or happy, or when the weather is bad, or when I have birthday- it never feels bad to spoil myself with something cute or tiny or tasty or nice smelling:) However, the best present for me is to see a happy and shining with smile face of someone who just opened my gift :) Week 11 of my challenge was the week of presents. And all of them for some special kids:) First I made an owl painted plate that was ordered as a baptism gift. It turned out cute and I hope It will be a nice surprise for a family. 

And the other present is for children that I sometimes babysit. They are brother and sister and are mega cute. I think they will be happy to find one more package under the Christmas tree this year ;)

 

Week 10!

Last week was a pretty stressful one. So many things happened that I was longing for this weekend :) We planned very cosy and relaxing saturday. Late breakfast, feeding the ducks at the river bank (because we had so much leftover bread!) and a library date (which is picking up the books from the art section and reading through them at the cozy cafe:). Well... saturday was super rainy and gray and there was no way we are going out anywhere + library was closed, because of holidays :( It was really like the rainy weather from the movie My neighbour Totoro... so there it is :) I was planning to make something Totoro connected because I LOVE IT! Together with all the others Studio Ghibli productions:) Also some time ago I've seen this cool technique, where you treat watercolour paint with alcohol droplets to get the dandelion effect. I used it to make my rain more rainy and splashy looking. What doYou think?

Fuzzzzzyyyyy Week 9!

The beautiful, warm and golden autumn phase is long gone L.  Now every day is rather grey and most of the time rainy. It’s cold and windy and I have a lot of problem to get out of bed in the morning. I have a need to surround me with comforting things. Warming slippers on my footsies and fuzzy blanket are a must in my daily outfitJ Sofa cuddles every evening is a ritual all year round, but it somehow feels even more cozy now ^_^. I drink warm tea with honey in liters and don’t mind to eat comfort food every day…which builds up a fluffy fat layer around my tummy, but I don’t care so much because that is how I prepare for winterJ. Now it’s not so long until the first snow will cover all the greyness outside and it will be beautiful again.  All of this experiences and feelings mixed into the idea of creating some cool piece for a very naked and white wall in my kitchen. I wanted something fuzzy and cute and colorful. So I took a A3 ivory tinted paper and drew a few rows of feathers (fuzzy + cute) and painted them rainbowish with watercolours. I really like it. I think it fits well in its place, I just have to find some nice frame for it J

Week 8!

The whole last week I was playing around with digital painting. I designed three patterns for the fabric that will be used by a girl who is sewing very beautiful baby clothes :)

I also tried diffrent techniques and brushes to see how it feels and looks in the final effect. And here is a fox that You probably remember from one of my first posts here. It is a very big file and can be printed on paper as a poster or be use as a template on basically anything ( cups, mugs, plates, pillows etc.)

The last thing I tried last week was using the watercolour brush tools. It is really cool...no mess at all comparing to traditional watercolours and it's way easier to control the paint :) The final effect was nice and I  like it :)

I must admit that I have alot of fun creating something digital way. But the only problem is that I can't touch it, it kind of feels not real until You have it on paper in your hand. So for next week I already have in mind a cool project using he ancient technique of scribbling the paper :)

Week 7...Into the future!

Week 7 of my Creativity Challenge was super hectic. I had a family visit over and had to take care of them, but this doesn't mean that I haven't done anything arty :) In fact I did alot, but unfortunately can't show it, because most of things I created are going to be a gifts :) Only thing I can tell...it was a lot of porcelain painting! :D At the end of the week I leveled up in drawing and tried making it digitally. It really feels like I moved 1000 years into the future and it was very hard to get it at the beginning. It is a weird feeling not to draw on paper, and that the connection between the hand and a creation has a gap filled with tablet :) First owl I made was so dissapointing that I lost all the hope in my hands. It felt like it's not  really mine :D

My second drawing was much better though, and I think I will be getting along with digital drawing because I can see alot of potential in it. 

Finally, I'm very happy to annouce that since last week I'm selling few of my pieces in the Mamabu store - the place where You can find all the children equipment from the best Polish designers.

http://mamabu.pl/kategoria/na-sciane

Week 6!

This week was pretty hectic for me as I rushed to finish up my study project. I managed  to take a few breaks though and reward myself with some drawings for patience in studying :) For some time I was thinking of using a colour, but never came across a good set of watercolour paints that would satisfy me. Many years a go,mother of my sister in law gave me a small box with (i think there was 16 of them) watercolour half pans. It was the best I've ever had, but I think I lost it somewhere during one of my moves :( And last weekend I found a small set of French watercolours that are almost as good:)) So of course I tried them, and it was really fun. I came up with idea of making bookmarks, because Im always short on them :) Instead I just use a piece of paper, old notes, receipt from a grocery store etc. I only made two for now but I think they are quite nice, and will make more to list them in my store:)

After that I tried watercolours on something bigger, like an owl....

And yesterday I made a coloured version of my sleeping fox:) I think it looks much better in reality than this photo. I hope his new owners will like it, because it is a hauswarming gift ^___^

So that's it. I hope to make somthing more ambitious next week, even though I'll have guests over :)

Week 5!

Week 5 was pretty generous when it comes to 'creative produce'. I finally was able to try porcelain painting pen on some ceramics...something I was thinking about for a long time. I went to a thrift store and purchased a few simple porcelain white plates and cups with as flat surface as possible. I was very excited to the process, because before I moved to Sweden, I worked a lot with porcelain and ceramics, but as an art historian. This time I was kind of on the other side of it:) After my designs were complete I left them for a few hours to dry and than baked my porcelain in the oven. The effect is quite good, though my experience says that an on-glaze paint can fade away ater some time. For the owl plate the drawing looks pretty good, but for my diagonal patterns it turned out a bit sloppy. I wish I had a traditional porcelain paint and a brush to finish it up. However, You can't deny they are handmade, and it adds some sort of a character to them. 

If You like them, I'm selling them in my Etsy store:
https://www.etsy.com/se-en/shop/CreativChallenge

The other thing that I made this week was a drawing of some wildflowers. I love wildflowers, because they bring back my childhood memories. When I was small my parents build a house just in the outskirts of the city, next to the big forrest. This district was pretty new and we had a very few neighbours, and our house was surrounded by a big field overgrown with all kind of grass and wild flowers: poppies, cornflowers, dandelions, buttercups, daisies...everything. I remember that there was one kind of flower that we even ate, and it was pretty sweet...not sure if we were allowed to though :)

Also finally we found some time last week to frame and hang few of my earlier works, and I'm very happy that they got a place on our walls. It feels like my appartment is slowly getting its homely feeling:)

So, that's it this week. I hope You enjoyed it :))

New items in my store :)

There are few new pieces in my store so You are all wellcome to visit:)

https://www.etsy.com/se-en/shop/CreativChallenge

Week 4! Scarf

Few weeks ago the weather here got really cold...even though it was still summer. I instantly imagined myself knitting something during long dark Swedish Winter evenings. Well, I will still have to wait for that scenario, but this week I rehearsed a bit. I made a scarf! Thick but very soft, very long, super warm and cozy one! It was supposed to be finished as a last week project, but unfortunately my store run out of the yarn that I was using. My scarf is made of the thick 100% wool yarn, and it's colour is dark grey or anthracite, if someone likes fancy names. I made it using pretty fat (12 mm) crochet hook (virknål in Swedish). I am superhappy with it :) I love soft warm things, and this is exactly what i needed:) This is for sure the beginning of my knitting/crochetting adventures:)

UPDATE!

After last week challenge I was super nicely surprised by how many people actually loved it.
So I thought that I can actually share my drawings with anyone that like it and made a little experiment. I opened an webshop on Etsy.com. I listed there few of my drawing that I was working on for past few days...and I'm very excited about it. If it will be succesful and I will manage to sell my drawings I plan on going further and draw my cuteness zoo on cups and pillow covers...and maybe something more :) So here is the link to my CreativChallenge store. There is also a direct link on the right side of the page, under About Me section. So...welcome to my shop. I hope you will enjoy it! :)

https://www.etsy.com/se-en/shop/CreativChallenge

Week 3!

This week my challenge started rather unexpectedly. Mom of a very special little girl (my niece) asked me if i could draw a picture of an owl to hang in toddler's room. So there it is...The Owl:

I was really pleased with how it looked at the end and thought: hey, this is pretty cool style...so i made four more pieces:) I think i might develope this series more in the future with more animals and maybe by using different colours. For all of my drawings i used the same techique: black marker and black pens of different thicknes on paper.

Week 2!

This week's project was inspired by a person that has a very special place in my heart -  my grandmother. She was one of the most creative people i knew, and also very talented. She was sewing, knitting and embroidering whole of her life:) One of her favourite emroidery patterns comes from polish folk art from the northern Poland and it is called haft kaszubski. It looks like that :

My version is on paper. I drew it, than filled the outlines with a black pen, than painted it with a black watercolor and coloured it with pencils. I think it looks quite cool! I am very pleased with the graphic effect of it and kind of silver glitterring of a pencil. Even though it took me some hours I had great fun doing this, and  I might make more of these.

  

Drawing is pretty big 46 x 64 cm and I don't have a frame yet, but it already looks supernice in it's destined part of the wall :))

As a side project i doodled a pineapple, it may end up in the kitchen somewhere :)

Sneak peek!

Tiny sneak peek into Week 2 projects! :)

Week 1! Let's get started :)

I am a huge animal lover. If there would be any possibility for me to take care of ALL the animals I would do it. Sadly I have a fur allergy and I'm not allowed to touch animals, not mentioning cuddles. But I kind of found way around this health ban and I decided to draw my favourite animals:) Dachshund - because since  I remember there was always one diving under the table (in search of food) in my family house. Raccoon - because I adore them, never thought of them as pests, they have cute paws and noses. Foxie - cuteness and fluffyness levels out of the scale. So for last two weeks i worked on tiny triptych for the hallway that turned out quite good. I used pen and black watercolour on paper.

Creativity challenge!

A few months ago I moved into a new appartment. Even after filling it with furniture it still feels empty, mostly because of plain walls and lack of small cosy decorations that could make it feel more home-like. Also recently I rediscovered how fun drawing is ( something I haven't done in 10 years) and that I definitely should make it more often. These two things merged into the idea of Creativity Challenge! The rule is that every week in a time of one year I will make something creative and post the evidence of it here. It can be anything that involves me in making something fun and nice. It will mostly be drawing, painting,  some DIY projects, maybe tiny renovations, maybe cool photos...I hope that in 52 weeks my appartment will turn into the cosiest place. I chose to make a blog about it to keep my motivation on a certain level and to record my progress. And of course because it's something that makes me really really happy.