Photography

Day 17 | #MarchMeetTheMaker is #photography

My fab friend Louise Mary Designs helped me photograph my first few items in my etsy shop.

Pictures were taken with her lovely camera in her equally lovely studio. Since then however I've been attempting to recreate the feel using my kitchen table and mobile phone camera... got to start somewhere! 

Time to relax

Day 16 | #MarchMeetTheMaker is #TimeToRelax

I find drawing relaxing but this month has had a lot of shots of that so here is something different.

I've started seeing my alarm an hour earlier than I used to. I now wake at 6 and have created a secret early hour that I didn't have before. I make a big cup of tea and enjoy it thinking about the day ahead and what I want to get done. Sometimes I manage drawing then or address an envelope for an order if letter to a friend (gives the ink enough time to dry before I venture out to the post box). This week though I've been mainly sitting on the bed with the curtains open enjoying the fact it's light outside!

Inspiration

Day 15 | #MarchMeetTheMaker is #Inspiration 

There are lots of pictures I could post for this. It was almost this picture of the sycamore I took yesterday...

It could be of artists, friends and family that inspire me. Words and humour are also up there as sources of inspiration.

However I settled on this, a fairly ordinary subject- brambles and their friends on a woodland floor.

The woods, nature and the predictable yet awe inspiring seasonal changes that happen all around us inspire me. I notice something new each year and am regularly fascinated by the often overlooked detail in the 'ordinary' subjects.

Creative Friends

Day 14 |#MarchMeetTheMaker is #CreativeFriends

I love how creativity can be in any medium: 

- Stunning silver (Louise Mary Designs), 

- Linen Loveliness (Wild Flora Clothing),  

- through to Culinary Creatives (...check out this Banoffee Bear Birthday Cake 😋). 

Many friends of mine insist they are not creative. Labelled that way or not, they inspire and motivate me. (These three are just the tip of the iceberg!).

Alice in Action!

Here are links to two short clips of me drawing some Blackthorn this afternoon (both on Instagram)...

Blackthorn Part 1

and...

Blackthorn Part 2 

And this is the end result...

Feedback

Day 13 of #MarchMeetTheMaker is #Feedback

This is my first piece of #Etsy feedback - I was thrilled!

First Ever Sale

Day 12 of #MarchMeetTheMaker is #FirstEverSale

Although not my first sale as Alice Draws The Line, this was the first sale of my work. Sadly I only have a rather grainy image of it - a photo I've taken from a booklet that had a photo of it featured in - so excuse the quality. I drew it as part of my Art A'level but can't quite remember what the brief was. I later had it framed and entered it into an exhibition and sale and it sold - I was thrilled... but do wish I had taken another photo of it before it went.

I remember really enjoying doing the picture, in pen and ink... about 15 years ago. A friend mentioned this picture recently and said it was the style she always associated with me - and one that returned to feature on my 2015 Christmas Cards... Twist and Sprout (see here) and We Three Cones (see here). 

This was called 'Marching Vegetables' - a landscape piece featuring directly observed vegetables, given personalities and limbs. The runner bean was always my favourite - late and having to run to catch up with the procession. I'm quite tempted to revisit this.

I'm working on a bigger piece again at the moment which I'm enjoying. .. more about that soon!