Sketchy details

Hmm.... it's been a while, hasn't it? Sorry. I've been doing creative stuff, but nothing new. And you don't want to read about me making more owly towels, do you? Of course you don't!

Well, one of the things I've been doing, which I've not written about here yet, is that I've been playing with SketchUp. And I do consider it playing; it's something I can do for fun, for hours on end, without getting bored. Some people play World of Warcraft, I draw stuff in SketchUp. It's a pretty powerful tool and I'm sure that some people do consider it work - but what a wonderful thing it would be to be paid for playing with SketchUp!

In case you're not in the know, SketchUp is a 3D modelling application. I first discovered it when I was designing the kitchen for my current home. I loved being able to visualise what the kitchen would look like when it was finished. More to the point it was very helpful for me to be able to see that the red worksurface that my parter liked the idea of so much would look amazing (rather than... um... a bit too out-there for my taste!)

Since then, I've used SketchUp for all sorts of things! I've modeled most of the furniture in our house as well as the floorplan of our house, which made life easier when re-arranging furniture (why heft 600kg of sofa around the room, breaking your back, only to find it doesn't fit where you thought it might, when you could come to the same conclusion with a few mouse clicks?) I lost many of my SketchUp models when our laptop was stolen a few years ago; I was so upset! I now save all my models on Dropbox so that at least if something happens to the computer I don't lose them.

We've been planning to move house recently and SketchUp has been a great way of getting a general idea of how we might use the space in the house we've found. For example, I was able to experiment with the idea of knocking through the kitchen to the second reception room of our new house, to create a big kitchen-diner.

Not so kitsch.

We recently bought an Art Deco hall stand at a fleamarket. We fell in love with it when we saw it and think will look beautiful in our new house. I just had to SketchUp it so that I could include it in models of the new house to see how it looks.

Love at first sight!

Sometimes I just like to model an item for fun. The Ikea catalog can be a good source of inspiration for this sort of thing because it gives some good information about the size of items.

An Ikea idea.

There are things which frustrate me about how SketchUp works. For example, it seems totally illogical to allow users of a 3D modelling tool to place guide points in a model and still have things stick to other items, rather than the specifically placed guide point, as a default. But the frustrations are small and the rewards are huge, so I try not to get too agitated when I'm struggling.

A skill I think I should develop in the near future is that of creating texture files. There is a good pool of materials in SketchUp, but I always seem to find that I want a particular kind of material which isn't available. I usually end up making do with an existing material, but it'd be liberating to be able to open a drawing application, create a texture, save it as a graphic file, import it to SketchUp and get exactly the look I wanted to achieve.

How can a day off work mean I've no time for creativity?!

Yesterday was a bit frustrating. I'd taken the day off work because I had a few little jobs I wanted to get done. I had hoped that it would also allow me a little time to do some more crafty or creative stuff. But my failure to see exactly how many "little jobs" I had to do and how long they would take meant that I didn't get any time to do creative things at all!

So, this morning I was determined to get the creativity in good and early! I wanted to do a more permanent version of the Dessy Weather sketch I drew the other day. On opening my sketch book, I found a couple of cartoons I'd done a few months ago.

This first was an idea which came to me and I sketched very quickly, but never really developed (I really should one day).

And this one is another cat-themed one. (Um... I like cats quite a lot. In fact, I'm probably borderline crazy-cat-lady.)

And finally, here's the developed Dessy Weather cartoon.

The fabric of creativity

I'm inordinately excited to have found out about the existence of fabric painting media. Until yesterday, I had thought that painting on fabric required specialist fabric paints or crayons like those I had as a kid. They did the trick, but they really gave quite a basic result.

As a result of the lino printing workshop yesterday, I have discovered, however, that it's possible to buy media that you mix with standard acrylic paint which allows you to paint or print onto fabric to provide a result which will resist washing even in a washing machine. I've always liked using acrylic paint, not least because it's affordable and quite easy to find even in the most basic arts and crafts shops.

Today's research has also enlightened me to products which you can use to create screen printing stencils. Again, I did a bit of screen printing when I was a kid, but it involved cutting a stencil out of paper which had a great many limitations (not least that it would apply ink to the thickness of the paper used).

I sense a whole world of fabric printing opportunities opening up in front of me. My life may never be quite the same ever again!

Owly Towel

Sounds like a Fawlty Towers anagram, doesn't it? But in fact, it's what I've been making today!

Thanks to the lovely Craft Guerrilla's expert guidance, I've spent three hours this afternoon carving a design out of lino and then printing it onto a tea towel. I've had so much fun and - as is always the case when I learn a new craft or technique - my mind is now buzzing with possibilities. Let's just say that if you're on my Christmas card list, I'm already thinking up the design you'll be seeing in seven months.

The workshop was at the Knit With Attitude shop at 127 Stoke Newington High Street and there were four of us participating in the workshop including Louise (Crafty Guider) and Jean-Mary (Meanyjar).

As I wrote yesterday, I'd had an idea in mind for a while, of a little owly chap sitting on a branch. When I got to the workshop, I realised that in fact for a repeated design, the owl would be better on its own, without the branch.

So, I started out by drawing my li'l owl onto the lino block.

Owly. HB pencil on lino.

Then I set about carving! It was lots of fun gouging out chunks from the lino. I loved that the different blades of the tool had different influences, not only the shape and weight of the line, but also the direction; I'd intended that the eye sockets would be tooled from the outside edge, inwards, but the blade I was using gave the line a natural curve to the left, so they ended up with a spiral design which I love.

Shavings of lino ended up all over the place; this is not a hobby for those who don't like mess.

Once I'd finished the design, it was time to ink it up and print a trial run on a scrap of fabric. I'm very into teal at the moment, so I decided on a good, strong teal colour, which I used by mixing a lot of blue, with some yellow and white. The 'ink' was actually acrylic paint with some Daler Rowney System 3 Acrylic Medium mixed into it; the ratio was imprecise, but it seemed to be about 10-20% medium to paint. The medium means that the paint doesn't dry quite so quickly as acrylic paint normally would, allowing you more time to work.

No negativity here!

The first trial print helped me to realise that I needed to shave away a little of the material around the design. In fact, in the end I cut it all away, because I wanted a nice clean edge to the design. Once I was happy with the design, it was time to commit to printing my tea towel. I measured the towel and my design and worked out I that I could fit a row of four owls along each short edge of the towel.

Four in a row.

I had great fun creating my owly towel and it was inspiring to see the designs my fellow workshoppers came up with.

From left to right, Craft Guerrilla, Alison, me, Crafty Guider and Meanyjar.