Secret Santa Questionnaire

Just a litte questionnaire for the dorm gals to get our secret Santa event going. I looked at some reference images to draw the Santa, then colored him in Photoshop. Flyer was done in InDesign. 

Carousel Horse

This one was for Doodle United's "Fantastical Horses" theme. Colors are a bit dark on this upload, but you get the idea. Sketched in the sketchbook, then redrawn in Illustrator and colored.

The Wingfeather Saga Trunk

Board to explain what my trunk was,
since most people wouldn't be familiar
with the theme.

Warning: long post!

Also: Click on the pictures to make them bigger!

I haven't posted anything for a while because I've been feverishly working on my trunk decorations and costume for my church's annual Trunk or Treat. As usual, my OCD-crafty-self got somewhat carried away, but the results were, as my friend Jess would say, EPIC. Not to mention a fitting fan art tribute to one of my favorite book series: The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson. (Peterson is also my favorite musician, but I'll save that story for another post). For several years now I have wanted to do a trunk inspired by the Wingfeather Saga, but I could never figure out how to do it. Turns out I was over thinking it, making it too complicated. So I simplified, and finally came up with something wonderful and doable.

The pic to the left is actual what started the whole idea spinning in my head (aside from loving the books). I always find the fact that Leeli's grandfather Podo carves her a crutch that says "LIZARDKICKER" in book 1 highly amusing. Basically, I wanted to find an excuse to dress up as Leeli so I could walk around with a crutch that said "Lizardkicker." Hence, the need to design a trunk around it! (Trunk or treat is kind of the only legitimate excuse I have left for dressing up in costume.) Though it was one of the last pieces I finished, you can see in the pic that I indeed created the infamous crutch. I used my Cricut to cut the letters out of vinyl, then stuck them on an old crutch we had stowed away in the garage. 

The rest of the idea came from rereading the books and taking copious notes about character and scene details, writing favorite quotes down, and then sketching out my idea in the notebook I use to design all of my trunks. 

Below are my original idea sketches for both the trunk and my Leeli costume: 

There were 3 main components to my trunk: the book poster, the sea dragons, and my costume. I started by using my notes to sketch out some of my favorite scenes, as well as some I thought might be intriguing to someone who had never read the books. I ended up with 11 sketches, plus a couple I had drawn a few months back. I drew in pencil, inked with my trusty sharpie pen, scanned into the computer & cleaned up, and then colored them using my favorite pastel settings in Painter. 

Here are just a few of my favorite sketches (click to make larger):

Left: The Sea Dragons and Nugget the Brave

Right: Janner and Tink opening the door in Anklejelly Manor

 Left: Leeli touching a seadragon

Right: Beneath the Moonbright Heavens (the saddest and most beautiful scene out of the 1st 3 books - I bawl like a baby every time.)

I had my mom print out the sketches, then I glued them onto a giant book poster I made out of matte board and posterboard. Then I added several of my favorite quotes from the books. 

Next came the sea dragons, which I made out of pool noodles, egg cartons, paint, construction paper, and lots of glue (hot glue melts pool noodles by the way!). Then I used my glimmer mist from my scrapbooking supplies to jazz them up. I used bricks and bailing wire to create rigs so that I could pose them in the 'sea' (the inside of my trunk draped in blue sheets). 

Two of the finished dragons:

For my costume, I got my wonderful amazing mom to help me (she is a much better seamstress than I am). She hemmed the sleeves of an old chemise for me, and made a mediaeval Russian style tunic with no pattern and next to no instructions (so I could wear it again the next time BK invites me to a SCA event.) Mom is also a potter, so I showed her the picture of Leeli's whistleharp from the back of one of the books - and she made that out of clay for me too. Like I said, she's amazing. I still have to tinker with it to see if I can get the whistle part to actually play, but it looks almost identical to the picture in the book!

I added a few little flairs of my own - I made a pin of the Annieran seal. I was originally going to use it to pin my cloak, but alas, I ran out of time and the cloak had to go. So I pinned it to my belt instead. I also borrowed a stuffed dog (for Nugget) from some friends and placed it on a stool with the actual books. It's all about the details. 

 

In the end it all came together and looked absolutley fabulous. It took a ton of work and more than a few late nights, but as usual it was just another typical project for me. Once I get going on an idea I don't stop. These books are wonderful, and I hope you'll look into reading them. You can find out more info and get the books at http://wingfeathersaga.com. Nothing more to say than to show off the finished trunk, so here it is:

The Wingfeather Saga - Round 1

The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson is one of my favorite book series. Find out about the series HERE. I just reread it in prep for doing some major sketches for my Trunk or Treat idea this year - working ahead for once! Here's a sketch of the three main characters (from left to right): Janner, Tink (aka Kalmar), and Leeli. The little black dog is Nugget. Each character is holding their gift from their father Esben - the first book, Esben's sketchbook, and a silver whistleharp.

And here's the seal of Anniera:

More to come later!

The Cow Orchestra!

Here's the final piece I did for the Doodle U theme 'animals playing instruments' :

Hopefully it enlarges when you click on it so you can really see it. 

Can you spot all 33 instruments? (in addition to the conductor)

This took forever, but it was pretty fun researching/trying to draw each of the instruments. Contrabassoons are difficult to draw by the way. I looked up what instruments are typically in an orchestra and how they are arranged. This would be a more modern day orchestra; I didn't realize saxophones typically aren't part of the orchestra, and weren't included at all until modern times. Who knew! But my dad's a huge sax fan, so I felt like I needed to include them. I drew each cow/instrument individually, inked each, colored them with colored pencil, then scanned them into the computer.

Here's one of the original scans:

After I created a clipping path for each in Photoshop, I dumped them all into InDesign to do the arranging. I duplicated the cows to get the multiple instruments for the same section (which why, for instance, all the violins look identical - I'm not that crazy to draw all of those!) Then I drew a separate background and put that in. The hardest part was figuring out how to arrange them so you could still each cow/instrument. I love how the finished piece came out! And I made poster size, so I should be able to print it 18" x 24" eventually.

Animals Playing Instruments

Doodle United's latest theme was "Animals Playing Instruments." I was super excited when they posted it (cows!). While I had cow plans, I did also color some banjo playing pigs I drew a long while back:

These are inspired by the site Dueling Banjo Pigs. Colored in Painter.

Next, I drew a couple of individual cows playing some unique instruments. 

Medieval Cow playing a hammered dulcimer.
Inspired by my love for the middle ages, the desire to one day learn to play the hammered dulcimer, and an obsession/longing to join 3 of my friends in SCA. (one day!)

Highland Cow, in a kilt, playing the bagpipes.
Inspired by my friend Elise, who has a fierce love/obsession with both Highland cows and all things Scottish. 

The fourth piece I did, I will post in the next post - because it's pretty epic . . .
 CLICK HERE FOR NEXT POST.