Sooziii's Hobbies

Making a Book .....

2012-02-15T13:51:00.000+11:00

Although I haven't been painting I have been a little creative.

I joined a Life Sketch group, we meet every Saturday afternoon and sketch .... lol. The cost for the live models over 8 weeks is negligible when share between us all. Last week we had a male model who was excellent and this week I think I heard someone mention it was to be a female. It is interesting to see how others perceive the same subject and during our two breaks (to give the model a chance to shake out kinks) we all checked out each others work.

I have to admit my first 3 or 4 sketches were only fit for the rubbish bin - but then I started to relax and got some reasonable ones down. It is hard to sketch something reasonable in a few minutes, and even 30 minutes means you only get basic shape down and not a lot of detail.

We had 10 x 1 min warm up sketches and none of mine looked like anything other than scribbles on a page. But by the time we were doing the 5 mins sketches I was okay. The final sitting were 1 x 20 minute and a 30 minute. The model was very good, male, and even those who have attended the meets last year said he was one of the best they had used.

I took a couple of different sized pads and charcoal, graphite and pencils. Next time I won't bother with the charcoal as it makes such a mess in the pads; I ended up just using graphite. I will also take some watercolour paper next time for the longer sketches so I can tint or paint them when I get home.

25 x A3 sheets folded in half.

That being the case I decided I wanted to take some watercolour paper to work on. I did not want to take single sheets or a large pad and I did not want to have to go out and buy a smaller pad. So I decided to make my own book filled with A4 sheets.

I have part of a roll of paper left so I cut up a metre or so to make 25 sheets A3 size, then folded these in half and put them in bundles of 5 (signatures).

using an awl to make the holes

Next I put holes in the centre of each signature - 4 holes accurately measured so they all lined up with each other.

The 4 holes spaced along the centre. I put one 1 12/"at the top and bottom then the others 2 1/2" from them.

I then stitched the signatures together using dental floss. I followed this pattern as far as the numbers went but a couple of times I went wrong but in the end I got the 5 signatures stitched.

5 signatures sewn toget


Sewing guide - go in at one , then out at 2 etc.

Then I set those aside and went to work on the cover. I had some heavy cardboard which I cut down to slightly larger than A3, making sure I took into consideration the width of the spine in relations to the signatures.

Next I scored the spine at the start and end of the thickness of those signatures.

Adding the sari to the cover.

I reinforced the scorings then cover the front in calico. I used PVA glue and left enough so I could turn the edges onto the inside of the cover. Once it was dry (overnight) I then covered the 'book' in some lovely purple sari material I had, leaving edges to turn again. This was left to dry again.

The first page stuck to the inside of the front cover.

SO now I had a covered book and the signatures for inside - time to put them together.

I covered the inside of the spine with plenty of PVA glue and put in a pice of ribbon I had cut to make a bookmark, then carefully I put glue on the inside left hand side of the cover. Next place a piece of wax paper between the first sheet of the signatures. Very careful I close then book, making sure the signatures well push into the spine as hard as possible and the first page was aligned correctly to the inside left cover.

I put some bricks on the book and left it overnight.

Next morning, it was time to stick the last page onto the inside right hand cover, leaving it to dry with the bricks.

And now .... viola ... I have a 'book' of 50 watercolour sheets to take with me to the next Life Sketch group. Now hopefully the sketches I do will do justice to my book ...lol!!

You could use this idea to make your own journal using either blank or lined paper. Your book can be any size you like.

There are lots of blogs with better details if you are interested enough to give it a go or you can send me an email and I will try and explain, plus tell you my mistakes .... lol

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No Painting ....

2012-02-14T21:34:00.002+11:00

Haven't done any painting this week; have a personal issue which is not conducive to painting now I have to try and get my head back together. I hope that I can finish the piece sometime.

In the meantime here is another jigsaw puzzle for you ... took me a little while and I drew it! Maybe I should have used the ghost option .... lol

180 A Glass of Tea

Hope you all had a great Valentine's Day with your loved ones.

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Almost Done ....

2012-02-10T11:11:00.001+11:00

As you can see I am getting down to the 'pointy end of the stick' now.

This layer of colour has put in some of the details like the glasses and the tattoos; it has also added colour to the fur.

Next layer I will add the highlights to the fur - definition to show the hair on the tiger and the whiskers.

I am going to put in a background wash - just some soft greens and browns to give a hint of trees in the background.

This is the previous layer so you can compare the two.

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Another Two Layers ...

2012-02-08T14:37:00.000+11:00

In case you are wondering what happened to my pictures in my old posts - therein lies a story ... lol.

I was looking through the pictures on my Tablet when I discovered a few albums with hundreds of photos in them that I couldn't delete. Went on line and discovered if you have a Google+ account then you can delete them through that so I did.

Er .... no-one told me that ALL the photos on all of my blogs are saved as Albums in Google+ - nor did they tell me that if you delete said albums you also delete them on your blogs!!

I have gone through all the settings and there is no way to turn it off so I am going to have to put up with them being sent to Google+ and my tablet. If anyone has figured out how to get rid of the connection between blog, Google+ and the tablet without closing Google+ let me know.

I wont tell you that I am not a happy girl!!

I have replaced the photos for the Monk pictures but I am bot going back through all my posts to put the rest back in.

If there is any picture that anyone really needs then email me and I will send it to you ... lol

This latest layer added more skin tones to the Monk; his facial details are almost completed, I will add the glasses next then finish the face.

There is more colour to the body and more shading.

The tiger is starting to get more colour and details.

Have painted in another layer - this time I have added more colour to the tiger's head and started to define the monk's face and his tattoos.

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Jigsaw for Your Enjoyment ...

2012-02-05T10:13:00.000+11:00

The weather has not very very good lately - rather dark as well as raining so I have not done anymore on my painting - I prefer to paint in natural light.

Instead I have made a jigsaw from one of my other paintings, just click on the picture and it will take you to the jigsaw page - have fun!

154 Bonobo

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Progress ....

2012-01-31T14:31:00.000+11:00

I have put another layer onto the fabric, given more definition to the folds- highlights and shadows. Another coat on the skin tones to build up depth. I have also given the tiger's coat a light wash.

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Progress Pictures .....

2012-01-30T11:19:00.000+11:00

This is the 4th wash .... I have added some darker colours where the shadows and fabric folds will go. When I add more colours this will give depth and definition.

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comments!!

My Next Painting Project ....

2012-01-28T15:40:00.000+11:00

This is my current painting project - for me it represents all that my religion (Buddhism) is all about - the caring, compassion and love, serenity, peace, to develop wisdom and understanding, to be in equanimity, free of bias, attachment and anger.

Ready to paint -

I sketched in the drawing then I removed as many of the pencil marks as I could. I left those line that will show me where each colour of the paint is to go.

Here I have defined the area with my paint and then I erased the rest of the pencil marks; I didn't worry too much where the tattoos will go as they will cover the pencil.

It is very hard to see I know but basically it is the pencil lines but defined in very transparent watercolour in the basic colours of each area.

This is the first wash, I have given myself reference areas without much detail. Areas where the fabric folds, sun hits the body and the shadow are not really defined yet.

I will leave it for a number of hours so there is no chance it is still wet before I begin to add the next wash layer.

For those interested in the Sony Tablet - yes you can use a USB to download photos, you can also take both photos and video with your tablet, it also has a microphone.

You can download a basic Photoshop type program for your tablet which will let you do some minor editing of your Photos like cropping, rotating, exposures, tinting, etc.

Check out the main Android market site for other stuff that you can download - a lot of it is free .... :). There are other sites out there as well that offer Apps, games, books, etc.

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Rain, Cleaning, Cats and Tablets ........

2012-01-24T20:06:00.004+11:00

Was going to do some 'en plien air' painting but unfortunately the weather decided not to co-operate. It has been very overcast with a few light showers for the past few days, not the sort of weather to sit outdoors and paint; there hasn't been much wind so not even worth going to the coast to get some rough sea type photographs.

Oh well, there is always next week .... lol.

My trip to Queensland seems months ago; isn't it amazing how quickly we settle back into routine after a holiday ... lol. In a few hours your holiday seems like it was years ago!

Back on the Internet Dating websites .... decided to give it another try; maybe this time I will find Mr Right

I don't think my expectations are too high -

tall
single
adult kids all flown the nest
funny
and he has to think I am the best thing since sliced bread ..... rotfl

Oh - and it wouldn't hurt if he was gorgeous; I mean I couldn't say no to some handsome hunk as long as he was over 45 now could I?

Rotfl .... seriously, it would be nice to meet up with someone to spend some quality time with, would be great to have a friend that I could ring and say 'hey, want to go for a drive?' or 'how about going to the movies/dinner/whatever?'

I have to be honest and say I do get rather lonely and to have someone to talk to rather than the dogs would be great.

Been looking at some photographs to decide what to paint next and finally settled on one. Then I decided to clean up my art room before I tackled the painting .... it was rather messy :). Now it looks great, I moved a day bed I had in there and now I have more room.

It really was a big mess in there so before I started a new project I knew I had to bite the bullet and do a big clean.

Even the cupboard when I store extra paint, palettes, paper rolls, etc got a bit of a clean up .... lol.

Cali is quite convinced the chair in the room is hers and she refuses to move. When I go in to paint we have a power struggle for a few minutes till she hops down ... usually to curl around my feet .... lol.

Spotty wandered in to see what was going on and gave some of my dish palettes an inspection to check I had removed all the old watercolour paint.

I am now the proud owner of a Sony Tablet and I love it!!!

I carry with me whenever I leave the house (except for grocery shopping) ... yesterday I was out for most of the morning, went to the hairdressers and used my tablet to read then ended up dropping into a Maccas for a Latté.

Thanks to their free WiFi I was able to login and check out a few things while I was there. I also played a couple of rounds of Angry Birds... lol.

I did think about an Ipad but decided I wanted the Sony for several reasons;

I like to play Facebook and Flash games and Apple Ipad cannot access Adobe Flash (no agreement with Adobe);
Some things I read are PDF which is also Adobe;
You cannot use a USB stick with the Ipad (Sony has a mini USB access and I also have a tiny cable converting normal USB to mini so I can plug in all my USB's with no problems;
You cannot increase the storage of an Ipad but with the Sony I can also use an SD card (and/or a USB stick)

Anyway, I am sure there are purists who will say that an Ipad is the only way to go but I am very happy with my Sony and would recommend it over the Ipad to anyone.

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