Reflections and Portraits

Hello my lovely friends.  How have you been?  (I guess I'm not really expecting an answer, I have deserted you for quite a while now it seems!

So what's been going on I might hear you ask? 

This year has been pretty hectic, lots of orders, new products and kids keeping me occupied.

I was also diagnosed  with Fibro this year and it made me reevaluate a few things.  I noticed I was getting increasing pain in my hands and my eyesight was getting worse so I found I was making more mistakes.  Don't even get me started on the brain fog, I have to write everything down otherwise it's instantly forgotten. 

Well in an attempt to be more consistent with my illustration I have moved to using an IPad Pro for all my designing and then printing on top quality card rather than all hand drawing.

My original method was to sketch on paper, get approval from the customer,  make any changes if needed,  then scanning, redrawing and then colouring  (and that was on a good day, often the pen might slip as my hands hurt, or I would draw a line a little too thick or occasionally take a pen lid off and it explode. )  If I found any problems I would redo.  Some portraits could easily take several hours just because of a tiny mistake.

As you can imagine this had to stop, or at least change!

It was a real battle with my brain and heart though.  My brain wanted to be practical and produce top quality portraits every time.  But my heart felt it wasn't truly hand made, that customers wouldn't expect something digital to be hand drawn.  What do you think?  I started to realise that it isn't always the way you make something but the results with some handmade items.  If I realistically charged for all the time a portrait took, with all the redos and customers wanting last minute changes no one could afford it! But, if I drew it digitally I could easily make these alterations, reduce my time and the pain in my hands.

I also discovered a wonderful new plan formed...... but I will tell you more about that another time or you will be sooooooo bored of such a long wordy post!

So today I thought I would show you a little look at my portrait style as it has changed over the years and how they look now.    

My first portrait.  You may notice noone has any necks!

I did love this one though and it was for a friend and never sold so don't panic any of you copyright police out there!  (that's usually me lol)

My portraits started to have tiny necks and longer legs.  

Another hand drawn portrait, this one has so much texture and that kilt!!!!  Oh my that took hours to get the pattern right!

You may notice that hand drawn portraits are much harder to photograph too, so much detail is lost in the image.

In fact it took well over a year for my characters to start getting more realistic proportions.  I've never liked the idea of drawing someone as large or thin, busty or flat.  I tend to create my portraits with a feeling of their inner child.  I do get asked to make people larger or thinner mind so I have started to do that now.

Here is a portrait  I was asked to create for a preschool!  What a great way for people to identify with the staff in the setting in a friendly way.  This portrait was digital, and just as well as there were a few alterations, people to be added and others who had changed job roles. Here it is again all festived up ready for Christmas cards!

Here are some other fantastic portraits.  These are all digital and I really love the detail and the new style.

So that's it from me until the next post!  (hopefully in less than 6 months!)

I will be sharing this post on the wonderful Handmade Monday so do pop by and check out some other amazing crafty blogs!

Jen xx

Making a modelling clay figure

Before Christmas I spent some time revamping a character in a book I wrote a few years back.  It occurred to me that to help me with the drawing it would be good if I could have a model to work from.  I always struggle with profiles and obscure angles of the head. 

Now my modelling skills do have a lot to be desired, I do like to give these things a go however, so here is my little tutorial for making a 3d figure.

So I'd like you to meet Pigley!  A cute toddler who is discovering new and exciting things about her world.

So how to start creating her???  Well first off I got some wire and bent it into a vaguely stick figure shape.  (really thought I had a pic of this ageist but apparently not.)  for the head I just made a loop shape.  Make sure your arms and legs are the same length as each other and that each end has a loop of metal. You can see the feet in this image are just loops.

Now get out the foil!  I found the heap foil I had was a bit useless... Actually it was very useless all round.  But I had some proper stuff and this worked far better.  You want to compactly wrap the wire structure to flesh out the bones as it were. 

Here you can see my little person now looks more person than stick!  Why bother?? Well if I made the head completely out of clay it would 1, be very very heavy and 2, very expensive!  This way you don't waste materials.

Next step was to get some flesh coloured clay and create the head shape. Because you make a loop in the wire at the beginning you will find the head should twist around or fall off!

Now bake you clay for about 15 minutes.  This is something I hadn't thought to do before but it made a huge difference.  The key thing to remember is to make sure you have all the facial features you want.  You don't even need to add hair.  If you wish to you could also add flesh to the hands and feet or anything else that will be exposed.

Once baked I allowed to cool and then started work on the rest of her, adding clothes and hair.  I also added a stand so she wouldn't fall over.

Lastly, into the oven she goes (I felt like the wicked witch then lol)

Baked on 130 for 25 minutes (from a cold oven)  In future I would pop a mug behind as she did tumble back at one point and the back of her hair caught slightly.

And here she is all finished.  There is lots I'm not that happy about but I still love her.  My first partially successful attempt at modelling a figure.

Why not have a go yourself!  I'd love to see what you create!

I am popping by Handmade Monday again, so why not pop by and say hi!

Jen xx

Personlised colouring books

Last year I had an idea! (March to be exact)  Well I had a few but time really didn't help on getting many done! Well my idea was to create personlised colouring sheets which would combine my portraits and my illustrations.  So over the rest of the year I created a variety of different images, each containing a child.  The children on the pages were headless!  I'm sorry, yes that sound a bit brutal! But it was a necessity!

So why headless?  Well I needed to be able to draw the heads on seperatly so that all the children in the colouring book would be the same child!  (hence the personlised bit!)

So I can now create colouring books where the child is the focus of every picture, they are exploring and enjoying all sorts of environments from deep sea diving to  riding giraffes.

I really have had lots of fun with this project and I can now offer these colouring books for £20.
Fancy a look in one I was commissioned to complete for Christmas?  This one only has 16 images and also has 20 plain sheets at the back.

If the video doesn't work here is the link.

Here are a few other images.

If you want to order one of these books then please pop me a message.  I havn't got these live on my site yet.

Well I will be popping by Handmade Monday to see what other crafty bloggers have been up to, I do hope you will pop by and have a look too!

Jen xx

Being a little creative!

Well, I know it has been a while!  The last year really has been manic.  Juggling work and children (don't actually juggle children, it's very frowned on).

In order to escape a little from all the various pressures I have forced myself to get creative! 

I was finding it so hard to find time to just do.  So in order to try to retain what little sanity I had left (not a lot!) I got making and I thought you, or at least those that are still around to read my musings, would like to see what I have been up to!

So I have been working on a lot of illustrating projects recently and it reminded me that I had a book I had written but I wasn't at all happy with the illustrations.  I have drawn and redrawn this little character so many times and this is the latest version.  she has gone from a baby to a preschooler! Why? Well, apparently , you should use characters the same age as the audience you are targeting.  Makes a lot of sense, I mean no preschooler wants to be outdone by a baby do they!

This little girl is called Pigley. (we used to call my second little one Pigley when she was little).  Pigley is the perfect age to explore the world an in the first book she is learning all about apples and how trees grow. 

Here you can see various different versions I have tried in the past.

Once I had settled on a illustration for her I decided to give modelling a go.  Now this is not something I will be repeating, at least not commercially.  I have never been able to model very well but I have to say I am rather pleased with her.  What do you think?

I have also been working on a colouring book for children.  Once these are released they will actually be personlised to the child so they can in effect colour themselves in lots of different environments!  I will also be doing a generic one which will be cheaper. More about this in the new year but until then I thought you might like a sneaky peek at one of the illustrations.

In other illustration news I have nearly finished a really exciting project for a local poet! This image is for a poem all about the torture of car journeys with siblings!I really love this illustration and the whole book is coming along amazingly!  This book of nonsense poems will be available to buy after Christmas so I will keep you posted!  

Lastly, for now!  (don't want to bore you!) I have been brushing up on my illustrating skill with an online course and this is one of my pieces of homework!  I'm so thrilled with this one!  I wonder if I should make him into a greeting card?

So, for now, I will say byeeeeee.  

I will be stopping by Handmade Monday to say hi as it really is my fav bloggy place to hang out on a Monday!

Hope you have a fantastic week and fingers crossed I will have new and exciting things to sho you next time!  Maybe a tutorial of how I did the model?

Jen xx

6 Whole Months!

6 months! 6 whole  months.... I'm so sorry!
Actually those 6 months since my last post have flown by, lots of news and things to show you all but I don't think I should write an essay for my first post in such a long while!

So what's new I hear you ask..... (that is if you are shouting really loud!)
Well I had some very big decisions to make and I closed down Crafty What Nots before Christmas.  Life had got so stressful and the boxes were adding to the pressure and it started to become a chore rather than pleasure.  I think that's always the point where you should stop, but it is often very hard to know when that time is. You don't want to give up too early but you also can't run at a loss and be miserable. So choices were made and I closed down my page and website.  Oh my! what a difference that made.  I found the pressure instantly lift and I started to find my crafting mojo again!  I will still design boxes on request and I do produce kit boxes but now they are all under the name of Jennysis (so much easier to deal with one page rather than 2)
Here is a box I recently made up for someone.

So what have I been up so since??

Well my portraits and illustrating really started to take off and I became really busy designing logos too.  I never thought I could really make a living from my creative endeavours but the last few months have shown how possible it can be! (It does take a lot of hard work tho.)

I have also been involved with some lovely collaborations and been asked to design custom illustrations for some lovely businesses!  I will share more about this next time.

I will leave you today to get on with another really exciting project but in the meantime I would love to share this collaboration with you. A little while back a friend shared a video about Kung-fu Tea.  this fantastic yet odd practise inspired me to draw some tea ninjas.  These developed into the Afternoon Tea Ninjas, ready to serve you a cream tea before you even know you want it!

Well the Ninjas escalated and I have now drawn various different types on Ninjas.  So far there are Clown Ninjas, cocktail Ninjas and Saturday night out Ninjas. I have loads more ideas though so there will be more very soon!  

Now what to do with these designs!  I hit a bit of a wall until a very good friend of mine asked if she could sew one of my illustration!  Jenny from Gecko Fabric Art created the most wonderful mug rug, perfect to rest your cuppa and a cake.

  I really thought a mug would be great too so I contacted the fab Edens Garden of Gifts and she printed up some mugs for me!

Look at these!  My Ninjas are everywhere!

You can now order a mug and mug rug of your very own!

This has been such a fun collaboration and it's been really sparking my creativity.  Ninjas to come will be 'Introvert Ninjas', 'Builder Ninjas', 'Accountant Ninjas' and  'craft Ninjas'.  What sort of Ninjas would you like to see?  Would you buy other items with Ninjas on? like notebooks, t shirts, placemats etc?

Well I ended up writing more than I intended so I really must go!

Have a lovely sunny day.

I will be linking up with some other lovely crafty pages over at Handmade Monday! Do pop by to check out some fantastic pages.

Jen xx

What's new?

I can't believe it's been over a month since last blog post.  Where does the time go?

It's been a funny old month.  I have become quite busy with my Jennysis page which has been so lovely.  I have been creating some illustrations for some super customers. Here is one of my Dinosaur Tamer images which recently went to it's forever home.

I also completed this fab superhero commission.  I can't release the names yet... top secret!

By far the most popular thing I have been creating have been scratch cards.  Each card has something exciting under the sticker to scratch away.  Some hold money off while others a free gift.  They are totally personalised to each business which is fun. 

I love the different stickers that are available too.  I now have hearts and coloured circles in stock.

This one is mine!

I have found the business side of things really has taken over.  I am creating logos and business cards as well as random supplies.

Another big thing that has been keeping me busy has been my stock clearance!  I have so many pads of paper in stock and reduced so it is well worth seeing if there is anything you need!

I have most items listed on my website www.jennysis.com.

I am also able to order from some wonderful wholesalers so if you are after anything please feel free to challenge me.

Well I had better go, I am busy designing so must try and fit in a few bits before heading out.

Have a lovely week and I hope to be back next week.

I will be popping by Handmade Monday so do pop by and say hi!

Jen xx