One Million Giraffes

I just found out about this great project today and had to share it.  It’s certainly ambitious but I don’t think it’s impossible.

Ola Helland is a guy from Norway who is trying to collect one million images of “hand made” giraffes by 2011.  Besides a bet with a friend, he’s got a deeper reason for this project.

Ola says:

“The giraffes cannot be drawn on a computer since the whole point of this project is to give the digital world a break and let humans be humans for just a little while.  People spend too much time in front of their TVs and computers.  It’s time to create something with your hands!  Something you can feel, touch and hold!  I don’t care how you make your giraffe(s) as long as it’s not on a computer.  Try being old fashioned for once, it’s actually a lot of fun.”

“Getting one million giraffes in such a short timeframe is impossible.  Or is it?  That’s what I’m trying to find out.  Yes,  I know it means that I need about one giraffe a minute.  And that I’m not even close to making it at this pace.  But at this point it really doesn’t matter if I make it to a million.  It would be mindblowingly cool if I did, but consider this for a second: There are people all over the world drawing giraffes right now.  Isn’t that cool?  I think it’s really, really cool.  I think it’s very interesting to see how many giraffes I will get, but it’s even more interesting and fun just to sit back and look at all the amazing giraffes that are pouring in.  Have you looked in the gallery?  There’s some really amazing stuff in there.  So.  If you think this is only about reaching a million you’ve kinda missed the point of the project.  It doesn’t matter if I make to a million.  I really, really want to and I’m still working towards that goal, but at this point it’s just fun to see people all over the world turning off their TVs, putting their computers away and sitting down and drawing giraffes.  Old school style.  People spend too much time being digital.  They should be analog, being human, creating something real (not 0’s and 1’s) for a change.  Most people love it when they try it.”

Here’s my giraffe (the image links to Ola’s website so you can see how your giraffe would look in situ):

You can upload yours to Ola’s website, browse all the other giraffes or find out more at the following address: http://olahelland.net/giraffes/

Go on, draw a picture and help Ola out…you know you want to!

ATC Challenge Swap

Gosh!  We’ve been so busy recently, it’s hard to know what to talk about.  I’ve been feeling pretty ill this weekend so haven’t yet managed to put together the pattern for the owl brooches.  It’ll come later this week as I start to feel more like my old self again…that along with some instructions for turning magazines into paper bags, which is what we’ve done instead of buying paper bags for the upcoming craft fair we’re getting involved with.  We are so busy here that our house is starting to feel like a two man factory!

Today, I offer you the ATCs I made for the ATC Challenge Swap at SwapBot…

acrylic

watercolour, salt and seed beads

watercolour

watercolour and pencil

watercolour and pencil

‘little dancer’ and ‘runic’ wooden pendants

In prearation for our forthcoming craft fayre Jo and I have stepped our crafting from something just short of a slow simmer to a frantic and frightening boil which essentially sees us crafting every night, obviously when I say ‘we’ I mean ‘Jo’ … personally I’m still pretty horizontal when it comes to crafting activity!

Despite my relative inactivity I have been able to turn out a good number of pendants over the last couple of weeks including my own ‘little dancer’ design, that can be seen below, and also some runic symbols imbued with all the power that their form allows them.

All the pendants were made from scratch from the felling of the wood, to the seasoning, to the design, wood burning (pyrography) and varnishing.  I managed to get a job lot of bails and have woven together some hemp cord to make the ‘chain’.

From left to right the runes are: Love Bind Rune; Universe Rune; Acceptance of Cosmic Law Bind Rune; Karma Rune; Protection Bind Rune, and, (just above the Protection Rune) a Success Bind Rune.

I’ve not uploaded these to the shop yet, although if you’re interested then just e-mail me through the contact page above and I’ll give you a price incl. postage.

Coming Soon … plant pot decor, felt art, and lots lots more

The Avenger – Wood Carving in Cherry

This is the last piece carved from wood sourced from the NW Highlands, Scotland, when we were on holiday there earlier in the year.  It was good to get something a bit different my usual efforts in Elm and Alder, and whilst I think the Cherry’s nice I think I’d like to do some more in Yew which seemed to have a really nice grain and felt good to work with (see freaky tiki).

Size (H/W/D): 8.25″ / 2.5″ / 3″
Time Taken: c. 8 hours carving + finishing

The Avenger wears a permanent frown borne from years of bravely battling against those who would disturb the peace and tranquillity of the enchanted glen whence he lives … he may well wear a permanent frown but he also wears a mask to hide it. Surely the ultimate fashion accessory for any would-be super-hero.

Most recently the avenger is to be found terrorising some over ambitious and unlicensed lumberjacks who have seen fit to invade his corner of the world, fortunately for his woodland friends The Avenger knows just the trick for disabling chainsaws and is a dab hand when it comes to dulling the cutting edge of axes …

Available to buy on Etsy

Coming soon … plant pot decor and pendants and details of our next craft fayre.

inchies, skinnies, kittens and owls

I know it’s an odd combination, but it’s what I’ve been keeping busy with over the past week or so.

Inchies

Inchies are 1″x1″ pieces of art.  The challenge is definitely in getting something interesting on a small piece of board.  In this instance I created some 101 Dalmation inchies for a user on swapbot who wanted to give them as a parting gift to her friend.  These have gone all the way to Singapore!

I wouldn’t really class these as art, I had fun making them nonetheless.

Skinnies

Second is the Skinny I made for the Simple Skinny swap, again via swapbot.  Skinnies are 3″ x 5″ pieces of art.  I have been meaning to have a go at the one stroke painting technique for a long time now and while this isn’t a particularly good example of the artform it’s something I am very proud of.  I sewed on some seed beads to bring out the centre of the flowers.  It really is much better in the flesh as it were.  I hope the recipient likes it…it’s gone to America.

Clearly I need to practice stems a lot more.  Or, maybe I just need new paint brushes!

Kittens

Most excitingly is the news of Beryl, our cat, giving birth to two kittens four weeks ago.  Sadly one of them died and we have been hand rearing the other due to Beryl not producing enough milk.  He’s doing exceptionally well now and we have finally felt able to name him today…meet Kipper (named by a three year old, can you tell!)

I love this picture, taken by Alasdair.  He’s a nightmare to get food into but he is good fun for the rest of the time.

Owls

A sneaky preview at something that will hopefully be coming soon to the patterns page of the site.  I’ve been making felt brooches and love the quickness of the craft.  This owl was sent to a swapper in Israel and I will, with a bit of luck and time be adding the pattern for this and a couple of other brooches in the next few weeks…keep checking back, they are really simple to make and require very few materials.

Last piece of news is that we are preparing for our first craft fayre next month so are very busy and very excited at the same time.  May it be the first of many, eh?

Alasdair has just finished another carving, this time the wood is from a Cherry tree.  He should be letting you see it very soon.  Also I’ve made some more felt birds, this time I’ve made one from cotton fabric so it has a frayed edge.  I like the effect.  We need some sunshine for optimum photography though…I thought it was summer!

Ernest Eric – Wood carving

Eric is one of those chaps you meet who’s always so keen to help, packing bags, carrying groceries, helping little old women of the wood across the stream.

Regrettably his slightly maniacal smile does lend him something of a worrying air and often the poor soul to whom he has offered his services will see all manner of horrors behind his off-centred eyes and run screaming and wailing in the opposite direction … often dropping their belongings behind them.

Being a helpful soul Eric is inclined to pick these items up and attempt to return them which invariably ends up in a cat and mouse chase through the enchanted glen and which has seen the hero of our piece on the wrong side of a cell door on more than one occasion … poor mis-understood Eric and his peculiar ways.

This is the second carving I’ve completed from the stock I acquired whilst on holiday up North of Ullapool in the highlands and is the largest carving I’ve completed to date, standing at approx 8.5″ tall.  The wood is Elm and was probably a little less green than I might have liked … although at least the blisters appear to be healing up and my finger tips are becoming increasingly leathery!

Anyway, without further ado, here Eric in all his glory:

Available to buy in the shop

Lion Dotee Doll

I made this lion dotee doll for a swapbot tag.  I’m having trouble parting with this one.

It’s felt with embroidery thread and seed bead detail…quite simple really.  It was really windy when I took this picture so I had to hold onto the tail to keep it steady…it’s a basic tassel.

Abstract tree and flower scene ~ acrylic painting

I’m not sure why, but painting seems to be something I come back to time and again.  I’ve noted previously that it can be a relaxing process and despite the obvious realisation that I’ll never create a masterpiece (it’s so passe anyway?!) I still enjoy that process.  Even when my vision comes up against that brick wall that is my talentless daubing of paint on canvas!

If nothing else it does provide me with an opportunity to practice simple decorative designs that I may begin to use as a theme on my sculptures, the flowers for example have featured previously on my Spring Time Bowl and the floral dancer and I have a feeling they will be incorporated into future pieces in the future.

Currently I have a few papier mache sculptures underway, each a demon or figurative sculpture and each temporarily on hold while I work on a couple of wood carvings, one in Elm which is nearing completion and which has already taken up over 10 hours of my time and another in Cherry which I’ve yet to start, they will however be coming soon.

Characters from Dickens Novels – Digital Downloads

I’ve spent a large part of the day scanning and enhancing some cigarette cards that we have and after much to-ing and fro-ing between Picnik and Photoshop I’ve managed to remove most of the signs of age from this set of Dickens Characters.

These cigarette cards were collected, we presume, by Alasdair’s Grandma in 1912 when they were first included in packets of John Player cigarettes.  I have to say I’m very attached to the cards and I’m sure the originals will have a special place in our home just as soon as we have a completed wall to put them on…long, long story that sadly doesn’t ever seem to get much shorter.  Anyway, I digress, the images are now neatly sorted into PNG files and a PDF and are available for purchase from our shop.

Also, just so you don’t think I’ve been completely overcome by capitalist urges…here’s a bit of a freebie.  The image below will be available to download for free until the end of May.  To get the file just right click and choose ’save picture as…’ and if you want the whole set, including some of our favourite characters from Oliver Twist, they are only $1.99 in the shop.

Tip toe through the tulips – papier mache sculpture

Finally!  This seems to have been one of those projects that just went on and on and on and was beset with problems every time I looked at it … it should have been so easy, yet inevitably theory and practice were not to be comfortable bed fellows!

I actually started this back in March and although it’s only taken around 5 1/2 hours of hands on time to complete it’s been a little bit here, a little bit there and an awful lot of waiting around for glue to dry, paint to dry, varnish to dry and plenty of general head-scratching!

This was originally conceived of as a ballerina or dancer type figure and the pose is certainly reminiscent of that yet the need to add a base gave me an opportunity to do something a little bit different and the notion of incorporating the style of flower I used in the spring bowl seemed like a good idea.

To be honest I’m rather disappointed with this and the fact that I struggled to get a decent photo thanks to cloudy, windy and generally miserable weather didn’t help!  I’ve already alluded to the fact that I had some difficulties making this piece, largely due to it’s fine nature, even as I was trying to take the picture the wind caught it and it fell over and fractured it’s arm … the only reason it’s not in pieces is thanks to it’s wire armature, c’est la vie!

I’ll maybe try something similar again in the future, although in the meantime I have another three papier mache sculptures in progress and needing attention and anther wood carving coming soo too.