Doodling in the sunshine

It's been such a beautiful day here. I started the morning with a trip to the Doctor's to have a blood sample taken. It was mainly to check that I don't have an under active thyroid after I told the doctor that I keep feeling cold. It  didn't hurt, though the nurse did take five phials of blood....I felt like Tony Hancock with his "very nearly an armful" line! I felt a coffee and a toasted scone in the nearby cafe was in order to get my corpuscles back up to speed after that!

Anyway, a little food shopping next and I got a charity shop bargain top which I am hoping to slightly alter...ooh er...get me! Well, all I'm planning is to cut off the row of elastic around the bottom ( I really don't like elasticated hems) and turn up a small hem. Not exactly GBSB standard, but I will be very pleased if I can manage it neatly!

Once I got home I settled myself into the conservatory with all my pens and pencils and set about some doodling. I'd already stamped everything in readiness so I could just sit quietly and draw - very relaxing. Tara and Thomas had a great time pottering in and out to the garden and back, though a certain someone did insist on plonking himself on top of all my work from time to time!

This first card is an example of using black, white and one other colour....well, aside from a little grey that is. I stamped my Zendoodle Flower and then added all the patterns with my black fine line pen. I also drew three weeny Ladybirds as you can see. 

 

I used a grey Promarker around the whole design, fading it to dots on the outer edges, before colouring the Ladybirds with a red pen. Just a couple of plain mats of red and black kept it simple and clean.

Here's the same image but with a different effect. This time I stamped and doodled one complete flower and then stamped and doodled the petals and leaves a second time. I used yellows and greens to colour the flowers before cutting out the flower head (minus the tendrils) and leaves from the second image.

I positioned the flower head over the original one, but turned it through 45 degrees to give a layered effect. The leaves were stuck down just where they meet the stem. I then stamped a third flower and doodled the border around the central circle before colouring it and stamping the greeting into the centre.The message is one from my friend Paula Pascual and comes in the set Sentiments Everyday Messages CICSA6141. I cut round the circle and added it to the flower with 3d foam. Again, a couple of straightforward mats and a ribbon bow just finished off this card.

The image below shows a slightly different way of filling in the plain Zendoodle stamps.This one is the Mushrooms set CICSA6195. Rather than doodling in black and then adding colour, I used coloured fine point pens to create the infill patterns. Once I'd completed all the doodling I used Promarkers to add pale colours over the designs in toning shades.

Finally, for tonight, here's a tag that I had fun making. It's a swooshy Distress Inks and water spattered background and I decided that one of my Zendoodle Fish might look at home swimming around on there. Once I'd dried the tag I began drawing swirling lines of "seaweed" with my black pen which I then infilled with stripes of black and white.

I doodled and coloured the fish and popped him into place before adding three pearls and an inked ribbon.

I've kept everything simple here as the samples for my demonstration this weekend are to showcase the doodling aspect of working with the Zendoodle range of stamps. I'll be at Samuel Taylor's in Leeds on Saturday, so hope to see some of you there.

It's amazing how much better everything photographs on a sunny day like today...the colours really pop.

Before I retire to bed, you might be amused to know that Tara almost fell into the pond yesterday! Considering that she probably wouldn't even fit into it, it would have been quite some feat! I was having ten minutes in the sunshine, sitting on my garden bench, when Tara came tip toeing across the lawn and then decided to take a detour.....she promptly walked over the pebbles around the pond, whereupon they began to shift, some fell in to the water and Tara did one of those amazing acrobatic moves that only cats (even fat cats) can do! I don't think she'll be trying that again in a hurry, though she has been chomping on the new pond grass...gggrrrrr!

Yesterday I bit the bullet and mowed the lawn! Yayyyyy! It looks awful as it was so overgrown and it's very bumpy and lumpy, but I'm sure it will bounce back now it's had a haircut. The wet weather and, to be honest, my slight trepidation at using the new electric mower, had meant it had really gone awry.Once I got cracking though, I actually enjoyed it so I'll be giving it a closer cut in a few days and then I need to sort out the edging. The lawn has stone edges that have arched tops - not very practical when mowing! So, I've taken them all out and my next big job is to dig down further so I can turn the edges over with the straight (bottom) edges facing upwards, level with the turf. Think it may take a while!

I've also been moving more rocks around to create another rockery area adjacent to the pond which I hope to get sorted tomorrow. I spent over two hours yesterday just forking over one small patch of soil and removing a mesh of grass roots. What a horrible job and I was aching in places I didn't know could ache! So, I'd better get to bed and a good night's sleep in preparation for some more slogging in the morning.