I erase a lot while I sketch, so I can't show you the early early versions. This one is close enough that I was ready to draw over things in black pen to really get a good look at the lines. Here are my thoughts so far. . .
Happy Birthday needs to be bigger. That will make it easier to stitch and more in proportion to everything else. Also - the a in both words is kind of cramped looking.
I'm mostly happy with the boy - I just want his mouth to be a little smilier.
There's something wrong with the left side of the girl's face. The line needs to curve in a bit at the top. And maybe I should try a different hairstyle? Not sure - I'll probably test a few variations.
I like the balloons and they'll be fun to stitch.
The cake needs to be a bit smaller. And right now it's kind of rigid-looking. It's leaning a bit to the right, which I like, but the sides are too straight. And I love the spirals in the frosting on top of the bottom layer, but they'll be a nightmare to stitch. I need to come up with something else there.
The gift is kind of big in relation to other things on the page - but I think I like that. I like the slightly curved sides of the package, but I need to duplicate that curve in the ribbon. The tails of the ribbon (on top of the package) are too wide, and the 4 dots in the knot are too regularly spaced. And I don't usually like even numbers - so I'll change that to three dots. I started out drawing pattern on the box - like it was patterned paper with a solid ribbon. Then I switched it around and was really happy. I love the running stitches and French knots on the ribbon!
My next step will be to redraw everything with those fixes, and see if I can get it all to fit in a 7 1/2 inch square. It's going to be fun choosing colors for this one!
What are you all working on?
Happy stitching!
Best,
Wendi
Working on in reality, or in my head?! This week, while my husband is away, or last week, when he wasn't?! I feel like everything has ground to a halt a bit. I want to get back to sketching chickens and start sketching violets and red maples (a Rhode Island set) and more tidepool critters (cuz I love them) and I've knit a leg warmer to try to get my knitting mojo back and I'm joining in on the August stitch-a-long at Feeling Stitchy and oh, my kids are supposed to start school in THREE WEEKS and I don't think I can do it. So, um, that REALLY needs to be worked on.
ReplyDeleteI just finished a mermaid rag doll!
ReplyDeletehttp://cupcakemate.blogspot.com/2011/08/mermaid-rag-doll.html
Ok, here's a question for you...how do you transform your sketches into something so neat? Is it a particular computer program? I'm trying to do it in Photoshop and can't tell if I don't know enough to do it, or if I'm trying to use the wrong tool for the job.
ReplyDeleteAmy - I'll do a whole blog post on this - but the short answer is that I use Gimp (a free Photoshop-like software) as a glorified copy machine. I sketch pretty lightly with a pencil and then clean things up by going in with a fine black pen and then erasing all my pencil lines. Very low tech. :-)
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