P r e t t y S k e t c h y

Heidi Kenney

I have been following Heidi Kenney's blog for a while now and I really love the plush peeps she makes. I am always in awe of those who can sew and Heidi is in a league of her own. A few of her lovely little pieces...

 

 

 

 

 

Aren't they ridiculously adorable? She has some lovely little guys for sale on her site.

Sew Me A Typewriter?

How fabulous are these! Especially the Underwood, I have an Underwood almost exactly like that one (but it's metal, not cloth). They are almost fabulous enough for me to consider trying to make one. I'm sure it would be a disaster though. My sewing skills seem to be limited to containment pouches and dolls. You can read about the maker here.

How Cool is This!

Takashi Iwasaki is a beautiful artist I discovered today. I fell in love with the embroidery pieces on canvas. I thought the hand embroidery I did on Jesus is Hugging The Jeep took forever but I can't even imagine how long these took. A few of my favorites...

 

Aren't they pretty? I think I need to do some more embroidery experimenting...

I Love This Quilt

 She made it. I found it doing a flickr search for autumn. I also love autumn, it makes me want to buy sweaters and scarves and go for fall walks and draw trees and drink hot things and fall in love. I have been doing some of those things.

I like this

it's pretty fantastic. I am soo jealous of this peeps sewing skills. Isn't that a great little tree?

Someone Has a New Boyfriend...

and it's not me.

I made this little guy as a gift for a friend of mine. It was my first attempt at making a boy and I think I am pretty happy with him. I know Emily is, she cuddled up to him right away. I didn't have the heart to tell her he wasn't staying. I hope she takes it well.

She looks so happy with him doesn't she? With those freckles, glasses and tweed scarf who wouldn't be?

I was pretty proud of his little jeans and had to show you a close up. There's even a bum seam in the back of them.

Aaaaaand, I finally finished the first of many pieces for the Sugarbowl show in November. It is called "Jesus is Hugging the Jeep" and unlike many of my paintings I can actually pinpoint where the idea for it came from. It was last year when my aunt, cousin, sister, Mom and I were driving to downtown Calgary in my sisters jeep about to go for a walk by the river. My cousin, who I think at this point was about 4 or 5 suddenly said out of the blue "Jesus is hugging the jeep!". My aunt agreed with him and then commented to us over his head "he's very literal". I thought that was the most random, funny and fantastic moment and I've wanted to do a painting about it ever since.  I am so happy I finally got around to it. Here are a few very poorly taken photographs of it. Further evidence that it really does pay to hire someone to take them (or drop a lot of money on a really good camera). I have a new photographer lined up already to do a big shoot before the show in Bri's absence. I have also been contemplating getting some limited edition prints made of some of my paintings at some point but we'll have to see about that. It's pretty pricey stuff.

A little less blurry shot of the birches that have sprouted pink leaves since you saw them last.

 

A view of the wrap around the side.

   

A strangely discolored/fuzzy full shot ( I took these pictures in my basement studio at about 1am so the light wasn't great, my camera isn't either).

And a shot of the jeep. It took me almost an entire day to hand-stitch the contours of it but I am pretty happy with the outcome.

So there's your update on what I've been up to in the studio. I'm going to start a new piece later this week or on the long  weekend and as always I'll keep you posted.  I've been trying to be a better blogger lately, we'll see how it goes.