Art in August #15 – Loomband Crochet Flower

Loomband Flower

I had a loomband crisis today, after reading all the news articles on cheap bands potentially being carcinogenic. Especially after 4,200 cheap bands turned up in the post. As usual I panicked and thought about throwing all my bands in the bin. Rationality – in the shape of my husband – suggested it probably wasn’t that bad. None of the things I make are worn, and I’m the only person who does much looming.

I have suggested my daughter wash her hands after looming, and I have ordered some official bands (10x the cost!) for the gift creations I’m making, but I’ve kept all my cancerous bands. I get through that many bands a week, pretty much, so I’ll just try and limit my looming when these are all gone. I can’t afford to make big projects with official bands! I can only assume they’re cheaper in the US.

Anyway, today I’ve been experimenting with loomless banding, using a crochet technique as demonstrated on FeelinSpiffy/CraftingFantastic tutorials. The flower is a bit wobbly but I think that’s partly because some of the bands were different sizes. I have to say, crochet has always terrified me but, when my loomband obsession has worn off, I might have to see if there are crochet tutorials on YouTube too. At least wool isn’t going to give me cancer!

Art in August #14 – Book Covers

Proposed new covers for Class Act

I released my fourth novel, Class Act, at the beginning of June and to say the going has been slow is an understatement. I have struggled to even give the book away. When I ran a free promotion the numbers were a quarter of those for Baby Blues & Wedding Shoes. I put it down to having no reviews and didn’t panic.

But now, with a couple of good reviews (and a couple not so good!) I am running a Giveaway on Goodreads and still getting a fraction of entries compared with the Baby Blues Giveaway. I’ve decided that the cover and blurb must be failing me.

I’m not surprised. I mocked the cover up last year, when I decided on a new name for the novel (it’s working title was The Real Gentleman, as the novel was written as a modern day Georgette Heyer style romance) and I do like the design, especially the bold red paperback. Unfortunately the current cover doesn’t give anything away as to genre, all it does is explain the ‘act’ part of the play-on-words title.

I love the pastel covers of Joanne Harris books

So I’ve spent this week, in between making loomband pets and ignoring the children, looking at images on my favourite site istockphoto to find something more in the woman’s fiction/romance genre. I know that half-naked bodies is what the genre seems to dictate, but that really isn’t me. Besides, the novel isn’t at all raunchy, and I don’t want to set a false expectation.

When I designed the cover for Baby Blues I used the books of Joanne Harris as my inspiration. Her pastel covers are lovely and she is an author that I admire greatly. It also gave me a style that fit within my capabilities using Adobe Photoshop, as I don’t know any cover designers and my experience of hiring freelancers as an author hasn’t always been successful.

Another Joanne Harris

As I couldn’t find any images relating to the theatre and acting, I decided to focus on the two other ‘themes’ that I feel run through the novel: art and daisies. These are the covers I came up with (I only had an hour before little lady got bored, so I know the font doesn’t stand out well on some of them).

As an aside, these are all based on composites from istockphoto and I haven’t purchased the rights to use them yet, as they’re only mock ups. I will purchase the final image once I’ve made a decision.

So, do any of these stand out? And, for those of you who have read the novel, do any of these fit within your experience of the story? Do these set the right genre? I feel they’re all much more in keeping with Baby Blues (although I have had at least one reviewer say the title and cover put them off that novel! I guess it’s difficult to win without a big budget marketing department to do customer research!)

Once I have some feedback I hope to make the change and extend the giveaway, so hopefully I’ll see immediately if it makes a difference!

Art in August #13 – Cookies

Iced Biscuits

Today’s plan for school holiday survival has involved craft and cookies. The children were booked in to do craft at our local library, as part of their summer reading challenge.

We were going to head to the park first but it took two hours to hustle the children into the car. I’m not looking forward to being back on a strict timetable in three and a bit weeks, even if I am longing for five minutes by myself.

The library craft involved decorating scales for a giant dragon. These days I let the kids get on with it and listen to the more controlling parents getting frustrated with trying to steer the production of something beautiful.

Son’s cookies

It’s one of the many things I’ve learned to let go in five and a half long years of parenting wilful children. I still offer guidance and encouragement and occasionally, when they’re not looking, I’ll cheat. But what do I care whether their creations look like scales or not? It’s the doing, not the end product. (I almost didn’t even mind when I saw some of the neat, colourful and inventive designs the other children did! Hehe)

Ditto goes for the cookies. My plan for today involved buying gingerbread men (and picking up a Waitrose coffee) before going to the park. As that didn’t happen, I decided we would make some. I’m pre-menstrual: cookies are essential. Besides, it meant another couple of hours filled and a tick in the Mummy box, to off set the hours of TV they’re watching these days.

Daughter’s designs

I no longer supervise, except to put the finished products in the oven. We’ve made them often enough to know what to do. I love that lazy parenting is sometimes the best sort!

I decided icing biscuits might as well be today’s artistic effort. Except I don’t do baking. I look at pictures of fancy birthday cakes made by Mummies I know (they seem to be never ending on Facebook) with envy, as I buy mine from Tesco. So I don’t have any of the kit either. Icing is done with bowls and plastic cutlery.

As a result I’m especially proud of my dribble-design iced biscuits. Artistic (after a fashion) AND tasty (sort of – I ran out of syrup), what more can you want?

Art in August #12 – Loomband Octopus

Loomband Octopus from an Izzilicious tutorial

Loomband Octopus from an Izzalicious tutorial

There’s something cruel and sod’s-law-ish about getting a virus in the school holidays where the only symptom seems to be chronic fatigue. I am only keeping the panic that I’ve got CFS at bay by the fact that my mum seems to have the same virus.

I took the children to the Farm today, after a lazy morning looming while they created chaos. Normally the Farm is an easy trip. We feed the animals, go on a tractor tour of the fields and have a picnic. Today we also got to watch a ferret race and have a cuddle with the elusive farm cat. We were there for three hours.

When we got home we had our usual hour watching TV. And then I went to plug the iPad in to charge, lay down and barely moved for the next two hours.

For the first hour the kids watched more TV, and yelled for me a bit. I couldn’t even get up to stop the noise. I heard my daughter say to my son, “just go upstairs and ask her,” so I knew it wasn’t serious. When he did finally come up, sobbing, it was to say, “but Mummy I didn’t want to watch that programme.” I think you call that a First World Problem.

Sick or school-holiday-itis?

For the second hour they came and wriggled in the bed with me and, when they’d had enough of being told to lie still, went off to play. It seemed to involve much shrieking, running and giggling, combined with, “he hit me!” “she pushed me” which I ignored.

I managed to go down for an hour to do some writing and numbers with them and play board games. But as soon as I’d cooked the kids’ tea I had to hand over to hubbie and come back to bed. Poor hubbie, he’s having a rotten time at the moment – he’s barely over his tonsillitis and he’s having to play tag-parenting like he did when they were babies. Only they were less annoying then!

He also informed me that he’s felt this exhausted for the last two years, which made me want to get up and stop being pathetic. But I couldn’t. So much for all our summer holiday plans, all the house projects I intended to get done.

It’s a weird sort of exhaustion. Not the kind where you’ve been up all night, or you’ve been digging in the garden all day. This feels like I’ve been drugged, like the tiredness is a heavy coat I must wear. Kind of the opposite of depression, which is a heaviness on the inside. Anyway, I just about managed to finish this octopus. Now back to bed.

[I moved this pre-written post a bit later out of respect for my previous post on Robin Williams]

Art in August #11 – Loomband Purses

Loomband Purses

I think I should have probably called this month’s posts the Summer Loomband Challenge or something, as there hasn’t been all that much in the way of art so far this August. Instead there have been far too many I’m-sadly-obsessed loom-band creations.

Today’s efforts were a labour of love, especially the second one, on the left, as each purse took over 1500 bands and at least five hours of repetitive looming.

Although the design is deceptively simple, and needs only a single loom, I still managed to get into a pickle with both when it came to casting off, and at least half an hour was spent sweating and cursing as I grabbed at disappearing bands with a blunt hook.

I must also credit the tutorial video, made by a young and confident girl from Craft Life who talked through the details. It is no fault of hers that my flaps curl and there are several holes and emergency knotted bands. The link to the tutorial is here.

I do miss my pets, though, so I think I’ll go back to my four-legged friends. Another dragon maybe, or a zebra or guinea pig. Hubbie asked if I was going to unravel some of my creations or buy more bands. Hmmmm. Well, the bands aren’t much use once they’ve been modelled, so new bands it is!

Art in August #10 – Loomband Luggage

Loomband Luggage

It’s the weekend, and the kids were up at 5.30am. It was my turn for a lie in, so I hid in my room and made loom-band luggage while hubbie entertained the children for a couple of hours.

I am definitely obsessed. I’ve started seeing loom patterns in my mind while stacking the dishwasher or tidying the playroom, and I sat making mini roses while the kids had their bath. I then spent the entire evening making the beginnings of a loomband purse. Obsessed isn’t the word.

Still, it’s a relatively cheap and harmless obsession.

Apologies to anyone following these posts who is sick of loombands by now! I’ll try and do something more traditionally artistic soon…

Art in August #9 – Watercolour Dragon

Watercolour Dragon

I decided to introduce my daughter to the joys of watercolour painting today, using the proper kit rather than the cheap paints and brushes that come in kids’ kits.

We picked up a pad of heavy-weight grained paper after dropping little man at nursery, and I got out the hallowed box of expensive watercolour paints for the first time in five years.

I decided to have a go at drawing and painting a dragon, as that’s become a bit of a summer theme. I’m okay at copying things but I have no ability to draw things from my head, so I opted for a YouTube tutorial, seeing as that’s worked so well for the loom-bands.

I used this tutorial for the sketch – How to Draw a Dragon – Ten Minute Fast Doodle – and then made up the colours. I’m a bit rusty, and spent half the time watching my daughter like a hawk to make sure she didn’t leave my sable brush standing in the water pot (she did, frequently), but it was great fun.

Today reminded me of two things: 1) I love watercolours but need to practise more, and 2) detailed artwork and small children don’t really mix. I’m so precious about my paintings and my equipment and I’m like a two-year-old when it comes to sharing! One more thing to add to my ‘when the kids have left home’ list 😉

This post is part of the Art in August challenge from the Laptop on the Ironing Board blog.

Art in August #8 – Cheeky Turtle

My cutie turtle

I really wanted to do some ‘proper’ art today, watercolours or sketching or even colouring in, but I used all my energy taking the children swimming and then tidying up their mayhem from this morning. Hubbie said I should take a picture of the playroom and call it my installation art!

Instead I’ve fallen back on the old faithful and used the latest loomband pet. This was a tricky build because it needed a double loom but the spare I have is a cheap imitation one, so I had to hold it all together with one hand and loom with the other. Now daughter wants one too so I get to do it all again tomorrow, but with her ‘help’. Eek.

He’s my second favourite pet to date, after the dragon. We’re building up quite a zoo. My daughter wrote a book about them today (until we fell out when I gently pointed out that her bs and ds were back-to-front. Think I’ll have to leave teaching to the professionals!)

Is it September yet? I forgot to buy wine.

Loom Band Story

Outside the Pool

Art in August #7 – Loomband Unicorns

Rockin’ Unicorns

Oh look, more loomband creations! This one was my daughter’s choice, as it was just the two of us today (and after we made a cardboard robot and a clay unicorn).

The brightly coloured one is hers (at least, she selected the bands! At 5 years old, her attention span and dexterity aren’t quite up to this yet.)

Unfortunately the sparkly bands are very soft so I hoped the unicorn pegasus would stand up better if made with solid bands. As you can see it didn’t make much difference: they’re still either newborn or drunk.

Never mind, I think they look quite rock and roll! If only my clay unicorn had looked as cool. It was so awful I squished it and my daughter made a snowman instead.

A day with my gorgeous girl

On a non-artistic note, I’ve made it to the end of the second week of the school holidays; only four more to go (thank goodness we only have six).

While I’m certainly not missing the school run, we are all starting to unravel and to get on each other’s nerves. My son’s report from nursery today was that he’d been ‘challenging’, I spent two hours trying to sleep through Doc McStuffin episodes, and then had to carry my 5-year-old round the field on my shoulders, while walking the dog, because she got a blister.

When we got home from nursery pick-up, little man managed three tantrums in about ten minutes and little lady had two. The house looks like the aftermath of a three-day sugar-fuelled festival for preschoolers and the dog’s taken to following me around like a shadow. I haven’t figured out if she wants a walk or some respite from the constant arguing.

Life-sized robot

This evening, despite the less than desirable behaviour, I ordered the kids a GlowPet pillow pet each, as bribery/compensation because I’ve cancelled our planned trip to Sea Life tomorrow (I can’t face it!)

But as the pillows won’t arrive for a week I still have to come up with a plan for entertainment or they are going to murder each other.

Please tell me how any of us are going to survive another month? Thank heavens for Art in August, Facebook and Escape to the Country… Oh and chocolate.

Art in August #6 – More iPad Doodles

Olaf

Today’s art is more KidsDoodle pictures, but this time observational sketches rather than doodles.

I quite like the random effect of the colours, having a different colour for each new stroke, because I’m normally so controlling. It’s more like doing abstract paintings than pencil sketches. Great fun. I’ve even paid the 69p to remove the advert bar! 🙂

I think Olaf is my favourite, although I like the sketch of my daughter watching TV too, and the colourful dog sketches, because our dog is actually black. The best thing about the app is you can replay your drawing as a video. As a wannabe artist, being able to watch how the drawing took shape, one line at a time, is fascinating. I also watched the videos of some of my daughter’s sketches, which was pretty cool.

Expect to see more iPad Art this month, especially as I still feel wrung out. Besides, anything I can do on the iPad instead of surfing Facebook and checking for Amazon sales and reviews is a good thing.

This post is part of Art in August as mentioned on the Laptop on the Ironing Board blog.