All posts by Tatterhood

Progress Work

You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.

A few weeks ago I completed what I would call a insignificant feat. It was the result of bizarre yet unimportant circumstances that were prompted by the gnawing of time and ticonderoga. I finally “finished” a sketchbook. I have always favored loose printer papers stuffed into binders and book jackets instead of the neat, collected fine bristol of sketchbooks. There are many sketchbooks that I had begun an artistic relationship with, only for me to scoff at them and turn them away leaving them empty hearted, save for the kiss of a graphite sketch spread across a page or two.

I can only guess that one book finally got to me, whispering to promise to collect memories and ideas. And in just over a year, I found myself sketching, drawing, inking, experimenting, life drawing, making notes for our game, developing postcards, designing wedding invites, writing down recipes, blue-printing logos, creating costumes…and coming to the last page. It was finished.

So I turned the book around and started drawing on the backs of already filled pages. So far, no smudging or mixing of lines. I can only hope the journey back will be as fun as the journey there.

Few of the pages would interest anyone, but I think I will be brave and post a few of them.

Medieval Animal Alphabet - Fox Sketch
Medieval Animal Alphabet - Fox Sketch

This is how all of ‘MAA’ illustrations started out…just as a quick sketch in a little black book.

Screen Printing

Crossing the Tie

Napoleon Screenprint Tie
Napoleon Screen Printed Tie

This is another gift I created for my Dad. I screen-printed part of an image from Napoleon Crossing the Alps onto a silk tie. I also gave him a gift that wasn’t homemade by me, but still had that homemade touch; a golf towel with a Napoleon quote embroider on it, completed by Tattletale Designs. She did a fantastic job (all of her work is so professional and classy!).

Bring on the weekend I say!

Craftyness

Napoleon Enjoyed Cookies in 2008

2009 has already started for most of the world, but right now for me it’s still 2008. It was a hard year, it was a good year, it was a sad year and it was a ‘suddenly Canada is smothered in snow at the very end of the’ year. 2009 can only get better or worse, 50/50. For now I can show you some holidays gifts I made for family in ’08, now that the year is wrapping up.

I (nervously) asked the very funny and very talented Kate Beaton if I could put one of her comics onto a cookie jar. This comic to be exact. My dad is a big history-fan of Napoleon. And he likes cookies. I imagined he would like her comics too, so as an xmas gift I painted a little cookie jar.

Napoleon Cookie Jar
Napoleon Cookie Jar

Poor Napoleon, how salty his cookies must taste from his sad, sad tears. I filled the jar with cookies (and English Mints and licorice) and sent it along with other Napoleon-related gift items (that I shall post in the future).

(The new section added to gallery is called ‘Craftyness’ with the idea that all things ‘crafty’ go there; so it’s not a showcase of projects that were a result of my ‘craftiness’.) …and…is that music and meowing that I hear? What are those crazy cats up to this New Years?