More Digital Design

Lately, I find that I am spending quite a lot of time drawing on my iPad.....probably more than I would with pencil and paper. I think the reason being that drawing digitally lets you  "undo" & "redo" as much as you like. Those who know me, know I tend to fuss with detail. Another fabulous feature of drawing digitally is that you can copy and paste elements you have drawn. (so efficient!)  This mandala, inspired by the little birds socializing among the roses is a perfect example.

The photo below illustrates how I went from drawing a small wedge of my design, then by duplicating and rotating that chunk, I was easily able to create a complete circle. It is so interesting to watch the full image develop as you work through that process.

Of course, once that was done, I added more detail.....more....more...more

I drew it using dark ink lines (well....ya know....digital ink)

then, just for the fun of it, I changed the ink to white to see how the drawing might look that way.

This was all achieved on my iPad mini2, Concepts app and my Bamboo Sketch

As I look back at several of my art quilts and those fun paper cut snowflakes, I realize that I do seem to be quite drawn to the mandala form (no pun intended)

A Little of This and a Little of That

What have I been up to?  well..............lets see
Got this gorgeous roving last week.......I am very aware that learning to spin on my drop spindle will take patience and practice, but I have been watching lots of tutorials on You Tube, I think I am just about ready to give it a try.

I am still hand stitching my big quilt (although I must admit it is not receiving as much attention these days) but I have made it all the way to the outer border. If you don't recall this stash busting quilt, you can see earlier posts here and here

What I have been doing, is spending lots of time drawing on my iPad. I especially enjoy being able to sit out on my deck while drawing....the breeze can't blow my drawings away.
I was recently asked to share my process for creating Mandalas (like the ones shown below) using my iPad mini2, Concepts and my new Bamboo Sketch stylus by Wacom

if you are interested in taking a look, you can find the online article here, even if you don't want to "read" the technical stuff, there is plenty of eye candy and some fun to watch, quick little video clips.
A special thank you to  Erica Christensen for her work on this piece (she makes me sound like I almost know what I am talking about)

Oh, I even used the app and stylus to remove and replace the original background of the bio photo, now it appears that I am standing in front of one of my Mandala quilts.  :-)