Tag: illustration

Art

I wish you a crafty Christmas!

Sonja

winter snow forest painting

It was a last minute activity to make a Son’s Popkes artwork Christmas card. I used to make one every year but last year I just did not feel like it. Crocheting gives me so much more pleasure and taking off a whole week from crocheting to paint a Christmas illustration was simply not going to happen. This year I did feel like making a Christmas illustration and I had a lovely idea, but still working on  something for a week…

I postponed and postponed till I had a few days before ‘sending time’. I decided to do a water colour illustration instead of acrylic paint on canvas. I had exactly two days to draw, colour, edit, print and write the cards. It was a bit hectic indeed. But also fun and exciting, one change only, could I do it?

I wish you all a merry Christmas dear crafty folks. And a very happy new year full of new crocheting, knitting and crafting endeavours!

Cheers 🦊🐢🦉 🐑🎉

Art, Stories

A very special project

Sonja

This fresh new year, I am starting with a very special project. I am making the pattern for a fossilised monkey. And it is not even that simple, the monkey I am making is a prosimian or a lemur monkey. The researchers are not completely sure about it. This monkey, called Ida (based on Darwin’s name), died 47 million years ago and was found in Messel, Germany.

monkWhy am I making a fossilised monkey that lived 47 million years ago? To be honest, I’m not really a monkey fan. They just aren’t my kind of animals. I do love some lemurs and prosimians and please don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike monkeys, but they aren’t on my list of cute and cuddly things that make me feel all happy like when I see a guinea pig, fox or squirrel.

But this Ida monkey does! This was the cutest and most beautiful monkey ever. A friend of mine, who is a wildlife and paleo artist, made the most fabulous illustrations for a book about Ida. Because Ida was so very well preserved, Esther could draw her exactly as she looked, except for the colours. They couldn’t see those from the fossil so she had to chose the most likely colours. And how she portraid Ida, I was in love with her from the start! She made the monkey look so gorgeous and exotic.

Ida is a lemur or prosimian monkey and has this specific type of body. I really like the shape of her head and flexible form. She is perfect for the monkey I like to make. The coloured illustration you see is one of the illustrations Esther made for the book. Ida is the baby monkey carried by the mother.

idaEsther has asked me before if I could make an Ida monkey, but I never wanted to because it doesn’t exist anymore and therefor crafters won’t recognise the crochet monkey. But lately I was thinking about making a hanging monkey and got stuck on which type. I asked Ether if she knew an extra cute one and of course she said I should make the Ida monkey. I wasn’t sure about it at first but the more I thought about it, the less unlikely it felt. Why wouldn’t I make a pattern for this type of monkey? Ida is absolutely gorgeous and If I design a hanging Ida monkey, I bet many crocheters would just love it. The colours can easily be replaced for colours of existing monkeys if one prefers so what’s the problem. It was done. I was making a fossilised monkey as first project of the year! Now to think of a suitable name…

 

Chit and Chat

An obvious choice

Sonja

Mouse-2The animal I am making next is quite an obvious choice I think, if you remember my house mouse invasion. Yes, they are still around. They now have to share the food in my tiny city garden with a grown group of sparrows, some starlings, blackbirds and a hedgehog. Although, I do think the hedgehog is feasting on the snails feasting on the bird food.

So what is coming up next? Yes, a house mouse! Maybe the choice is not that obvious to some of you, as I already made a mouse once. That was Trin, a forest adventurer mouse. Mouse-3This house mouse will be a classic Popke, one without clothing and accessories.

I really indulged myself making the mouse sketches, could not stop with one but made many. At the moment I am working on the body, the head is almost finished. I never expected a mouse head to be very complicated to design but that was a wrong assumption! Getting those curious and daring features of my mice was not easy. Maybe that is because I got to know them so well.

Mouse-1The following weeks I will work on this pattern and hope to release it soon. I’m also working on updating all my patterns to a new and better standard. The improved patterns have a different font, the difficult colour changes are written colour coded now and I have improved the text. Some of you will receive a lot of emails from Craftsy about the updated patterns, sorry about that.

Have a lovely start of summer!

Stories

The tiniest bears…

Sonja

Ham1Are called hamsters, at least, that is what I think. When I was at the art academie, I had this Syrian hamster who looked like a tiny little bear. Even my mum, who is not so much an animal friend as I am, thought he was the cutest little thing. It was a murky brown hamster with a beige little snout.

He wasn’t very friendly though and started screaming whenever I picked him up. One time he bit my boyfriend in his finger, right before a gig he had with the band he was in and that bite caused him trouble playing his bass guitar. I found it kind of funny.

Ham2I just treated my hamster with care and gave him a fantastic big cage with different floors and lots of little pipes he called walk trough and a little thatched cottage. And, not to forget a hamster wheel for exercise. He was a happy hamster.

Now after making an elephant, I thought lets make something completely different. I kind of postponed making a hamster, because Lopi does not have a suitable pink for hamster hands and feet, so I decided to just add another kind of yarn and go for the crochet hamster pattern.

Art, Uncategorized

A merry popkes Christmas

Sonja

Snow landscape painting

Howdy how! I wish you all a Christmas full of cheer and a very creative new year. To start the joy, I painted a Christmas card to amuse you all. It is titled ‘Popkes making a Snowpopke’.

My Holiday has just started and I’m going to do what I love doing. Hiking, watching movies and knitting a cardigan, a new hobby I have just discovered. Have fun too dear crafters!

See you in a few weeks.

Stories

Autumn Popkes

Sonja

amigurumi crochet patterns

Most of you probably know by now Autumn is my most favourite season by far. I enjoy strolling through the forest beneath those magnificent threatening skies, while listening to the rustling of the beautiful coloured leaves that soon will fall and breathing in the scent of moist and mushrooms. It is the season I engage in with every sense of my body.

Last year, to celebrate, I made a Son’s Popkes artwork set in Autumn and this year I fantasized about a special picture like the one I made for Summer.

Yesterday I finally had the change to go to a park nearby and collect leaves in all my favourite colours. While gathering some chestnuts, I felt if someone was watching me, but I didn’t see anybody. But later, when I looked up into the trees to see if there were fresh chestnuts still there, I saw this gorgeous big crow sitting right above me on a branch, curiously looking at me. ‘Ah’, I said to him, ‘I thought I felt somebody watching me, it was you!’

Back home I arranged the leaves I collected and took the picture. Enjoy Autumn everybody, it is over before you know it.

The pattern I am currently working on is of an owl. It took me a while to create a sweet looking face (the first heads I came up with looked rather unpleasant and mean) and that is why I wasn’t able to post a sketch already. To be continued….

Art

Lazy Koji

Sonja

Son's Popkes artwork, illustration.

This time I did not announce I was working on a new Son’s Popkes artwork, because let’s be honest, the last time the illustration did not turn out as I hoped. Fortunately, my latest illustration featuring nothing else but Koji, has become the artwork I fancied and I am proud to present it here.

It is simply titled ‘Lazy Koji’.

Together with my autumn Popkes artwork, I posted a ‘painting process’ slideshow. I think it is fun to show you how an illustration comes about.

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I must admit to myself, I like crocheting better, find it less frustrating. That is rather curious, as I have been drawing practically since I was born. Crocheting I have only been doing for five years now. The thing is though, when working on a painting, I can come to a certain point where I absolutely do not know how to proceed. It drives me nuts, I totally think I can never make the painting as beautiful as I fantasize, so what is the point in continuing?

For this illustration, I can show you exactly when that was, as it happens, after the second pic. There still was a lot of blue in the image and I had no idea what to do next. I just did not see it and felt like stopping. I took a break, thought about what to do and decided to just fill in the blank spaces with the colours I though would be right. And that helped. The painting now had the right mood, and for me, when the mood and colours are set, I can fill in the details and so on. Just look for yourself how much difference it made.

Maybe blue as a background colour was a bit poorly chosen for this painting and I should have started with a yellow background, but in the end, I did get it right!

Art, Stories

Koji says hello!

Sonja

Koji-sketch-webNormally, I make the sketch of a doll before I start crochet designing it. The sketch functions as a reference of sizes and shapes and basically is my guide. This time however, I only made the sketch just now, after I already finished the actual crochet animal. Now why is that?

Before I started working on this tiger, I was not sure about how I was going to make him. I had many options of how to design him. I could go for horizontal stripes or realistic ones. And should I tilt the head so the stripes would follow the lines of the crochet rounds better? There were so many options, I had to try it all. Then of course at some point, I found the right style for the tiger and went along making him.

Stopping then just to make a sketch was not going to happen. As soon as there is a sweet little face looking at me, I can not wait any longer to finish the animal.

Everyone here reading my blog has to be a little patience still. The pattern is not finished yet and pictures have to be taken too. In the meantime, enjoy the sketch of Koji, my glorious tiger. The pattern will be released somewhere next week.

Art, Chit and Chat

Illustration of an actual event

Sonja

Last week the most fabulous coincident happened. We were on a short holiday in a little cottage in the woods. Every so often I worked a bit on my polecat pattern, so I could release the pattern this week. I was just about to start on the tail when I looked outside and saw the most amazing thing, an actual polecat running passed the window, followed by a cat! Full of utter joy, I shouted to my boyfriend, who was taking a bath, there’s a polecat outside!!!

What a coincidence. A real polecat, while working on the pattern of one. They are not the kind of animal you see very often, especially in daylight, so what a pleasure indeed. I quickly made a drawing of the short and special moment. And yes, the rabbit was sitting there too, not at all bothered by that strange event. I do wonder what that cat was doing there. It isn’t a very common place for a house cat to hang out, disturbing all the wildlife. Luckily, the Polecat did got away safely.

Actual-event

Art

So anyway

Sonja

Last week I felt like painting a picture. I was still using a wintery white and snowy artwork as my laptop and iPhone wallpaper and longed for something more colourful and spring. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to create a new fairy tale painting with my crochet animals starring gracefully in it.

Finse-umbrellaBut oh my, it didn’t work out all that well. I guess my idea was not solid enough and I rushed into the illustration. Now, when it is finished, the only part I consider worth looking at is Finse with his umbrella and even that isn’t painted very well. As for the rest of the illustration, the colours are wrong, the background is too distracting and Floro looks utterly ridiculous.

The idea was to paint Finse and Floro in a stormy, between winter and spring landscape, struggling with the wind. Well, Finse does not seem to be struggling does he now? He seems more surprised his umbrella got flapped over for some unclear reason.

Anyhow, the painting is not at all  ‘desktop’ worthy and I tossed it somewhere in a corner. What a pity, I even postponed my polecat aka ferret pattern for that silly painting.

Now let’s get on with it!