Spring critters

The next issue of Discover magazine has a story about spring,

and these two lovely creatures are part of it.

 A blue tit and a hedgehog.

And this is what they look like, colored...

I still have all the rest of the picture to draw,

but it seems promising.

Flowers

It all began with me drawing a single petal.

Then it turned into this:

Illustrator is fun that way :)

Going sculptural

With a great big fabric bead.

I wanted to switch to something a little organic in shape,

and decided to try a fabric bead.

Well, for something so simple looking, this was a huge pain to make - it was so hard to get the shape right!  And then I couldn't encase it properly in the top fabric, and had to disguise the horrible creases with random stitches all over the bead. 

Luckily, those came out pretty neat, and give the bead a subtle coloration and texture.  Of course the teeny meeny beads add to the charm of the big mommy bead.  So it all turned out OK in the end, although it's not entirely finished.  I attached the chain to connector rings, which I simply pushed into stitches on either side, but I need to find a better way than that :)

I'm thinking of making my next bead with only the random stitches

and seed beads, no other ornamentation.

That will make it more sculptural, I think.