Humble Bumble Queen

Today we have a guest.

A humble bumble queen. 

I learned today that if you see a big one like this in the early spring it is a Queen, because none of the other bumble bees live, only the Queen. So by saving her today we have saved a whole colony of some of our most important pollinators. With out her we would not have red clover, one of the vital plants needed to replenish the soil.

She also stayed for tea!

We put her up in the finest hotel.

Hoping the temperature is warm enough tomorrow. I am hoping that if she already has a nest because of how warm it has been, that all those little bumbles will be OK.

Term One Stuffs

I thought I would put up some older stuff from last term.
 This is a picture of Ver that I drew when I first had the idea of her. 

Comic strip from animation. It was supposed to be about our first day but it didn't have to be real.

 

 

 A colour analysis painting. This tools a long time but I really enjoyed doing it!

   

 Turn around for Einsle 

 

Making the set for the stop animation video.

I started with this.

Then my husband said "Wait! There is a better way!"

and we went and bought foam core.

One flat sheet with a piece cut off for the landscape background, and braces. All glued on with a hot glue gun.

The braces are cut to taper to the ground.

Then measure, cut and glue in braces for in-between.

We glued drywall tape to the top and stared to mache it.

After one coat of mache dries over night, we made bumps and craters out of plasticine. Then mached over that.

Thats me the hunch back. 

Then my husband and son set to work on painting the first coat.

This is the finished look! My husband painted this. Thank you sooo much love! 

Now if you look at the stop-motion in one of my other post you can see the background at work.

New Worm Hole

So it is friday and I don't know what this weeks word is for Illustration Friday. School is over, tomorrow is my last day. I am going to change my focus a little bit. I have a lot of projects I am working on at the same time so I am going to try to post stuff once a week and post step by steps for some of the major projects.

We had flees really bad so it was a good excuse to gut my sons room finally and paint it. Thought you might want to see the colours!

He loves the colours!

I found this great bookshelf on the side of the road a couple of years ago. 

I love to encourage my son to read as much as possible.

 Yummy gluten free cup cakes for the kids sleep over this weekend, raspberry chocolate chip.

Then I told Helga that I would have and Alpaca done for her so I started working on that. I will put up a separate blog with some step by step pics. 

This little dude was made for a classmate. So squishy and fun!  

Then I made more cup cakes! heehee! his time coconut blueberry. yummy

Then I had to take a picture of architecture for my photography class so I took a picture of my house and the houses attached to it! and that was my week!

OLDer stuff

Thought that I would put up some older stuff that I have made.

   

 This is Alie the Alien. I made him when we lived in Haliburton, ON for a auction to support an environmental group up there. I made his cape from and vintage valour night gown.  

 This was a puppet I made for a birthday present for our friend Ben.  

 Can't remember her name. This was at the request of a friend, for her sons B-day.  

 Claudia way made for the creature feature installation at the Arts Block in Brantford ON. There are 5 more monkey dogs in that family lest see if I can find more pictures.  

These are some of the first things I needle felted they are very small!! they are being put in a gum ball machine that will be touring around at comic book conventions. Someone will be the lucky owner of this for $2.!  

 The dog is the first thing I made. The spider alien took me 6 hours to make. HUGS!  

 Hanging mice! They are made from scraps of fun fur. And like most I make things my kids won't let go of them.
FUNN!

Taken Out The Trash

This is our stop animation video. I worked on this with Daniel and Shanell, thank yous.
We had sooo much fun !! hope you love it as much as I do!

Making Ver (part II)

YUUPPPERS! She's done. Ver (short for universe) is finally done and ready Except I am going to insert wire in the tentacles. isn't she nice.

This is a drawing did when I thought of Ver.

   

 So we last left off at her head already made. After that was done I make the tentacles. I didn't get very good photos for this because I did it in my basement but I will explain.

   

 I used bubble rap and sushi mat. Then I would lay out the layers of roving (wool) in all different directions then rolled it in the sushi mat with the bubble rap in the inside. like you would make sushi but way tighter and smaller. Like making a worm from clay.

   

Then I let them dry. Here is a picture of my new needle felting tool I just got in the mail from a Shop on easy call myfelting. That link should take you right to it.

   

 I then needle felted the ends of the tentacles so that they have the nice round balls on them. The tentacles are then wet felted again. Really I just wiped them in some boiling water and shocked them in some cold  water right away.

   

 I made a ring for in side the head and attached the tentacles to it.

 

 

 I then sewed in boning (a stiff piece of plastic inside fabric) to make sure it had more stability.

   

 And because I am all about things looking nice inside and out, I covered the fabric and boning with roving, and needle felted it into place.

 

Her head is hollow so I had to work carefully to attach the head.

   

 There she is looking right at you.

 

lots a work and lots a fun! Oh and I should tell you that she is not miniature she is the 1/2 the length of my arm.