Tag: art blog

Embroidered ladybird beetles

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, Needlework Bugs

Hello friends!

This week I thought I’d post about some new needlework pieces that I’ve been creating on. Last year I fell so in love with bumble bees that I embroidered one (in fact I posted a new bumble bee embroidery only a few weeks ago!) and thought that as I’ve been captivated by the ladybird beetles why not sew one and add it to my ever expanding collection of insect needlework (in the end I created two!)

Usually I start all my needlework pieces the same way – by roughly drawing onto the calico and then its all sewn free hand using a single strand of coloured floss at a time onto a hoop and then sewn in teeny tiny little stitches. I’ve tried to sew them to look as round as possible.

I’m really pleased with these little ladybirds each piece is about an inch across so they’re very small, due to their size each one only took about 30 minutes to create from start to finish and its quite nice to have a quick and easy craft on hand for when the nights begin to get longer.

Up close the beetles are tiny – needlework is so soothing and I find its a really good stress/anxiety reliever.

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Another Embroidered bumble bee

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, Needlework Bugs

Hello my friends!!

I hope the week treated you well!

This week I thought I’d post a new embroidery that I’ve been working on. Looking back at the bumble bee photographs (that I posted last week!) I decided to embroider one similar to my the needlework bee (that I posted last year).

A short but delicate art post this week…I’ve embroidered a new bumblebee! Very much like the one I created last year but the wings are in a different position.

As always I started by drawing the shapes onto calico and then filled them in with the closest coloured threads I had. For the bee I like to start in the centre of the body and work out in layers, using one stand of embroidery floss (on the smallest needle imaginable – its like a hair!).

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Home is Behind

On By ArtyMissKIn Art2 Comments

Hello my friends!

This week I thought as I’ve not posted any calligraphy art for a while I thought I’d share this one. I very much consider Middle Earth to be my happy place and the works of Tolkien have long been one of my favourite things!

So the actual song Tolkien wrote isn’t actually sung in The Lord of the Rings, part of its last verse is sung in The Return of the King, by Pippin. On the soundtrack of the film, this track is named Edge of Night and Billy Boyd sings it beautifully.

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Embroidered Large white butterfly

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, Needlework Bugs

Hello friends! I hope you had a good week!

I’ve got a new butterfly embroidery to share this week. I’m really happy with the Large White photograph (that I posted last week!) I particularly love this type of butterfly – they’re so beautiful but because the caterpillars eat cabbages humans consider them a pest.

So I decided to embroider one similar to my Holly Blue.

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Embroidered Holly Blue butterfly

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, Needlework Bugs2 Comments

Hello my friends!

This week I thought post something new that I’ve been working on…as you know I love needlework and I embroidered bees before and wanted to experiment to see if I could create a 3-d butterfly.

When I saw the Holly Blue butterfly and was able to take some photographs of it (that I posted last week!) I knew that I wanted to create a piece of art about this insect.

So I decided to embroider one similar to the bee I did last year, but instead of being a flat piece I want to try and make it a little more three dimensional. 

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Glom Of Nit

On By ArtyMissKIn Art

Hello my friends!

This week I thought I’d post a new piece of calligraphy art so I thought I’d share this one with you. Going postal by the comic and literary genius that was Sir Terry Pratchett, is one of the wittiest books out there (actually all the Discworld book are fantastic) and there are so many great quotes in them that Pratchett’s books are an endless supply of fun and clever phrases, which I love turning into calligraphy art.

The mantra of the postmen in the book is “Neither rain nor snow, nor gloom of night can stay these messengers about their duty.” which adorns the post office in large metal letters – its a fun play on the US postal service motto.

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The Little Mermaid

On By ArtyMissKIn Art

Hello friends,

I thought I’d post an illustration this week, I’ve recently been reading fairy tales and The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen has always been a great favourite of mine.

“The little sea-princesses, were six beautiful children; but the youngest was the prettiest of them all; her skin was as clear and delicate as a rose-leaf, and her eyes as blue as the deepest sea; but, like all the others, she had no feet, and her body ended in a fish’s tail.”

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Queen Elizabeth II sketch

On By ArtyMissKIn Art2 Comments

In the UK and commonwealth this weekend we are celebrating the Platinum Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and her 70 years on the throne! The bunting is up, the flags are out and we the British are going to have picnics and street parties outdoors…even if its pouring with rain!

So I thought that on this the Platinum Jubilee weekend I would actually post the sketch I’ve completed of Queen Elizabeth II, its been lovely being drawing in the garden the breeze has been lovely. I had a few stamps and thought it would be fun to draw the side portrait that adorns British coins and stamps.

Although I love sitting with a set of pencils and trying to capture a persons image on paper, I’ve never actually posted any of them online because I’m A.) not very good at realistically drawing humans and B.) I have a phobia that people who view my sketches won’t be able to immediately guess who the portrait is of (which is mortifying!).

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A World Turtle

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, World Turtles

Hello my friends and happy Friday! 

You may or may not know that this coming Monday (May 23rd) is World Turtle Day! I love turtles they are magical creatures and won’t be around much longer if we don’t look after them. I suppose that wasn’t helped by sailors eating them – I think Darwin famously struggled to bring them back from the Galapagos to the UK because they kept eating them on the voyage! (I mean they’re beautiful but don’t exactly look appetising do they?!)

Anyhoo, World Turtle Day was created so that people could celebrate turtles (and tortoises) and their sadly disappearing habitats. I remember as a child my neighbour had a tortoise and use to pout it in a shoebox on the winter to hibernate – which as a kid was hilarious because it would wear your shoes if it found them!

So I decided to draw myself a World Turtle.

The World-bearing Turtle myth is actually Chinese mythology and Native American folklore. Of course one of my favourite authors (one Sir Terry Pratchett) imagined the Discworld which is carried on the back of a giant space turtle, the Great A’tuin. And of course we did (historically speaking) believe the earth was flat at one point in time.

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