Ha! Completely caught up on posting my daily drawings. It will go back to one to two a day now. That feels good to have them all scanned in and on flickr and here on the blog.

Can you believe it? Day 73? And I thought I would just be doing this for a month. It’s turned into something so much more than that. I’m really enjoying it. It’s not just improving my skills, but it’s keeping me in my sketchbook more overall. In fact, I’ll be doing some drawing this afternoon… granted it’s for my book, but still, should be fun. And I feel more confident about it since I’ve got 73 days of drawing under my belt.

I made a little box to hold my drawings and it’s getting pretty close to being full. I think it’s about time to make another one. Well, in 17 days. I think 3 months worth in each box is a good amount.

Have a great weekend!

Kristin Roach

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collaging with fabric,

and combining that annoying curling ribbon we all use with yarn to make a knit basket that actually stands up straight and a market bag that won’t stretch down to your knees after a few uses.

I’m so excited and thrilled and relieved and filled with joy to birth this beast out into the world. It was of course about triple the work either of us anticipated with many bumps, bruises and swearing (at least on my end) to get it finished. And I’m so happy we did! Because. It. Is. Awesome!

I’m going to be totally conceded here and say that this is the sweetest ebook ever…. okay I can’t be that conceded because I totally loved Knitting Game by Lee and Diane’s Craft Blog series of ebooks. How about I say that this is just one more awesome ebook in a long line of awesome ebooks put out by the newly annointed authority on crafty ebooks: CraftyPod Publishing!

It was so wonderful working with Diane, she was great to throw ideas around with, she was a great editor, she’s a wonderful friend and inspiration!

You can pick up this awesome beast of a craft ebook in the CraftyPod Publishing Shop starting now!

And if you order it between now and Friday 12th, 11:59pm – you will get a pretty sweet chance at winning one of these DecoArt paint sets.

Hooray! The first Craft Leftovers Ebook Card.Paper.Ribbon. is now out Today!

Happy Crafting and making and being creative!

Kristin Roach

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I really like cows and steers – they are just really interesting creatures – so I decided to draw a frontal skeleton view. I cut one long piece of scrap museum board in half and taped it together with artist tape on the back (to be later taken apart and hung separately).

While sharpening my pencils I decided to sharpen them over the museum board. Then using a soft water color brush I brushed the shavings with a light coating of water and then water mixed with white acrylic paint. That was the wash I used for the ground of the piece.

From there it was just doing a little drawing and then a little painting over the top. I went with monocromatic because I really felt like it. Just the sudle pinks from the pencil shavings poking through was enough.

I knew from the start I wanted to play around with stitching and crochet in this piece. I figured it would just be a hodge podge of trying things out. After finishing the painted component – or at least up to the point it needed to be I started thinking about how steers are such a weird paradox of corn and beef and being in Iowa and that whole food chain issue and here I was chaining directly into a steer. I know that it’s a pun pretty much, but I kind of like that. And in many ways, crochet is the ultimate handmade because it can’t be commercially reproduced. And when the piece is done it won’t just be a little flag of crochet, it will be a full out lacey netting eveloping most of the painting and connecting the two panels together. I really like how this project has grown in content and concept very organically from that original impulse to draw pictures of a steer.

I’m hoping that by next thursday’s sketch challenge I will have it all finished up.

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Do you see that? That’s like 2 dozen story time media sets! And I picked them all up for free! It was just sitting in this box with a sign “free” on it when I just happened to be walking out of the library! Sweeeeeet!

I thought Jason was going to be ticked that I brought home another box of finds – but to my delight, he is just as excited about it as I am!

The hanging bag, the book for the reader, the film reel, and the cassette tape!

Oh the inspirational fodder!

Now how can I make this digital and put it into a slide show with audio and put it on on a website dedicated to my childhood library story time?

…for each cat thought itself the prettiest…

This is the film strip that they put up while the librarian reads or the tape plays. It is changed manually by pushing a button. Kind of like the turn the page chimes, but this way a whole group of kids could see the pages.

I really want to protect this, maybe put it into slide holders or something like that. Any suggestions?

I haven’t read through this one yet, but I’m sure it’s going to be a classic. Oh Library Story Time – it’s all coming back to me!

I’m really serious about wanting to digitally archive these somehow, any suggestions? What would be a good way to preserve the film? Should I mount them like slides? It’s not like they need the motion of film.

And what about the audio cassette tape? Aren’t digital recorders for cassette tapes kind of pricey. I wonder if I could somehow use one at the university or something. Hmm.

I already have about a million ideas of what I could do with these both as far as the preserved set and a copy set for working into art pieces…. ohhh… I can’t wait.

Speaking of art, I’ve been drawing again. Here are two sketches (on is a paint sketch) last night:

I have to admit, I’ve had a strange obsession with donut shops for a long time. Maybe it came from my childhood desire to eat every donut I could and not being allowed (thank goodness). Maybe it came from the quirkiness of each shop as it’s own little social mecca that I had no idea about until recently. I’m not exactly sure, but I can tell you there will be more donut drawings, paintings and maybe a few patterns to come.

I have a much larger plan, but that won’t be revealed until much later. For now you just get to see all the small pieces.

I’m making an effort to really pick up drawing regularly again. I can’t believe I’m so out of practice. Drawing from life is not the same as drawing from the imagination.

To embarrass myself into getting better, I’ll be posting self portraits regularly. I should be a speedy process because that drawing is really creepy. It looks like I’m missing my top set of dentures, but then I have this huge toothy grin – yikes. Maybe I should go back to studying some skeleton structures first, it’s been too long since I’ve drawn people.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ever wonder what it looks like when I’m working on a pattern? Well, when it’s sewn, it’s about like this. The thing is, all these little piles of cloth were pitched when it finally clicked. It’s all kind of working things out visually in cloth and then finally having it make sense. Last night at about 2 am I finally figured out how to do what I wanted to do.

You can guess what I’ll be doing for the rest of the day – working on clm! That’s right that little pile of cloth, sketches, and thread will soon be the project for the center fold in the zine. A little CanHam in a Can, haha.

Oh and an update. I added a “Classes” page to the sidebar where I’ll have all my current and upcoming classes that I’m teaching. So if you live in the central iowa area, make sure to have a look.

See you all later!
Kristin

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So it’s official, my friend Austin and I are full of ourselves, but only in a joking way. So we are having our bfa show together; he’s also a painting major. He jokingly said that he wanted to title his show “my art’s better than your art” and then I said, “you can’t do that, how would that make me look? I’m going to title my show ‘my art’s the best’ ” we both started laughing pretty hard and that was that. We shook on it and here we are, the biggest egos in the school, haha. It’s all in good fun though.

So the above is my show cards (the info is also in the side bar) is what is above. That’s the one painting that I have finished and on the “back” is one of the photos that will be shown.

It’s going to be a really fun reception. Homemade bread and hummus, shrimp stuff, and root beer floats. Delicious! You are all invited too, I hope to see you there!

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