It's time for tea

Welcome back! I am so keen to show you what I have been up to today. As you can guess by the title, it's tea related. Well, sort of. 

I have had projects waiting for far too long. I couldn't stand it any longer, so I got hubby to retrieve my things from the garage, which was my art studio but is now his. Sigh. The joys of sharing.

Anyway, I have a zillion tea pot cut-outs I have been wanting to tackle for the longest time. Lots and lots of reasons why I haven't, but here, today, I made a start at designing one pattern of many to paint on them. 

Let's start at the ending. This is the completed template, done in a day with a baby to attend to. Of course, she was extra hungry and wanted lots of cuddles just to make it a challenge! Still- look at what I managed. As I look at this, I feel accomplished, and satisfied. I absolutely adore illustrating. I am not at all sure if this will ever end up painted onto a teapot, but I don't care. I had fun and realised how much I miss creating. 

Follow the process of creation below...

The plan was: trace the largest wooden teapot cut-out, draw up a design and get it ready to paint. I saw a beautiful floral pattern on a make-up bag recently and based my design off that. Of course, mine has been changed enough to make it unique, not a direct copy. Above is the start of my floral design. I sketched it in HB pencil first, then with a fine tip black marker when satisfied with the placement.

Annoyingly, I can't seem to flip this the right way. However, I did at times need to turn the paper to get the flowers drawn in, so this works. I had a bit of trouble making the right side (or the bottom in this picture) look balanced and fit.  I decided to stop drawing more flowers at this stage. I was getting annoyed at how unbalanced the picture looked, and I nearly gave up on it.

The next stage was to colour in :) I love using coloured pencils, and this stage helped me  want to continue after all. Detail and colouring is my thing. I enjoy it so much, that when my baby slept, I sat busily creating away and barely got up for a couple of hours.

A closer look at the detail. I honestly gave up creating this for painting and just enjoyed the project for the fun it was giving me. I love colourful, quirky, fun pictures. I can see my illustrative style clearly here. After a couple of years break- it hasn't changed. I'm relieved at that. I aim to always improve- I just didn't want to have become worse.

Notice the unfinished middle? I still hadn't worked out what to do with that yet.

Nearly there! The centre design happened by chance. I grabbed a ramekin from the cupboard and centred it on the picture. With my eye as a guide, I traced around it, felt happy with the placement, and  turned it into my gold edged circle. Perfect for when I place a clock face on should this ever get transferred to wood. 

I was more than happy with the placement and centre resolution. 

Here is a closer look at the handle. That was a bit tricky to complete due to it's narrowness. I had to use colours and flowers that helped balance the whole teapot, and I feel this suffices.

After I coloured the background, I shaded here and there to give it depth, then added the spots. Some are close together, some further apart, but it adds another layer to the overall picture. I love layering. Makes the design a bit of fun :)

I personally can't wait to get back into creating more. When I was adding the spots, I was daydreaming about illustrating kid's books and having my sweet little girl stand around, watching, asking lots of questions and drawing herself. Sigh. Dreams are free. Dreams also give you hope.

And I hope you have enjoyed a brief, but in depth look into my teapot creation. Now, I think it's time for a cuppa...

Thanks for reading!