Hands Hands Hands

Lately I've been practicing drawing hands because I've always found them very difficult to get right...and here's the result! I'd saved this photograph from an old calendar, and I'm glad I've finally got some use out of it! This drawing took me a good few hours to complete (which is a lot longer than usual) but I'm a determined girl and my patience has also improved over the years, so I managed to finish it! I'm quite proud of myself because it was a real challenge :) I particularly like the swollen, arthritic fingers holding the dainty, fragile flowers...for some reason, this kind of thing makes my eyes very happy :)

- Cicely

Meet Fleur

Say hello to Fleur, my Button Bear :) Fe's Mum Avril makes the most gorgeous handmade bears from scratch, and she gave me this one for my 18th birthday. I love her! Avril sews a button onto each of her unique bears, hence the name Button Bears! Fleur has a little daisy button sewn onto her bum, which is rather cute :) Avril is actually a genius craftswoman and also made this patchwork quilt for me last year in my favourite colours - turquoise & red. It's so warm and beautiful, and she's sewn the word 'cheeky' onto it, with reference to my personality! Thanks Avril!

- Cicely

Play Ball

I copied this from a photo I found in my National Geographic 'The Photographs' book last night. I used ink to draw the lines and filled them in with pencil because I wanted it to look cartoony, if that's a word?! (it's not according to spell check anyway!) These boys were photographed playing basketball in the 1980's in Indiana, with the hope of becoming good enough to play for a big team in America. I like the different levels of the composition and the fact the 'net' is like a metal cage - cool!

- Cicely

Must see: Toast Catalogue

Toast catalogues are full of pictures of amazing clothes that normal people like me can't afford :( However, they also contain many great images like this one! She reminds me of Haley when she had her long hair :) I quite like sketching models because they're so easy to draw, but I'm going to start challenging myself more now. Tonight's project: learn to draw hands!!

- Cicely

War

This drawing is taken from a picture of an Estonian girl who's giving her sailor boyfriend a cuddle before he leaves for war. I drew this pretty quickly, hence the scrappy appearance...I kinda like that rushed look sometimes :) I think the look in her eye says a lot!

- Cicely

I Heart Spring!

A few weeks ago, I spent a lovely sunny day at Barry Mill in Angus with Fe & Chris, which is part of the National Trust for Scotland . We had a picnic, went for a walk by the river and played in the waterfall, which was fun! I also won the best raffle prize - a bottle of really good whisky! Luckily for Chris (who's a whisky connoisseur) I hate it, so I gave it to him as a gift :) I also won a duck race with my lucky number 8! I've been questioning why I don't do the lottery since I always win stuff! Anyway, we made friends with some swans along the way, and here's one of their feathers! It was so soft you could hardly feel it on your skin :)

- Cicely

LOVE

My lovely friend Fe gave me the most beautiful book titled 'LOVE' a few years ago, and it contains many inspiring images to draw/paint. I really felt in the mood to start drawing again a few days ago, so had a look through my book and found this photograph. I really like this girl; she's looking at a guy she fancies and just looks so sweet! I couldn't draw him though...I'm not too good at drawing men yet! I shall practice though! I used a 6B pencil to get a really dark finish.

- Cicely