My daughter will be three tomorrow, and motherly affection overcame a lack of ability in the baking skillset. I found that food-colouring behaves much like watercolours, and that icing, even lumpy icing, is a very forgiving medium. Fortunately, she will be three, so her aesthetic judgement is not yet fully developed. I have a year to get a little bit better.

Apologies to any of you who has noticed the radio silence on Draw Anyway of late. I have made the decision to stop posting for a while: life is always hectic, and I feel that other things must take priority, at least for a while. However, the 208 posts made daily over the nine months from late April to December last year will remain here for the time being, and I hope will be useful to some.

As a matter of housekeeping, I intend to switch off commenting in the next few days, as the incoming spam far exceeds genuine comments; if you feel moved to comment, please feel free to do so via the Contact page and I will add your comment to the appropriate post.

If you would like to, please keep Draw Anyway on your feeds or links; I may revive it one day and it would be nice to think there are people waiting to read. In the meantime, thanks to everyone who read, commented, and especially drew.

Myf

A very happy Christmas to all Draw Anyway readers everywhere. Thanks for your continued support. I hope you are scribbling away on new sketchbooks that Santa brought you - in between breaks for festive mince pies and chocolates, that is. I look forward to seeing your holiday images soon!

Disclaimer: I am away from my computer for a few days over Christmas - normal service will be resumed soon. Meanwhile first-time commenters and comments with links in will not publish out until I have a chance to release them. Thanks for your patience.

I’m away for Christmas, and somehow in the complicated rules of Draw Anyway, that means you get an extra link this week. Don’t ask me, I just work here.

Erm, so, what you see above is the work of Randy Plowman, an artist who has contracted with himself to make a small collage every day and put it up for sale. Judging by the number of ’sold’ signs next to each day’s work, he’s doing well from it, too, which is the best kind of inspiring. Plus, longterm Draw Anyway fans will know I’m a big fan of collage.

Visit A Collage A Day here.

Disclaimer: I’m away from my computer for Christmas, so unable to moderate comments. If you are commenting for the first time, your comment will not show up until I have come home, unpacked, fed the cats, put the baby on the potty, and switched the computer on. But I will still be glad to read it.

Apologies: it may be too late to pass this information on, but I think that I finally stumbled upon the perfect formula for making Christmas cards with two-year-and-eleven-month-olds. We’ve tried a variety of techniques over the past few weeks, and it’s been hard to strike a balance between the cards she had fun making, and the ones I’d be happy to send out.

Finally, we’ve cracked it, and, if you’re as disorganised as I am (almost certainly due to the presence of the afore-mentioned two-years-and-eleven-month-old), you might just be able to benefit from the formula I’m about to share.

Yes, the last posting date has passed, but there are still the cards to hand out to friends and family in person. Or the cards you might make next year. After all, I’m guessing that Tabitha, age three and eleven months, will have reached almost grand master perfection by then.

OK, here’s the method:

1. Cut out a roughly Christmas tree shape, ie a triangle (with trunk if you are feeling ambitious), out of green wrapping paper or any other vaguely green paper you have. Glue this onto your card.
2. Cut several different sized circles from a magazine or wrapping paper to act as your baubles. Let your child place and glue these. A solid glue stick will minimise the mess.
3. If your child can wield scissors, let them cut out a few squares to be parcels under the tree. if not, do it yourself but let him ‘decorate’ them with pens.
4. Raid your recent stash of C-Beebies (or the like) comics for stickers that might be added (that’s where the littler stars came from).
5. Put a cut-out star or a star sticker at the top of the tree.
6. We had some alphabet stickers so I put the initials of the family this card’s going to on the parcels.
7. That’s it - and a good thing too because your child is now tipping glue down the back of the sofa/sticking glitter to the cat/using your envelopes as handkerchiefs.

I like the result and we both had fun making it - and you can’t get much better than that.

So, I picked up the toddler from nursery tonight and we were at home making paper chains just before bathtime, and my husband’s talking about the Christmas party at nursery tomorrow. “Do you want to wear your Santa outfit or your bee costume?’ he asks, innocently.
“No, Daddy! I want to wear a SNOWFLAKE costume”.

Uh. Right.

I’m all ready to say ‘no way’ until I remember that we had something delivered in a large cardboard envelope last week. Maybe, just maybe, if I apply the Draw Anyway approach to costume making - that is, dive in without worrying too much about the end result. Lots of cutting and some painting with acrylic later, we have a costume. A costume that won’t be very comfortable for long, but, hey, I met the brief.

The moral of the story is that sometimes it’s good to hoard cardboard and paint. And I know that this isn’t strictly a drawing post, but I really only have time for one artistic project in an evening. Having said that, I have her birthday party invitations to get cracking on…

In a recent post, I expounded on one very good reason for drawing, but it occurs to me that I haven’t fully explored the many and varied reasons why people put pen to paper.

As with most things in life, I’d expect that most people who draw regularly have not just one clear reason, but a conglomeration of many. Given that Draw Anyway is based on the idea that its readers often don’t have time to draw, or have lapsed from regular drawing, it might be helpful to re-examine some of those reasons and see if they give us new inspiration. Here is a random list of all the reasons I can think of why I draw. Would you do me the favour of replying with yours? And perhaps the next post should be reasons why we don’t draw.

1. Because I have a Draw Anyway post to illustrate
2. Because I need to pass the time, in a meeting or on a train
3. Because when a picture comes right, it gives me a feeling of pride that few other activities in my life do
4. Because one day, I’d love to make a living from drawing
5. Because practising makes you better
6. Because sometimes (although this has not happened for a while) people are genuinely impressed by my pictures
7. Because it’s great, when I have the time, to be able to draw my own birthday cards or gift pictures
8. Because it’s something that my daughter and I both enjoy doing equally
9. Because it’s a way I can show my husband I care for him, putting time and effort into, say, an anniversary card rather than picking one out in the shop
10. Because I’ve seen something that I either couldn’t or didn’t want to photograph, and I want to express it visually.

Now you!

In celebration of my new collection of tiles, let me inspire you with the British mosaic site The Joy of Shards. Funny, for a site showcasing so many visually appealing pieces, the design is hellish. But if it’s knowledge and inspiration you’re after, this is a great place to start: instructions, galleries, and a history of the form. Plus, what sold it to me, the mosaic catdoor shown above.

Wouldn’t your cat like a mosaic door?

Colleague and I slipped out of the office this lunch time to visit an Open Studio event. I was extremely surprised to find that a company whose products I’ve seen in all the glossy magazines is actually local to my home town of Brighton - and their studio was just down the road. Sukie make a very distinctive kind of product. Their books are beautiful: travel journals with pockets to put your treasures in; notebooks with a big picture of a leaf on every page; children’s journals with free stickers included.

I was even more surprised when I saw the prices they were selling old stock at. No wonder people were queuing up and leaving with their arms absolutely full. I joined them.

One of my favourite buys was a notebook of recycled paper, each page featuring random sections of numbers. I’ve written many times before about finding new ways to surprise yourself in drawing, to shake yourself out of ruts. One fine way to do this is to see where shapes on the page lead you, be that a picture in a magazine that you’re doodling over, or coffee stains on your office print-out. These pale numbers are just perfect for that, too - odd curves and lines may find you turning your pen to new directions.

This piece of paper fluttered out when I opened up my box of pastels to draw a quick sketch for Monday’s post on drawing with straight lines. It’s just a bit of tracing paper that’s there to prevent the lid of the box getting marked, I assume, but I really like the effect of all the different colours.

However, I want your advice. How would you use this? In a collage, as the background for a drawing, as a Photoshop brush?

It is a funny thing how you can be drawing something as famously curvy as a woman’s figure, and if you are using something like a flat pencil or a square chalk pastel (as I was for the picture above), you just cannot help but make straight lines. It’s an even stranger thing how somehow, you can represent curves nonetheless, and with what I like to believe is an interesting twist. It reminds me of those string pictures that people used to make in the Seventies: lots of straight lines forming an arc.

Clearly a sharp edge or corner on your drawing implement lends itself very well to depicting straight lines: obvious subjects might be buildings, tall grasses, and flat landscapes, but it’s worth trying it on other subjects too, just to see what happens. Just pick up a flat pencil and doodle.

The other thing about chalk pastels is, that as you use them, the sharp edge gradually becomes soft and blunt, so you can judge the difference in effect for yourself over time.

On Wednesday I posted about prints made with old letterpress blocks (and I also have an uneasy feeling I’m blurring the distinction between letterpress and woodblock, so excuse me if that’s the case). It’s apt, then, that this week’s link should be to British Letterpress, a site with a Draw Anyway approach towards helping beginners set up their own press and start to print - and even bookbind. With a guide to what letterpress is (that I should surely read), a how-to section, and an area for those disposing of equipment to link up with those who want it, there’s something for everyone here.

We’ve moved to new offices at work, and one of the things I’m enjoying most is the view. Effectively, much of the building is a huge glass box; we’re on the top floor, and it’s a bit like being suspended in the sky above the city.

Idly staring out of the window during a phone call yesterday, I recalled one of the oldest and simplest tricks in the landscape artist’s book: to put all the emphasis on the sky. Often we take the sky for granted as being that blue (or more often where I live, grey) thing above whatever our subject matter is, so shifting your horizon right down the page makes for a very fresh and visually interesting approach.

Computers have changed everything, and not least the old skills like letterpress printing, in which letters were carved onto wooden blocks and arranged by hand into words and sentences. Fortunately, the craft has not entirely died, since many printmakers and fine artists continue the tradition, seeing real beauty in non-uniform letters and shapes, and the variations that are brought about by differences in pressure or the amount of ink used.

There’s one interesting side-effect of the sad decline of letterpress, and that is that wooden printing blocks often show up at car boot sales and flea markets. For the interested artist, these can be a cheap source of some unusual materials. Apart from anything else, the sets are often beautiful objects to have around the home: some come cased in their own custom boxes, and they all have the appeal that for some reason always seems to exist in matching sets of small things. And then the actual physicality of holding the wooden stamps and pressing them down on the paper is very pleasing. As an added bonus, they are a fairly mess-free material for small children to play with.

You can use them with ink pads or with paint. Letters, even mismatched ones, are fabulous for making quirky labels for gifts or envelopes. Keep your eyes open, and see what you can pick up for a song.

Anyway, this one is simple. You have to come up with, and depict, eight random things about yourself. Then you’re supposed to tag eight more people to do the task, but to be honest, I’m not sure I know eight people who really have the time, so, the rule is, if the task grabs you, and you have the time, do it. And let me know about it.

For some reason, I did mine all about hair. Yours can be about anything. Or eight different things if you prefer. I have to admit I could have spent a lot more time and put a lot more effort into this, but life is currently very much as I have depicted it in the last frame. Click on the thumbnail above to see the larger piece.

Sparkle and Spin: A Book about Words. Written by Ann Rand, illustrated by Paul Rand

Apologies to readers of Swiss Miss and Drawn, of whom I know there are many reading this post. This news has already been posted on both those blogs, but it is just too good to ignore.

What you see embedded above, You-Tube style, is a children’s picture book in its entirety, provided by a new site named Lookybook. Go on, click on it!

The site works in collaboration with publishers, writers and illustrators to allow its users to flick through a picture book page by page. Far removed from the narrow-minded thinking that has had publishers fear the loss of their copyright, the ethos of this site is that nothing replaces a real book in the hands of a youngster, and that services such as this will actually make you more likely to buy the very best books, not less. The same kind of thinking that has spawned sites like Last.fm and Pandora.com in music, I guess.

They quite rightly point out that what we see in our bookshops tends to be only a very small selection of the best-selling offerings, and as Lookybook expands, it hopes to have many thousands of books for you and your children to explore at your leisure. In that way, it’s just another example of the internet democracising the buying process. But there are simpler benefits, too. As Swiss Miss points out, there’s no longer any need to panic if you haven’t packed that favourite book - so long as you have an internet connection.

I’ve had sole charge of my two-and-three-quarters daughter for the last two days, so I’ve been trying to find ways to keep her entertained. An opportunity presented itself when our first Christmas card arrived from a nursery pal the other day. Once I’d got over the panic, I thought we’d better get moving with ours. What better activity for a mum and daughter to bond over than a bit of creative card-making?

So, after she went to bed last night, I got a few things ready. That’s my first tip: kids get excited about activities like this, but the excitement soon fades if you’re having to hunt high and low for materials while they are impatiently waiting to start. I collected together:

> Some A4 sheets of card, cut in half and folded, ready to make cards

> Some rubber stamps

> Her poster paints, wax crayons and felt pens

> Shapes, like stars and circles, cut out of silver foil and wrapping paper

> Last year’s Christmas cards, happily stashed away in a rare fit of organisation last year. I cut these up so that I had several small pieces of card featuring things like snowmen, Christmas trees, stockings, angels, and reindeer.

I put all these things in a box, because I she is currently delighted with anything that comes in a box or a bag, and I made sure I also knew where the glue and scissors were.

Bingo! Straight after breakfast we were able to clear the table and get a production line going. Now, no-one can pretend that the cards we ended up with are great works of art, but she had a lot of fun making them. I think one of the keys to her enjoyment was that there were a lot of different materials to choose from, so when she got bored with drawing, she could switch to sticking, and when she got bored with sticking.. .what am I talking about? That girl will never get tired of sticking.

The bit I enjoyed the most and which worked the best as well, was me drawing something with wax crayons, and her sloshing paint over it. No refined technique required from her, and a chance to practice some fun drawing for me.

My final tip, if you want to produce cards that you’ll actually be proud to distribute, rather than just trying to entertain your kids for a while, is to draw and paint onto pieces of paper rather than blank cards. That way you can pick the best and glue them onto your card blanks, not wasting them. Oh, and as a time-filling activity? Well, despite all my best preparations, the whole thing was over by 9.30 am, so don’t bank on it to fill a whole day. Not at two-and-three-quarters, anyway.

Just a quick note that if you are interested in Beautiful Doodles, the book mentioned in my last post, the publishers are again offering £2.00 off and free p&p for any UK Draw Anyway readers who call 01903 828503 with their credit card details, or send a cheque made payable to Littlehampton Book Services to LBS Mail Order Dept, PO BOX 4264, Worthing, West Sussex, BN13 3TG . To make sure you get the discount, quote Art/Beau. Draw Anyway has no link with the publishers other than that they wrote to offer me the book for review. :)

While I’m conveying messages I might also mention that I have been sent another book in the same series as the Art Doodle Book. Beautiful Doodles provides over 100 pictures for you to complete. From drawing the contents of an empty fridge to designing a statue for an empty plinth, each page presents you with an irresistable idea that will have you itching to draw. It’d be great for boring telephone conversations or dull commutes. In a way, I like it even more than the Art Doodle Book, because it gives you a fun and safe place to try out your drawing without having to adhere to any particular style. If I had more time, I’d love to jump in and fill it up myself, but I guess it’s more for the children and teenagers of this world, who have endless time, and creativity just waiting to burst out - so I’ll be giving my copy to a young friend for Christmas. I’ve seen it in the bookshops, but I’m sure you can also order it direct from the publisher as before :

Call 01903 828503 with your credit card details or send a cheque made payable to Littlehampton Book Services to LBS Mail Order Dept, PO BOX 4264, Worthing, West Sussex, United Kingdom, BN13 3TG.

Finally, today’s art tip fits right in with current environmental concerns, as it helps save paper and looks good. This weekend I have been clearing out an old cupboard (as my personal blog’s readers will testify: the artwork might go on here, but the dodgy personal photos from my shady past go on there). I found an old portfolio full of life-drawings, including a large page from which the image above is just a small excerpt.

My tip is this: draw each pose in a different colour, all on top of one another. First, it gives a very interesting finished effect. The spaces between the pictures become as interesting as the figures themselves, and start suggesting subjects of their own. Second, it prevents you getting too precious about your work - you are drawing simply to improve, not to exhibit. And third, you only have to face the fear of the blank page once, at the beginning of the class.

If you’re going to try this out, I suggest using neutral and earth tones - that way, no one of them dominates too much.

I am especially fond of artists’ websites which show sketchbooks and work-in-progress, as illustrator and printmaker Alice Melvin’s does. She’s cherry-picked the best of her work, though, so a visit to the site only takes a few minutes, giving you instant inspiration. Lovely.