Boy doll fail

I had it all planned a couple of weeks ago. I would make my very first fabric boy doll ever as a birthday present for one of Sofia's friends. How hard could it be, anyway? Boy dolls should be pretty much the same as girl dolls, apart from the clothes and the hair.

I made the doll in just a couple of hours, painted his facial features and was just about to do the finishing touches on his clothes when I decided to show him to my husband.

'Oh, cool,' he said.

I beamed, pretty pleased with myself.

He then dropped the bomb. 'What's her name?'

What? I was indignant, of course, but he pointed out that my boy doll's face looks too feminine. We had to get the kids' opinions to settle the argument. Lucas said my boy doll did look like a bit like a girl. Sofia asked if she could keep him and give him girl's clothes to wear.

That was it. I had to give up on the idea of giving this boy-girl doll as a present to a boy.

He now sits at home, patiently waiting for my next move. Sofia's thinking of completely transforming him into a girl by adding pigtails to his hair. Me? I'm just thinking maybe next time I'll go easy on the eyelashes when I paint a boy doll's face.

You know Easter is coming . . .

. . . when the bunnies start making regular appearances in many illustrations. Mine are no exception, of course.

Meet Penelope the Painter, who loves going into the woods on a sunny day to paint  just about everything she sees. I'm planning to use this sketch as a basis for a poster that I'll be using for my drawing classes for kids which will start after Easter. I'm really excited about this new adventure!

Painting blues

I had a very early start to the day, which I wasn't too happy about. I thought I'd make up for the tiredness by doing a couple of acrylic paintings this afternoon. Halfway through my first painting, I sat back and realised that I didn't like the way it was going. I decided to work on the second painting, but that didn't turn out right either. I refused to end my painting session on a bad note, so I decided to just relax and read my new book, Dan Rhodes's delightful This Is Life. Just as I expected, reading a few chapters of the book cheered me up immensely so I decided to give the painting a third try. Here's what came out:

'Asleep', acrylics on cartridge paper,  10 x 7 in

I'm quite pleased with this. I'm still getting the hang of painting with acrylics,and laying down flat washes is something I struggle with. Imagine my relief when I managed to paint the background for this without swearing or crying! I'm exploring monochromatic hues these days, which is quite a challenge with my limited palette, but I find the resulting pictures quite soothing.

I hope this is something I'll be able to do on a regular basis. Maybe with constant practice, I'll be able to do away with the frustration soon!

Things I never thought I would enjoy

1.  The colour pink *
2.  Painting with acrylics
3.  Tearing an old book and using its pages as canvas

*This, however, does not mean that I will be wearing pink clothes anytime soon.