Salaric

I made this little Easter basket for my husband’s birthday; it is made of fimo and is about 7cm in diameter. The fluffy chicks came from the Pound Shop.

These are the colours I mixed for the browns to make the twigs: dark brown, yellow, orange and beige.

I then rolled a sphere of the beige to make the base of the nest with.

I then began to flatten it into a disc.

I then rolled sausages of the different brown fimos – these are the twigs!

Then I pressed them gently around the edge of the base, making sure that the first ones arched a bit in the middle, leaving ‘free space’ to allow interweaving of the twigs.

I then chose three bright fimo colours – pink, blue and yellow, for the Easter eggs to go in the nest.

I sliced up the colours and then arranged them so that each egg would get one piece of each colour in different orders and patterns.

I then rolled the three colours into a sphere. I applied slightly more pressure to one end of the sphere whilst rolling it, in order to get the egg shape.

I only did three eggs in the end, as I thought it would look better when it was less crowded and with some fluffy chicks instead!

Ta da!

I made this Easter bonnet from fimo. There was no specific reason behind this project, I just had some extra fimo and in fact was going to make it into a pot but whilst shaping it, it turned mysterously into a hat!

First off I rolled the black fimo into a ball.

I then began shaping this ball into a hat shape. I did this by initially making a depression on the top of the ball and then pinching around this depression with my thumb and forefinger whilst rotating it.

I then had a satifactory hat shape!

I decided that I wanted a nice ribbon and some flowers on the hat (I did consider Easter chicks and the like, but the hat is actually quite small, so decided that though it might be a bit more Eastery, it was also a lot more fiddly).

I rolled a thin 0.5mm diameter sausage of yellow fimo for the ribbon and I also rolled some little balls of fimo to be the middles of the flowers. I then flattened the sausage of yellow fimo and fitted it around the hat, making sure the two ends overlapped and were shaped so that they looked like ribbon blowing in a breeze.

Warning, fimo and other polymer clays are quite brittle and therefore thin structures like the ribbon will be relatively fragile. This is why I made sure the ribbon would have contact with any surface the hat rests on.

I decided that three flowers would look good and rolled 2 balls of blue fimo about 2mm diameter, and one of pink. I gently used the pad of a finger to squash these balls into little discs.

I then placed the yellow bits of fimo in the middle of these discs and gathered them up in three to four little pleats around the yellow. This makes very effective little flowers.

I then put the flowers on the hat by gently pressing them onto the ribbon.

However, it looked over the top so I took two of the flowers off and the result was a lot more eye-pleasing in my opinion!

I made this pot of gold for St. Patrick’s Day for an Irish friend.

First off I got some black fimo and rolled a ball/sphere out of it, about 1.5cm in diameter.

I then made a slight depression in it – this would be where the gold coins would sit. I realised that I would not have to make a hollow pot as the coins cover up the black fimo underneath.

I then rolled three small spheres of black fimo about 6mm in diameter for the feet. I checked them against each other to see if they were all the same size. One of them was too far out, smaller than the other two, so I had to add some extra fimo. I then gently pushed the three small spheres onto the large sphere with the depression in, and the feet went on the opposite end to the depression. I had to reattach one foot as it was it was not equidistant from the other two, and in fact I didn’t get the feet completely right.

They should have been placed so that they make an equilateral triangle – ie so they are all the same distance apart – but I was in a rush so was not careful enough.

I then rolled a thin sausage of black fimo, making sure it was of uniform thickness all down its length. Using the pot itself, I measured around the depression with the fimo sausage and pinched off any extra sausage. I then attached the two ends of the sausage to each other. I smoothed and rolled the join so that it was no longer visible. This is a bit tricky and can end up with you twisting the sausage or ending up with thin and thick bits in the sausage, it takes a bit of practice!

I then place the rim on the pot, made sure it was in the desired position, and gently pushed it onto the pot to secure it.

I then rolled two tiny sausages of black fimo for the handles, about 5mm in length. I also tapered the ends of these sausages so that they ended in points.

I then curved them and pushed one gently onto the side of the pot, just under the rim. I checked to make sure that the handle was suitably aligned with the feet, and then repeated the process on the opposite side with the other handle.

I then broke off little bits of gold metallic fimo and rolled them into little balls. I flattened the balls between my thumb and forefinger to create little 3mm discs or coins.

I then laid these in the pot, making sure that all the black was covered underneath so it looked full of gold, and just to make it look more like it was overflowing, I made sure that one of the coins was overlapping the rim of the pot.

I then baked it in the oven for 30 mins (1/2 hour) at 130 degrees C. This hardens the fimo or polymer clay.

Ok, I know I promised ages ago to show you all some of my artwork but I haven’t got round to the scanning etc… I have some shoddy pics here I took with the camera of my doodles in a little A5 notebook I have. These really are light doodles though, so don’t expect anything good! They are all done with a Stabilo black pen, point 88, fine 0.4 art no. 88/46.

This was me trying out ideas for webcomics – but found something too similair since. 🙁

Ok, I was thinking of gothulu and the like when I drew this – this all started because a gothic horror/dark sci-fi and fantasy imprint is looking for pictures.

More of the same.

This one is based on a dream I had – the style is me mucking about with ideas of how to illustrate something for Al.

Erm.. I was bored?

Ok, this one again was working on styles for Al’s thing.

In desperation with the fact that I appear not to be able to draw anymore I went hunting for a book. Because of the specific project I’m working on, I was excited to find a book called ‘Anatomy for Fantasy Artists’. I copied this from just inside the front cover; first time I’ve done a copy like this in 4 years. :/

I was attempting to manga/cartoonise a photo here.

This is another one from the book – it’s supposed to be the barber’s daughter. The book makes a big point on how difficult it is to draw children and how right that is. I was copying and have managed to draw her older sister who is blatently a teenager!

Floating heads – I was just trying slightly different styles.

Yes well it was late, ok.

I was crossing over styles with this – just doodling really, as they all are!

Again just trying out different styles.

Ok, I was trying to make someone look ill – and the pen slipped but it’s a nosebleed, ok!