Old enough to train a dragon

It was my sister's birthday on 31st. She's an annoying (even more of a) teenager now. I'm pretty sure I wasn't THAT annoying when I was her age :D

As a part of a birthday present I painted her because she's been whining about it for a while now. I wish I had more time to do it though (I had to be quick to finish when she was out! And she came back early!!).

She's got this picture set up as her computer wallpaper now :)

A.

So you'd like to teach?

This month I will start to teach art to kids :) I don't know if you know, but I'm a trained art teacher though I never really wanted to work at school. Art classes in Polish elementary/junior high schools tend to be treated, by both teachers and students/kids, like a prolonged break-time, where you can additionally mess with paint. There's nothing wrong in messing with paint, truly, but the attitude where art is thought as something unimportant has always taken me aback from the idea of finding a job at school.

However! Now I will be teaching art to kids who want to be taught - during after-school art classes. They will held at my sister's Drawing School and I can teach whatever I want. There are so many ideas and techniques that can be shown to kiddos that are just perfect but unsuitable for school's art classes.

I'm super excited!

Here's a poster image I did. It's all around town now and in all elementary schools.

Four sketches from which my sister chose number 1 and 4.

 Getting things done. My computer, Kalliope, was struggling with the size of this file. 

*That's Tina being helpful*

Final image without course info + logo. The text says "art classes for kids".

And here's my sister's Drawing School "Kreska" (="line")
- Website
- Facebook page with lots of students' drawings!

Keep yours fingers crossed for me, please!

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Watercolour workshop - day 4

This time I've finished my lighthouse picture. It's my favourite but photos don't show all its beauty :/

I will scan it later on and we'll see what comes out of it. Although I'm pretty sure that the scanner will eat all those light colours...

 You may remember from the previous day that I've covered the sea with paper tape (so it wouldn't get dirty from the rocks). It appears that you can use that technique to make really nice walls or rocks ;)

 I've managed to rescue that part, however :D

 Everything all over the place got really dirty while making textures.

 We were playing cards and chess while waiting for the layers to dry :)

 And remember, never take off masking fluid before the paper dries completely - otherwise your lighthouse's window will get bigger than intended :/ Of course I knew about it - but my sister was too impatient to wait and scratched it off!

And that's the end of the workshop. There's also a day 5 - architecture, but I was at work during those classes..

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Watercolour workshop - day 3

Today I started with finishing previous day's trees.
New topic was a lighthouse which appeared to be very nice! I did not expect that :) I have not finished this painting unfortunately - waiting for the paint to dry before starting with next layers took too long (I've used way too much water in the first layer and then it only got worse with every next one :P).

I was trying very hard to make the paper not wave (because I hate it when it does so). As you can see - one of the paper's edges freed itself from the glue with which it was stack to the rest of the papers and waved anyway. Bad, bad paper!

 While waiting for the layers to dry a bit I was re-designing my Etsy shop's logo and everything connected to it (stickers, business cards, labels, banner, etc.). Hopefully I will get down to it this week and you will be able to see everything in action :D

 I have no idea what I'm doing...

 It starts to look well - but there's still plenty to do! 

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Watercolour workshop - day 2

This time we were painting trees. I like to paint them but all my previous trees were painted with oils or digitally. And surely not by using splashes of paint ;)

How to paint trees with watercolours? Go wild with the paint and water, then add some little leaves and trunks ;)

 It's not finished yet - but I'm quite close to that point!

 Who would have known that sponges are not only for washing oneself ;)

 My sister :)

For now this is my favourite part of the picture - those trunks with a bit of light coming from between of them. They're just awesome :D

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Watercolour workshop - day 1

I like painting with watercolours a lot. Like - A LOT! But there's always something new to learn about them. Especially if I always use them to paint the same thing - cute illustrations. That's why I've decided to give it a try and attend watercolour workshop held in my sister's drawing school. Those will be 5 days filled with watercolours that I don't yet know. Sounds interesting :)

Those are my clouds. On this photo they are not finished yet.

 My sister's warm up.

 And here' she works on her clouds.

 My youngest sister also came to disturb a bit ;)

Oh, and here's the first horse-chestnut of the season. I like to keep the first ones from each year ^^

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Yield - Illustration Friday + DS II 44

 She yielded to the temptation. Books can be so intriguing!

 ..and suddenly few moths have passed. *Oops!*

It is a birthday present I've made for my sister. This is she on the picture, being very elf-ish ;) Hope she'll like it!

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Christmas baby angels

This Christmas my family was a host, what happens quite rarely. I liked it a lot, it was so much more peaceful but it also didn't feel like true Christmas. I'm just used to going to Pulawy city where all my family was born and where the rest of our relatives live.

My mum was quite excited with all that Christmas preparations and she got crazy decorating house. For example, I with my youngest sister have to make napkin holders. I never thought that just laying the napkins next to plates is so yesterday ;)

Here are the holders:

We had to sew together those angels and straps (in shape of Christmas trees, of course!). It was my sister's first time of using needle so the first angel she made was a bit bloody ;P

And here are some more photos, my family really wanted to see those ^^ And you will also see a bit of my life.

 Those are my two sisters - Kate (bigger one) and Zuzia (smaller one). They both are younger :)

 Here are my grandparents (from mum's side of family). In the background you can see a fish tank on which my cat usually sleeps.

This is my dad and a fish plate I won last year through Design Files. My dad loves to eat fish so he decided to make a very fancy version of a pike perch with apples, cranberries and I-have-no-idea-what-more. It was yummy!

Mmmm... :3

I hope that we will be hosting Easter breakfast too!

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Cell phone cases aka Christmas gifts

Here are beauties I have made for my sister and mum as Christmas gifts. I didn't want to spend a lot of money this year (even if you try to do it in a more cheap way, it still is expensive. A bit less expensive but expensive) so I've decided to share my new talent of making cell phone cases. I think they came out really neat! :)

For my sister Kate:

For my mum:

I've made photos of the green case before Christmas and the purple one's photos are more recent. So my mum have made the case a bit 'fluffy' as she called it ;) But it still looks nice (I just have to trim it once in a while so the heart on the back side won't disappear under this fluffiness).

How do you like them?

I'm just in a progress of making 3 more cell phone cases. All of them will be available on my Etsy shop - Secret Drawer. 

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Marie Antoinette

Some people already know about it but most of you don't. There's been a huge change in my life :3 And what other can it be than...

A CAT! :D

Say *hello* to Marie Antoinette (aka Tosia)

Tosia has been a little dirty kitten when we found her. She was scared and needed a home

Well, how anyone with a smiley on a tummy can not find a loving home? :3

Now she feels just right, loves to play and bite my plants ;]

And she sleeps most of the day (oh, how much I'd love to sleep for so long too! However, when I sleep, she is acting like a wild demon sprinting back and forth across my bed...)

She's a cutie, isn't she? :3

Some time ago a pair of little kittens appeared in our neighbourhood. They were motherless and were just walking around looking lost. Immediately kids from my block of flats arranged food, water, milk and sleeping box for them. They were playing with them everyday after school. I wanted to see the kittens too but every time I went out they were somewhere else.
I've got this excellent plan that I will take both of them home and keep as mine. There is a problem with my dad in this matter because, although he likes cats, he thinks they devastate furniture too much. So, oh naughty me, I wanted to bring them home on Monday when he's gone for work till Friday. Then my family would fall in love with the kittens and there would be no way for dad to change the situation (and he would just fall in love with them too). Unfortunately, when I came to find them on Sunday 26th September I saw that one of the kittens is dead. We think that one of the dogs living in the block has killed it. He, the kitten, was known for his friendly attitude so it was just a matter of time for something bad to happen. The other kitten was more shy and scared so stayed alive. When I told my mum about this death she immediately decided that the second kitten has to be taken home so nothing bad happens to her. We all think that it was so so so stupid to take action only after bad things happened. Kittens without a cat-mum are in danger all the time, we should have taken them home or to an animal shelter just after they appeared in the neighbourhood. I hope that next time we'll be wiser.

Later on we found out that a stupid kid from our block took the kittens from their mother and brought them to the block. Their real home was not that far away but there was no way for them or for their cat-mum to find the way.

But let's smile! Marie Antoinette is happy now and we are wiser too - it's a great beginning for better times :)

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