It's looking a little sketchy

Back when I was making my felt pictures for the Weaving narratives project I thought that it would be good to improve my drawing. I wanted to go beyond using photographs and begin drawing up my own designs.

I already had an account at Lynda.com, so that was the natural first place to look for tutorials. I took Von Glitska's 5 Day Draw course where you...well... get drawing prompts five days in a row. Simple really! Part of the course was to post your drawing on social media, so that's what I did.

My first few weren't that inspiring but after a few days I lightened up and had some fun with it:

#5daydraw light and dark shading, day 3

A photo posted by Helen Lindop (@helenlindop) on Sep 12, 2016 at 1:51pm PDT

#5daydraw drawing with shapes instead of lines. Giraffe in a car.

A photo posted by Helen Lindop (@helenlindop) on Sep 15, 2016 at 1:37am PDT

I really like Von Glitska's work and he said one thing in the course that stood out for me. I'm paraphrasing a bit but it was something like 'don't worry about drawing something photo-realistic. If clients wanted that then they'd use a photo.' (I don't have art or design clients, but it was a lightbulb moment anyway).

In art lessons at school I felt I was encouraged to draw what was there in front of me in detail. Which I guess has its place but is pretty boring! So now I don't have to do that it's opened up lots of possibilities...

I've been learning freeform crochet

It's been a while since I last posted but I haven't stopped making. I've been teaching myself freeform crochet on and off for the last 9 months or so. Ever since I made my first piece for Weaving Narratives and wondered what else I could do with crochet but without a pattern.

My plan with this was to just doodle with wool and try out as many different things as possible, so if I found something online or in a book, in it went. I didn't even have a plan for what it would be, but it's so big that I guess now it's going to be a blanket.

Part of the fun has been seeing people's reactions because I don't think most have seen anything quite like it! Anyway, here are a few close-ups.

My #freeformcrochet seemed to be a bit of a hit yesterday so here's another photo from a bit further along the same blanket. #crochet #yarn #wool

A photo posted by Helen Lindop (@helenlindop) on Oct 23, 2016 at 3:21am PDT

I've been teaching myself freeform crochet. #freeformcrochet #crochet #yarn #wool

A photo posted by Helen Lindop (@helenlindop) on Oct 22, 2016 at 2:58am PDT

I have no idea when I'll finish it because there's still a long way to go and I fit it in around other projects. Next winter would be a good guess. But that's another part of the fun - being as relaxed as possible and only working on it when I feel excited about it.

I'm aiming to make it freeform in every possible way!