Just messing around

I haven't had much in the way of art time the past couple weeks. I have been setting up my new office! My stepson moved out and I gained an office! Yippee!!!

There was the cleaning, painting, shopping (when you grow from a 2x2 desk to a huge, U-shaped desk you find out you NEED things! including the desk! lol)
Then helping (better known as watching) hubby build said new desk. haha

Then came the hardest task of all.....regaining my art desk. 1/3 of it has been doubling as part of my work station for 4 years and now I am finally able to clear it off and reorganize. Currently I have regained about 2/3 of my 10 foot long desk! Yay!

I was so happy that I took time out from cleaning and stashing and I fiddled around in my art journal...something I haven't had room or inclination to do for many many months. :-)

Happy Chinese New Year

Last weekend Hubby and I attended the annual Chinese New Year celebration. It is a wonderful event with demonstrations, food, displays, lectures and an awesome parade.

Since this is the year of the dragon, I was inspired to create my own "Chinese" dragon. Or maybe I should say....Ready for Chinese New Year dragon. lol

As you can see, I shied away from the typical fierce/scary dragon and went in a cute and fun direction.

He is carrying his own dinner in a tiny takeout container and lighting his way with a little Chinese lantern. The takeout container is from a rubber stamp by Jim Stephan I purchased many many years ago. It actually stamps an image twice this size so I scanned the image and reduced it, cut it out and folded. Thank goodness for my crop-a-dile. It made it much easier to get inside there and set the eyelets!

Mr. Dragon was kind enough to do a slow pirouette so that I could photograph him from every angle. :-) Notice his fierce claws and teeth? lol

Here you can see he has horns and (tiny) ears. And spikes? scales? whatever you call those bumps down the middle of his back lol

He is my tallest creation at 5 inches!

I love his shade of green! I was in one of the local yarn shops, Middleford Yarn Shoppe in Medford and saw this lovely green wool. I just couldn't resist. I am so glad I grabbed a bundle. Because of the color variations, it creates such interesting color textures on the dragon skin! I loved it so much, I went back and bought some more...just so I don't run out!

Meet Rocko

Sometimes an idea gets stuck in my head and I have to sit down right then and get it out. This little guy was getting really persistant so I took a few hours and let him come to life.

I call him Rocko! And he just might be my new favorite. Every time I look at him I can't help smiling. :-)

He is the only one of my felted friends that has moved onto my work desk to keep me company. I think he just likes to be in the middle of things. lol
What is kind of maddening is how, when you photograph these little guys, they appear a million times fuzzier than they look in person....of course, blowing up a little guy from 2" up to maybe 10-12" might have something to do with it lol

Here is a close up of his face. Hubby says he looks stern. I think he just looks very intent. lol

He has a merino wool base with merino wool face, hands and chest. And alpaca for his fur. The alpaca is very soft so he feels very nice sitting in my hand while we watch tv. :-)