Today’s drawing is a portrait of a close relative. I posterized the photo to help determine the shades. I should of first made the photo black and white instead of coloured. I am starting to get the feel of creating different levels of shading. It is much easier to do in pencil.

I intend to do this picture as an art quilt in the near future. It will be my second portrait quilt. This time I think I will have more fun with patterned material instead of using only solid colours.

A Non-Traditional Temari Ball

This ball was made several years ago, before the pandemic. It has two dragons on it, a water dragon and a fire dragon. Although dragons are traditional themes in many cultures, it is not a traditional pattern for temari balls.

The fire dragon is done in reds, oranges, and black. The stitching is free form embroidery and a weaving stitch I came up with on my own. I have since seen some similar weaving stitches on other temari, which goes to show that in an art form more than 200 years old there is likely nothing new to be discovered.

This is the water dragon done in blues and cream. When I was making the ball I had the fire dragon done but hadn’t decided what to put on the other side. A young friend looked at the fire dragon and said that I needed a water dragon too. It was the perfect addition.