icad – Whims And Fancies

Viking Penguin Olaf pattern on Etsy

Last year I was working on the icad or index-card-a-day project where I painted one index card per day over the span of two months, totalling 60 cards. During that time I purchased some loose colour pencils. I had been wanting to draw a little penguin quilt pattern in Viking costume for ages, so I decided I would make that block for a pencil case.

This little penguin is Olaf and he loves his helmet with horns on it. I tried to tell him that Viking helmets didn’t have horns, but he was most insistent. He thought they made him look more mighty.

The pattern is for a 10″ block, but I made a 7″ one for my pencil case. I finished the block long ago and finally, during my attempt to finish a few projects, the pencil case was completed. I usually travel with my pencil cases, so I needed to use a dark fabric. Brown was perfect, plus, it made me think of a wooden hut where Olaf might live.

I used a frosty branch fabric for the inside. After all, penguins have to have snow! This pencil case comfortably fits my pencils and my water brushes. It is not too large, but big enough for me to toss a sketchbook in there and tie the ribbons around it.

Olaf is available on my Etsy shop if you want to make one. I am thinking of making a couple of friends for him and Polaris –

Little Penguin Polaris pattern on Etsy

A couple of years ago, my friend Janine from Rainbow Hare hosted Making Christmas. I wrote a tutorial for that event on how to make a pencil case featuring a decorative piece in the front. I made this little pencil case then with Little Penguin Polaris for my micron pens. I followed my own tutorial to make the new one and it hardly took any time to make it.

Interestingly enough, I made the Viking Penguin Olaf block when I shared the last set of index card drawings. I often thought of posting them together in one post. Before I show them though, I thought I’d share a list of all the mediums I used on this project. I had no idea I used these many!

Micron pens
Micron Gelly Roll pens
Uniball Signo pen – white
Uniball Gel Impact pens – gold and silver
Recollections Metallic pen – copper
Pentel Touch pens – silver and gold
Faber Castell Pitt artist pens
Faber Castell Aquarell watercolour pencils
Faber Castell Albrecht Dürer watercolour pencils
Inktense pencils
Prismacolor pencils
Prismacolor markers
Gesso
Turpentine

I have never had any training in painting, I paint because it makes me happy. This project definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone and helped me explore new venues.

1. Carnival 2. Milky Way map 3. Edwardian Mailbox for P. G. Wodehouse

4. Owl – playing in the rain 5. Taxi 6. Element Picker

7. Solitude in rain 8. Wind turbine sentinel 9. Vintage Porsche

10. California poppy 11. Corn lilies 12. Tardis

13. Grey dappled foal 14. Route 66 neon sign 15. National parks of America

16. Melrose Abbey 17. Fairy Door 18. Snow Globe

19. Dryburgh Abbey 20. Disco 21. Psychedelic gravitational waves

22. For Alan Turing 23. Devil’s Postpile 24. Dancing neurons

25. Peacock feather 26. Endeavour & transit of Venus 27. Solar prominence

28. Ice cream 29. Shel Silverstein 30. Exploding clock

31. Blustery autumn day 32. Unplugged 33. Pre-dawn driving

34. Self-portrait – walking into the unknown 35. Steampunk wings 36. Stargazing

37. My violins 38. Tell Them Stories 39. Solar eclipse and Shuttle Endeavour

40. Paper tunnel 41. Vineyard 42. Svalbard

43. Focusing through lens 44. Saturday night 45. Playing summer 78 by Yann Tiersen on piano

46. Love to walk 47. Dancing Aurora 48. Aston Martin

49. Snowdrop 50. Star trails 51. Garden bench

52. Downpour 53. Mail 54. Affair of hearts

55. Western view of sunrise 56. Brunel’s SS Great Britain 57. Historic hot air balloon

58. Edinburgh flat 59. Explore other worlds 60. William Blake – Eternity in an hour

I hope you enjoyed them. Many thanks to you for leaving encouraging comments, to Dixie from Arranged Words for inspiring me with her artwork to get back to painting, and to my husband for putting up with “I’ll be right there, just need to finish this one little bit” while he took care of a lot of things during those two months.

This year I am doing the daily photo project and sharing the photos on the monthly Wandering Camera linky party that I am also hosting here.

Wandering Camera

I suppose I like these immersing projects way too much! Art is good for the soul, right?!

-Soma

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Viking Penguin Quilt Pattern | Whims And Fancies

Viking Penguin Olaf pattern on Etsy

I have had this idea of creating another penguin quilt pattern for months now. I recently got a set of loose colour pencils and I desperately need to make a new pencil case. That provided a perfect excuse to draw my little Viking Penguin Olaf. Viking helmets didn’t really have those horns, but Olaf insisted that I put horns on his helmet. Although I think he looks very cute, he thinks the horns make him look more formidable!

I couldn’t resist taking a short break from the stained glass flower blocks to make him. The penguin pattern is for a 10″ block. I scaled it down to make a 7″ block for my pencil case. Originally I was going to give him a green vest, but the red looks so much better on him against the starry background. Olaf is available on my Etsy shop if you want to make him for yourself.

Little Penguin Polaris pattern on Etsy

It all started with Little Penguin Polaris. I have a gimpy and chubby kitty cat called Charlie, whose photo occasionally surfaces here. He would like nothing more than for people to take him seriously. Except it has never worked since he was a baby. He just gets picked up and cuddled, and he just sits on your lap with all of his claws tucked in.

When I was going to make a little winter-themed block for a friend, I knew I had to make a chubby little disgruntled penguin in a scarf and a hat. So if Charlie were a penguin instead of a cat, this is what he would look like where all the other grown up penguins are just not taking him seriously enough!

Polaris and Olaf have become great friends already. They are busy planning all sorts of mischief together.

Thank you for staying with me until the last set of cards from this set of 61 index card paintings. Here are the last five –

Sunrise

I like to look toward the west during sunrise where the first rays of the sun light up the mountain ranges while the full moon sets behind them.

An Affair Of Hearts

Edinburgh Flat

I really like moss-covered stone buildings.

Cross the boundary and explore other worlds

I had to make this one as my final card. I love William Blake’s work and I love the stars. I see William Blake’s words come to life every time I look through my telescope.

I will share another post about the index card painting experience along with photos of all the cards together. It has been a lot of fun sharing these cards with you. Thank you again for your encouraging words.

I will leave you with a photo of the lunar eclipse I took last Sunday. We are surrounded by mountain ranges, and there was also a thick layer of cloud right at the horizon. The eclipse occurred right around sunset for us, so it was low in our sky. I really wanted to see it during the maximum eclipse. Just as I was losing hope, a faint, eclipsed moon showed up, shortly before the maximum eclipse and right above the cloud layer.

Enjoy,
-Soma

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