Sketchbook and giraffes

A while ago I signed up for The Sketchbook Project (after hearing about it on the Quiltart mailinglist). Last week I received my sketchbook and on Saturday I started drawing in it. The theme is Storybook, so I made a title page and wrote the beginning of a story. I used my Derwent Inktense pencils, but discovered that the pages are too thin to use wet pencils :-(. Oh well, it's all part of the artistic experience... I hope this will force me to practice some more drawing.



One of the things I drew was a giraffe. My Dutch friend Heleen alerted me to the One Million Giraffes website - set up by a Norwegian guy who has a bet with a friend that he can collect one million giraffes before January 1st, 2011. These giraffes need to be hand made, not on a computer or store bought. So far he has collected 855,315 giraffes, so he only needs 144,685 more!



Hugo, Ernst, hubby and I drew about ten giraffes and I also made a giraffe calligram. I've uploaded it to Spoonflower, it's not for sale yet but will be in a while:



Speaking about calligrams, here are the first eight for Robbie's quilt:



I'm thinking of making it a quilt-as-you-go quilt, like my selvedge quilt. Then the back could be an I Spy quilt, with lots of novelty fabrics...

I am looking forward to Friday, when I will visit the Textile Art Festival here in Brisbane. Can't wait to see my MAGnificence quilt exhibited, and the Textile Tantrum quilt, and my embellished bag! I will also be sure to attend one of the floor talks on the Twelve by Twelve exhibition and say hi to Brenda, who created my blog header.