Spring Flowers

Flowers photographed in Texas

Texas Sunflower

Mexican Bird of Paradise

Milkweed

Peach tree in bloom

Thank you for stopping by.

Sometimes you just want to stop and smell the flowers. 

Crochet Sunflower

🌻 Crochet Sunflowers 🌻

Quick and easy crochet sunflower pattern.

Crocheting for PEACE for UKRAINE! 

Sunflowers can be used as an appliqué, worn as a brooch or barrette. Add a sunflower to hats and scarves, whatever you can imagine. 

Make a handful to create this sunflower bunting. Bunting makes a nice car decoration to show your support for peace for Ukraine.

Complete pattern can be purchased on Etsy and includes graph and written pattern for leaf seen here. To see free leaf pattern, please visit free leaf pattern here on Doily Designs.

Pattern written by Doily Designs, Cathleen Wake Gorbatenko © 2021

Original pattern PDF file download available free on Google Docs at present time. This pattern version does not include large and small sunflowers. To get the extended version, please visit Doily Designs on Etsy. Proceeds from sales of sunflower patterns will go to United Help Ukraine. 

Pattern written in US crochet terms

Skill level: Beginner/Easy

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Peace for Ukraine!

Thank you for stopping by.

Best wishes 🌻

Happy Texas Independence Day Y'all!

Sneak peak at Doily Design's Texas Heart

I ♡ Texas!

Thanks for stopping by.

Hope you find joy and inspiration!

Best wishes & Happy Texas Independence!!

Camel and Crab Drawing

🌺❤️🌿🌺

Camila & Crabby

Camels are just so AWESOME! 

I've been adoring camels, collecting camels and trying to draw camels since the 90's. Camels are so adorable and amazing that I am just nuts about them!

These two have been such an inspiration, and hearing their tales of camels and the beach had inspired me to draw more camels. 

As usual, I turned to Pinterest for camel picture inspiration and found this awesome photograph of a camel laying in the sand looking at a dung beetle, photographed by Sam Rowely.         

Since seeing this photograph, this cute camel was stuck in my head and yearning to come to life in a drawing.

It floated around for months in my head, and I practiced on this and that, until finally my drawing started to come together and come to life. 

Crab drawing practice below. Feeling Crabby?

Camel, affectionately named Camila and her friend Crabby, drawing is very far from perfect, but it is what was trapped inside my head all these months, and I am happy to finally be able to share it with my Uncle.  So for now, I will let this sleepy camel lie, and be content with how it is.

Below is my attempt in oil pastels, with the dung beetle.

Sam Rowely is the talented young photographer that captured this adorable camel photo while in the desert. Sam's wonderful picture was published in StoryTrender where you can read about his photograph and adventure.

Dung beetle 🐞 in Texas.

Inspired by nature!

Thank you for stopping by.

May you find joy and inspiration!

Best wishes and happy drawing, and photographing!!

Peach Creek Printing 

Now 

~ Peach Creek Photos & Printing ~

Now selling digital photos on Etsy! Choose from photos, request a photo, or use your own photo,  have photos and logos printed on shirts, mugs and more!

You can also visit Shutterstock to view my portfolio and purchase photographs there.

Thank you for stopping by.

May you find Joy and Inspiration!

Best wishes!!

Old Sketch Book

Recently, my step Mom asked me, "Since when could you draw?"

Hmmm? I'm didn't know that I could 😂 But, I'd always wanted to learn!

Inspired drawing, Picasso's The Guitarist 2001

So I pulled out my old rescued sketch book and thought about how I had been saying that I can not draw for quite a long time. But this does not sound right, because you see, I believe that anyone can learn things. Take gardening for example, I thought that I had a 'black thumb', but it was a matter of figuring out what needs to be done and practice doing it. With this idea I tried, and low and behold, I managed to keep plants alive! It is only when I do not practice what I learned that the plants will die. And with drawing, I always said that I can not draw, but people seem to tell me that I can, and well, I guess just like with gardening, you just need to practice. 

All of my life I've been too intimidated by great artists to try making very much art myself. But sometimes I just can not resist the urge to doodle and draw. I always see things that i think would be so wonderful to paint, but don't because I doubt that i could do anything so beautiful. I would think that you would need to be able to draw to do anything like that. And, yes, it is hard, but anything worth doing and learning usually is. With practice, I learn more with every drawing.

Back in 2000, way before Youtube, I set out to try and figure it out more, and the public library is a great resource for all sorts of things including art and anything art related. At the library is where I started trying to figure out the whole process and what I must be missing. I read about art supplies and how to apply them, about great artists and studied my favorite artist, Reimbrandt. It was then that I decided that this was just a matter of practice. 

Inspired drawing, Reimbrandt's A Women Bathing in a Stream 2001

It seems that the art bug only bites me with the change of the seasons or on certain holidays, and that I'm not always feeling it. At times like these I sometimes feel like I fail and it ruins my desire to try more. But it is only with practice that we can get better at things and for them to feel more natural, so I say, keep picking up that pencil and keep drawing, it is a matter of practice! 

Pictured above is a self portrait from 2001, I was having a lot of trouble with faces and trying to learn by drawing more faces.  I usually draw myself, so as not to offend anyone by messing up a drawing of their face, you know, mess up my own face. 😂

In February 2022, I got bit by that drawing bug again and wanted to try another self portrait, surprisingly it actually looks a lot like me, to the point that Google actually recognized it as me!  With practice, I can feel and see how my drawing has improved.

This got me to thinking about all the people that I know that CAN draw and who, like me, say that they can not and need to just pick up the pencil! If for no other reason but for themself.

My youngest daughter, who also says that she can't draw, but she doodles all of the time, she drew this mushroom below, that I'd rescued from the trash, and it shows her potential. I love to see her doodling and knowing that she is practicing something she loves. Even the eye can be trained, with practice.

Spheres and crystal balls are among some of my favorite things and are a great way to practice drawing. I'd attempted several crystal ball drawings with mediocre results, but with this tutorial on Youtube, practice, and the right paper, the results were very different! 

So pick up those art tools and practice, practice, practice!

Thank you for stopping by.

Hope that you find joy and inspiration!

Best wishes and happy drawing!!

Ha!

If you have read this far, I would love to share;

I am not sure if it is just great algorithms or fate, but tonight, right after writing this today, I happened over to Youtube to watch some drawing videos. I'd watched a Silvie Mahdal tutorial before and she does beautiful art and art tutorials, so I clicked on this video of her drawing an eye and she happens to be talking about the same sort of thing that this post was about, except she puts it so eloquently and with so much heart and style. Just to watch her draw is mesmerizing! I highly recommend this video for any aspiring artist.

Cherished Memories

 In honor of loved ones recently passed, I am reflecting back on precious family memories and cherished moments.

Two very special people that were near and dear to me were my Grandparents. Their love helped shape me into who I am and showed me many wonderful and beautiful things in this world. They were married my whole life and together to the end.

Together they would create these beautiful gifts for friends and family. My Grandmother with her beautiful crochet work on the dolls and my Grandfather in his shop, designing and building wooden and glass cases for the dolls to live in. What a wonderful, thoughtful and cherished gift! 

The doll with the green dress was created for me about 20 years ago, and the other for my youngest daughter, they are both so lovely! The detail that my Grandmother put into them was something that got me excited about crochet all those years ago. The idea that crochet wasn't just some doily lying around, but that it could be fun, this idea was very exciting!

What a blessing to have my Grandparents share such love!

My Grandmothers love of crochet, her talent, and her desire to make things for people have always been such an inspiration through out my life.

Striving to keep traditions going and growing!

Thank you for stopping by.

May you find joy and inspiration!

Best wishes and happy crocheting!!

Dolls and cases created by Elizabeth Ann and Hugo Phillips.

We recently lost Allen, adopted son of Elizabeth and Hugo, too Covid. Along with Elizabeth's best friend Cathrine. They will all be dearly missed. Hope to see y'all again someday ♡ Much love!

Happy Valentine's

💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

💖💖💖♡ Happy Valentine's Day! ♡💖💖💖

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💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

Doily Designs ~ Lacy Layers of Love ~ February, 2021

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Thank you for stopping by.

May you find Joy and Inspiration!

Best wishes and Happy Valentine's Day!

💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

~ Hearts in the Snow ~

Lacy Layers of Love, February, 2021

February Doodle

♡ Heart Doodle ♡

I've always liked water drop photos and water drop drawings, and when I came across this great Pin video of a heart doodle on Pinterest, I was inspired to pick up a pencil. This is the cute heart that I ended up with.

Water and glass drawings are just so peaceful to me, and Pinterest is a great place to find inspiration for drawing and doodling water drops and more.

This little doodle reminds me of a heart shaped water drop or a glass heart. Just so cool and soothing. And after all, tis' the season for Love! To see how to draw a heart like this, check out this great Pin VIDEO on Pinterest, uploaded by battery-plus.gr!

Thank you for stopping by.

Hope that you find joy and inspiration!

Best wishes and happy doodling!!

<3 

Neurographic Art

НейроГрафика ∾ Neurography

Neurography is an interesting drawing technique invented by Pavel Piskarev to help bring together science and art.  He came up with this idea around 2016, but it is new to me and couldn't have come at a better time on these long winter days.  

I am sure some of you are feeling the stress' of the past couple of years, and most of us could use a way to unwind. If you like to doodle, then maybe Neurographs could be a great outlet for you as well. 

The basic idea here is that you meditate and put pen to paper. In one motion you draw lines. When you are done, you go back and soften all the corners of these lines everywhere there is a sharp point. Once there are no sharp edges, you can fill it in with colors, using whatever color application you are comfortable with. A lot of people use watercolors. 

Of course, there is way more to this than I am explaining here, and if you would like to learn more, you can visit Neurographica.us website for articles on this inventive art technique.

I would also recommend Neurographic Art website, as another place to start and find out more. Go to Neurography Art on that site, to hear Pavel Piskarev himself (in Russian), speak of this interesting style of art and its benefits, (with a rough written translation).

Alison Hazel Art does a nice job explaining and demonstrating this neurograph art idea and the basics on Youtube.

On this page are my first 2 Neurographic drawings. I hear that this type of Neurographic drawings are great for children. It seems that a lot of art teachers are introducing this technique in the classroom. Being a big believer of the importance of art education for youth, I could see the benefits of this strange new art introduced at a young age and being a great outlet for children.

I used sharpie and oil pastels for both of mine, mostly because it was what I had on hand, but also I love the colors that the oil pastels produce.

You can also watch Art with Mrs Hibbs on Youtube about this neat idea, along with countless others sitting down and creating Neurographs.

Thank you for stopping by.

May you find joy and inspiration!

Best wishes and happy doodling!!

Crochet Dog Puppet Scarf

Scarf with adorable crochet puppy puppet mittens~ 

❅❄❆

Little boys can be difficult to crochet for, so when I came across this cute scarf, I quickly printed out the pattern to get started for my little guy. Although this was for my son, my daughter ended up modeling for me and wanted one for herself. 

If you notice the ears are different from the pattern, that is because I decided to go with long floppy ears for our dogs. Floppy just seemed cuter and more the kind of dog we would want to have.

This free pattern by Red Heart is available to download at Yarnspirations

What a fun way to keep your hands warm!

(Pictures by Cathleen/DoilyDesigns from 2013)

Thank you for stopping by.

May you find joy and inspiration!

Best wishes and happy crocheting!!