Vanity Aflame Step 5

If you are an avid follower I'm sure you've caught on by now that I've changed the name of this piece yet again. I'd apologize, but that's pretty much the way I'm hard-wired. I have a very tough time deciding on names!! Just consider the evolving name another part of the process and enjoy the next step in the evolution of ‘Vanity Aflame’.

In step five I've started to add some detail into the head of the soon to be less-naked birdie.

Vanity Aflame Step 4

I've finally started to work a bit more toward the finished coloring on the clouds and I've now added in the rough shape of the bird itself.

Vanity Aflame Step 3

For step 3, I focused on fleshing out the background and really making it look like clouds. I also decided to change my plans for the opening in the clouds from a town to an island. After all what self respecting fire bird would prefer a city to an island paradise?

Vanity Aflame Step 2

Step 2 in the series is the beginning of the background work.

Vanity Aflame Step 1

If the title doesn't give you an indication, this piece was inspired by the quickie contest entry I showed in my last post. I've decided to help keep myself motivated by showing this work in progression. I've always enjoyed seeing the steps involved in an artwork and I'm hoping you will too.

Without further ado, step 1:


If you compare this to the concept image in the last post, you can see that I've improved the overall composition, perspective and made the bird's anatomy a bit more realistic. The details may change as I go along, but I'm happy enough with this sketch to begin working.

Phoenix/Peacock cross

I stumbled upon an art contest that called for the artist to portray what a phoenix would like like if it were crossed with a peacock. As I love both of these birds, I couldn't help but create a quick doodle. I hope to develop this into a larger scale more complex work at some point, but for the moment this was enough to satisfy my drawing urge.

Bead Organizing Tip

If you've ever bought plastic organizers with compartments to organize beads, findings and other small stuff this tip is for you!

I've literally spent hours separating and organizing all my seed beads so that when a project comes along everything is easy to find. After spending all that time making things organized nothing irritates me more than to have bead spilling underneath the dividers and mingling together anyway!

The quick fix is to run a bead of hot glue along the bottom of the divider before snapping it into place. The glue will keep your divider wall stationary (unless you really yank on it) and it will also keep your beads from sliding underneath the divider.

Handy Organizing Tip

Today I decided to work on a few chokers, which at this point require a bit of high speed sewing. So, my sewing machine gets hauled out of it's box and I set about finding just the right thread color for my bobbin.

What do I find when I open my little bag of bobbins? A huge mess!

The free ends have, of course, had plenty of time to intermingle and now I'm being sidetracked by untangling instead of getting on with my project of choice. I decided to fix the issue and this is what I came up with. All you'll need is one of those misbehaving bobbins and a piece of tape.

I'm using scotch tape, but I'm sure any kind will do.

Cut off a piece of tape and the fold one end over (sticky side to sticky side).

Then take your wayward thread end, lay it on top of your bobbin and place the remaining sticky part of the tape over it. The folded part of the tape will now act as an pull tab for easy removal and best of all no more loose ends!