Illustration Friday: Heights

My Entry for this week's Illustration Friday challenge: "Heights".

 I did this painting with watercolors on white paper and added

 the dark blue sky digitally in Photoshop for the art print.
*This print is now available in my Etsy shop.

Sketchbook

 

Sketchbook time! Here are some new pages from my sketchbook, inspired by childhood nostalgia:

 The cat on top is the character of a cartoon called "Flower Stories" that we used to watch when

we were kids. (Thanks to my lovely sis Azadeh for the link ♥)

 The stamp on top right corner is the cover of a TinTin book in Japanese! How cute is that!

Although we used to read them in Persian ;) I was in love with all of TinTin stories.

They still bring back sweet childhood memories.

Two new prints in the shop

I finally added the print of these two watercolor birdies to my Etsy shop.

I used a piece of fabric for the mat of the tattooed bird.

Love the texture and delicate contrast with the white paper.

Hope you have a lovely weekend ♥

My ceramic collection

I have collected a lot of small ceramic dishes during years.

 Many of them were gifts and some I bought myself.

 I use them for storing small objects and for taking my jewelry photos.

 Some of these are made in Japan, some made in China

 and a few are from Iran.

You are my sunshine

Here is the finished painting. I did this illustration on white watercolor paper and added the
 grey background digitally in Photoshop.

   {    8.5x11"   }

Archival print of this illustration is available for purchase in my Etsy shop.

Work in progress

A new watercolor painting that I'm working on today. 

Hope you're having a lovely Easter weekend  ♥

How to hollow out eggs

I always hollow out my eggs so I can treasure them for many years.

There is a very good tutorial here in eHow website that you can refer to.

I prefer to insert in the needle just about 5mm in the shell and not more to

prevent the shell from cracking. I make a few more holes very close to the

first one to create a larger hole and I repeat the process for the other end of the egg.

Blow the egg out as this tutorial says.

Or if you have a rubber ear syringe just do as Martha Stewart.

Make some colorful water with food coloring and a bit of vinegar.

I have used this recipe from Martha Stewart.

for a perfect submerge and to prevent your eggs from floating on the surface you need to

fill them with water. I used a medical syringe myself.

The best way to dry the eggs is to make a drying rack like this.

Voilà! Now you have perfectly dyed eggs!

Quail eggs

Yesterday I dyed some little quail eggs.

The eggs are tiny and cute and fit perfectly in my little bird nest.

Here they usually sell these eggs in Asian supermarkets.

~

*The big feather was sent by my lovely friend Montse, from Mexico! xo

I'll show you some photos from the dying process in the next post, so...stay tuned!