You can teach an old dog new tricks

I have 2 boys, ages 13 and 11 and they both like to play video games, surprising I know.  Well back in the day I did too! My favorite was a toss up between Centipede and Q*Bert... oh then there was Frogger and Jungle Hunt, oh the memories!  So I guess it will come as no surprise that I’m a casual gamer today. My boys and I have a lot of fun playing Roblox together and we’ve been playing Minecraft for about 7-8 years now.  Yes they were very young when they started playing video games.

I’m sure you’re wondering what video games has to do with crafting. Well, I have found a few apps that let me transform on pictures into watercolors or Monet-type paintings. And while this is fun, I want to be more creative. Enter the world of drawing apps! I NEVER thought I’d find this art form satisfying but guess what? I do!  My favorite one is called Sketchbook although I’ve downloaded Procreate because everyone says that’s the best one to get.  I can see why everyone says it’s good but it doesn’t have the one feature that I like about Sketchbook: the division aspect. Let me show you:
I start out like this:

It’s like a pie that has been divided into 10 sections.  I add color to one section and it mirrors it in the other 9 sections.  Then I use the smudge tool to start blending the colors and eventually I end up with something like this:

Then I add my curly-q’s in there and polish up the lines and end up with this:

Here is another one, start to finish:

 And I post one last one:

During this quarantine I haven’t stopped creating but quite the opposite, I’m teaching this old dog new tricks!

I have put a few of these designs on Spoonflower, the app that lets you create custom fabric, but I haven’t gotten the alignment right yet.