Purchase Viking Penguin Olaf pattern

Last year I was working on the icad or index-card-a-day project where I painted one index card per day over the span of two months, totalling 60 cards.  During that time I purchased some loose colour pencils.  I had been wanting to draw a little penguin quilt pattern in Viking costume for ages, so I decided I would make that block for a pencil case.

This little penguin is Olaf and he loves his helmet with horns on it.  I tried to tell him that Viking helmets didn’t have horns, but he was most insistent.  He thought they made him look more mighty.

The pattern is for a 10″ block, but I made a 7″ one for my pencil case.  I finished the block long ago and finally, during my attempt to finish a few projects, the pencil case was completed.  I usually travel with my pencil cases, so I needed to use a dark fabric.  Brown was perfect, plus, it made me think of a wooden hut where Olaf might live.

I used a frosty branch fabric for the inside.  After all, penguins have to have snow!  This pencil case comfortably fits my pencils and my water brushes.  It is not too large, but big enough for me to toss a sketchbook in there and tie the ribbons around it.

Olaf is available in my shop if you want to make one.  I am thinking of making a couple of friends for him and Polaris –

Purchase Little Penguin Polaris Pattern

A couple of years ago, my friend Janine from Rainbow Hare hosted Making Christmas.  I wrote a tutorial for that event on how to make a pencil case featuring a decorative piece in the front.  I made this little pencil case then with Little Penguin Polaris for my micron pens.  I followed my own tutorial to make the new one and it hardly took any time to make it.

Interestingly enough, I made the Viking Penguin Olaf block when I shared the last set of index card drawings.  I often thought of posting them together in one post.  Before I show them though, I thought I’d share a list of all the mediums I used on this project.  I had no idea I used these many!

• Micron pens
• Micron Gelly Roll pens
• Uniball Signo pen – white
• Uniball Gel Impact pens – gold and silver
• Recollections Metallic pen – copper
• Pentel Touch pens – silver and gold
• Faber Castell Pitt artist pens
• Faber Castell Aquarell watercolour pencils
• Faber Castell Albrecht Dürer watercolour pencils
• Inktense pencils
• Prismacolor pencils
• Prismacolor markers
• Gesso
• Turpentine

I have never had any training in painting, I paint because it makes me happy.  This project definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone and helped me explore new venues.

1. Carnival  2.  Milky Way map  3.  Edwardian Mailbox for P. G. Wodehouse

4. Owl – playing in the rain 5. Taxi  6. Element Picker

7. Solitude in rain  8. Wind turbine sentinel  9.  Vintage Porsche

10. California poppy  11. Corn lilies  12.  Tardis

13. Grey dappled foal  14. Route 66 neon sign 15. National parks of America

16. Melrose Abbey 17.  Fairy Door  18.  Snow Globe

19.  Dryburgh Abbey  20.  Disco  21. Psychedelic gravitational waves

22. For Alan Turing 23. Devil’s Postpile 24. Dancing neurons

25. Peacock feather  26. Endeavour & transit of Venus  27. Solar prominence

28.  Ice cream  29. Shel Silverstein 30. Exploding clock

31. Blustery autumn day  32. Unplugged  33. Pre-dawn driving

34.  Self-portrait – walking into the unknown 35. Steampunk wings 36. Stargazing

37. My violins 38. Tell Them Stories 39. Solar eclipse and Shuttle Endeavour

40. Paper tunnel 41. Vineyard  42.  Svalbard

43.  Focusing through lens 44. Saturday night  45. Playing summer 78 by Yann Tiersen on piano

46. Love to walk  47. Dancing Aurora  48. Aston Martin

49. Snowdrop  50.  Star trails  51. Garden bench

52. Downpour  53. Mail  54. Affair of hearts

55. Western view of sunrise  56. Brunel’s SS Great Britain 57. Historic hot air balloon

58. Edinburgh flat  59. Explore other worlds  60. William Blake – Eternity in an hour

I hope you enjoyed them.  Many thanks to you for leaving encouraging comments, to Dixie from Arranged Words for inspiring me with her artwork to get back to painting, and to my husband for putting up with “I’ll be right there, just need to finish this one little bit” while he took care of a lot of things during those two months.

This year I am doing the daily photo project and sharing the photos on the monthly Wandering Camera linky party that I am also hosting here.

Wandering Camera

I suppose I like these immersing projects way too much!  Art is good for the soul, right?!

-Soma