Historical

Pink 1860s Ball Gown with White Scroll Pattern

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Well, today’s dress wasn’t quite what I wanted. I was planning on trying to draw lace with the white gel pen, but I ended up doing it all in pencil instead, and then I picked up the wrong pencil while doing the bodice and colored for a while before I realized my mistake. What I have here is totally different from what I wanted, because after my mistake the only thing I could do was to make it as dark as possible and draw something distracting on top of it. I probably wouldn’t quite so annoyed about my bodice mistake if that skirt hadn’t taken so long!

Anyways, I just thought I hadn’t done a hoop skirt for a while, and it would offer a lot of opportunities to practice drawing lace with the gel pen, which I didn’t even do…

… I’m just going to post this and be done with it!

poll by twiigs.com

Colored Ruqun in Green, Blue and Yellow

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Ophelia won my last contest by guessing that I had 400 colored pencils, which was the closest guess to the actual number of 403. She picked the ruqun and said, “I loved the movie Mulan when i was little, so what about a Mulan inspired dress? Mulan wears a different style of ruqun in the movie, so it won’t be the same, but what about the same colors; light green for the top and dark, almost midnight blue for the skirt, maybe navy or red for the sash.”

I added some detail, because I just can’t help myself, and Ophelia, I hope you don’t mind the little addition of the dragon… my mom wanted a dragon on this one, and it is certainly very hard to say no to my mom! Anyways, I hope you like it.

I like doing contests, because it’s fun to color according to someone else’s wishes every so often… I have to think of other kinds of contests to run. I was thinking I would ask “How many colored pencils did I just order?” (because I’m down to my last colorless blender… time for an infusion) but now I am bored of colored pencil counting. Anyone have any suggestions for me?

poll by twiigs.com

Black and White Ruqun

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Despite the fact that I think they’re gorgeous, I know hardly anything about traditional Chinese clothes, so I was glad when I was finally able to put a name to this kind of outfit — a ruqun! I’ve seen it before many times, but never knew what it was called. I don’t think I got the sleeves quite right, but it is a first attempt…

No one has the answer to my question yet. I guess the good part is, the eventual winner now has one more black and white outfit to choose from…

Question: How many Prismacolor pencils do I own as of May 18th?
This includes the ones that I use, all the stubby little pencils that are too short for my current sharpener but I just can’t toss, all the ones I have in reserve and my set of Verithin pencils I hardly ever use.

Just to restate the rules:
1) It’s a new year, so even if you’ve already won one, feel free to guess again.
2) One guess per person per post.
3) If no one gets the exact number by noon EST, May 25th, I’ll pick the closest guess.

Also, I’m putting up a new poll, just to satisfy my own curiosity…

poll by twiigs.com

White and Pink 1930s Style Evening Gown with Rhododendrons

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Got started a little late today, so this dress isn’t my favorite, but it’s reasonably cute, I think. It’s supposed to be in the style of 1930s evening gowns, although it’s not based on any one dress. (So as always with the historical costumes that I pretty much make up, take the style, color, etc. with a grain of salt.) The rhododendrons come from some pictures my dad posted on Facebook of wild rhododendrons blooming around my family’s property on Hood Canal. Whenever I go to visit I always seem to miss seeing them bloom, so it’s nice to have pictures at least!

Every day that goes by makes me feel crueler and crueler. Someone, guess the answer soon! A couple people have come really close, but the exact number is still a mystery. But at least you know it’s under 1000 and — OK, above 200. I know, that’s not really much help…

Question: How many Prismacolor pencils do I own as of May 18th?
This includes the ones that I use, all the stubby little pencils that are too short for my current sharpener but I just can’t toss, all the ones I have in reserve and my set of Verithin pencils I hardly ever use.

Just to restate the rules:
1) It’s a new year, so even if you’ve already won one, feel free to guess again.
2) One guess per person per post.
3) If no one gets the exact number by noon EST, May 25th, I’ll pick the closest guess.