Quilled Nature Landscape Picture - Black Maned Lion of the Kalahari

Today's post is a quilled landscape picture of a Black Maned Lion, which though rare are found in the Kalahari Plains. I think he turned out rather handsome and I'm glad I have done justice to this beautiful beast who is a king among Kings.

Previously I had quilled a cartoon lion which I call A lion share of Love, but till now I have not dared to quill a lion, as  I wanted to do it justice when I really got down to it. However, I did quill a Tiger very early into my journey into quilling  which turned out pretty well considering the fact that I could hardly quill at that time and the basic shapes are all too loosely quilled in my opinion.

I have quilled him, my style which I think is quite unique so far, using various basic shapes that look like hair rather than coils.

Here is a closer look

Click to enlarge image

I used a picture of the lion to get the colors right and have combined colors to get a more natural look.

The grassy plain has been glued on top so that the lion looks like its standing behind at a distance and I have not put many leaves on the tree in order to get the viewer to focus on the lion rather than the background.

I would love to hear what you all think.

New Quilling Technique Tutorial - Mold Quilled Petal Lilly

As promised a tutorial on quilling 3D flowers using mold quilled petals. It is not as hard as it looks!!  All the flowers in Filigree Flowers on Trellis and Lilly White were made using this method.

 This method is just an extension of mold quilling which tutorial I have posted  here.

What You Will Need

A plastic or any non stick curved surface such as a spoon, a ball or a cylindrical object placed in a manner that it will not roll away. I use a plastic spoon or the rounded head of my massager!!

Method

Make 20 marquees for each petal using 2 or 2.5" 3mm strips. You will need 100 marquee for each flower with 5 petals.

Now you are going to make the petals on the mold or curved surface as shown above as follows:

R 1   3 marquee                R4  4
R2   4                                R5  3 
R3   5                                R6   1     where R is for row.

Glue each marquee onto the adjacent marquee and do not apply glue to the top or bottom surfaces. Start with 3 for the bottom row and then for the next row, glue the marquee by fitting it into the spaces first like building a wall and then outside making sure you apply glue, only to the portion you are gluing at that time ( i.e the sides of the  bottom half of each marquee) . Continue using the above grid.

Once completed you will get a petal as shown in the pic, molded to the curvature of the surface used as shown below. The steeper the curvature the more time you will have to spend ensuring it is stuck properly.

Make all the petals and allow them to dry well. Meanwhile, cut small circles of 1/2'' diameter. Then make 6 slits to about 2/3 the way to the center. This will give you 5 petals.

Now place the slit circles on rubberized foam or on the underside of your mouse pad ( semi soft surface) and with the rounded end of your quilling tool rub it repeatedly in a clockwise motion till the circle cups in . Then take each petal (you will have 5 if you made 6 slits) and rub the underside of the outer edge of each petal till they curl out like flowers as shown in the pic below. ( the paper curls in towards the surface you are rubbing). Each petal would have opened out if done correctly.

Now if you want your flower to be firm, glue the sides of the petals together up to half way up. Leaving the opened out section unglued gives you the option of shaping the flowers later.

Now glue each molded petal to the paper petals as shown above and allow it to dry. When gluing always allow the glue to become sticky before you bring any two surfaces together.

Once dried well you can shape the flower as desired using the paper center. If desired make stamens and glue it onto the paper center.

Mould Quilled 3D Flower Frame - Lilly White

A quilled frame of Lillies with mould quilled petals. The leaves are mould quilled too to get curvature. This was gifted to my best friend  who brought me some crafting tools which has made my life so much easier

The white and yellow bunches are beehive quilled and are similar to the flower bunches I used for
Flower Shower, except that they are glued on a single plane onto strips instead of stems.

I have used  marquees for both the flowers and the leaves unlike the beehive quilling I used for the moulded flowers in Flowers on a Trellis.

A simple method to prevent  the marquee from popping out to much is to hold both the pinched ends  and move the top to the left while you move the bottom to the right a few times. That way you can remove the elasticity of the paper and control your moulded shapes more.

Once the petals were done, making the flowers were pretty simple. I shall post a few pics on how the flowers were made in my next post which will be after I return from my holiday. Another tip to standardize the size and shape of the petal when quilling on moulds, is to keep a count of the number of rows you used for the first petal and the number of marquees used for each row. Generally if you increase each row by one marquee it will get wide smoothly and vise versa. 

For the leaves the length of the marquee and the angle at which you glue will determine how wide the leaf is. However you can use the same method as for the petal for leaves too.

I have used 2.5" strips for the petal marquees and 11" strips for the leaf marquees.

Looking forward to reading your comments but please bear with me for taking time to reciprocate as I will be out for about 10 days.

Quilled Nature Landscape Painting - Flower Fields

This time its a quilled painting of a nature landscape of a winding path through a field of flowers. You can see the distant trees and hills in the horizon.

Wowww, its 10 days since my last post!! I have had a long break from blogging by my standards!! Been really busy quilling though I have not blogged. This one too was done a long while back.

A picture that I had taken on one of my many tours caught my eye and I thought I would try quilling it. Well I was quite happy with how it turned out.

As you can see it is not layered. though I have used various techniques to depict the various elements.I have also used some metalic paper strips for the path and the far horizon. I have used crimped strips to give texture to the gray hills in the horizon.

It is not easy to explain what I have done, but the basis of this type of quilling is a combination of what I did in Cherry Blossoms and Quilled Tree.  The whole frame is glued directly to the backing like in graphic quilling.

The depth is achieved through the use of color tones and  each element or shape is used like a brush stroke to form the whole just as in a painting. The overall picture is seen when viewed from a few feet away just as in a painting. That is why I call it a quilled painting.

Looking forward to reading your comments.

Quilled 3D Flower Frame - Filigree Flowers on a Trellis

After a long break, quilled 3D flowers in a frame. I have been concentrating more on landscapes all this while, so I thought I'd make a quilled floral wall hanging with  moulded 3D filigree flowers.

 I have tried to achieve the lacey look like  I did for Christmas Poinsettias.  However this is more complicated as I have used petals that are quilled over a curved mould  without encircling it with a strip in order to achieve the lace like quality. The petals are made into curves shapes, just like in the bell  tutorial here.

 In this close up, you can see the petals are curved as they are made on a curved surface. I have used  slightly cupped pegs for the centers.

For this frame too, I have made the plant with stem, stalks and leaves and then mounted it on the backing as in the case of my Orange Blossoms and Sweet William frames. 

I generally mount the plant at different levels (heights ) to get a more intense 3D effect rather than only arrange the leaves and stems over or under the flowers. Though it is not so noticeable in this front perspective shot, if you observe the frame closely, you can see the shadow around some of the flowers and leaves because they are elevated.

I have already done a tutorial on affixing the flowers to their stems the easy way. I will do another tutorial on how to fix stems to the leaves as my next project, so keep tuned in to this blog.

As Manuela  ( manuk.ro)  says, the easiest way is to use a glue gun, and she does it oh!! so neatly, but people like me who fear hot glue guns can still use the good old PVA glue and glue them on quite firmly with the use of my tutorials if they wish.

As you can see, the leaves are made using 5 tear drops but I have used 2 different greens for effect.

Would love to have your feedback.