In the Blink of an Eye! Show Your Face on Friday with Kim Dellow

Hello and Welcome to Magpiehaven! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and that 2016 will be a Happy, Healthy and Creative Year! I can hardly believe that January is here and it's once again time to show our faces over on Kim's fabulous link-up. I don't have a great deal to show this week, as it was difficult shoving aside all those mince pies and Christmas cake to squeeze a little space to create on the dining table over the Festive Season! However, I did make a little brooch for my friend Laural to give as a gift.

Her best friend is focusing on the word, 'Joy' this year. My little princess with the feather in her cap invites her through the tiny copper door, into to a year where true joy can be found in something as simple as a single rose - maybe the first one that appears with the spring!
One of my New Year's Resolutions is to step out of my comfort zone as much as I can creatively and to challenge myself in as many areas of life as possible. 
It's great that this month Kim is suggesting we focus (sorry!) on eyes and maybe challenge ourselves to create in a different style. For my first drawing of the New Year (almost) - the other is a secret, which I will reveal maybe some time later in the year - I was inspired by an eye I saw on Pinterest. I used this sketch as a basis for a study in pencil, fine liner and Inktense, which I hope to use on future projects. My eye is reflecting on a winter landscape with part of a tiny ruined abbey. It suggests to me the wonder of how Spring returns to the dark and barren places each year: wild flowers appear between the roots of the gnarled trees and fresh young leaves curl into life on the boughs we thought were dead. Meanwhile there is something beautiful in the silhouettes of bare branches and the rooks' wings against the winter sky.

Over the month, I plan to create a collection of eyes, which I hope to use with different papers and stamps on a new range of projects inspired by Milagros and Mexican folk art, which often feature eyes at their centre. I hope to link up more eyes and maybe even a project next week! Thank you so much for stopping by today. I do hope you'll have some time to explore different ways of drawing eyes and link them up to Kim's blog. There aren't lots of rules, it's such fun to join in and you can find out all about it here. A Happy and Creative 2016 everyone!