Drawing Little Star

Michelle Mach of Beading Daily asked me to write up instructions for this ornament, Little Star, for beading daily. She'll be posting it soon to the blog and as a free project.
In the project, I give permission to copy and use the pattern, but I thought some people might like to draw their own and might want to know how I did it.

The concept is very similar to drawing a heart that I posted about earlier this year.

Paper and pencils
I use archival quality paper because I have a lot on hand, and I like the way it stands up to all the abuse of poking it with needles, folding, stuffing it in my bead case, etc., when I bead, but any printer paper will work. I like to draw with high quality colored pencils like Prismacolor because they have more pigment and less wax than other brands, making it easier to draw--but that's just my preference--use what you have on hand.

Here are the colors I choose for the star, a drawing pencil, and an eraser on top of the paper.









I start by drawing an oval roughly the size of the ornament, then sketching out a star. I wanted my star to be a bit alive--like it has arms and legs and a head, and it is jumping around for joy.






I erased some lines and went over them again until I had a general shape that pleased me.








Then I darkened the lines with the pencil to create a nice outline.








With yellow, I started filling in the star using consistent hash lines and varying the strength of the mark (lighter near the center, darker near the outline).







I changed to a darker yellow and started working on the colors outside of the star.








I started layering orange and red.











Each time I changed colors, I overlap them--that creates layers of colors, adding depth and mixing the colors so that there are many more colors in the piece than the colors I originally chose for the ornament.








I worked on the center a little more--leaving an area in the center that is white.











By concentrating the intensity of value on the outline, I'm creating a sense of depth and form that will be important in the beaded piece. In addition to creating a contrast between light and dark, I'm also gradating from yellow to red using all the analogous colors (colors that are in the same hue family) in between.





Now my cartoon is ready to cut out and stitch to cloth for beading.


When you use colored pencils to draw the image, the color will transfer to your thread as you bead. It hasn't caused me any problems even when using transparent beads.

I'd love to see your stars--send me a jpeg at amyclarkemoore AT frii DOT com and let me know if it is okay to post it on my blog.