Saturday, March 29, 2008

Batch of Cuttlefish

I finally feel like I'm getting back to normal. I finished up 4 sets of cuttlefish jewelry last night. I'm not done though, I'm working on a few more pendants and pairs of earrings that will be sold separately rather than as sets.

These are so fun to make. You can check out all my Cuttlefish Jewelry here.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Shop Blossom

Okay, I know I said I'd have non-web and marketing stuff soon and I will. I just finished sculpting a bunch of cuttlefish earrings and pendants (they are just awaiting paint right now). However I have to share my newest web project.

Shop Blossom is a social network I just launched last night, it's a place for any online small business including of course artists who sell their work online to join (even if you aren't an online business you can join if you are interested in the subject). You can create a profile page, network, add photos and videos, promote your business, and discuss how to make your business better in the forums and groups.

This is a new adventure for me, I've moderated forums before but never a social network. I will be moderating it too to make sure no one is spamming, flaming, or posting inappropriate or adult content. A lot of parents work from home, I want them to be comfortable viewing it while their kids are in the room.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Trying to Get Back into Things

I've been fighting off the flu for a few weeks now which has made working with clay hard for me (thus all the recent posts about web stuff). Something about being congested messes with my ability to focus my eyes, things just seem to swim around.

I'm feeling almost back to normal so I'm gearing up to get working with clay again and I have lots of ideas. Top of the list is of course to finish up Selkie Emerging, and I have a fun idea of a fire dancer. I'll try to get a mockup sketch done sometime this week.

Trying Out Quassia

I just heard about an interesting new site tonight called Quassia so I'm giving it a try. Here's the basic run down:
  • You get one backlink for every piece of intel you add. Every intel will carry a direct backlink to one of your sites. So the more intel you add, the more backlinks you get.
  • When you add intel, you also get credit, in the form of Quassia dollars. Your net worth in Quassia dollars determines how well your websites rank in our directory.
  • When your intel is displayed, you get 100% of the advertising revenue generated by that page. That revenue is sent directly to your Google Adsense account.
Seems like a similar concept to Squidoo except your publishing individual little articles rather than putting together a whole page.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

How to Cure Polymer Clay

I just finished creating a Squidoo lens that gives an overview of different techniques for curing polymer clay. Give it a look, you might pick up a few tips.
Techniques for Curing Polymer Clay

I also wrote up a little lens on using the rss feeds eCrater generates for stores.
Using eCrater RSS Feeds

Saturday, March 15, 2008

eCrater Tutorial

I just finished writing up a tutorial on how to set up a store on eCrater. It runs through all the basic steps to creating your storefront.

How to Start Selling on eCrater

Saturday, March 08, 2008

Trilobite Video

Hey, look at that two posts in one day. I'm bored out of my mind because I'm sick with the flu and when I'm sick I can't concentrate (or stay awake) long enough to work with clay. So instead I played with slide show software today and put together a little video of my trilobite jewelry.

Sculpting the Aging Process with Philippe Faraut

I'm a huge fan of Philippe Faraut's sculpture and anytime he puts a new video up on YouTube (which is sadly not often enough) I get really excited. This video is an amazing progression aging a teenage face into that of an old man.

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

I Need Your Feedback

I've had the Noadi's Art Shop up for a few weeks now and so far it's looking pretty good, I'm getting a decent amount of traffic and interest. What I need from my wonderful readers is some feedback on what they would like to see in my store. So the comments are open, let me have it.

Monday, March 03, 2008

Woohoo! New Domain

So with all the problems with the cywh.com domain my host Cy decided that the best solution was to register http://noadi.net for me. I now absolutely love him.

Right now I'm going through the process of changing all the links to my site on forums and other sites. If you currently link to http://noadi.cywh.com please change it to http://noadi.net. All the page filenames are the same so if you've linked to my Eye Size Chart it will now just be changed to http://noadi.net/EyeSizes.html.

Odds and Ends

Few interesting tidbits for you today.

First of all the brand new Maine Arts Commission Blog. It's focussed on the arts in Maine but is a good read for any artist.

Second off a great armature tutorial courtesy of Jeff at iSculpt.

Last but not least I've added some handmade sculpting tools to my shop. I make most of my sculpting tools myself and through trial and error have come up with some that I really love. I'm now making these for anyone who would like to buy them.

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Giant Sculpture in my Hometown

Nope, this one isn't mine. In 1999 Bethel, Maine, built the world's tallest snow man at just over 118 feet. Now we've built the world's tallest snow woman at 122 feet 1 inch. Here's some photos I took.

The arms are pine trees, her eyelashes are skis, the buttons and eyes are skidder tires (for those not in a forested area skidders are heavy machinery for pulling trees out of the woods), the mouth are car tires painted red. She's been named after Maine's appropriately named senator Olympia Snowe (you just can't make up something that perfect).

Click images to enlarge.