Feejee Mermaid and Stuff

One of the few problems with how much time my jewelry business takes up out of my day is that I don't have as much time to create full sculptures as I would like. So when someone commissions me to make a sculpture for them it's great, an excuse to spend time on a big project instead of the usual hour or so a day I spend on personal projects (which is why those always take months to finish).

My latest commission was a Feejee Mermaid. The original feejee mermaids were taxidermy fakes in sideshow carnivals (P.T. Barnum supposedly had the original but it was lost when his museum burned down), they were made with paper mache, the upper body of a jevenile monkey, and the body of a fish. I based mine on a dogfish and (loosely) a juvenile rhesus monkey. I sculpted the mermaid from polymer clay. To make it a bit more fun and interesting I added spines and rabbit fur to the head and back. After painting the whole thing was put in a large glass jar and submerged in the same resin I use for my Perma-Pets.

Her happy owner has named her Salma. If you're interested in requesting a custom sculpture or any other custom work drop me an email or contact me through my Etsy shop.

I've also been working for the past 6 months or so on a piece I'm tentatively calling the Coral Siren. If you want to see more of my works in progress follow my WIP blog on Tumblr it's where I post quick snapshots of what I'm working on when I don't want to write a full blog post.

In somewhat unrelated news I'm trying to pick up extra cash since I need to move when my lease is up in May. I like the place I'm living but I can't afford it on my own and while my ex-boyfriend and I are still good friends it's a little awkward living together. So to that end I've joined Fiverr which is a site that lets you set up little mini jobs that you can do. So if you are looking for someone to make an Etsy banner, proofread your listings, design a business card, or edit your product photos for you you can hire me to do it.

Call Girl of Cthulhu

I was asked to participate in a pretty cool project. The creators of a film project titled "Call Girl of Cthulhu" approached me to donate one of my Cthulhu Figures to be given away during the Kickstarter campaign to raise money to make the film. I don't usually donate my work except for the occasional local charity but it's a Cthulhu movie so it's a worthy cause in my opinion. Here's how they describe the movie on Kickstarter:

CALL GIRL OF CTHULHU

She's turning wet dreams… into NIGHTMARES.

A virginal artist falls in love with a call girl who turns out to be the chosen bride of the alien god Cthulhu. To save her, he must stop an ancient cult from summoning their God and destroying mankind.   

Inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, "Call Girl of Cthulhu" is the result of months of research, aiming to create a gory, fun homage to the master of horror.  

The entire screenplay is one giant Easter Egg for Lovecraft fans. 

With endless slimy monsters, an ancient cult, and a healthy dose of T & A (tentacles and ass), we're going to need our biggest budget yet. 

If our Kickstarter campaign is successful, "Call Girl of Cthulhu" will be the sixth feature film from our Baltimore based production company, Midnight Crew Studios.  

I decided to use this project as a way to see if I could improve my Cthulhu Figures a bit. First thought was to use some of the black swarovski crystal rhinestones I have for eyes and then I thought a base would be a great idea (one I've had before and just never did). I'm really happy with the results and I do plan to make more with bases but not the rhinestone eyes (like the effect but not enough to deal with the headaches of setting them evenly.

The giveaways for the Kickstarter project will be starting around August 28, and 35 Etsy artists have donated items to giveaway to backers of the project. You can follow Call Girl of Cthulhu on Twitter and on Facebook to find out more.

Clay Withdrawal

When I started my self-imposed vacation from all things clay I didn't realize I would go through sculpting withdrawal. I keep looking longingly at my supply of polymer clay. I know I need this break and time to focus on drawing an painting so I'm going to stick with it for the remaining 3 weeks. I am allowing myself one concession: I can work on sculpture and jewelry concepts as long as I'm only sketching ideas and not actually working with clay.

 In related news I started up a new blog on Tumblr that is only for my WIPs so I have a central place for posting them. Go check it out. I'll be posting progress shots of my work, 2d for now and sculpture and jewelry once the clay vacation is over along with notes on the process and answering questions if I get any.

I've finished a couple paintings and some more Bargue plates over the last week. The paintings are up in my Etsy shop.

Life at a Thermal Vent - 4"x4" acrylic painting on canvas board.

Orange Cuttlefish - 7"x5" watercolor

Bargue Plates 5-8

Polymer Clay Vacation

I love what I do, I have the best job in the world. So I'm being proactive and taking a vacation from sculpting anything for at least a month. I have a single custom order to finish in the next few days and then I'm putting away the clay and focusing on drawing, painting, and art education for a full month. Once the month is over I'm going to work on figural non-cephalopod sculpture for another month.

Right now I have my Etsy shop fully stocked (in fact I still have about 50 pieces done that I need to list in the next week or so) so I don't need to make anything right now. A 2 month jewelry making vacation will help me be all refreshed and ready to focus on the holiday season. I've already started this by playing with my new heavy body acrylic paints and making this quick little 7"x5" painting on canvas board of a jellyfish swarm and it's already up on Etsy in the brand new Paintings and Prints section.

My current project of the last few days is to work on copying Bargue plates which is a traditional drawing exercise. If you want to learn more about Bargue plates I suggest reading this great thread on ConceptArt. I'm not doing these with quite as precise a method as described because part of what I am doing is an exercise in learning to judge relative distances without laying any measurement devise down directly on the plate I'm copying from. If you are interested in downloading the plates to work from go here.

Busy, busy, busy

I've been busily creating jewelry and stuff for the shop the last week. I received about 14 lbs worth of polymer clay so I'm now well stocked up for at least the next 6 months.

Look at all these unopened
packages of clay!

Along with restocking my supply of all the colors I regularly use I also picked up a few new colors to play with. One of these is Premo Candy Pink which is a really bright almost neon pink. I mixed it with some other colors to tone it down a bit but it's still really vibrant, I'm not sure what this new color will be called yet. It will also replace the pink I use for pieces like the Octopus Love necklace after the current stock sells out.

I've also shot a quick little behind the scenes video showing the cores I use inside my jewelry and explaining why they are so important to my designs.

New Sculpture Project Process

So I'm going to be making some new steampunk cephalopod sculptures. I like the commissioned project so much that I want to take it a step further not that I don't have a budget constraint on creating them. I also though it would be cool to document on video some of my creative process so I've going to be doing a little video series while I create them.

Part 1: I describe the project and show the previous sculptures along with some gears and stuff.


Part 1.5: An unplanned video but I got some great supplies that I can't wait to use for this project.

Steampunk Sculpture

I recently finished a set of 3 custom sculptures,, an octopus, nautilus, and cuttlefish. Bodies are sculpted in polymer clay, clockwork is real watch and clock pieces sealed under clear resin. Bases are stained wood with a brass rod support.

Flamboyant Cuttlefish Perma-Pet

Finished this custom Perma-Pet last week and it's now on it's way to it's new home.

Etsy News and Specimen Jars

I've now set up my Etsy shop for shipping to all of Europe as well as the US, Canada, and Australia. Etsy just introduced this wonderful new shipping region feature that makes it easy to set shipping to large regions of countries. This makes it easier for those of us who would like to offer more international options.

I've also been making some more specimen jar necklaces. Here's a couple more, brain and heart.

New Books Again

I love when boxes from Amazon arrive. This month I used my affiliate earnings to buy 3 books I've had my eye on for a while, Faux Surfaces in Polymer Clay, DIY: Design it Yourself, and Craft Inc.

I'm excited about doing some cool faux surface cuttlefish and stuff. The other two are more to help me on the business side of things and I'll be reviewing them on the Handmade Business Blog in the next few weeks.

New Books

I love my Amazon Associates account, once a month they pay me in gift certificates so I can indulge my book addiction (if someone clicks an amazon link from this blog or my Squidoo lenses and buys something I get a percentage). Last few months I've been getting astronomy related stuff but this month I got some clay related books.

I bought a metal clay kit back in February but haven't really wrapped my head around it yet, much different feel from polymer clay and it dried very rapidly (partly the dry winter air, I hope it won't be so bad this summer). The book has already answered some questions I had and it came with a free DVD that I need to watch soon.

The second is a book on polymer clay that I've been looking at for a while. It's all about different surface effects you can get with polymer clay. I'm always looking for new ways to finish my jewelry to give it different looks.

Lots of new supplies

So I got a big box of new clay today. Some fun new colors of premo and also some of the new Studio by Sculpey clay. It's a nice clay, easy to condition but way too soft for me. I need a firmer clay even Premo is too soft for me sometimes when sculpting. So definitely going to leach it.

What about the finished clay? Well it lives up to it's hype about having a suede-like finish, very soft and pretty. Definitely gives a different look to this cuttlefish.

Facebook and Octopus

Fun bit of octopus news, an octopus in California caused a flood. The aquarium also has a flickr set of the event.

This of course leads to new octopus jewelry. I now have a good bit of the new line up on my Etsy Shop.

I recently got a big new order of supplies so lots of new jewelry is in the works including some cephalopods in pure silver! Trying to expand Noadi's Art into new areas and this higher end line of jewelry is the first step.

Last night I set up a facebook page for Noadi's Art so you can become a fan if you'd like.

New Design and a Bad Day

Yesterday was pretty rough for me. I have a lot of pets and I'm very attached to all of them. Yesterday my dad found one of our goats Tansy shortly after she died, when I got out to the barn she was still warm. It was a total shock, she was acting fine in the morning. She ate normally, wanted to be petted, begged for a fruit treat, just a regular morning. She was an older goat, eight years old, from the position she was in it looks like she was probably asleep and didn't suffer which I'm glad about.

Here's a photo of Tansy playing with Blossom (she's the white and tan one).

I did finish a new necklace design in the same style as my cuttlefish but this one is an octopus. I really like how it turned out. Orange Octopus Necklace

Clay Experiment and New Biz Cards

I had fun last night working with a new clay mix. I really love how it turned out. The mix is 1/4 block promo frost translucent clay, pinch of purple premo, healthy scoop of sparkle copper pearl ex (the larger sparkley pieces), and small amounts of misty lavender and true blue pearl ex.

I also just got some great brand new business cards that I ordered from Zazzle. I'm so happy with how they turned out. the quality of the printing is very nice.


I'm writing a review of Zazzle for the Handmade Business Blog tomorrow so keep an eye out for it.

Branching off into hair jewelry

I don't know how obvious it is from my profile photo here on the blog but I have very long hair, down past my waist, and I love getting new barrettes and hair sticks to hold it up. So why not make some? Well that's what I've done.

First up here's some cuttlefish hair sticks, click the link under the pics to go to the shop page they're on.

Night Sky Cuttlefish Hairsticks with Moonstone

Green Cuttlefish Hairsticks with Aventurine and Snowflake Obsidian

Next up is an experiment, I'm not sure if I'm going to continue with this series yet. It's a nudibranch (sea slug) barrette.

Blue and Yellow Nudibranch Barrette

Cuttlefish Experimentation

So the election and post-election celebration so back to your regularly scheduled Noadi's Art programming.

I recently finished a couple new cuttlefish that were experiments in new techniques.

First is this Violet Cuttlefish. I've done a cuttlefish in this color scheme before but the change in this one is that instead of painting the cuttlefish I used a purple blend of premo and super sculpey with just a little bit of painting for accents. The varnish has misty lavender pearl ex mixed in.


The slightly bigger experiment in colored clay is this Ancient Bronze Cuttlefish. I blended up some green and browns in premo and super sculpey and mashed them all together but didn't blend the colors much to give it a mottled look. Then I rubbed pearl ex powders on the raw clay in super bronze, aztec gold, and spring green, trying to keep the green on green spots and the metallic on brown spots then popped it in the oven. A coat of varnish makes all my cuttlefish shiny and also seals in the powder and paint.



I also rethought my cuttlefish bracelets and have two nice looking ones now that I'm happy with.

Commissioned Sculpture Update

This commission has been giving me headaches lately. I don't know why such a simple pose is giving me so much trouble but it is and I feel guilty that I'm not further along than I am.

New Cuttlefish Complete

So here are the newest cuttlefish. As you can see the translucent ones turned out quite well. I also made a much darker cuttlefish as well. This was also an experiment with colored clay, this time pure black clay colored with just a little red paint and Pearl Ex powders in Super Russet and Blue Russet.

Translucency Test

Now that I have some test cuttlefish with this new clay blend I needed to test just how translucent it really is. I'm very pleased with the results. Here's a photo of the cuttlefish pendant held up to a candle.

I eyeball amounts when mixing clay so this isn't exact but the mix is basically 1/4 of a 2oz package of premo frost, a pea size ball of white premo, a smidgen of blue premo (maybe 1/6 of the size of the ball of white). You want to add just enough white and blue to make the premo frost look whiter, it's normal color is a little beige or cream colored but much less so than normal translucent premo.

Next up is painting these cuttlefish. I need to be very careful to only slightly tint them with paint and pearlex, I don't want to hide the translucency at all. I'll probably wait until after my new beads arrive to start painting because I want to be able to compliment the bead colors nicely.