Using Ice Resin

A couple months ago I switched from using Diamond Glaze in my steampunk jewelry to using Ice Resin. I really love this stuff, it comes out crystal clear and very hard.

So I've put together a tutorial Using Ice Resin to Create Jewelry on Squidoo including a couple videos I shot.

Packaging Video

Happy Halloween!

I put together a little video on how I package my jewelry when I ship them out. Hope it gives you some ideas and make sure to check out the Squidoo lens I have on the topic: Make your Handmade Products Stand Out! Using Creative Packaging

Got a New Commission

So I received a sculpture commission this week from the same client who commissioned the Lionfish Mermaid. I want to do a full figure sculpt for him, it'll probably be about 6-8 inches high. Only problem is I have no idea what I'm going to sculpt right now. He doesn't want it until around Halloween so I have plenty of time (he lives in New Orleans and wants it shipped after hurricane season which is completely understandable). I've got a few ideas floating around in my head but nothing that has solidified yet into something I want to sculpt.

I have to say I've had such an amazing couple of weeks that I haven't really come down off it yet. A free plushy, art shows, an award, sales, and a commission. Also apparently there's a surprise in the mail for me from bdkz for being a giant squid on Squidoo.

Writing About My Business

Not my personal business of course, I mean Noadi's Art and even more specifically how I do things. It's been a slow evolution for me to become really serious about my artwork as a business. First I just though if I get better at sculpting I'll make money, well that's not really how it works. There's so much more that goes into this that I didn't even imagine when I started a few years ago.

Marketing and branding my business were things I never even considered. I started this blog just as an easier way to keep people updated on what I'm doing than updating my main website all the time. Now I understand that blogging can be a big part of letting people know who I am and promoting my artwork.

It's getting into that time of year when art festivals start cropping up locally and I have to decide which ones to participate in and do a lot of preparation for it all. So all of these things have come together in a series of Squidoo lenses that I've been working on. Partly to help other people and partly as a reminder to myself of what I need to be doing. I hope you check them out and I really hope you learn a couple things.

Make you Handmade Products Stand Out!
Preparing for an Art or Craft Festival
Branding you Handmade Products

I will be participating in a few art festivals, still working out details on which ones but I'll let you know when I know.

I've been a Busy Squid

I have an ever growing number of Squidoo sculpting tutorial lenses. Here's the current list, I hope you find them useful.

Polymer Clay Sculpting Tips and Techniques
Techniques for Curing Polymer Clay
Painting Polymer Clay Sculpture
Building Armatures for Polymer Clay Sculpture
Using Liquid Polymer Clay
Polymer Clay Sculpting Tools

And here are some miscellaneous lenses built to be useful for artists.

Taking Successful Photos of your Artwork
Resources for Figure Artists
Resources for Animal Artists

I've also been named a Squidoo Giant Squid which has really motivated me to want to create even more resources for sculptors and artists. So keep a look out here or on Squidoo for them.

New Non-Art Blog

This is the last time you'll see anything posted here not directly related to Noadi's Art. I've started a new blog called Sheryl's Scribblings for all the articles, Squidoo lenses, websites, etc. that I do that aren't related to art or art business in any way. I do hope you'll check it out.

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.

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

Great Sculpting Site

Jeff Lamarche is a pretty cool guy, he posts on some of the same forums that I do and he has a really cool new blog. Go check out iSculpt he's been doing an incredible job compiling lots of useful information and links on sculpting.

In the same vein I've put together another resource lens on Squidoo, this time a big list of links for Figure Artists, anatomy, pose photos, facial reference, and other stuff. Resources for Figure Artists

Playing with Squidoo

I discovered Squidoo a few months ago and I figured it would be a nice option to help drive a little more traffic to my website and this blog and it has.

However when I signed up and created my first lens I didn't really pay attention to the fact that you get paid based on the ads on your lens. Imagine my surprise when suddenly I log on one day and find out I had earned about a dollar. Now this isn't much I admit but if you think about it over time and if you have multiple lenses that money can add up. So I've started creating more lenses. Now being the type of person I am, I couldn't create anything spammy so aside from lenses displaying my artwork I've used it to create lenses that are sort of mini-tutorials with links to further help. I also used on one of them Squidoo's Amazon module to focus on books and DVDs on sculpting and found out that if someone buys from amazon going through your lens that you get a referral fee too. I'm a nearly starving artist, this is just a lot of fun to me.

So here are my lenses so far:

Polymer Clay Sculpting Tips and Techniques
Displaying your Artwork on YouTube
Photographing your Artwork
Fantasy Sculpture - Noadi's Art
Noadi's Art Fantasy Jewelry Designs
I Love Cephalopods

So if you need a little traffic boost to your website or blog you should definitely consider setting up a lens or two on Squidoo to help you out a little bit and maybe make a few bucks in the process.