Rolling along

Hooray, an update in less than a week. Lots of stuff going on so here's an update.

Working on the art show preparation, I bought some matboard to get all my drawings displayed nicely. I had planned on buying precut mats but the local store doesn't sell them but they do sell their matboard remnants (all museum matboard too) in bags for $10, and there were a lot of remnants in the bag I bought, 75 to be exact and I swear the bag weighed about 20lbs so it was a very good deal. They're mainly the windows that were cut out of the mats when the store does framing. They are a bunch of sizes, and none are really huge but since my work is all on the smaller side it's perfect for me. Now I just need a mat cutter this weekend, I'm planning to get a cheap little Xacto board cutter which can do 45º bevels but from what I've heard it does take extra patience, I'm not going to be doing enough matting to justify buying a good mat cutter right now. If I ever start producing drawings faster or start selling them quickly then I'll invest in one.

I have 2 sculptures I'm showing which haven't been completely painted yet that I'm working on. My mermaid bust recieved some damage during my unsuccessful attempt to mold her so I had to repair her and she's awaiting some touchup painting. Probably a good thing I wasn't planning to sell her anyway since now I can't with the damage even patched well.

Add to the list trying to figure out how to price the pieces I do plan to have for sale, printing up information on my art, trying to write an artist statement and I'm just a little stressed. It's probably just me doing it to myself since it's supposed to be a more casual layed back show but I'm too much of a perfectionist for that I guess.

In non-art show related stuff, my mom wanted photos of her garden (she's addicted to gardening) so I spent a couple hours with my digital camera Tuesday taking photos, here are my 3 favorites scaled down so they'd fit here.

Big update about what I've been up to.

I know I'm the world's worst blog writer when it comes to updating often enough. I keep saying I'll change but so far it hasn't happened.

So lots of things have been going on for me in the past few months. The big one from a personal standpoint is that my mom was diagnosed with cancer, she's finished her treatment now and she's feeling better every day, the outlook for her is excellent according to her doctors. So that has been a big stress for me recently and is part of my lack of updates to both my blog and my website which is why I never added work from February until this month.

On a more professional and happy note, there has been a lot going on for me and my art. First of all I took life drawing class and the results you can view here, it was a great experience if you are an artist and have never taken life drawing I really recommend it.

Second, I've gotten a summer job at a local studio. I'll be cutting mats, framing, and keeping track of print sales. It's only part time but the experience I'll get seeing how professional artists run a business will be very valuable for me I think.

Finally third and biggest in my mind, I'm going to be doing my very first art show on July 1st. I'm really excited about the chance to sell some of my work, I'll have both drawings and sculpture there. If you are in the Bethel, Maine area that day please stop by the "Shy, Novice, and Closeted Art Show", it's the same day as an art show for more established artists as well so you'll have plenty to see.

Mold Making First Attempt - part I

So I've started my first foray into molding and casting. It's been interesting so far. No major disasters but a couple minor ones.

Here's the victim.



First here's a cardboard prop to keep the bust I'm molding in the right position. This led to minor disaster number one, I managed to both cut myself with my knife and burn my fingers with the hot glue gun. The prop worked well though.



The next couple steps I forgot to take pictures of, I built a layer of Klean Klay (sulfur free modeling clay) over one half of the bust and then layered plaster of paris on top. Once dry I flipped it over and did the same on the other side, this gave me a nice plaster mother mold that will be filled with the mold rubber. Here's where minor disaster number two and three come along. On one side of my mother mold layer of plaster for some reason didn't quite adhere to the first layer and flaked off so I wasted quite a bit of plaster and time. Then I managed to spill plaster all over my floor which I'm still working on cleanign up. A minor annoyance was finding out after I used vaseline as a release agent for the plaster that I could have used liquid soap instrad which would have been far far easier to clean off.

After all the plaster was dried I had to open up the mother mold, that went well even with the vaseline making a mess all over my hands. I removed the klean klay from one half of the mother mold, and on the other side you can see the clay bed that will be a barrier to the rubber when I pour it. I had to position the clay bed so that when I open the rubber mold that it won't catch uder her ears which was the only majot undercut on this bust.



Next step will be to pour the first half of the rubber mold, that I will probably do tonight so it can cure overnight.

Impatience

I've come to the conclusion that being able to track a package being sent to you online makes waiting for it even worse.

I ordered some sculpting and casting supplies and they should be arriving soon. I'm planning to document my first casting attempt here, I'm hoping it goes well rather than embarassing.

I've continued brainstorming sculpture ideas, a little more seriously than last time.
- The Dord Fian, mythical celtic horn that calls the fianna (army of heros led by Finn Mac Cumhail)
- Boudicca - I love history and Boudicca was a very heroic and tragic woman who defied the roman empire. She supposedly had hair down past her knees, sculpting hair liek that would be a wonderful challenge.

What a sculptor does when she's bored.

So I was on IRC(#pixelation on irc.sorcery.net) last night a bit bored so I did some brainstorming for sculpture ideas. The guys on the channel found them funny so I thought I'd share here.

1) Squirrel holding a ring "my precious".
2) Kitten in the holy grail.
3) Bonsai kitten assembled kind of like those ships in bottles.
4) Hatching baby gryphon based on baby cockatiels (they are ugly beyond words).
5) Christmas Platypus. Okay, this was an idea I had a while back but I still like it.

I have no idea if I'll ever sculpt any of these but it was fun coming up with them.

Sculpting

I suppose I really am not that great a blog writer, I don't update anywhere near as often as I should but I'm going to start trying to update a little more often.

So I've been seriously sculpting lately, I really do seem to have found the medium I work best in. I still draw and paint but I'm definitely not as good at that, my theory is that 3 dimensions is easier for me to work in than 2. With a drawing I can't rotate it to see it from a new angle. You can check out my Sculpture Gallery to see all my finished sculptures.

Mostly I've been working with a mixture of Super Sculpey and white and black Premo Sculpey to get a nice nuetral grey color. Plain super sculpey is a translucent beige pink, the translucency makes fine detail difficult to see sometimes.

This is my most recent work in progress sculpture a wood nymph, she still has a ways to go, the hands need work, the feet don't have toes yet, and a few other things still are unfinished.

As sort of an offshoot of my sculpting I plan to try casting copies of my sculptures in resin. I'm still waiting on my materials to be delivered but as soo as they are this will be the first piece I attempt to cast.

My hope is to sell some of them, whether or not that works I'll have to wait and see but I hope it works.

Katrina

I'm sure by now everyone has seen the damage caused by Katrina. I want to add my voice to the many advocating donating to charity. Donate to the Red Cross or other reputable charites and please be careful of scams. I've already recieved a few spam emails that say they are about the disaster that I'm pretty sure are viruses or phishing scams.

I also want to encourage anyone reading this in the United states to contact your senators or representatives and urge them to overhaul FEMA. The delay in getting those desperate people food, water, and medicine verges on criminal in my opinion. FEMA and the Homeland Security department must be more prepared for emergencies like this. Natural disasters occur all over the country and are always a matter of when, never if, we should be more prepared whether it's hurricanes, earthquakes, blizzards or anything else mother nature throws at us. I remember the ice storm that hit the Northeast in 1998 and I thought that was bad being without power or heat for 2 weeks in the winter but at least I had food water and shelter, many of the victims of Katrina don't have that. They deserve better, all human beings deserve better.

Simulated Nature

I love animals, I have practically a miniature zoo with dogs, cats, goats, rabbits, chickens, a gecko, and recently fish. It's the fish I want to talk about. Now with most of my pets I try very hard to prevent them from having babies. My dogs are spayed and nuetered, my male cat is nuetered and none of them including the females ever go outdoors, I only have female goats and only one gecko. The fish and the chickens are the only ones that I want to have young.

So far while my hens lay eggs and I'm sure the roosters are doing their part I have no chicks because I don't own an incubator and evidently instict has yet to kick in with my hens because they aren't setting on the eggs at all. My only success showed up today, right now there are a number of tiny baby guppies in my aquarium and looking at the mother guppy more on the way.

I was really worried about my guppies, of the 8 guppies my brother bought me all but the mother guppy has since died. Most likely because they are feeder guppies that are meant to be food for other fish not pets so I don't trust the conditions of the tank they were kept in in the pet store since most of them died within a day in my tank while of the other fish I bought only one of my tetras has died and that one I know died after fighting with the other tetra and not from anything wrong with my tank. The tetra and the skirt are actually thriving, both have gotten bigger the skirt in particular has trippled in size in the two weeks since I got him/her.

Aquariums are much different than how most pets are kept. Dogs and cats don't live in anywhere near their natural environment (dogs are decended from wolves and cats from small african and probably also european wildcats). Aquariums however are meant to somewhat mimic nature, you put in rocks, shells, and either real or artificial plants (I picked real and they are so far still quite small), a filter so both keep it clean and give it some current. While not quite natural it's the closest most people can get to seeing the way fish act short of going diving so you can really watch the life cycle of fish in an aquarium. In the two short weeks I've had my fish I've seen the whole range, death, feeding, fighting, mating, and now birth. As I learned to my surprise guppies don't lay eggs, it's live birth! I was really surprised by that. Needless to say my aquarium is here to stay and I'm off to go take photos. Expect to see some photos once I get the film developed.

Two Noadis

Creating a fantasy world is a learning experience and one thing I've learned is that you can't hold on to what doesn't work. The problem with Shaman is that what is currently in the game is diverging from the fantasy world more and more. At this point going back and changing major parts of the design document for the game isn't practical but Noadi is no longer the same in both the written fantasy world and the world of the RPG.

In the RPG Noadi has lavender hair and a falcon companion. However while both of those things work beautifully in the game they don't work in written fiction. Lavender hair while it looks cool as artwork is just silly to explain in a story. I have absolutely no experience with birds of prey and that's okay in the RPG where plausible raptor behavior does matter too much but it makes it impossible for me to believably write about as a major character. As a result Noadi is almost like two characters now. I'm not sure how this change will work so it should be interesting.

Edit: I almost forgot, I'm 23 today. Happy Birthday to me.

Budding Entrepreneur?

Well maybe.

Starting as soon as possible I'll be selling some of my sculpted pendants and beaded jewelry at a local florist and landscaping shop. Now I know that sounds a bit odd but I'm crossing my fingers that it will work, I really could use a little extra money. Now I don't intend to make a huge profit, just enough to cover my art supplies which are pricey and if I can make at least some of what I make pay for itself it will be worth it.

This it a terrible web cam photo of one of my pendants. If any of you wonder why I'm not attempting to sell on Ebay the quality of my camera should explain it.



Wish me luck!