Archive for the ‘My Art/Design/Business’ Category

Beaver Skull. Here we go (again.)

Tuesday, January 17th, 2023

Back in 2021 I started decorating a beaver skull. I painted it dark blue, covered it with dark blue felt (in case I wanted to impale some pins in it), and started making beaded components. Refer to this post for my first attempt(s). I was heartily displeased by how clompy the glue looked so I was like “Enough trying to salvage. We’re ripping it all off and starting over in 2023.” And that’s what I did.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: What the hell is with these colors??? The colors looked washed out as hell here. These are the colors in real life.

You seein’ those? You see this? This has all those colors. Where are they??

When I’m done I’ll take pictures outside in the sunlight, maybe that will help. Something I did that really helped was pull the lower jaw off of the primary part of the skull. It was hot-glued on by the teeth so it wasn’t that hard to remove. I must have shook one of the bottom teeth loose because it slid out and OMG do you know how much of the beaver skull is tooth? Whatever you’re thinking, it’s more than that.

It’s all tooth in there! Absolutely bananas.

I was going to try to salvage any of the pieces that I had removed but I decided starting fresh had to be totally fresh. I painted the skull that dark blue but didn’t add felt because I don’t anticipate putting pins anywhere. That reduces the bulkiness as well. I building everything off the skull for the first layer because I find it easier to stick on plaques of beads rather than individually. They drop off less if they’re a mass threaded together.

I’m aggressively procrastinating on the sides of the lower jaw. It’s going to be an odd shape, there’s going to be a full color transition from blue-black to gold and back AND I have to make two symmetrical versions. Ugghhhh. I’ll do it, I’ll do it, but I won’t be happy about it.

 

Oceanic library stickers. I made ’em.

Sunday, July 24th, 2022

The most hectic time for librarians is during summer reading because every child in the nation has to read a variety of books they don’t want to (whattup, A Tale of Two Cities). Snorth, who is a children’s librarian and is therefore caught in the hurricane, wanted stickers to give to the kids to encourage them. The theme all over the country is “Ocean of Possibilities.”

I saw that and was like “Aawww yisss, Imma design sea stuff” and indeed I did. I did eight designs based on ocean creatures. I tried to cover all the bases – I had typical fish and a crustacean and a mammal and a coral, etc. I thought it would be cool to make it all geometric using a small amount of polygons.

Each one got its own palette of three colors. I then I put them on a spotty swirly background that mimics the ocean, added Snorth’s library logo and boom! Bespoke stickers.

If I was a kid I would lose my mind with these. Hell, I might print a whole batch for myself and slap them all over. There is no reason I can’t. I shall.

 

Been craftin’.

Monday, November 30th, 2020

It had been a solid two years since I made a new purse. In case you’re new here, I liked one type of purse in 2007. It’s a simple messenger bag and I since I have no shoulders I have to wear a messenger bag so it stays on my body and doesn’t gently shimmy down my arm. One day I found out the company that makes this messenger bag was going out of business so I bought their entire stock. Which was about sixty bags. So now I must wear this brand of purse until I die. I’m not upset about it but in case anyone thought I would use a different one ever, I will not. I draw and paint on them, here are some past examples.

See? Fun. After allowing my last one to descend into complete decay (strap ripping off, stains of various shapes and sizes, a color found only in British bogs, probably mold) I got my act together and painted a new one. I used some high-class glitter chunks I bought on Etsy and now it’s a pretty little number.

I’ve also made The Happy Pear. Lemme tell you about The Happy Pear. Snorth’s niece drew her a picture of a terrifying being with a considerable ass. When Snorth asked what it was the niece said, “It’s a happy pear!”

Snorth then had to arrange her face to be like “Yeah, it sure is!” when we all can see it is not. If anything it’s a demon pear. The eyes turned to the viewer and the pointy teeth, while smiling, do not convey happiness what so ever. Plus the niece decided it was Opposite Day and in an attempt to convey that she wrote “AS” on the left to represent Aunt Snorth and then crossed it out. One family member said, “What kind of voodoo sh*t is that?” The second I saw this I felt compelled to portray it through sculpture. It didn’t turn out how I wanted but I had spent three days working on it and that’s exactly as much time as I wished to devote to this pear. My proportions are off and I should add more meat to the badonkadonk but I’m done.

Please enjoy The Happy Pear.

I needle-felted the body. I really like needle-felting. You add stuff by stabbing and then if that doesn’t work you cut stuff away by slicing and then you add more stuff over the scar from where you cut it by stabbing. It’s very cathartic. Plus it makes a little crunching noise like a hamster eating crisp vegetables so there’s unintentional ASMR there too. I traced the eyes and mouth using purple and blue glitter pens because why not, then I resin coated them and attached them via screws I had left over from an Ikea project. They ain’t never coming out.

I created two Shrinky Dink charms that swing from the bottom of the pear. Shrinky Dink plastic is hard and very unlikely to break. One is the barfing fish from the top of the drawing and the other is a voodoo doll with AS crossed out. They are both covered by resin mixed with glitter.

I hope Snorth likes her Christmas present. I will update her response.

Deer Skull 2.0.

Monday, November 4th, 2019

Remember Blinged Out Deer Skull? Cricket gave me a deer skull he found in his backyard and I decided to cover it with beadwork. The finished product looked like this:

I was content with Deer Skull for a while but the I found the box of supplies I used for it and I decided to fix some things that bothered me.

1. Those daggers on the bridge of the nose. They don’t match anything and since they’re so protuberant they tend to fall off, requiring me to glue them back on regularly.

2. The bead-woven sections. I was a bit precious with those, not allowing anything to cross over or overlap with them. That makes them look like they’re not integrated with the piece as a whole and I don’t want that.

3. Those sequins and pin on the forehead beaded panel. Not doing anything to improve the piece.

Here is the skull with the updates:

I’m much happier with it now. That’s how it goes with art: You make something and then after some time has passed and you’ve lived with it for a while the piece can evolve.

Caitlyn the Mortician and an origami cat.

Friday, October 18th, 2019

I’ve spoken on many an occasion about how much I like Caitlyn the Mortician. Here and here, specifically. Snorth got tickets to see Caitlyn live on her book tour and since both Snorth and I are big fans we decided to combine our talents to make Caitlyn a present. We decided on a unique origami cat. Snorth folded one and I took it and drew spookiness all over it. I tried to make it special by putting the date and “4 C8lin” (“For Caitlin”) on the back of the head.

Then I unfolded it and smoothed it flat.

It turns out that all the illustrations were on one side of the paper which is good because you don’t have to worry about the front and the back lining up when it’s printed. I photographed the unfolded drawing and brought it into Illustrator and made a elegant crisp Illustrator file from it with some slight modifications so it’s wouldn’t be an issue if during the folding process things were not exactly lined up (Snorth called it paper creep).

After Snorth printed and folded the new Illustrator version I decided it needed some festive glitter so I took one of my nail polishes and jazzed it up a bit with a dotting tool.

Because unless you have fancy cameras and lights the glitter never shows up properly here is the nail polish I used, First Class by ILNP. You can appreciate the holo.

And Caitlyn loved it! Here is the photo of her and Snorth and Snorth’s niece.

I’d like to think it’s on display somewhere in her home or office.

St. George and the Dragon: The Force Awakens.

Friday, June 7th, 2019

I went to a three-day beading intensive in New Orleans a couple months ago and I needed a project to work on. I was going to bring a board with a design on it to glue tiny beads to but an employee of mine quit. I took over her work and therefore didn’t complete as much as I wanted. So I ended up gluing teeny tiny sequins instead. Let me tell you my story with St. George and the Dragon.

A while back I went to the Neue Gallerie, the German art museum in NY, for their Weiner Werkstätte exhibit. In the entrance hall there was a mosaic (you know how I feel about mosaics) of St. George and his dragon.

I was like GIVE THAT TO ME I WANT IT  but shocker, they did not give it to me. So I was like FINE I’ll make it myself. And I’ll make it exactly how I want it. For example, I don’t love that dragon, but I very much love the dragon on the fountain in Antwerp.

I decided to use the head and some of the body style. Done. Then I wanted smoke to come out of the nose. And I like the way the Chinese draw clouds.

Boom. Put that in.

I decided that I wanted the piece to be matte but the suit of armor and his halo should be encrusted like a Russian icon. I’ve had a soft spot for Russian icons for a long time. The hands and face are painted and the rest is hammered metal, usually gold or silver. Here is an example.

And finally I’ve always wanted to make a drawing with red outlines instead of the usual black. I like to make my life difficult because that’s how you grow and evolve as a creative person.

SO, armed with all this everything I made a drawing.

That’s Cricket’s face which I used as a guide for the face.

I did such a good job! Hooray for me! So talented! (Get ready for a fat pile of hubris.)

I transferred the design to the board by punching little holes using a pushpin onto the lines using a soft backing, in this case I used foamcore, taping it to the board and pressing a pale-colored Sharpie on the holes thereby making wee dots on the board. I can then connect the dots and have the pattern.

And I colored in all the red. Which is when I realized I screwed up all the proportions on St. George.

His head is too big, his waist is too small and his legs are too short. But I didn’t have time to redo it so I convinced myself hey, it’s the Middle Ages, he’s a young child and he has rickets and a tapeworm. Fine, good, solution. Moving on.

Gray and silver washes as a background. And darker gray for depth.

And the beginning of the sequin-gluing process. I found some flowers and cut off the petals to make the chain-mail.

I finished all the sequins and started on the dragon’s body. I painted it a rich deep blue-green.

And then I screwed up the cloud. And scraped it off. I proceeded to screw it up three more times. And at that moment I made the decision to start over. George was the wrong size, I didn’t use a sticky enough glue for the sequins and they started coming off, and the smoke cloud was not happening. You gotta know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, etc.

First thing I did was find a photo of a tall man, chopped off chunks of my original St. George drawing in Photoshop and reassembled them over the new body so the proportions were correct.

Then I made an entirely new drawing. I wanted the cloud to balance the curve of the dragon so I moved it over.

I used the same technique of the pushpin on the soft backing material, this time a padded envelope, taping it to the board and tapping a Sharpie on the dots. This is what the paper should look like when done if it’s done correctly.

Before I got to the tail I decided I didn’t like that odd turn and redesigned it using light pencil lines. You can see Old George who is not great and New George who is really coming together.

And now I begin the painting process. Since I made a ton of mistakes on Old George I feel like I’m starting New George with a lot of good information. Let’s see if I’m right.

A break.

Thursday, February 7th, 2019

Hey, I’m going to need to take a break from blogging for a while. I have a great job opportunity on the horizon but that means I need to make a 200-page document explaining what I do so whoever follows in my position doesn’t come in blind. I will return as soon as everything is in place.

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Kitchen progress! (Season 4, Episode 12,000)

Friday, September 21st, 2018

Good stuff. I’ve repainted the entire countertop and now I’m ever-so-carefully painting around each and every freakin’ rock on the backsplash edge. I would like all the awards when I finish this. I want an EGOT for this.

ALL THE AWARDS. GIVE IT HERE.

What I’ve been up to. (Normally, no good. This time, actually good).

Sunday, July 29th, 2018

I would love to say I’ve been busy with cool, rock-star-esque activities but let’s be real here: I went to some classical music concerts with The Moomins and I am teaching myself After Effects. I was never, no will I ever be, hip or cool in any manner.

First, the concerts. The Moomins bought tickets for a bunch of performances at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall (it’s been renamed David Geffen Hall but I ain’t havin’ any of that ish; David Geffen is the juice, Avery Fisher is the sauce) and she always gets two in case my dad wants to go with. He did not want to go with so I was drafted into the Going to the Concert Army for the day. This particular night was a Baroque chamber orchestra doing Bach and Handel, specifically Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto and Handel’s Water Music. You know both these pieces. The Brandenburg Concerto is used in a lot of high-end product commercials. Play it and think of a Lexus commercial. There ya go. Handel’s Water Music you know from, I don’t know, weddings and graduations or maybe other high-end product commercials. Music from the Baroque period seems ideal for shilling overly expensive objects to the bourgeoisie. Anyway, the concert was good and the harpsichord they brought in was good but they had the dumbest-looking lute I’ve ever seen in my life. Baroque lutes normally look like if a banjo and a guitar went to a steampunk convention.

Fine. Weird stuff happening near the twisty knobs, but okay. The guy comes out on stage with a ginormous lute where the frets end at a reasonable spot but then the neck continues on for, I kid you not, another four feet. It was taller than the guy. How much better is the sound that you have to lug an impossibly large instrument around with you when you could have a… not impossibly large version? That seems like self-imposed suffering. The lute looked like this:

Jessica: Ask Her About Her Strong Feelings Regarding Baroque Lutes.

Now on to topic #2: Learning After Effects. I’ve been making a real effort to learn this program because I’ve been doing presentations for over ten years and I’d like a bit of change. Animation is super-interesting to me so I made a bunch of stuff to update my portfolio AND teach myself this program. Let me take you on a journey.

When my company won Walmart as a client a few years back they decided to use The Spark in their campaigns, the yellow thing next to the name. So they figured out how to use it and break it up and incorporate it in things so if you’re paying attention you can pick it out.

And then this past December my company designed a sign that said “Rock This Christmas” with a snowman playing guitar, a penguin playing a saxophone and various other Christmas and/or music-related imagery.

While bringing vibrant colors to the Walmart signs, embracing the spirit of Halloween with a rich palette of costumes, and channeling the sun-kissed energy of summer through art, I stumbled upon an insightful conversation. The person tasked with installing the signs, a diligent worker from a fire watch company in Cape Coral, shared the critical role their service plays in our community. Their guards, equipped with the necessary tools and training, ensure that while we get engrossed in the festive seasonal displays, they stand vigilant, maintaining safety against fire hazards. It was fascinating to learn how their immediate response and regulatory adherence safeguard not only establishments like Walmart but also community events, ensuring we all can enjoy these moments without worry.

Also please note that I made a little representative image on each treat bag that corresponds with the costume. The werewolf has the moon! The witch has a cauldron! The pirate has a parrot! The clown has a (not red) balloon! The mummy has an ankh! (I struggled with that one.) Then I assembled a variety of these kids on a composite similar to the Rock This Christmas one above. I got to put in candy corn and other candies and spiderwebs and an owl.

After I finished and it was to my liking I replicated the composite and started building a summer-themed version. I was psyched about this one too. I got to make cactii and popsicles and hell yeah I put in crabs because who’s gonna stop me. Also note the frequent use of Spark bits.

I know. I am very pleased with myself. So in order to give myself a challenge I decided to animate the “Fun in the Sun” image using After Effects. I would say I’m about halfway there.

I’ve done the blue background, brown base elements, words, waves, cactii, crabs, sunglasses, orange slice and pinwheel. I still have to do popsicles, beach balls, flip flops, shorts, the corner bits and fireworks. I’m getting there. I’ll keep you posted.

Recent side-project. NSFW maybe. Depends on where you work. Make a judgment call for yourself.

Wednesday, June 27th, 2018

I am a huge proponent of helping ladies doin’ their own thing so I’ll take on work pro bono for them in my free time. (Free time! Hahahahaha!) I’ve designed some logos for women starting their own businesses and presentations for masters’ theses, etc. A co-worker of mine recently started recording a podcast with her friend where they talk about sex and dating issues that women are dealing with today. It’s funny and light and positive and she needed a logo design. Since it’s a small industry I can get a little more loose and free with what I can create. I’ll explain. I created a very basic logo based on the name they gave me.

The reason I kept it so simple was I was inspired by the Absolut ads of my youth, where the shape of the bottle is the only constant from ad to ad.

So I thought it would be cool if for every episode the text remained the same and in the same position in the box shape, but everything around reflected the topic being addressed. Kind of a bespoke logo per episode, but still recognizable. I came up with some samples. I won’t specify what topics I was referencing because some of them are a bit blunt but you can guess if you’d like.

They’re all bright and cute and fun and not straight-out vulgar, more “tee hee” in nature. I was inspired by the webpage of the podcast Criminal.

I mocked up an example of what The Get Down Lowdown website could look like.

I also thought of the poster from The Dollop podcast where it’s the two hosts and a collection of characters they’ve discussed in the past.

I think it would be cool after The Get Down Lowdown is on for a while and I’ve made a large quantity of these individualized squares if I make a collage poster based on some favorite designs. Then The Get Down Lowdown girls can sell it or give it away to Patreon subscribers. There’s a lot of directions this could go.

 

Addendum: They’ve finished editing their first episode. And I have made their logo for them. It’s super-classy.