Well it has been far too long since my last post. Literally a year since the last post. Since then, I have lost my job. Sucks but life has to move on you know?
On the plus side, I've nearly finished the beaded octopus. I decided to add a little bit of background underneath the octopus, needed to give it some form of background to sit on. It's not floating in space. I'm trying to accomplish a sfumato affect from blue to clear beads so it'll fade into the I wash better. I started this piece I guess three years ago? It was originally intended for a friend as a she warming gift, but I quickly realized I had bitten off more than I could chew. Instead I made an ink wash piece (below) that now has a place of honor in their stairwell.
I love Cephalopods. There's something eerily beautiful about them. And they're super smart too, I'm always amazed by videos of octopus problem solving. That love of all things tentacly, is shared by another friend who has the below painting:
Even after all I did on that piece , I'm still not happy with the background. I don't think I'll ever be happy with the background, it was too busy for the rest of the piece and distracts from the giant purple octopus. Somehow I have managed to make a viewer miss a bright purple octopus by making a way-too busy background.
On the craft side of life, I finished a quilt I set out to make last year. It's so cozy and bright.... In a crazy, look-at-all-of-the-scraps-I-accumulated kind of way.
Now that I have more time on my hands.... Again... I'll be making more posts.
Well, it's been far too long since I've posted. It's been super busy out here in Bumblefuck NJ. Between the old timey crafting I've been doing and watching the wild turkeys from my kitchen there's been so much excitement. Unfortunately sarcasm doesn't come through so well in type, so you'll have to add that in yourself. So I'm soon to be an Auntie, which is very exciting! Guys, I made a baby quilt for the chubby bundle of cuteness that shall be arriving very soon.
I'm rather proud of it. My first time making a quilt and it looks freaking awesome. The border is probably the best accomplishment of the entire thing, it was exhausting to make the bias tape for it and a bitch to pin down. You can't really see it but there's even a handle and strap to tie it up and take it anywhere. Really this is going to be a play mat for the little tadpole to futz around on.
Did I mention that I appliquéd BUTTERFLIES onto the back. Oh yeah, I did a cute thing! But wait, there's a close up,
BOOOM, cute little butterflies. The backing fabric looks very blue but it's really like a teal aqua..... Damn you ipad photo crap.
Now I'm super into making quilts, and when I say that I mean, "I want a warm blanket for the winter cause last year was brutal." I've been working on saving and sewing my scrap fabrics together to make yardage and I managed to make enough yardage to make myself a rather large and cozy quilt. So far I'm about 11 inches short on the width of the top fabric, and I'm over complicating the back side by making a Dia De Los Muertos themed backing.
Don't judge!!
I don't have any updated photos of the top fabric but I'm working on the back side with roses, and sugar skulls. I don't care if this will take forever, I want this to look good!
There's been work done on the beaded Octopus, it has more than one tentacle now.
There should be a Steve Irwin accent but, "ain't she a beauty?!" This right here is my baby. My pride and joy, my turning-into-a-year-long-piece-of-awesome. Rather proud of it and it's so sparkly in sunlight. It's sad to say but that's really it. If I'm not at work I'm working on the arts 'n crafts.
Well I have to continue sewing the backing for the quilt..... Why did I take on this project just shoot me now.
Oh and I was not kidding about the wild turkeys.
Whole damn family of them hanging in the back yard.
Wow, it's been way too long since I've posted. My job keeps me pretty busy and when I'm not busy with my job, I'm working on the octopus. There's been progress on that front by the way.
Ain't it pretty? Now it's starting to look like an octopus. I gotta say, this is taking me way too long to finish considering its size.
Today I realized I needed beads. Which is a dangerous thing since I have a pretty extensive collection going already. But I picked up these fleshy-orange toned translucent beads from the bead fair that comes around in spring and fall, and I've got a very small amount of them. That makes me nervous cause if I'm working on a piece that's three feet wide, I'm screwed. So I went out to a fairly local place called the Birds and the Beads. I love that place. They have a gorgeous bead selection and a very nice collection of sead beads to pick from. The staff was super helpful, they were trying really hard to help me find a close match to those fleshy orange beads. We had some success but I'll never find an exact match. Oh well. But at least I have a great resource close by for smaller amounts of hard to find colors. I think a trip to NYC is in order!
Wow it has been far too long since the last blog post. My job has kept me really busy, so finding time to do anything let alone some art has been a challenge.
This past summer has just been a love affair with the lovable and rather squishy octopus. My friend Habeas Corpsemaker and her hubby Speeder Parker moved into a lovely house in Mass. So to celebrate they threw a house warming party. Since I live about six hours away from them I knew that any food I make wouldn't last the trip up. So as a gift I made and framed a piece of art.
Not the best photo, but it's the only one I have do the piece.
Originally I was going to make a beaded embroidery of an octopus, but it was going to take way too much time. I only had a few weeks until the party and I could only work on it at night and during the weekends. The solution: make something on paper that's less labor intensive. Sorry Habie but time was running out.
On a happy note, I did start a beaded octopus, and I have taken many in progress shots.... And now that I can make posts and add photos to them I can post photos!!
This is the most recent photo I have.
Unfortunately the blogger app. Doesn't allow for much editing in the photos.... Like adding a caption or changing the size. Can't complain too much, with my computer out of commission for the foreseeable future, I'm just glad I have some form of access to my email and job searching sites.
So fun times will be had this weekend! There's a yard sale/ swap meet out here in NJ that I'm totally stoked to go to. It's being run by Gypsy, who is a performer and steampunk enthusiast. I expect there to be many people with an odd variety of things so this should be freaking awesome. Maybe there will be a post tomorrow with photos? Who knows.... :)
So for now this is about it, I need to get out and do exciting things this weekend.
So I thought it'd be fun to put all the pictures of the Whale together into one picture, so that the progression made can really be seen.
Does this remind you of the story of Jonas yet.... ?
Remember this is about 3 feet wide by 2 feet tall. I have soooooo much beading that still needs to be done. The last photo was taken this morning, I'm pretty proud of it so far. I started work on this piece on November 13, 2011. It's been almost a year and a half since I started this project. Of course there's been like month long periods where this sat in the corner while I worked on other pieces, but who's counting? I really want this finished for the exhibition deadline but I'm starting to think I will not make it. After this one, I have another 8 more canvases stretched and ready to go. Each new canvas is about a fourth of the size of this current piece. After the beading on the whale is done, then I have to go back into the background and finish covering the space with buttons. Then I need to go back into the background and fill in the white spaces with beads until there's no background showing in between the buttons. There's so much work to be done, and each time I sit down to work on this, I put on a movie. I can now recite most of the lines from X-Men First Class, Robin Hood Men in Tights, The Avengers, Ghostbusters 1 and 2, and I'm slowly learning the lines to The Hobbit. I will never leave my house again at this rate.
O man guys the Whale has been worked on. There's a competition I want to enter work into, but I need to have the piece finished.
Not the best picture but it works. I've put everything else on hold in order to finish this. in the meantime there's been other projects. I made a cardboard and paper mache top hat.
It looks ridiculous. I made it with the intent of wearing it, and felt too self conscious to walk around with it on my head. And then there's this:
This hangs on my wall and holds my convention badges. I used an AC Moore wooden plaque which I painted and fastened the antler and cabinet knob to it. These little projects keep me busy when I need a break from larger projects.
If I weren't so busy with my full time job and working on the whale, I'd make a few more tutorials.
Guys I've got over 1000 views. I'm really glad that people seem to like the Horns tutorial. Especially Germany. You Germans rock. So because people rock, here's a Tiny Pocket Ori animation via Tumbler. I didn't think it was possible to make the Dwarves from The Hobbit adorable, but Tumbler you have proven me wrong. Bask in the cuteness! Bask I say!!
It's been far too long since I've made a post. This new job takes up most of my time.... cause you know, it's a full time job. I hate the job, but it pays pretty nice like.
So I hate snow. that snow storm Nemo we had: Can. Not. Deal. Snow is one of the many reasons I:
a) want to live in an apartment, and
b) want to live in southern California.
Snow's great when you're a kid, but once you have to dig out your car to get to work at 6am it's no longer fun.
There's been progress on the whale. I'm now at a point where I have to change colors and meet the two colors to blend them. I don't want a harsh separation between the tones, from medium to dark, it needs to have a nice smooth transition. These transitions drive me nuts, I did this with the buttons for the background and it took me hours just to pick and choose the right colors and tones and even then I am limited by the supplies themselves. I started work on a new pair of horns, this time a set of rams horns. Those were a bitch to flat pattern because they spiral up and out. I got the left horn structure completed, now I just need to finish the right one.
Wicked fair was this past weekend!! Woot! I made a paper mache and cardboard top hat... and then didn't bother to wear it. It was kinda silly looking and it didn't fit well. It was very last minute and I'm not broken up over it. Lets face it though, it's cheaper than buying a nice one and I get to paint it in whatever colors I want. Marina had her kimono panel which, despite the small attendance, was super fun. Except for the shoes. Oh my god those shoes were pretty but so very painful. So this happened:
Photo taken by Kassandra Leigh <3
I love the photo taken of us in Marina's kimono. The photographer is Kassandra Leigh, she's this little pixie of a girl who shows up in a Latex mini dress with a short fur cape and knee high socks. She's drop dead gorgeous. It was like 29 degrees F outside and windy as fuck while she's taking photos and I'm just trying to keep the kimono closed (I'm on the left). We were on this wooden pier thing that went out into the pond outside the hotel, and Marina hops up onto the railing and we are praying she doesn't loose her balance and fall into the freezing cold pond. Apparently there were people watching us through the windows of the hotel and were hoping she didn't fall into the water too. As we were walking back to the room, we were walking single file and kinda shuffling,
and it reminded me of the Mikado by Gillbert and Sullivan.
Yeah, kinda like that but without the outdated gender and cultural stereotypes. I was singing this in my head the whole time! I think this, and the swap meet on Sunday were the highlights of my weekend. Other than that I felt mostly bored at Wicked fair. It was difficult to navigate and there was no map. The vendors were all over the place, there was no Dungeon set-up this year, I missed all of the performances cause I either didn't know where they were or missed the time slot.
So I swear photos will get posted of art eventually, but the cord and the battery charger for my camera have disappeared. Again. Once those are found I have a whole lot of photos to upload.
That's it for now.
See Ya'll Later!
~Amy
PS--> OH MY GOD GUYS 900 VIEWS!! So freaking sweet! Everyone Rocks!!
