Body Maps

So I've put the snake on hold, it makes me angry to look at it. I have moved on to a body maps idea.  For background, I've been losing weight recently.  As I'm shedding the pounds, slowly, stretch marks are appearing.  I had a super realistic nightmare about the marks acting as a virus and spreading all over my torso, legs and face.  As a form of acceptance and self prescribed therapy, I'm facing what is making me anxious by making a map of it.  I felt it would be best to find a system of numbers and corresponding mark making to best visually interpret that feeling of all encompassing body change and the corresponding anxiety.  I found a number pattern that when applied to a plane, gave me an "organized chaos" system.  The repeating pattern of numbers allowed me to get a very organic drawing from a very rigid and unchanging set of rules.  The result appeared very much like my nightmare marks, and also looks very vascular in appearance as well.  I'll have to explore that further in another piece.  

Please excuse the lighting, it changes from day to day.  

The mark making was based off of the hyperbolic planes, or the pseudo sphere project I'm working on.  Hyperbolic geometry states that if you have a straight line and a point above that line, there's an infinite number of lines that can go through that point and still be parallel to the initial line.  On paper the lines look curved, but in 1991 a fiber artist was able to make a physical model of a hyperbolic plane by crocheting it.  The formula could be broken down into crochet instructions, which just blew everyone's minds.  I decided to simplify it further, by using a repeating number of stitches with an increase stitch, crocheted in the round.  The pseudo sphere is an exercise in endurance and repetition. Now, I've applied a similar concept of repetition and numbers, but the medium is 2D.  This rigid set of rules and repetition has given me an intense organic structure.  I would almost describe it as a fractal, but the image produced is too chaotic and lacks a repetitive appearance.  

Again I picked beads based on color, and didn't give much thought to the sharp ass nature of the edges of the beads.  Yet again my string is being severed, and no amount of waxing can stop it.  So I have to bead soooooo slowly to avoid cutting the string, and it's driving me crazy.  I have a long way to go, the white beads are the marks themselves, and surrounding them is the pinky, fleshy irritated parts of the skin.  

I really need to stop making blog posts at ass o'clock in the morning.  I just keep rambling and repeating myself.  

Good night y'all. 

Update on progress

Well, as I have been waiting for responses to applications, I figured now was as good a time as any to continue working on my beaded pieces.  

There's a completed moth:

And a partially completed snake:

The moth took about 6 days to complete and the snake is going on a little over a month.  The snake has more complicated beading involved, including a branch, flowers and a border.  I made a stupid decision to bead in the background elements from the fabric print.  I regret this decision immensely. And the beads I chose for the flowers are a nightmare to work with.  They are a brown/purple tube bead with an iridescent finish..... and super sharp edges.  The edges keep cutting the thread and it's incredibly frustrating. 

I have more canvases to work with, and I really want to make a piece about skin texture and color using the beads.  I think I have a decent color pallet to work with and enough reference material to go with.  

For now I guess that's the best update I can give.  

I'll post new photos as I make things.  

~see ya.  

Octopus Appreciation Post

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.  

See y'all later.  

It's Like Living In The Past

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.  

The Birds and the Octopus

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!  

Later,

Amy.

So many Cephalopods.

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.  

See ya'll later! 

A Whale of an Update.

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.

See Ya'll Later
~Amy