FenCon Report and KItsune Fan

cutestpaw.com

I am exhausted.  It's been a long week and a very busy weekend, but it's been a great one.  I had fun at FenCon, and I did much better than I thought I might in the art show.  Now that it's over, I've got a ton of things to do but I'm excited to realize a dream I abandoned in my twenties.

I sat in on a couple of very interesting panels by costumer Kathleen O'Brien.  I've seen her at several of the Texas and Oklahoma cons, and her work is beautiful.  I've enjoyed every panel I've seen her on, and this con didn't disappoint.  She had a class on the history of the bustle and brought examples from her vintage collection and it was fascinating!  I took her "construct your own bustle' make shop and sadly, we didn't have enough time to complete so I've still got a bunch of wire and an incomplete bustle... for now.  She gave us written instructions and pictures, so I've got enough to get myself started and just enough knowledge of construction to get me into a LOT of trouble.

I was Mom and John DeLaughter's Minion for some of the FenKids programming.  I was happy to help out even if I have no clue what I'm doing.  Mom had a dinoKids panel where we tried to put together a skeleton puzzle (we failed) and made "dino eggs" with a skeletal dinosaur in the middle.  John was making bridges out of marshmallows, pretzel sticks, graham crackers, and frosting which was somehow amusing and terrifying at the same time.  There were a LOT of kids happy about all the sugary sweets! (John's evil.  It's part of his charm!) I helped out where I could, assisting the younger kids with the dino eggs and kibitzing with the older ones building the bridges.  Doggy Daycare is a great way to get familiar with the controlled chaos of a room full of children, but I was still overwhelmed at times!  Fortunately, there were several people there and we managed to keep all of the children safe and (mostly) happy.

OMG! OMG! OMG! I Sold Stuff In The Art Show!!!!!

(actual text to a few friends)

I arrived Friday after my day job and was very anxious about setting up my first art show.  I felt so unprepared and had no clue what I was doing.  The FenCon Art Show staff was very helpful and got me on my way with all of the tags, procedures, and everything else I had no clue about.  I was very grateful for them!  It was a great art show, and I was intimidated by the quality of art in the show.  There were so many excellent artists!  Many of the artists sold at least a piece, and I'm so glad that it was a successful show.

via/karmiphuc.com

I was popular with the Whovians and all of my Dr. Who work sold out!  I am delighted to see them go and hope they bring their new owners much joy and compliments.  I still squee a little when I think about it.  I sold my artwork!  To strangers!

I create for my own joy and to find other people who enjoy it fills me with such pride.

You mean what is WHEN???

Mom was nice enough to remind me FenCon is next weekend.  She's got some art show space that she's sharing with me (because Mom's awesome like that) and I'm in full-on panic mode.  I don't feel like I have enough work, and the work that I do have is a little all over the place with a ballpoint pen drawing, found object sculpture, 3 necklaces, and a couple mini journals.  Worse yet, I can't keep elf ears in stock (terrible problem, I know) and I feel so incredibly unprepared.  I have this week to bang out another item or two, maybe another drawing, and do any preliminary drawings or research for the next major project, a dragon scale collar necklace.

I hate feeling unprepared.   I'm not always sure what the next step should be and instead of making a step and a mistake, I end up making another, sometimes bigger mistake and staying in one place.  I want to get more pieces out and instead, I get almost nothing done while I'm paralyzed with anxiety.  Fortunately, I'm doing better with it this time around and getting a little bit done instead of hyperventilating in the corner.

I got table coverings  and another necklace display, plus some boxes for the jewelry.  It's at least a start towards getting everything organized.  I know I have until Friday, but it just doesn't seem long enough with commissions and work and everything else that comes with breathing.  I'm taking things one at a time and I'll get through what I get through, even if it doesn't feel like enough.

The sculpture didn't turn out like I had in mind, but I still like it.  I like the repetition of the circular motif throughout the piece and I think that really ties the thing together.  It ended up having more of a steampunk vibe than I was expecting, despite the roses being the most steampunk thing on there.   I used screws as accents throughout the piece, the silver being a nice contrast to the rest of the gold and copper. 

I tried a couple of different things that didn't work out.  I wanted some vines that would act a little like wires connecting various parts to others.  Unfortunately, it looked messy and I hated it.  I tried making them into another repetitive loop shape to see if that would look better.  It looked worse.  I put a little bit of green nail polish on it, but nothing could save it, so I ended up removing all of them after wasting a few nights.

More creative uses for nail polish

I had a bit of green circuit board hanging out on the side of the piece that I hadn't decided what to do with.  I painted it with my favorite gold nail polish because it was what I had handy. I used a coppery red to paint a part of the hard drive to give it a little more interest and the center portion of the mirrored disk gold.  I used black and turquoise on the copper parts to age them, although in retrospect I should have chosen brown.  The black is a little harsh, but it works in the end.  I used a dry brush technique on all of the copper bits.  

I used nail polish on the roses too, because one of the other notions I had was drips going down or around the roses.  Instead I used a dark red and purple (the red was a little bloody) to accent the edges of the roses with the same dry brush technique.  I like how they ended up, with a little bit of color along the edges and on the tops of the inside petals.

I like it.  There is a circular motif that runs through the piece that I loved from the beginning.  The colors work (they're all neutrals, so.. duh.) and the mechanical vibe is neat.  Ben doesn't like it, and he's not entirely sure why.  Not everyone will like my work, or even every piece, but I'm worried that this one is a dud.  Abstract art can be a hard sell for many people, but I grew to love viewing and creating it in college.  There's something very liberating in throwing away the idea that your art has to represent something concrete instead of finding beauty in unusual places.

Here's what the finished sculpture looks like.  It's for sale, and it's debut will be at FenCon this weekend.  If you're in Dallas, stop by and get your nerd on!  

When life hands you scams... make art?

It all started when Ben got a video game stuck in his head.

A coworker was raving about the JRPG Ni No Kuni. It was developed by Level-5 and Studio Ghibli, the latter known as the compay who makes stunning animated movies about a plucky child who loses their parent and go on a magical adventure with cute monsters.  Ben found the game and looked for a good deal on a PS3.

There's yer problem

He found one that looked promising on Craigslist.  He met the seller and his father, deals were made, and he rushed home to set up his new toy.  We discovered pretty quickly that it wasn't working, left a couple of messages, and discovered that that our only option was civil court if we could track down the people.  We looked at reparing it.  Turns out, the kid who broke this tried to fix it as only a kid will, and there's no fixing that sort of damage.  When he realized this, he gutted the thing and sold it. 

We were both angry and I went for a walk.  I stopped cussing around 2.5 miles and by the time I got home, I was clear-headed enough to go over the budget with Ben and we bought a PS3 from a retailer.  

Now we had 2 PS3's and more money spent than I'd like.  I saved the junky PS3 and an Xbox that died in the back of the closet hoping that inspiration would hit.  

There and Back Again Book Purse, part 2: lining and final assembly

We left off last week with the finished purse handles and cover ready for assembly.  This week we'll be concentrating on the lining and putting the entire thing together.  Check out part 1 to see how I made the handles and designed the cover. I'm using the directions from Juliacy's Book Purse DIY video for most of the instructions here.  

Supplies:

approx .5 yards of fabric

poster board or light cardboard

ribbon

Duct tape

ribbon

needle and thread/sewing machine

Hot glue and glue sticks

Book purse handles

Painted book cover

Magnetic closure, filched from an old purse

Ruler 

Most of these materials I already had around.  Overall, I've spent less than 10.00 (US) on them.  

Pattern making

Now it's time to set the opening.  It needs to be wide enough to get a hand in there, but not so wide that stuff falls out of it when you are fishing for your keys.  I found about 6 inches (15 cm) should do the trick.  

I placed my book on my poster board and traced the shape of my book.  This wasn't as accurate as I
'd have liked.  In the future, I'll take the time to measure out and mark it out.  If the cardboard is thicker, score with the craft knife to make folding easier.  The cut mark will be on the outside.  

Make 2 trapezoid shapes and fold them in half.  Trim up so that they're symmetrical and set aside. 

Measure and cut a long rectangle to fit inside the spine.