Bubbly Beaded Bangle

On one of my many YouTube binges on craft videos, I ran across Jill Wiseman, who is a beading artist  from Austin, TX.  I love her!  Her works are intricate, and she has an eye for texture and pattern that I appreciate.  Her tutorials are easy to follow for the beginner but the results are stunning.

I love her so much that when I see her tutorials, I have to do what she's doing, even though I don't have the same beads. I know my results won't be the same, but it's my own piece, made from the things that strike me or from my own needs, like reducing the f-ing bead stash. That's the beauty of art, it's a freeform thing with only as many rules as you see fit.  Take an idea and run with it!

So, here's the inspiration, Wiseman's Plush Pearls bracelet for Jewel School.  Hers, you'll notice, are beautiful and oh, so precise.  Mine is larger, more organic, and wilder.  Both are awesome. This has everything to do with the beads used.  Smaller beads will yield a more delicate result while larger beads will give you a larger statement piece.

Supplies:

• silver glass seed beads, 3mm, I think.  
• Blue glass beads, round-ish and 4-6mm 
• mercerized cotton thread*
• Beading needle
• scissors

*I am using cotton thread because I have it on hand.  If I had my druthers and a smidge of patience, I'd use FireLine or even thin fishing line.  It's sturdier and less likely to break.  If  you use cotton thread, remember to reinforce all of your stitches.

Galaxy Canvas Shoes

"MY fault?"

Have you ever seen Bunny, AKA Grav3yardgirl on Youtube?  She's delightfully strange, a real-life  Addams Family cousin and one of the most unique beauty/lifestyle vloggers I've seen.  I love her series "Does this Thing Really Work?" where she gets As Seen on TV products and tests them out.  Lately, she's been doing that with Pinterest, and one of her more recent ones has been tie dye sharpie shoes.  I was struck by the way that the sharpie bled in a similar manner to watercolors, and An Idea was born.

I decided to do a galaxy  print because it would be a more forgiving pattern if things crashed and burned.  I'm probably going to try some other sorts of drawings to see how I can manipulate this further because I think I can do some other really cool things with this very simple technique.

Supplies

• Permanent Markers:  black, dark blue, light blue, dark purple, light purple, pink, yellow, and silver     
• 91% Isopropyl Alcohol 
• paintbrushes: I'm using a flat brush for spreading color and a fine point to work on details with
• White canvas shoes
• White acrylic paint

Fall Fox and Owl nails and Operation: Reduce the Effing Bead Stash

Foxes (duh) and owls are some of my favorite animals and I thought they'd make a cute fall themed manicure this week.  I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out!  I keep admiring them, which I don't always do with my nail art.  

I used the most variety of tools in this manicure: brushes, dotting tools, and markers.  I need to play with a larger variety of brushes with smaller bristles than a striper brush to see what I can get with them, but I finally feel as if I have a good handle on the tools and technique.  

Supplies:

Base coat

Nail colors:  I'm using an antique gold, metallic red-orange,metallic orange, metallic brown, black, and white.

Top coat

Dotting tools: Large and small diameter

angled nail art brush (a sacrificial eyeliner brush would work in a pinch)

nail art pen (or sharpie)

Y U No Write???

Between the new hours at work and the depression that's been creeping up on me slowly, I'm feeling a little lost.  I'm struggling to do things that I normally do, and I'm terrified of becoming suicidal again.  I feel that urge to pay for my sins with pain and blood, and I know that's... extreme.  

Instead, I find myself slowly sinking under the waters of depression, choosing instead to slowly grind to a halt, finding any excuse to sleep when the day just seems like too much to deal with anymore.  I've been staring at my last project and just unable to get the urge to make it into something cool.  I can't think of much that I want to do.

The pain and fatigue from Fibromyalgia are good excuses.  "I'm too tired."  "I'm in pain." "I just want to rest."  It's true.  I am in pain.  I am tired.  I am not used to being up at 6 AM to be functional by 7:30 when my shift starts.   I'm working fewer days in my daycare, but I'm back working the morning shift.  I love watching the dogs play, the sunrises, the slowly warming day and retreating shadows in the yard.  It's so much fun playing with the dogs when they're chipper and eager to run.  Unfortunately, the pain starts at 9 and slowly gets worse as the day goes on.  Sometimes it's so bad all I can do is sob hysterically for a while when the feeling of carpet is too much for my feet, or when the pressure from an affectionate kitty head bump makes me scream. I end up spending a lot of time in recovery mode, which is code for sitting on the couch and not moving unless I have to.

"I'll do it later." is my go-to excuse to myself.  I make plans and tell myself that I Totally Won't Do What I Always Do because present me forgets that future me likes to procrastinate, too.

Last weekend, I painted my nails.  I didn't like the way they turned out, but it's about taking care of myself.  I could go through those motions without feeling overwhelmed, or (bonus!) moving.  I re-did them this weekend, and like this result much better.  I didn't use any sort of guide, so this is my own little Halloween design.

This weekend  Ben had his first cuddle party, which was a success.  I was there to be a cuddle assistant, plus support the Ben, and didn't feel like I could do what I really wanted, which is to find someone who would be willing to hold me while I curled up into a ball and cried.  I thought I needed to be ready to be supportive of anyone else there and I walled myself off and hung out on the couch, spending a little time cuddling with Ben, catching up with another Cuddle Buddy and just listening.  I felt better being around a whole bunch of kindhearted, open people for a few hours.

The next night, we played Forbidden Island with some friends of Ben's that I'd met briefly before.  We had a great time and it helped a little more.

I'm doing something today.  I'm not standing still, I'm moving forward.  The pain is overwhelming and it's breaking through the distractions I use to keep me from feeling it.  I just need to put one foot in front of the other and I'll get through this.  It's hard.  I don't want to, but I know I must because this dark place of mine only gets darker.

I did manage to get something done, though. The first necklace I made in time for a play that I went to with Ben to support a friend of ours who was on the cast.  I don't like it because I think it looks cheap.  The idea is interesting, but I don't know.  Maybe more beads so that it's like a collar?  The eye size is out of place?  This particular incarnation has a nasty tendency to flip at the sides.  That's probably because I put on the chain with a twist, but I couldn't figure out where it was.  I wanted to do something with more chain and less bead and while I like the idea, this one didn't pan out.

In a half-assed effort to feel in control of something, I went through my bead stash to see what I had.  Expect to see more beaded stuff as I begin Operation: Reduce the Effing Bead Stash.  I did find some beautiful purple, blue, and silver beads that I thought would be really cool in a necklace.  I had 3 shapes: oval, round, and a square-ish shape.  I used the two squatter beads in the spiral rope with cobalt, clear, and silver beads.  I think this one looks much better.  There's a better proportion of beads and eye, I think.  

There will be more stuff.  I'm not giving up yet.

Dragon Eye Sculpture and painting tutorial

I ran across Klaire De Lys and her makeup artistry some time ago on  YouTube.  She's a remarkable artist from England who does a lot of fantasy and horror transformations in makeup that are really cool.  Back in 2013, she did a dragon eye jar out of terracotta clay that was glued onto a glass jar.  I loved the scale technique and wanted to do a wearable piece.  I also wanted to play around with doing some sort of iridescent scale without the metallic paints because I don't have any on hand right now.

This is one of the resin cast and painted pieces.  The camera doesn't do it justice and I wasn't able to pick up the fine detail of the painting, which does look iridescent in the light.  I think they turned out great!  I know I'm turning the larger size into a necklace, but I'm still planning out how I want to do that.  The only things I'm sure about are there will be chains and beads, but beyond that, I'm a little stumped.  I'm thinking a short necklace, but it depends on whether or not this piece will overwhelm at that length.

This is a great October project.  The unblinking cats eye is a little creepy and perfect for this time of the year.  I want to wear this to work but I'm worried that the dogs that I work with won't be as excited about this piece as I am.

I can see it now. "Hey! It's Nice Daycare Lady!  She's up front and OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT THING STARING AT ME ON YOUR CHEST??"  

There are both painted and unpainted versions of the eye available for sale.

Sculpting the eye

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!