Category: art

Second Try

I have been intensely wanting to make jewelry lately, and had a necklace in mind. I had been intentionally collecting copper, green, yellow, pink and amber colored beads.  So I hauled out my current-favorite-mess-of-beads, and discovered a lone old packet of beads I had been completely avoiding. Note: I just sort of snapped photos as I went, so the lighting isn’t that great on these photos.

Why did I buy these?

I started to open them, then I realized this would make a fun blog – that’s why they are ripped at the top. Fun blog part being: I didn’t really plan or want to use these old beads, my goal is now to use them before the night is over!

These beads are made of tan colored glass, with little lampworked dots of glass with coppery inclusions (much like goldstone). So my first idea was to look for more rustic neutral beads to add to them. I dug up this.

Celtic knotwork is always lovely.

Now effectively armed with a bunch of neutral beads, I put them together on my handy bead board and got this.

It's okay, but...

It’s rustic, it has wood, painted wood, glass, a ceramic focal, copper…what more could you want? Well.. I don’t know, but I wanted something! It is a nice blending of neutral earthtones, and it just didn’t do it for me. I couldn’t feel anything from this pattern. Not that I don’t love that Celtic focal, but it wasn’t working here, for me. So I took it apart.

My second attempt began with the long black glass bead you can see in the middle of the bead board up there. I decided to go with one of my “standard” color schemes, really. Copper and black. I just like the drama you get when those colors play off against each other – they pop!

So here is what I ended up with next, and kept: black czech glass, goldstone squares, and those tan disks. That long black focal really draws the eye. Feel free to disagree with me, of course, but I like this design much better.

I like the contrast on this one.

Have you ever started a project over? I have done it on some much more frustrating projects (the time I burned a big clay sculpture comes to mind). But with beads, it’s forgiving: You can string and unstring and see what you get with various combinations!

Finished!

PS. this necklace is on Etsy now.

Jetpens (Part 3)

Continuing where I left off: The Graphgear 1000, and the Nomadic PE-07 pen case. Making this order from Jetpens convinced me to sort and organize the pens I already had (and throw out the ‘dead’ ones).

Overdoing it on the Pens

That, resting magnificently (note the consummate v’s)  on top of the box is the Nomadic pen case. I bought it because it had a bunch of pockets and the product info said it would hold 30-40 pens. I had this idea, just now, that it might do well at holding gaming dice, or craft supplies, or a GPS, or a Nintendo DSi & game cartridges, too. Quite versatile!

Two Main Pockets

Under the Flap is Another

Finally is the Graphgear 1000. This has immediately become my new favorite pencil. I love that the sharp lead-holder retracts when you click the clip on the side. It has a sturdy metal grip, with rubber knurls, and a thin barrel. I also appreciate that it has an indicator to show you what lead hardness you have loaded into the pen. I didn’t know there was such a thing, and that is one of the main reasons I bought this pen. It runs $15, which is high for a pencil, but I found this one on sale for a few dollars less. I HIGHLY recommend it if you like drafting-type mechanical pencils. Here is a much more in-depth review. It was Dave’s review that spurred me to buy the pencil.

Graphgear 1000 PG1015

So, in a nutshell, I am happy with every product I bought from Jetpens. You use a pen or pencil every day – you may as well find some you really enjoy!

Jetpens (Part 2)

And, continuing from my last post, here is a run-down on the pens I bought. When they arrived they came like this: A Platinum Preppy (in violet), spare ink for it (in violet and green). A Sailor Recruit (blue) with spare ink, and a pencil case.

These pens are both a joy to write with, and, considering the difference in price, I am surprised how much I like them both. (The Platinum Preppy is $3.50 while the Sailor Recruit is $15.)

The Sailor Recruit feels better in my hand, because I really like slim pens and pencils. But the Platinum Preppy is not uncomfortable. I was afraid it might leak, but it didn’t. Neither have leaked at all; not in shipping, and not while being used and hauled around in my purse. I would never have been so worried about leaking, if every fountain pen I had tried in the past was as good as these two are!

Sailor Recruit
Platinum Preppy
Testing the Ink

Jetpens (Part 1)

I have discovered that I really like pens (by which I also mean pencils). I guess I always knew this, but I just realized “it’s a thing” and I’m not the only one who likes pens. So I found a few blogs of people who actually review pens. And via those blogs, I found some pens I wanted to buy.

I really love my Pentel P205, so much so that I didn’t have to go find it to remember the actual pencil part number.  So when I went to Dave’s Mechanical Pencil blog and looked at his “top 5 mechanical pencils” I was aghast to find it wasn’t on his list! And it had been edged from the top five by something called a Graphgear 1000. Vat ist dot?! (Yes I got so excited I went into really bad Jägermonster accent.) I had to go buy one stat!

(And I… ok just lied about that because I see now that the pencil that actually edged out the Pentel P205 was something else, but that makes my story much less compelling.)

But no one else reads this blog so I shall blithely continue.

I also started reading The Pen Addict blog. Many of his neatest pens are from Jetpens. So I decided to make an order. Now, Jetpens had the Graphgear 1000 pencil that I wanted… but they also had many other pens that I wanted. Specifically I had it in my head that I wanted a good fountain pen. First I checked Levenger, which is a lovely site that I have long drooled over, then I realized that I was too cheap to buy a pen there.

So I started throwing pens into my cart on Jetpens instead. And when my total started approaching $75 I got scared and removed most of it. Alas, I removed my Graphgear 1000! But, you ask, why did you remove the pencil you wanted so much? Because I found it locally!

Googling, again, I discovered an art store selling them right nearby (within an hour, that is), called Utrecht.

I was going to tell you all about the new pens and pencil I bought, but this is post too long without it, so I’ll add that info next time… HEY LOOK, I’m going to post more than once in a month!

If you read this far, here is an unfinished sketch, and my Pentel P205. I was considering starting a whole bunch of blog posts just to highlight “unfinished sketches” since I never seem to finish anything…

Things Unfinished

Quick Update

I’ve been busy lately!
I have been sculpting a lot, and even trying to sketch a bit.
I promise to show you soon. Er, maybe I shouldn’t promise.
But I will definitely try.

Amazingly, the Mech Dragons are starting to catch on! I really planned to have a pile done to take to OddMall this fall, but I have to start figuring out how to make them more quickly, because I am not doing a good job keeping up at the moment. If you are interested in commissioning one, please let me know!  {Email glimmer @ glimmerville.com is a good way}

Mech Dragon No. 3

Worserly, I am not keeping up with the Ladies Bible Study at church. But I AM keeping up with the “read through the Bible in a year” program – which I highly encourage you all to try. I have discovered some really interesting things, and it’s really helpful to read through the sweep of scripture and not just take it a verse at a time. It all fits together better this way.

Radio Isopod

I have a friend with a webcomic! I mentioned her in this post when I talked about webcomics. But I am mentioning her again! Her webcomic is called Radio Isopod and it has submarines, sea creatures, radioactivity, steampunk, and mad science. What more could you possibly ask for? Oh maybe a podcast! Well she has that too. She also has a webcomic for The Secret Lair, which also contains a lot of mad science and supervillainy and a podcast, yet is connected to a group of local friends I get to hang out with and play games. See a theme? Hmm.

And I am going to do a guest bit on the Radio Isopod podcast – I’ll toss you a link when I get one. But I didn’t even get that far yet. Because I wanted to draw a little bit of art for Natalie, who even sent me an awesome Steampunk Christmas card (procrastiate much, Rach?) so I am posting it here.

Also I went over all of my original pencil work using my graphics tablet, and this is about the first time I have ever not despised doing it. This is a step forward!

Webcomics

I have a poor track record with actually keeping up with reading Webcomics, notwithstanding the fact that I keep considering making one. But these webcomics are ones written by people I actually know (or at least, have chatted with). So, for your consideration, I present an incredibly biased list:
My long-time great friend JB has TWO comics – not regularly updating, but fun to read the archives. And any day she plans to start them up again, really. Follow Gwen, Rremly the dragon, and friends with: http://www.catharsiscomic.com
Further, JB breeds and sells Crested Geckos! You can follow their fictional antics here: http://www.jbscresties.com/comic (And if you are in her area you could buy one!)

DJ Trousdale is a fellow Christian I met on deviantART. Check out his comic here: http://djtrousdale.com/hexfactorial

Sticky (or at least that’s the nickname I know him by) has a Morrowind-based comic here: http://www.skaarj.com/comic/ That was a fun game. I didn’t finish the expansions – I keep meaning to.

I just met Samantha on Ustream last week, as she worked her way through the “24 Hour Comics Day” Challenge.  I have a big soft spot in my heart for overweight red-haired magic users (you in the peanut-gallery, shush) so I fell in love with her comic: http://www.witchytech.com/lifesawitch

Urban Fey is written by a mother-daughter team! I know Windy (aka. Kim) from JB’s comic’s forum, and also deviantART – what a tangled web 2.0 we weave. I was also in their Guild Wars guild. Go Team Mystic Sheep! Anyway they have a novel take on the court of the Fey: http://www.urbanfey.net/ AND are in the process of working on some more comics too! See what’s coming: http://www.mysticsheepstudios.com/pages/comics.html

I know Natalie from watching her illustrate other podcasts, and from deviantART. She has a webcomic of mad science and underwater adventures: http://radioisopod.com She also has a podcast! I did a guest mad science bit on it, once. Natalie has webcomics over here too: http://thesecretlair.com but if I told you about The Secret Lair, well, they wouldn’t invite me back. (I have an honorary title and that’s all I can say.)

Got a comic yourself?
Tell me about it!

 

 

 

Mech Dragon goes to War

Mech Dragon No.2
Mech Dragon No.2

I finally finished this guy! (Click for a larger view.) Not only that, but he’s sold! I’m excited about both of those things, but he was more work than I expected. He started with a tinfoil and wire base, then I added Sculpey, and Apoxie Sculpt on certain parts (like the horns and the inner wing core supports).

Inspiration vs. Distraction

I have an addiction.

Didn't buy it...yet

Frankly I am sure I have a ton of addictions, but I am only considering one in this post: I love to buy books. And, since I only have so much shelf space, I concentrate on buying books I can’t just go get in the library. Consequently, I don’t have that many novels (though I have my favorites). Instead I concentrate on How-to books and Field Guides.

Right now I have just noticed (thanks to Amazon suggesting it) “Yet Another Art Instruction book I Cannot Possibly Live Without”. The book is called Manga Matrix: Create Unique Characters Using the Japanese Matrix System by Hiroyoshi Tsukamoto.  Now anyone familiar with the stuff I doodle will say “But Rachel, you don’t even draw Manga style anything” and this is true. But I find the style (frequently) very pretty – especially when I think of Ghibli or sometimes Clamp, etc. I have several books on the style just to reference anyway.

But my real question, which should probably be posed over at http://Conceptart.org is this: When do you say to yourself “Intervention! Buying one more art instruction guide is not going to help you improve; actually drawing is the only thing that will actually help you improve”? 

That’s one of those questions I don’t like!

Work in Progress: Dragon edition

Right now I am working on scuplting two dragons – one is a commissioned piece, and one is just for fun.

This baby is just for fun, but I really like the way he is turning out. I tried a texturing technique (tingue twuster!) that I found on the Dan Perez site.

If you want more “step-by-step” information on how I do this, let me know – but mostly it’s “wad tinfoil and wire in the middle, then cover with clay until it looks right”. I have actually taken many progress shots of  the dragon below (the one below the baby). Maybe I’ll do a step-by-step sort of post, but it would be picture intensive and I don’t know that anyone really wants it. Just ask questions if you have questions – I’d be thrilled to find out that anyone is reading the blog, hint. [Edit: Yes I know you are reading the blog, because I received some nice feedback when I asked for ways to keep my milk safe in the fridge! And thank you!]

 

He only has a partial wing, so far
He only has a partial wing, so far

This is the one that is “an actual commission that I should be working faster on” whoops. Sunday I started on a wing, then picked it up yesterday and discovered that the Apoxie never set! Perhaps I mixed the batch badly. This is why I would fear for everyone’s safety if I was a mad scientist.

 

Not very complete yet.
Not very complete yet.

On an EVEN BETTER note, my dad’s company just got some work in today – praise the Lord!

That was a huge answer to prayer.

I hope your day is going well, too!

 

And it’s Game Night. I bought a new card game called “Illusio”, that I haven’t tried yet. I don’t know that I’ll have time tonight, but I loved the “rival magicians” theme.