I am having fun with my little (Windsor & Newton Cotman)Â watercolor set! Especially since I bought a new Koi Waterbrush, and a tube of Lamp Black (The set didn’t come with black because it’s a crutch, by some standards, to use black. This is because most black colors are actually filled with reflected bits of other colors and not black). I have put it all into my Moving Option pen case. (From Jetpens.com)
This was my newest Steam/Mech Dragon commission: two smaller dragons for a wedding cake topper.
It was challenging since they’re comparatively small (3 inches tall) – but it was fun.
I finally put a lot of photos of my more Steampunk-styled pieces into a gallery. There is a tab at the top of this page, but you can also click right here.
I do other styles, but Steampunk is in demand right now. I will expand the gallery later, but I have 18 images so far!
I have decided that I am going to start saving the money I get from commissions, in order to buy a quad-line stunt kite…
You sit there thinking you wish you were me, but really, you wish you were me only about 1% of the time – the “potentially beating up the foule goblins at a safe distance by using magic” portion of the time. And that 1% of the time is certainly fun, but the 99% of the time spent wandering around without internet connectivity, smelling of muck and horse and sweat and really bad soap, with no coffee and rarely tea, and even the small beer is beyond consumption because no one ever thought of the idea of a water filter… Well, you can romanticize it and say I don’t know any better but, dear reader, I do know better, for I am staring through the mists of time rolling my eyes at you. I know I have been shafted by having a medieval romantic life that is foot-sore and travel-weary and does not include nearly enough cosseted-up-in-the-corner-of-a-warm-and-not-very-smelly-cozy-homely-secluded-and-did-I-mention-warm-again-hut-reading-a-spellbook time.
So think twice about what you yearn for, and next time you invent a wonderful fantasy world, be sure to dream up some really brilliant soap.
“Oh it’s perfect! Thank you so much!” The sea nymph cried, holding the necklace up to the light so that she could see the play of blues and greens against the silver. “How can I ever repay you?”
“Just send me things that you think I’d like – stones, shells, coins, scraps, anything. Mail them to the Artisan at Glimmerville. They’ll arrive.” She chuckled, pulling a starfish out of her hair, and leading the sea nymph to Glimmerville’s front shop door. The Artisan closed and locked the door, her job here complete, and with a sigh felt the water draining, the stone floor turning back to wood, her own gills vanishing. Glimmerville became whatever it was needed, when the doors were open. But once locked, it was her own shop again, and as familiar as her own daydreams.
The Artisan warmed her (now dry) robes by the fire for a moment, glad at its return, then went down the hallway, to the library on the left. Strange she thought Is Glimmerville budding a new room? That hallway seemed longer than usual. What are you up to, old girl? She plucked a book from a shelf (with the passing, wistful thought that another library would be nice) and went back to her bedroom, happily remembering the joy on the nymph’s face, and wondering where they would end up next.
In the morning she would unlock the door, onto sea or space, cave or sky, and see where they wound up next. They always ended up where they were needed, though sometimes with a few tweaks to fit the environment. She took it as a matter of course, and was more interested in what charmed necklace a dragon would want than what size the shop had to become to accomodate it in the front door.
She couldn’t wait for tomorrow. {More to come.}
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{Feel free to email theartisan [!at] glimmerville.com – and check out my Etsy shop, which has been – and will continue to be – undergoing renovation. Nearly each item has a story to tell, you see… if you ask the Artisan.}
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!]
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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.
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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!
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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.
The necklace I started in the last post is “mostly done” – I say “mostly” because I didn’t actually figure out the best clasp yet. But I could take a photo of the front anyway!
Sorry I haven’t posted for so long!
UPDATE: I finished this pencil sketch, and added some color, using Photoshop. He is now named Parnassus, the shy dragon.
Here is something I was drawing tonight. It isn’t finished, but sometimes people like to see works in progress. Or at least that’s my theory. And it’s easier than thinking of an entire blog post topic.
I have not been sleeping well lately. I wouldn’t call it insomnia, but I have been waking up in the night, for no apparent reason. I can usually turn over and fall back to sleep, but not sleeping the night through is new and annoying to me.
I have still been dreaming, though. One theory of mine is that waking in the night makes your dreams more vivid and memorable. So far this has not really been the case. My dreams have been as indistinct as ever, and even less memorable than some.Â
But last night I dreamed that I was posting a poem to this blog. I have no idea why.
And I am not posting a poem to this blog, so it wasn’t prophetic.
Dreams and dreaming fascinates me. I would have, in the past, said I was “pretty good at remembering my dreams” but that was before I met many friends who are excellent at both remembering and influencing their dreams via lucidity. Lucidity eludes me; at least, it eludes me 99% of the time.
If you are interested in lucidity I suggest checking out lucidity.com Your results may vary. From my own experiences with it, I have decided that really trying to improve your dream recall takes as much concentrated effort and time as anything else in life that you are trying to improve, so be forewarned. I do not really keep a journal, though I usually write it down if I have a truly interesting dream.
I do not put any stock in dream “meanings” since I know that most of the time the things I dream about are the things I have encountered during the day mixed with fantasy adventure. If I see a dragon in a dream it’s not going to be a metaphor for something I have to battle – because I really like dragons. And flying is not necessarily escaping anything, it’s just how I prefer to move.
Feel free to recount any dreams, hints on better dreaming, jounalling ideas, etc. in comments. And if you want more information and links, let me know that too.