Friday,
August 23, 2002
Easy-clean
Paper-cup Candle-making
Mwah-ha-ha! I am drunk with power. I turn a big puddle of
a candle into a dozen little ones! AND I wrote instructions
on how you can make these snazzy candles too.
posted on 11:55 PM
Monday,
August 19, 2002
What's
New Pussycat?
Had a productive weekend, busy scrubbing the grossness of last
week off of me. Much more cleaning/puttering than crafting/creating.
But
I did get 3 out of the 4 screens done for the Pandora print
portfolio. Details still under wraps.
posted on 11:58 AM
Wednesday,
August 14, 2002
Yesterday,
I went to Pearl an actually found all four things on my list.
Unheard of. Invariably, something is completely out of stock.
Like the day I needed a sytrofoam balls and in a whole wall
of bins dedicated to styrofoam products there was, I shit you
not, 3 4" eggs and one ring.
But
yesterday I got my tracing paper, black origami paper, .08
black Micron pen and Silkscreening book.
Hooray.
posted on 11:27 AM
Monday,
August 12, 2002
Pandora
and the Seven Deadly Sins
Columbia College Chicago Center for the Book and Paper Arts
is starting a press. They are kick it off in early winter with
a print portfolio of 50 artists on the topic of Pandora's box.
I was a late edition to the mix of 50 to help round out the
famous folks with unfamous me, who'll hold my own and do good
work.
Last
night I finally started drawing sins. Strange thing is, I
already created a 18" x 24" etching on the topic my junior
year of college. It was a huge undertaking and I thought out
the sins to the nth degree. In that case, each sin was drawn
and their characters were created with the differences in
their eyes, hands and wings. Now I'm trying to approach the
same subject matter with the familarity, but without doing
the same thing.
In
this case, I've got about 1/4 the space, and Pandora's out
of the picture. Just the sins.
I
went to the library and got a few books on the subject. Surprisingly,
in antiquity, the sins themselves were very rarely represented,
at least according to the illustrations in Dora and Erwin
Panofsky's Pandora's Box. They are either little winged wormy
things or women. But in either of those cases, they don't
represent the specific sins.
Mine
do, big time. Last night I thought I'd gotten stuck after
drawing Gluttony and Lust and would go to bed. But I forged
ahead, and pencilled in Gluttony, Lust, then Sloth, Pride,
Greed and Envy. Only Anger and Hope are left to draw. (Hope
was the one that was left in the box when she opened it) I'm
having flashbacks to a exercise in drawing emotions from Scott
McCloud's class, since I'm trying to distinguish Envy and
Anger. Right now Envy looks like Envy, but if I don't make
Anger really look like Anger, it'll be confusing, especially
since they are right next to each other.
I'm
documenting the process along the way, but I don't think I'll
put it online until the portfolio is finished. Don't want
to spoil the surprise.
posted on 9:32 AM
Saturday,
August 10, 2002
Woohoo!
I'm a maniac. Finally finished the page about the Scott McCloud
class in Minnesota last month. Click
here to see it.
posted on 3:17 PM
Lotsa
good stuff going on. Working loads on the site, which feels
good. And here's a few physical things I made:
Dyeing Linen
Here's me wearing three layers of recently dyed items.
My
recent dye binge started when my friend Alise,
tossed a linen dress to me after our garage sale. She thought
it would fit, which is did, but was natural linen color, which
is so not me. So, I died it a fantastic red-orange color (the
outer layer in the photo).
While
I was in Minnesota, I bought two $2 pairs of linen pants at
a thrift store, along with an already lovely green linen dress.
My sis, Burgundy, saw my penchant for linen, and gave me a
skirt/short linen combo. Of course, these were all linen colored,
so that needed to be remedied. One pair of pants are seen
above, were died a rockin' marigold yellow. The skirt/shirt
combo were died a shade in between the dress and the pants.
The skirt turned out great. The shirt sort of spotty, even
after two dye baths. I hadn't realized that while Burgundy
handed it to me as a set, they were two different items. Didn't
even notice until after the first dye, when I was surprised
about the slight spotchiness. I'll probably re-dye the shirt
red, I think, after I order a darker red than the bright,
chemically red dye I have now.
That
leaves me one more pair of pants - can't decided on color.
And
I want to throw out a plug for Dharma
Trading, from whom I buy my dye and supplies. The
catalog is überinformative, the customer service quick and
friendly, and the products great. I used their Procion dyes
for all of this. Besides paints and dyes, they have loads
of "clothing blanks" which is plain white clothing in cotton,
rayon and silk. They are very careful to find or make clothing
with cotton thread - so it'll dye as well. Lots of clothes
ae sewn with polyester thread, that is synthetic, and therfore
not as dyeable.
Cucumber Sandwiches
Okay, it's not really a project, just a snazzy photo. This
was one of those empty-fridge meals. I had wheat bread, neufchatel
cheese and a cucumber, so I made these open face sandwiches.
Tasty and lovely.
Circle Boxes
Here's the three wooden boxes I talked about earlier. They
need a couple more coats of varnish, but turned out very snazzy,
I think.
posted on 12:07 PM
Thursday,
August 08, 2002
After three
client meetings today and a day of client work tomorrow, I can
craft with a clear, but tired mind.
The
paper mache salt-boxes are a no-go. Box is too bumpy/flimsy
to work alone, and I was too impatient to do a smooth, proper
job of fixing the boxes with additional layers.
So,
I checked the supply closet and found three wooden boxes.
So, I'm painting the insides bright orange, the outsides glossy
black and modge-podgey the circles onto just the tops. Will
be way shaper than the vases, methinks.
Orange
paint is currently drying.
posted on 7:54 PM
Wednesday,
August 07, 2002
Huh?
I'm suppose to be doing client work. But hell, why not make
something while I enjoy watching Law & Order? So, I started
my salt box recycling program. I've been dyeing several linen
items and dyeing means using loads of salt. So, I'm recycling
my the boxes and making snazzy paper mache vases. First, I'll
be building up the salt boxes with paper mache. Then, I'll paint
'em black. Next, I'll decopague on the circles above, made from
magazine cut outs. Viola! Snazzy, graphic vases.
Back
to the computer grindstone.
posted on 10:55 PM
Here's
what I made this weekend:
Hair sticks
Cooking this weekend, I looked over a saw the jar of wooden
chopsticks sitting on the shelf, outmoded by my snazzy plastic
chopstick I bought. I decided to give them a second life as
hair sticks. I don't have. and never had the hair to utilize
these myself, so I'll be putting them in the store when it's
up. I took out my vintage sequins, leftover rhinestones and
glitter. Took a lot of time deliberating on the patterns,
and came up with these 5 sets after some painting, glueing
and varnishing.
Red flower cards
The tiny red flower sequins just barely used on the hairsticks
(tough to see against the red chopsticks) inspired the next
project. This blank note card. Had enough recycled terra-cotta-colored
envelope, origami paper, red A2 envelopes and sequins to make
22 of these. The glueing on the sequins got a little boring,
but I did it in two shifts and watched movies, so it wasn't
too tedious.
The
biggest joy of these two projects was that it was bricolage.
No more spent. Existing materials used.
Hooray!
posted on 12:04 AM
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