I made a mushroom charm

weeeeee

Remember my chain headdress? This is how the finished product looks. It's for my Persephone costume for an intense Gods and Goddesses party.

The chiton will be a challenge.

Totally can tell I'm influenced by Art Nouveau and the 20s/30s/40s

So we have finished the lighting project, Ponoko is coming to a close, our Welding Project (AKA The Bane Of My Existence) is coming to a close, and I'm close to starting the band ring project - buying the silver (finally) this afternoon.

Sadly, we're not doing the tea infuser. Happily, we're learning how to make chains.

If this were a personal journal, I'd go into how I've been a pile of crazy this semester and what my psuedo-diagnosis would be for the causation of the crazy, but professors read this and the only way I feel comfortable revealing my crazy is when I'm drawing a comic. As such, I'm not going to write that out.

I do, however, wish I had my sawing sample and my lighting project back. I want to take pictures and post them on my deviantart. My new one (my college one) is all sad and empty.

my mostly-highschool deviantart is melody-la.devianart.com currently I am bellmell.deviantart.com

It's very sparse. I've not loaded a lot of work onto it yet.

What? Midterm already?

I'm already in a panic. It's completely normal and my anxious certainty that I have completely fucked up the first half of the semester and now I need to put my ass in over drive is probably the reason WHY I manage not to be a chronic C student.

Even with that admission, I feel the heartburn bubbling up in my chest from the fretting that I've royally screwed myself already this semester and I'm wondering if I can push my grades in my classes to B's (or A's, if I can manage) before it's too late and I lose my scholarship.

I'm already scraping a C in my Art History course.

I haven't even finished ONE riveting sample - I was so certain they didn't matter, and with the knowledge the only time I'd be able to pierce my damn light projects was in class, which is also the only time I'd be able to work on those samples, what with the drilling and wire sizes I didn't have and all, that I set them aside.

AND NOW THEY'RE DUE.

AUGH WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO.

Look at this!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/heronadornment?page=1

she's got interesting pieces. I think they're cast silver? They're worth a gander.

I really wish I took pictures of my pieces.

I wanted to put it out on the interwebs my artistic talent with the nonsensical swirls and evil alien venus flytraps I did for my candle "shadowmaker" (doesn't hold ANYTHING. wonder if I could fix that?) and my cutting sample. Err. Sawing and piercing sample.

My punching pieces - called such because making them made my want to punch them in their anthropomorphized faces.


I had fun making the rough drafts. I enjoyed taking heat to both the copper pieces and turning them colors other than orange and red. The parts in between made my rather murderous.

I should take more time sawing. I shouldn't try and force my saw into places it doesn't fit.

I should sand-blast the damn things to make finishing half a billion times easier. (Or is that cheating, oh glorious leader?)

CAN you sandblast a piece and the finish be something attractive? I know sandblasting glass makes it vaguely opaque and like seaglass. What does it do to metal?

That's a question worth asking.

I WONDER WHAT ETCHING CREAM DOES TO METAL!?!?!

I'm all experimental now.

Hi there stalkers!

No, I'm not talking to you Janet. I am probably talking to Laura. Hi Laura! Or Lauren...?

Bah, I suck at names.

But yes, I'm sure stalker-girl is aware of my mostly defunct Genius is as Genius does blog, and I actually have upwards to around 5 or 6 other blogs I use in rotation on multitudinous different sites. Live journal, wordpress, xanga, you name it. Of course, the xanga ones I haven't touched in close to 6 years, my live journal accounts are so full of awkward teen angst it's embarrassing to sign into anymore, and my blogger blogs...I forget about those. I have a twitter. I tweet from my phone, and my mini thoughts that would normally grow up to be big brave pages upon pages long posts get snipped off and preserved in their undeveloped forms like little thought-fetuses in jars.

How's THAT for imagery?

My handle on twitter, for those who deem it worthy of their attention, is KittyExclaims. Be warned, my favorite words are among the four-letter variety.

I have no real inspiration or photos of sketches to post. I've decided early on I wanted to adapt an illustration I did into jewelry, which I figured would work as the part I wanted to keep was done in a rather thick, linear, open-work fashion. Here is where you can find it. The black lines of JUST THE ROSE will be done. Things will be more closed up. I want to do it in a translucent blue plastic.

When I tried to work on it in illustrator I got a buggy computer and I wanted to stab the damn mac in its non-existent eyes. If it had a readily apparent webcam, I'd of crushed it with my crazy she-hulk super strength. I will have to work on it some more after break - I only have photoshop at home. Photoshop SEVEN at that. (gasp!)

I have so much homework to do before March 22nd.

Sooo much drawing. Soooo much planning.

I don't even get a proper break this summer, as I've decided to put myself through SUMMER COURSES. Because my last science course is messing up my idyllic schedule and it was recommended I take art 217 before it was too late.

THE THINGS I DO FOR MY CRAFT.

Speaking of which, someone poke me and tell me to draw a comic book. Even if it's like 6 pages long and about sandwiches, I'm so out of practice it's shameful.

I'm counting on you, stalker girl!

craaaaafffttt showwww

PEOPLE I HAVE TALKED TO

Sandra McEwen - www.sandramcewen.com
Manya & Roumen - www.manyaandroumen.com
Annette Paskiewicz - www.studiomodglass.com
Donna Veverka - www.donnavjewelry.com

WHY THEY ROCK

• Animal rings
  
• pretty glass enamels
• Jewelry as weaponry
• All this stuff I won't learn in this class.

MY IMPRESSION OF THE SHOW

• Hot - the lights made me dizzy
• OH GOD I WILL NEVER BE THIS SUCCESSFUL (you know, the normal artist self-doubt)
• Whoa some of this stuff sucks (mostly the textiles and clothes and handbag crafts)
• Whoa all of this stuff is super expensive.
• Maybe if this is the standard I won't be as unsuccessful as I think.
• I COULD TOTALLY BE AN ARTIST YEAAAAA
• So many SHINY THINGS.
  
• Comic conventions are decidedly less magpie-attractive (Illustration major, comics are what I do)
• I'm dizzy.
• I should see more
• I'M DIZZY.
• okimdonenow.

I have all the ADHDs

Things I'm loving

1. Lucy Knisely - She's a comics artist who's been published a couple times over. Her work is beautiful, her stories are sincere, and she's very honest about her weaknesses and insecurities. It's wonderful in a flawed beauty/beauty in flaws way.
2. So Fawned - It's essentially a mommyblog, but Desiree Fawn takes beautiful photos of her child and family and puts up lovely links to even more gorgeous items.
3. Earl Grey tea
4. 
   Nerd Chic
5. StumbleUpon
6. 
   Steampunk Butterflies
7. Ramen noodles. I am on the biggest noodle kick since the Great Soup Devouring of 1995-1997 where soup was all I ate to the point where I argued with my mother to just WHY I couldn't have soup for breakfast and WHY did I have to have a SANDWICH for LUNCH. WHY DON'T YOU WANT ME TO BE HAPPY MOM?
   
   7 year olds are so freakin' dramatic.
   
   But yes. noodlesnoodlesnoodles. All I want right now
8. Criminal Minds, Or more specifically, Dr. Spencer Reid. Matthew Grey Gubler is just adorable ten times over.
9. Caprica on Syfy. I didn't like Battlestar Galactica at all, because by the time I realized there was more to the channel than Twilight Zone and Tremors, I was so far behind it wasn't worth the angst. Caprica just started, is a prequel to the phenomenal series, and it has made me fallback in love with the Science Fiction genre. I've been dancing with Fantasy for the last 6 years, it's time to give its fraternal twin a chance.

This is my life right now. Shiny butterflies, science fiction and crime shows, earl grey and ramen. Sooooo classy.

Post script post script post script:
OH MY GOD MY STEAMPUNK LOVE IS PLEASED WITH THIS.

This is why I LOVE stumbleupon. I would of NEVER seen this if it weren't for the lovely little button that sends me to articles, blogs, sites and pictures and videos that are related to the interest tags I clicked when I signed up!

JOY.

Light Project

This is my sample, made all prettified for the internet.

Inspirations? Circles. And swirls. I drew a bunch in my sketchbook when I was bored and frustrated with my lack of ideas for this project and I looked at it and went "Ooooh, prettyyyy."

I think for the final copper version I'll give more height to the back, and give the inside of the piece as high a shine I can give it, and make the outside more matte, so the light will frame the design much more effectively.

Considering punching holes into the copper version to release more light.

But that one I'm not too sure about.

Shiny things make me happy.

I'm gleeful that Etsy is on the Project Object/Object' Institutions of Note' sidebar. I'm very supportive of the Indie/Handmade/Vintage movement. Shanalogic is also a good website, though very cutesie and very much pedaled to the scene-emo-japanophile teen set. There are still some very good pieces there, like the Love-o-meter necklace. I have it in brass.

My jewelry designs are most likely going to be influenced by the Steampunk aesthetic.

Other things I'm prone to designing

• Exotic flower motifs (I have an obsession with orchids and lilies)
  
• Symbols related to paganism and new age ideology
• abstracted musical instruments and notes (Ask me about how I think cellos are gorgeous)
• serif typography patterning (Ask me about how I think the lower-case "a" is the most beautiful letter in the English language)

I'm looking forward to fleshing out the design of this blog. It's going to be a beautiful blog about beautiful things!