sketchbook bag and new figure photo

This is the sketchbook bag that I made for Eliot for Christmas! It's handmade felt with hand sewing and embroidery, and is the first thing I've ever designed and sewed. And he hearts it. score!

This is a less crummy photo of the figure that I made recently... she has just too much hair, I think. It's just too fantasy-barbie-esque. Note were I burned her foot at the bottom. I can't wait until the oven is fixed so I don't have to use the toaster oven anymore.

Sarah Anne Johnson

Sarah Anne Johnson is an amazing artist who works in photography, as well as painstakingly creating figures and settings to photograph, which she shows alongside the "real" photos. Beautiful beautiful fascinating work.

Tree Planting Project

Either Side of Eden

Her figures have such subtle and intuitive gestures, and she creates brilliant atmosphere.

some notes from my sketchbook

words,
communicating with others in language is difficult for me,
words are tricky, untrustworthy,
(with absolute meanings that may not be agreed upon)
they can help understanding,
but fuel misinterpretation.

But physical communication
is so very intense, direct,
harder to fake.
No wonder people put up
barriers, avoid eye contact in elevators.

Eye contact disables me,
because it is pure communication,
blows past interpretation to immediacy and moment,
it is basic and naked.

paint and hair

These pictures are pretty sketchy- her hair is actually a fantastic blood red mohair, and looks like arteries when held up to the light.
She is a wheat-field siren. Isolated in a sea of grain, amid flag-strewn powerlines, she waits for victims. (someday when I have the materials I'll create the scene.)




I think what of the biggest challenges using sculpey and acrylics is keeping it from looking cheap. The idea behind doing these feels more like sculpture than Barbie. In the future, covering figures with acrylic medium will be nixed from the program, because they make the flesh too shiny. There are some artists who use heat-set oil paints for a more natural looking flesh, and although I like the idea, I don't have the money to invest in anything like that as of yet. There is also some breathtaking work people are doing in porcelain, but that's in a little deeper a commitment to process and equipment than I have access to right now. So I'll have to keep experimenting with different combos of what I have.

Oh, and she has a broken neck. APPARENTLY these sculpey things aren't like plastic kid's toys that can take abuse. Which is going to cramp my clumsy, dropping things style.

Fresh from the toaster oven....

whole lotta grab-bag-iness

She's not done yet, but here's what on the go right now. I've been having a grand old time trying out different poses for her, but I think something a bit tentative and introspective will be what I'm going to go for.

Her legs, although made mostly of thin wire and tinfoil, are pretty floppy and unsupportive... I hope I can get her propped up in the correct arrangement for baking, so that she stands up nicely. I'm probably going to have to make her a flat stand of some sort to glue her feet down to, but that'll be fun to make, methinks.

Ok seriously this is so superhot. Check her out, all laid out and emaciated and made of plastic...
This is before I added on much of her bodyfat... I love adding on layers of muscle and fat, it's such a wonderful fleshing out... the whole process is just... I just love working over the human fleshiness, the solidity but uncertainty of form, the points of assurance but also hesitation... anyway I'm getting art-flaky, and that just means that I'm having a great time.
But anyway... HOT!

This is a page from a collage/photos/paint/etc. book I was making for Eric last summer. I like this one, especially because they're lighting his bum on fire. tee hee. hot bum. HEHEHEHE

Check it out, my awesome new student ID photo, taken by some tech kid who didn't have a clue what he was doing, and obviously cared very little. BUT the important thing is, that it show my new hair (I've never gotten streaks done before... and look, it's getting long! whooh!) and my NEW GLASSES. They're even cooler when you can see the details- the frame's pattern/colors look like something between fine mermaidy fish scales, and pixelart. In gorgeous colors that look a bit different based on the lighting.

Ooh, reading and craft night with the crew is tonight. I can't wait, getting together with superawesome people to read interesting stuff out loud, make silly crafts, drink tea, and sometimes act out random french plays point blank, is pretty much my definition of.... SUPERAWESOME!


btw, I really love the new easy to use spellcheck on blogger, but it still doesn't seem to understand all the words I like to make up.

repeat!

I just kinda thought hey wouldn't it be neat to make patterns. Repeating stuff over and over is so incredibly busy and mind numbing and kinda like a math puzzle but in a visual sense. And patterns are really hip right now in clothing and art and science and all sortsa superdooperness, probably. And, um, I was suppose to do them, for my schooling. Cause it'll make me smarter or something.








There's more variations on them... but i think you got the idea. Patterns are all about the excetera, excetera's.
The second pattern in the bunch is the one I've put on a silkscreen, and will soon be covering fabric with like a nutty squirrel-like industrious... no wait industrious is more like a beaver I guess.... ok, I'll be printing all over that cloth like a beaver with his... no, no no, I'm too tired for cleverness.

In conclusion, patterns clearly have made me a much more intelligent individual and a better artist. I will incorperate them into future projects for the good of my species.

smooshy face gets all the trimmings!

I take pictures of objects on top of sewing machines. It's a living.

Painted up and in your face!

Prepped for surgery.

Rabbit hair.

Now, will I add any bits of clothing or jewellery? Shall this poor soul who suddenly looks like an 80s rocker recieve further embellishment? This I shall contemplate as I get back to my REAL homework.

dolls for my mumsie

These are the figures (ok, ok, dolls,) that I made for my mom for Christmas. They're not for playing with, of course, just for display... the hair is faux fur, and their skin were painted with really thin acrylic washes. They don't really have bodies... really just soft wormlike tubes with no legs, and wires with hands on the ends. Those parts just hide under the blanket, so it's ok.

smorsh.

So, I took photos of the completed mother and child sculpture/dolls piece that I made for my mom, HOWEVER I left them on my brother's computer. So until he sends them to me, I am itchily wanting to post them but unable. BLARG!

So anyhow, here's something I did today- I tried crumpling up tin foil and covering it with sculpty to make a bust, and man, you save so much clay that way! And it takes way less time to bake. nice.
In case no one has noticed over the past... year or so... I've been flailing about artistically, trying different mediums and subjects and approaches to making art... trying to find what that one thing for me is. And, well... nope, I havn't had that AH-HAH! moment, yet. Nothing seems to say "this is that medium you will work with for the rest of your life. This is your calling." I'm still restless. But... I am still loving the journey. Exploration is bloody exciting.

Over Christmas break, I completed a series of tests with a doctor... and I officially, certifiably, an ADHD girl. My mind likes to wander like nobody's business. And my intellectual abilities are in the 97-99 percentile of the population, but my paying attention and focusing on a task are at 30%. Shite. Quite a discrepency, no? It's no wonder I've always felt very smart, and yet very dumb. It's good to finally know what's going on, though. Makes it easier to figure out what working strategies will be better for me.

Oh yes, so anyway, here's the new sculpture! It was fun to really twist with the expression, my God I love the human face so friggin much. fun fun fun. And it took way less time that those mother and kid heads. Now I'm more familiar with the medium. Next I will paint it up. Maybe add some hair, we'll see.