Several months ago, my Clockwork Rat sculpture died. It fell off the shelf it was on and broke into a ton of pieces. I was very upset. Okay, to be fully honest, I was pissed off. It was a lot of work, I loved it, and then suddenly it was broken to bits.

I saved the damned thing, and I glared at it every day for weeks. Then it was every other day for weeks, and …you get the idea. It’s been long enough now, that I’m fairly divorced from the tragedy, and I can see it as something I will repair, redo and make better. It was a disaster, but I’m over it now, and I think I can turn it into something even cooler. I’ve learned a lot about sculpting in the months after, so he’s going to get a make over. I’m honestly kind of excited about the prospect now, and I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Also...No, you don't get to see a picture of it all broken up. I started to take one, and it ...just no.

Mold Making

Mold making is a new thing for me, but I’ve always been interested in it. In fact, I thought I’d grow up to design toys, when I was a kid, and I’m not completely over that ambition. Right now, I’m working on some keychain molds, rather than start with something so complex that I’ll just end up frustrated and angry. That’s something I tend to do all too often. I over reach, then I get mad.

I’ve done some other molds, of course. The candles, the reindeer skeleton ornaments, etc. Most of them were made by painting latex over an object, drying it, and repeating until I thought I’d go insane, or by using some mold making putty that works pretty well, but only for certain things. This time, I’m gonna use RTV latex. It’s scary and exciting. The last time I tried this stuff, the seal around my mold kinda popped, and I ended up with cured sheets of the stuff all over my desk. You can’t tell by just reading this, but I was and still am furious over that little incident. Eh well, live and learn, I suppose.

I don’t know yet how the molds will turn out, but as I learn stuff, I’ll try to keep you informed! Heck, some of you may even find it useful.

Two asides:

First, the little sculpture pictured there is going to be used for key chains, if it turns out okay. She's a little under two inches tall. Sorry for the picture quality. I'm one of those people who uses their phone for pictures.

Second, there's a chance, albeit slim, that Mom will be getting out of the hospital today, pending a procedure to fix a partially collapsed lung (which I only heard about yesterday).

Magical Mushroom Lamp

Tada! Here’s my magicky mushroom lamp thing. I was inspired by an instructable to do this, but I didn’t follow the instructions, as I’m lazy, and I don’t know enough about using LEDs to follow the instructions well.

I started by molding a blend of translucent and glow-in-the-dark skulpey around a mini set of LED Christmas lights. I picked up the lights at Dollar General or some such place a couple of years ago for around $3, so I would not have been heartbroken had this ridiculous plan not worked out. I took the batteries out of the battery pack, and backed the whole thing. The battery pack housing warped some in the oven, just for the record. The lights survived intact, though.

Next, I took some blue board, cut it into two pieces, a larger one and a slightly smaller one. The larger one was to be the base of the lamp. I cut a hole in the larger one to fit the battery pack into, then taped down wires leading to mushrooms, here and there. I cut up the smaller blue board so that I’d have room to run wires, but I was kind of sloppy with this. I glued it all together with wood glue.

Next, I mixed up a batch of pre-made paper-mache pulp and used it to give the blue board a ‘bark’ texture. I gobbed it pretty generously in the cracks and gaps between the various pieces of blue board to hide wires and give the thing that ‘side of a tree’ look I was wanting.

After it dried, I painted the ‘bark’ with a black coat, dry brushed some gray, brown and white, and let a little bit of it dab onto the mushrooms, because mushrooms are never completely clean. Then I screwed in two wood screws into the back at a really fierce up angle, and hung the whole thing in my bathroom with a bit of picture hanging wire. That’s it!

Hope you all enjoyed seeing it, and maybe it’ll inspire you to make something neat! We’ll discuss my latest project next time!

Also, as an aside, I took these pictures with my brand new LG Optimus. It's a cool phone, but I'm still a bit lost as to it's functionality.

I'm an art hoarder

There. That’s a confession. Hoarding runs in my family, I hate to admit, so it’s not a big surprise that I have some of the compulsions to hoard stuff that they do. My problem tends to lie solely in my studio, though. I can’t keep it clean and organized, it’s always ultra-cluttered, and I have a hard time tossing anything potentially useful, even if I don’t have a use for it right now.

The thing is, I want a neat and tidy work area, but I can’t do it. The hoarding of potentially useful bits has come in handy so often it’s not even funny. I say this, because I’m going to try for the billionth time to clean my studio up. Wish me luck, maybe this time it’ll stick.

I’ve already starting this nightmarish cleaning process by doing something I don’t think I’ve ever done before. I’m pruning down my mass of sketch books. I’ve been going through them, and ripping out everything that seems like it might be useful, then tossing the rest of it into the garbage. It’s a painful process, and I’ve had to do it in small steps. Three sketch books is about my limit for one sitting, though if they are older sketchbooks, it’s a lot easier. I have next to no emotional attachment to the older stuff, and upon looking back at it, it’s mostly pretty awful.

It has been kind of intellectually interesting to see where my progress was back in high school and the like, but mostly it embarrassed me to see the mess. I know that an artist is supposed to keep such things to see progress and the like, but really, I think I carried it too far. Anyway, the garbage truck has come and gone this morning, so they are now on their way to a better place.

My New Pens

For Christmas, my sister gave me some pens. She went to Michaels and chose ‘the most expensive ones they had’. Hehe, she thinks I’m an art tool snob (she’s right, too). They were a Faber Castell manga set. It’s a pretty cool set and comes with a black brush pen, fine point, and medium point pens, as well as a set of five gray and brownish gray brush pens.

I’d be a liar if I said I’d never looked at the pens before she bought them, but I hadn’t really ever considered buying them. I didn’t know what I’d do with gray pens. Turns out, I’d do a lot! I’ve been using them on a nearly daily basis. I LOVE the depth they’ve given my work. It’s very exciting.

As for the picture...the mushroom guy was the first think I did with the pens, and will be a gift to my sister, as she's got some unnatural affinity for mushrooms. He's not a happy looking guy, but he's not the scariest monster I've made lately, either (See my Baby New Year post).

So, to get to a point, I suggest these pens, if you like working with ink. Also, I’m thinking of throwing some art onto the Etsy page I run, so check over there, if you’re interested.

My Mom's in the Hospital

This is news to you, unless you know me personally, but it’s not a new development. Mom’s been in the hospital since the day before Thanksgiving. It’s been stressful as hell, to say the least.

First, it was assumed that she had a stroke, but she seemed cognitively fine. Then we went on to other more exotic disorders, and eventually settled on myasthenia gravis. I didn’t know what it was either, so don’t feel bad. Boiled down, it’s an immune system thing that disrupts the neurological signals to the muscles.

Of course, if that were the only problem, she’d have been home long ago. She’s turning 70 on the 10th, and she’s had a rash of problems with her health since going to the hospital (a great number of them seem to be the fault of the hospital, but that’s something I’ll likely not discuss here).

The point of this is not a cry for sympathy, but because I’m trying to figure out something nice to do for her. She’s missed Thanksgiving, Christmas, and will likely miss her birthday too. Seems like she should get something for all that. If you all have any brilliant ideas for gifts, let me know!

Happy New Year!

As you can see, Baby New Year is upon us. Creepy little bugger, isn’t he? Well, the future is always scary. Of course, as it is New Years, it’s time for the new resolutions. I’ve only got a couple. 1st, stay on top of this blog. I tend to abandon it for long periods of time (this is typical for me. My DeviantArt account gets the same treatment). Second, stay on top of my Etsy store. I’m going to try to branch into selling on different venues, etc., but if I can stay on top of the Etsy store and the Blog, I think it will help.

Now, Baby New Year… The Baby isn’t actually Baby New Year, but I finally finished the little devil, and I sat on him for a bit, so I could unveil him today. The eyes are glass pebbles that I painted, the head is Super Sculpey, and the whole deal is stabbed onto a dowel rod, so I could move it about under the baby blanket. The idea is to carry around the little rod puppet, and act like it’s a baby until people want to see him. I think the shock value will be priceless. He may be incorporated into this year’s Halloween costume, but I dunno, yet.

Keep tuned, and I promise I’ll at least get some stuff posted for the next few days.