My most successful color study in my textiles class yet. I cut two 1×1″ stamps from a rubber eraser. One a positive image, one its negative. This assignment required us to use five different colors and a random pattern on fabric to produce the effect of no single color being dominant. I think it feels a little yellow dominant, probably because the brown color I used was too close to the yellow. Overall though, I think it looks good.

Last Monday, my ceramics professor wanted to make a suggestion to me before I continued to work on my bust. She asked me to step back and take a look at what I did with the hair. The week before that, she wouldn’t let me work on the face until I put on ears and hair, so I obliged by slapping on slabs of clay. My intention was to finish the hair up later, but the slabs looked kinda cool just plopped on like they were. Apparently, she agreed because when she asked me to step away, she suggested that I consider leaving the hair just the way I had placed it. She’s been saying all along “sometimes distortions are kind of nice.” She liked the way my bust was turning out and said it looked a lot like a medieval boy. She said, “It’s not you now. Stop thinking of it as you, and work with your instinct.” So that’s what I did. This picture is from Monday after class.

It’s not quite the finished version, but I’m not sure you’d see the subtle changes I made yesterday in a photograph anyway.

The ears were a bit difficult. I’ve taken a shot of each of them and cropped it close in Photoshop so you can see. I’ve also flipped one of the ears over so you can compare them. Actually, I flipped it so I could compare them, but I figured that just maybe someone else might be interested in seeing them.

So that’s it. My prof asked me to move the thing to the kiln room so she could take a picture to show the department head. Yeah, I’m kinda proud.

The bust is slowing taking the shape of a human, or at least a humanoid type creature. This first picture was taken after working on it today for an hour and a half. It’s not clear from the angle of the picture, but I worked mostly on making the neck better. However, you might notice the face has slimmed down a bit from where it was on Monday.

This is another hour’s worth of work. Obviously, the most noticable change is that the head has a top now. I also worked a bit more on the neck (mostly in the back) and the face has slimmed down even more than in the last photo. I think the eyes might be too high still, but I’ll do some more checking on Monday before I get started again. The head is also positioned forward more than I’d like, so I am considering some pretty major “surgery” to correct it.

Coming soon… ears, hair, and finishing those eyes!

I bet you thought I would forget to take these pics, or at least come up with some really nifty excuse, huh? Well, surprise, surprise, I have the pics. You’ll notice some things that aren’t quite perfect, but perfection is not the goal here. It is supposed to be a likeness.

This pic is where I left off last week. I’m actually ahead of the rest of the class for this project, so I get a lot of people asking for advice. I have no advice! I got really lucky when the clay just sorta did its own thing, and I was smart enough to recognize it. I’m not sure you can tell from the picture, but the shoulders and clavicles are pretty darn good. Okay, so my boobs aren’t quite that big, but it’s my first attempt. Give me a break.

[This used to be a picture of the same sculpture as below but without a head. Somehow, the picture has gone missing.]

This next picture was taken after I had worked on it for about an hour. You can see that it’s a very slow process. I took this picture before I began working on the face because I was certain that once I began the face, I would ruin it.

This is the last picture I took after another three hours of work. Yes, three hours. You can see that I still have a lot of work to do on the face. The mouth is just about right now, I think. The nose isn’t quite right yet, but I think it will become more obvious what needs to be changed once I get the eyes finished. That eye there on the right is pretty good, but I think it’s up too high. Which really kills me, since I think the eye is pretty good. I think it looks like me a bit. It looks really old though, don’t you think?

Also, the neck is too long. I knew the neck was too long before I began on the head. I asked my professor about it (while there was time to “correct” it) and she told me that sometimes a distortion like that is a good thing. She suggested I leave it long. She even referenced the Nefertiti bust with the very long neck as an example of how a distortion can work for a piece.

There are other noticable distortions, but overall, I feel pretty good about the project so far. I expect that the entire class period on Wednesday will be used up on the face. Stay tuned for more pics on Wednesday.

I just checked the data on my camera and realized I had some very good Michigan sunset pictures that I never posted. For your viewing pleasure. These are from the last week of July.

The jewelry business is taking off, and I’m still a little surprised by it. I’m surprised mostly because I’ve done so little to help it along. Basically, my business is coming in the form of advertising done through word of mouth. People like my creations! I have no website, no business cards… heck, I’m still iffy on the business name. And yet I’m getting business. I’ve decided to test my ability at photographing my work and making it available here. This is a picture of a pair of earrings for which I’ve had several orders. Several! Eep! If this test goes well, I may have to get to work on that gallery page, since my last excuse will have run out.

We had the families over to celebrate Independence Day yesterday. The weather was perfect–bright sun, strong breeze, no rain. Today, however, it has been raining off and on all day. It’s raining again as I write. I’d say it was a good call having the families over yesterday.

In other news, we went to see Harry Potter 3 today. I gave in to the boys on Friday and took them to the arcade. We won nearly 400 tickets between the three of us. When it was time to cash them in, the boys both decided they wanted to get a sucker. A 5 ticket sucker. When I told them they had enough tickets to get more than a sucker, they decided they each wanted two suckers. Two 5 ticket suckers each.

My boys, just because.

Brendan

Jacob

I love the sky. Sun, moon, stars, and most especially, clouds. I love they way that clouds are completely without substance, yet have form, dimension, structure, and depth. I often get distracted by clouds. I’m always amazed by the colors that they sky displays. Here are a few photos of some gorgeous sunset clouds that I couldn’t resist capturing for my collection. I only wish the colors would show up as stunningly as they were in real life.

Back in April, my sister asked to borrow my suitcase for her trip to Germany. So I, being the dutiful sister that I am, dropped it off while she was at work and helped myself to a little peek around her house. In one of her bedrooms, I discovered two lovely lime green pillows that would look fabulous in my living room. I asked my husband (who I neglected to mention was with me at the time) if I should take them. He said that she would surely notice, and I said that she surely would not. He shrugged, and left the room. I took that as approval to take the pillows. And I did.

A few weeks ago, my sister was at my house. I remembered the pillows, but wondered if she would recognize them. She did. She tried to steal them back. But the amateur left her car doors unlocked, and I removed them before she noticed. She called me from her cell phone when she was halfway home and realized the pilliows were not in her car.

Yesterday, I received this in the mail, along with a Polaroid of my suitcase.

I hadn’t intended on returning the pillows easily, but her creative approach has swayed me. You’ll get your pillows back, sis.

This is the storm that blew through the area yesterday.

And this is what my office/studio looks like today.

Surely it is not a coincidence! The storm is responsible for the mess in my office/studio. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.