Inspired Dream

I had such a vivid, affect-filled dream that the images have stayed with me all day. From the two that I scribbled down before class, to the one I worked on at leisure, and the one I just got down to get it out of my head....

Colored pencils, while I like that you can layer, are often not smooth enough for me. Or.....perhaps I need the spendy ones. I've used them...so nice......

Emphemera

So I realized.....just a few minutes ago.....that I do art! And I wasn't even realizing it! And, yeah, I make stuff. But I do something that is totally and completely me. I have this habit of keeping interesting bits of things around. I pick them up off the floor or hold onto them or stumble upon them or acquire them in some way. Every time I bring something new home, I tape it to my wall. (When I was still living with my parents, I taped them to the back of my door--I've always done this!) So I make these crazy jumbled together types of arrangements of all these odd/interesting bits of stuff. How did I never notice that this was art?! Crazy. I do have an art that is all my own. ^^ It's just something I never consciously made as art. It was always just a part of how I operated....

Anyhows, enough with going on about how blown away I am right now. Here's a small one forming on my wall right now:

Basketry: Interlude

I was sitting around talking to Jeff and attempted to twine a basket out of grass. Don't twine with your ribs and the twining bit as the same material! SO confusing. >.<; It's teensy, but cute and I'm proud of it. ^_^

A Sleeper in Vine Charcoal

So I woke up this morning and there he was again in my bed. I love the way the light plays with him when he sleeps. This time, instead of taking pictures with my noisy camera, I sat on the edge of the bed and drew him. (Yay for large beds!) I don't usually like vine charcoal because it's so smear-able, but it seemed perfect for this. I could rub out mistakes almost as if erasing and I liked the play that gave me. He did move around a bit, but I managed to finish one. :)

This one's in graphite. A hard angle, and he kept moving!

Basketry: Update I

So, I've been working on the basket-making. I decided to make one for my mother for Mother's Day. Didn't quite get it finished, though. :/ I decided to try and put a turtle and wave design on it. Whew! Switching between that many colors is kinda hard. I'm using two colors together to make the blue water--one fluffy to give it some fun texture and the other a plain yarn so it's not teeny tiny. I'm also using two different colors together for the shell--the green I'm using for the turtle skin, plus some bright green floss (I hope I don't run out of it!). As you can see, I'm about halfway done. Interrupted by papers and finals....

Here's the almost complete first basket. I didn't know how to finish the top, so I made up a weaving method to make long straps. Perhaps they'll go together to make a loop? I haven't quite decided. You can see the wave pattern I decided on. It made a good intro to switching colors. 

Also, this type of basket weaving technique is called "twining."

Metal Activity Book

This is something I've been working on for a while and have recently picked up again as a project worth finishing (it may have something to do with the fact that I'm now dating a metalhead). It's actually really fun coming up with activities to add and metal-ifying them. Most of the bands represented here are folk-metal or some such. I have a more expansive list to work from now. Maybe after finals I'll have some new pages to put up? I think the hardest thing is that I'm working with a genre of music that I don't know much about. However, the book is humorous/interesting because it's combining conflicting stereotypes, so I suppose it's alright that I'm merely working off the metal stereotype. A note: the Slayer font is much harder to do than the font I decided on for the rest of the book. (Though why I decided that I wanted to draw every letter forever is beyond me. Least it looks cool. XP)