New Painting finished!

Sweet. Took me long enough.

I am happy that things are starting to settle in here though and my work schedule allows me to create a home-schedule which has begun to show accomplishment. :)

I've stretched and primed a new surface for yet another painting which is pretty darn quick for me but I'm excited with my quick progress and hope to be able to attempt selling some prints in the near future.

The finished piece, Berry-Smoothy:

mmmmmmmmm, berry-licious.

hm, maybe I should make "Mmmmmm" the title of this whole series. :)
I really like how this one turned out. Probably because of the composition. I loved how the residue from the smoothy made interesting designs on side of the glass I had used. As well, the colours became really interesting when I actually got a chance to look at my photos close-up on my computer.
So far I really like my next piece as well. It's a close-up of soy-sauce in some olive oil. We'll see how that turns out.

I've also been working on a couple knitting projects. Playing around with small cables in order to make a relief-design. Some trees and skulls. I have a prototype of the one with trees on it. It's nearly finished but needs a lining and a strap. Still havn't decided if I want a shoulder strap or a longer one that would sling over the head and across the chest.

No pics of those yet, just havn't gotten around to it.

Not much else to get down here. Work's been a bit crazy, but manageable.

Hm, been awhile

Right. So did I ever mention that I've previously attempted to start two other Blogs? ... And failed to keep them up miserably? ;) Anyway, I never made any commitments to this in any case. Honestly, I suck at keeping logs of things. But I'm here now.

I have no pictures. This is because I really havn't been working on anything serious and the things I have been working on really arn't far enough along to warrant a picture. I did finish a painting of abstracted cookie-dough which I will put at the end of this post. (Just remembered that).

I'm in Guelph now. Kicking in a job that allows me at least a bit of time to work on my art and still be able to pay bills. It gets tedious and quite monotonous at times, but it's better than a job that keeps me on my butt in an office without and time for what I really want to do.

Went to an event called FaeryFest this past Sunday. I have a bunch of pics on my Flickr account. Link Below:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/15064181@N03/

I also have some pics of past knitting projects from University there as well.

It was a fun time there, kind of hot and really sunny but fun and great to see all the tiny kids dressed up (and a lot of older people too) :) Made me think about hone-ing my illustrative practices and perhaps getting into some vending. .... Atempts shall commence. Proto-types may appear on here in the near future.

Alright, I'm done typing, time for the pics:

Cookie-dough, mmmmmmm















These were created last fall in an attempt to satisfy an illustration craving I had been suppressing for a bit. They are "faerie" or "nature creatures" I'm not really sure. I like where I was going with them and I might try to make some more or change them slightly. I really like how the one on the right turned out but I like the shaggy dirtiness of the one on the left.

Alright, that's enough for now.

ta.

Done done, DONNNNNNNNNNNNNNEE !

Woooooo! Finally! :)

Well, it's not that it took too much longer to really figure out what I wanted to do. I had a prototype fleshed out on photoshop. Just needed to try and weave paper in and out of the sometimes very tiny holes in the lace.

So. There it is. Documented the best I can without any good slide film ... or a camera to hold slide film, lol. Now I just have to write 100 words about that darn thing.

ah well, at least there's some kind of accomplishment here.

There, all documenty-like

Oh! And I'm going to be calling it "... with the best of intentions"

mmmmm Stain-y goodness

Yay! The icky nasty cornstarch solution actually worked! .... Might have some gotten some inspiration from that ..... hmm.

Anyway, I had draped the lace over some formed mounds of newspaper and got an interesting, wavy outcome. Very happy with how that turned out. Then I decided that I just didn't enjoy the colour as it had been originally so I applied a Walnut woodstain to it.

Semi-finished product:

roughly 3 ft wide x 2 ft high

detail

Now I just need to figure what to do next. I want some kind of woven image, probably of a tree. The weaving will be done with bits of ripped paper. I want them to be a colour or range of colour as well. .... I'll play around with the image on Photoshop and see what I come up with.

paper-ripping, circular! oooooooooo. :)

This thing's due by 4pm on the 25th so I'm hoping to have the majority of it fleshed out by the end of this Sunday. .... we'll see.

Gobbelly-gook

CAUTION: Image-heavy post. ... Mostly because I've been lazy about photographing my progress over the past week and a half. It's very tempting to simply keep knitting once you're in a groove.

Below is a paiting from a series I've been working on. I take images of food I'm eating/making then abstract it a bit in Photoshop and then paint that image. This one is of a Fudgicle. mmmm.

tastey

I'm hoping to make prints of the finished pieces and try selling them, see what I can get from that. We'll see. It's also a bit of an excuse to paint because I've missed it with all the knitting/crocheting I've been doing.


OK, now to the knitty-gritty, hehe. Barb squirmed her way into this next pic, despite my shoooings, but she's a pretty lady so I'll forgive her eccentricities. Goodness knows I have enough of my own.

I made it a bit longer than I had anticipated, I'm gonna fold it in half and it'll make the finished piece all the more sturdy I hope.


Now for the artsy angled pics:







Pattern detail close-up



So, for the next step I'm going to attempt to stiffen the material. To do this I'm experimenting with cornstarch. I've never actually tried this but have seen it done on smaller pieces. ..... So I just made a huge pot of the solution. :)





As it gets warmer it starts to gooify and become translucent.









The dippging was actually quite difficult since I could really get an even coat over everything. It's now drying on my bed with the door closed and a fan going. We'll see how long it takes to dry. ........ And if it doesn't work I'll cry a bit, then figure something else out.

"Energy and the Environment" progress

The following images are of a piece I've been working on for a competition on the theme of "Energy and the Environment." There is a short statement that has to go along with what we submit but I'm going to worry about that after I've actually gotten more headway.

mmmm, lacey goodness

mmmm, detailed lacey goodness

I decided on a simple honeycomb pattern, found here. It is a shape found in nature a great deal, especially in structural instances such as a bee's hive. I thought that might be fitting considering the title. I'll just have to see where it takes me.

Not much else interesting is going on. Hopefully in the near future I will be posting images of some paintings I've been working on concerning abstracted views of food.

just 'cause

yeah this is me, kinda. Just a silly little upload for my profile pic.