Experiments with Resin

The latest adventure in resin crafting is spoons, and a ring! I finally got a ring mold (size 11). I've tried making ring molds with disastrous results. Although it makes me admire the skill that goes into making good molds.

The bent spoon is filled with dried, crumbled flower petals and tiny, dried flower buds. I'm not sure I like them. 

The ring mold is lovely, but the back of the band is very thin, which makes the rings easy to break. I think I'll try a combo polymer clay/resin one. 

I've also been working on a layered resin series of cartoony animals using acrylic craft paint & glow in the dark pigment powders. I have a rainbow giraffe, a lion, a monkey, an elephant, & some greenery.  I really hope these turn out.

Embroidery

This week has been all about embroidery. I've felt the need to stitch lately, so I'm working on a couple thread paintings. I also stitched a rainbow saber-toothed tiger skull that I'm feeling very underwhelmed over.

 This lovely smilodon skull is stitched in variegated embroidery floss from DMC that I thought was like the regular floss that you can separate into 6 different strands, but no, it's one big thread. I don't usually use more than maybe 3 strands max, and I'm typically using only one, so I have no idea what to do with this absolutely fun and terrific floss. I was thinking of doing a sunset type landscape background, but I think the skull will get lost. (That's why there's a circle in the mouth.) It's already tough to see what it is, according to the Husband and Child. I have no idea what I should do with this one. It's too pretty and was very fun to make to throw it out. Maybe I'll toss it in the shop. It might want to be a bag when it grows up.

 This is the thread painting I'm currently working on. It's in about a 4 inch hoop, so it's not terribly big. It's just the right size for an iron on patch. The circle symbol is a Vegvisir, or runic compass. It's supposed to help prevent getting lost.

I'm currently in the love-hate stage of working on this. I can see that it's going in the right direction, but I don't like how it looks now. I want to get past the sketchy, ugly part to the part where it's finished and I can put it in the shop.

This little fox is just a tad over 1 inch. It's leaning towards wanting to be a magnet, but it might end up as a necklace. Or a tiny iron on patch. In other words, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet. I like how it turned out though. This is another one that passed through the love-hate phase before the colors blended right and I started to really like it.

Yes, I do use that ugly green fabric for a lot of my embroidery. I have a giant gallon bag full of these squares. They were probably intended to be a quilt, but now they've been rescued from Goodwill and are little canvases for my threaded creations. It's a sturdy woven fabric that sits nicely in a hoop. It holds its shape and has enough body that I don't have to worry about reinforcing the finished product too much. It's great for thread painting, where I am filling up the whole stitched area. As much as I think the pattern is god awful ugly, I'm going to miss these squares when I've used them all up

Pneumonia or evil zombie plague?

Apparently 11 days in a row at work during flu season is a bit too much. But, prior to catching pneumonia, I bought a nifty silicone ball mold for making ice that is perfect for resin. I also ordered a jar of gum arabic for ink/pigment making & a multi-color sample pack of glow-in-the-dark pigment powders. I can't wait to feel better so l can use them.

An Introduction

I am an artist; have been all my life. My materials and subject matter have varied, but the base drive to create is ever present. This past year I finally allowed myself to believe I can sell my art. After much hesitation and mulling it over, I opened my very own Etsy shop.

At first I was going to call it the Glass Fox, thinking I would make painted glassware. Then I discovered I really don't enjoy painting on glass. Also, my creative adventures are many and varied, so naming the shop something that even hinted at an exclusive medium was bound to fail. I needed a more appropriate name.

For as long as I can remember I have felt the lurking, predatory tension of untreated anxiety. On bad days, I felt like a rabbit cowering under the teeth of a fox. I felt hunted, powerless, terrified. On other days, I felt like I was riding the fox; a strange, almost predatory feeling where I was aware of the sharpness of my teeth. I felt powerful, unstoppable, crazy like a fox.

The image of a confident, unbreakable rabbit, an animal entirely within the category of prey, riding with obvious glee on a fox seemed like an appropriate image for the shop. Thus, Riding the Fox was born. The logo was created while I was learning embroidery and thread painting. The original riding the fox embroidery is stitched on  an unfinished purse. I carefully scanned it onto the computer, cut out the background fabric, and a logo was born.

So, I had a name and a logo and an Etsy shop. What was I going to sell? At my day job at the Funeral Home (which is as identifiable as I'm going to be for that job) I asked a coworker if it would be considered inappropriate for a non-Catholic to make a rosary. With his assurance that it would be ok, and with an unwanted flower arrangement that was headed for the trash, my adventures with polymer clay and prayer beads was begun.

Now Riding the Fox is home to my various artistic wanderings, including polymer clay, resin, hand embroidery, small sewn items, and wherever else my imagination takes me. Every item bought from my shop keeps me riding the fox and helps me manage my anxiety.