SPIDER!

So, the Husband found a spider packed in a box of inventory for the store he works at. From what I can tell, it's a giant crab spider, or huntsman spider. It's butt and a couple legs had fallen off, but I was able to reassemble it to the best of my ability. It is approximately 4" wide, from furthest tip to tip. 
I coated it in UV resin, (which is awesome and fun and I'm really going to have to get more so I can master working with it) while positioning the legs.
When it's completely done, I'll turn it into a necklace.

I need to trim up the excess resin, maybe add something shiny. I'm leaning towards using ribbon instead of chain, but that may change. Chain may be closer to a spiderweb look, but I like how ribbon works as a necklace.

This is a real spider, procured as ethically as possible. I don't kill creatures for my art. If I see an insect or other critter already dead, I'll use it. This one was found already dead, unfortunately shipped with merchandise from unknown lands. I'm hoping it will find its way into someone's life who will love and appreciate the beauty (and creepiness) of this big-ass arachnid.

Inktober 3-8

 Just a basic pic dump to keep going on Inktober.

Inktober and other artsy stuff

So, the Husband talked me into doing this Inktober thing. I haven't done a art prompt/challenge thing before, so it should be interesting. Ink also isn't my favorite medium to work with, so it really is something of a challenge. I am following the Inktober.com official prompt list. 

Here's my first offering, for the poisonous prompt. Nothing fancy, doodled while sitting the car waiting for the Husband and Child as they went to play in the tiny, overcrowded Gamestop I really don't like being in. A bit too claustrophobic for me, even if I do enjoy playing games and am a complete nerd myself. Thankfully, the Husband had some of his fancy markers with him, so I was able to try out something other than a ball point pen. (I actually enjoy drawing with ball point, but the point of a challenge is to, well, challenge yourself)

As I usually have a pencil on hand, I will most likely be doing pencil under-drawings. I am comfortable doing a straight-up ball point drawing without a pencil crutch, I definitely will need the pencil for any attempts with a marker. I'm not that familiar with how marker and other inks behave.

Day 2, Tranquil, started with a very light pencil outline, but then I did the bulk of it in ball point pen. Honestly, I don't like it. She doesn't have quite the tranquil expression I was going for, and I really dislike the hair. C'est la vie. Not all drawings turn out the way I would like them to, but such is the nature of art.

As a connection to the shop, all my embroidery begins as a drawing. I transfer a copy of the base drawing on to tracing paper, pin it to the hoop I'm embroidering, and stitch a basic outline before removing the paper. The original drawing is used as a reference as I stitch. If I am stitching something that has a real-life counterpart (like the rabbit iron-on patch) I will use photos found online for color, shading, and position references, but the underlying drawing is always mine. While every embroidered item is by it's hand stitched nature, is unique, I like having the reference drawing on hand in case I wanted to stitch it again.

Lessons Learned

I now have a very firm understanding of why you shouldn't use fresh flowers in resin. I have two delightful carnation bud designs that I neglected to even seal with Mod Podge, let alone allow to dry. They were beautiful, soft pink and took the resin wonderfully. But then they started to change. They are becoming a muddy, sickly color. The leaves and stems are starting to develop black spots. Overall, they turned from delightful to horrendous.

 The greens went from vibrant and spring-like to pale and sickly. The pink was soft and sweet, now it's muddy and rotten.



But, the design and layout is still one of my favorites. I love the cluster of flowers from large to small, finishing with tiny, unopened buds. The resin coated the flowers wonderfully. A nice, even coat that isn't too thin so the flowers don't break.                                                                 The second necklace is smaller, with just four buds, but there is still a nice variation in size and bloom. There must have been just enough air and moisture to allow the flowers to begin to rot. It is an interesting study in decay, however.

Once I get my hands on another bunch of buds I will definitely try this design again. I will continue my quest to find a way to dry and seal the flowers so I can preserve their form at their peak.

So, let this be a lesson to anyone who wants to cover flowers in resin. Drying them and sealing them is not optional. Unless you like muddy gross flowers that were formally gorgeous. 

Floriography

I know, I know, I'm terrible about updating. I think I need to set an alarm to remind me to post about what I'm working on.
I've been practicing bead embroidery, and learning how to use a beading loom. I'm taking a small break from resin, and feeling the itch to work with polymer clay again. Right now, however, I'm exercising the painter in me. I'm working on a series of sympathy cards featuring flowers typically used in funeral arrangements with their associated Victorian floriography meanings.

Starting with flower picture references, I drew pencil sketches on tracing paper and transferred them to watercolor paper. The tracing paper sketches will also make them easier to transfer them to fabric for embroidery, if I decide to go that route. Next, I painted the flowers in watercolors. One personal quirk with my painting is that I typically use only one or two small brushes for an entire painting. After all the flowers were painted and dry, I scanned them into the computer with as high a resolution as the scanner would let me, since I intend to have them printed.

This is the scanned in, very rough painted yarrow flower. The yarrow was the last one I drew, and I really didn't want to draw the individual little buds in the yellow part. It's placement in the bottom corner of the page rather than centered is so I can add in text. My handwriting is not the neatest or prettiest, so I prefer typed text. I am using a font called Bilbo, found on FontSquirrel.com. Font Squirrel is my favorite source for fun fonts that are available for commercial use. (this is not an ad for Font Squirrel, I just really like them and think it's a good resource for anyone else looking for awesome fonts)

In floriography, yarrow means undying love. While it's not typically used in flower arrangements, that I've seen anyway, it is still a pretty and meaningful little herb.

I use GIMP 2 for image manipulation and digital painting. It's a very nice free alternative to Photoshop. (also not an ad) I cleaned up the background, added a bit of color and outlining, and inserted the text.

I even found a nifty brush that gave me little circles so I didn't have to hand draw the individual flower buds.

Currently, I have 12 flowers painted, and ready to be worked on in GIMP, including the yarrow.

I am working on a carnation next, then a mum, a rose, orchids, azaleas, gladioli, irises, stargazer lilies, juniper, rosemary and tarragon.

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