Coke Bottle Angels

So I finally got a chance to get into the clay and create using the coke bottles. This was the first time doing this project, so there was certainly a learning curve. Still it was a great way to recycle some things laying around and make some cute Christmas gifts.

The Process:

I took a glass coke bottle and placed flesh toned fimo mixed with Puppen fimo on top of the sip hole for the face. Although I went for a gesture piece as opposed to realism, this clay mix is excellent for doll work, but it takes a long time to press and warm the clay with your hands to get it workable. When it finally gets to that point, it's a dream. I got the tip for the puppen fimo from Wendy Froud at Comic Con one year. Unfortunately I don't remember the exact mixture that she told me, as it was a long time ago. The one thing I did learn from this is that while in the oven, the air from the bottle will find a way to make a hole in the fimo, so it's best to go ahead and make an air hole in a discrete place to allow the air to escape, before it finds its own way out.

Taking the clay, I fashioned a "bodice" down the bottle neck. This left the bottom piece as the skirt. It would have been a pain to do the whole thing in clay. Then it was cooked in the oven for 30 minutes at 275 degrees. If you venture this project and are using a coventional oven to cook the clay, it's going to have to lay down. It will be too tall otherwise.

So to finish up, below the bodice for the finishing touch, I took some modge podge and glued fabric beneath the bodice to make a skirt. I made the bodice flare out kinda of like a corset, but looking back, I think it would have been better to end the bodice at the waist line. It would have made the skirt more consistent. Also to hold the skirt while the glue dried I ultimately still had to tie it with a piece of cloth around the waist, which looked a bit odd with the flared corset waist.

For some reason the image thing is not working ... so I won't be able to show the finished result.

Coke Angels

Recently Trenton (my husband) found coke in glass bottles made with real sugar. Most coke in America is sweetened with syrup as opposed to sugar. So he bought a case of these bottles and brought them home. So now I have a bunch of cleaned empty coke bottles and bottle caps. Of course I see this as a potential craft project.

So I've got some sculpey and material that will hopefully turn these great taste bud find into a tasteful art project. I have some puppen fimo for the figure as well. Hopefully it will have more success than some of my other projects. Sometimes though I wonder if I learn more from a failed project or a successful one.

Ways to Ward off the One: Hygiene

So some of these things seem elementary, as though they need not be mentioned, but apparently... they do... anyone who has been to a convention, knows why I'm mentioning this.

Let's face it guys, you stink! It's called testosterone, and it's not your fault; however, flaunting your masculine aromas is probably not the way to entice a female to want to snuggle or even get within whiffing distance of you. So use some common sense, shower, use deodorant, don't wear the same pants a week straight (yeah, we notice), and wash your hands. Throwing your clothes in the dryer to make them smell better is not only a horrible waste of energy, but is not the same as clean.

With swine flu scares and HPV spreading like wildfire, simple things like washing your hands and watching your hygiene becomes even more important, but women may be even more wary as men could be wielding several potentially painful problems for her. Aside from pregnancy there is the threat of a urinary tract infection. Not washing your hands after using the restroom can spread HPV to anyone you greet by shaking their hand.

If you have had multiple partners and are lacking in personal hygiene, a smart girl sees someone who probably caught something. After all, if you are neglecting hygiene, what else are you neglecting in terms of sexual safety? Although short term connections may not care so much, that long term woman that you want to take home to mama, is probably counting you out because "I don't know where he's been". What you think makes you look like a stud, makes you look like nothing more than someone else's one night stand, to the woman seeking stable long term partnership.

Another thing that may be warding off some of the good ones that get away is tobacco. Spitting chewing tobacco or being kissed by a smoker are both things that are very unattractive to a lot of women. Yeah the woman smoking in the corner might go home with you, but she probably won't have your kids... and would you really want to have her smoke while pregnant with your children? If you do happen to have a woman who cares about the health of your future progeny, she will not take kindly to you smoking, even if you smoked when you met her. Kids change things, and each puff is a threat to the well being of your children.

Your poor hygiene may result in her pain, so your bad habits probably upset her because in a way they are a subconscious threat to her health and well being. In her mind she may be mapping out your potential future together and the possibility of you making her children sick as well. If she has a poor or weakened immune system to begin with, these bad habits pose a future of antibiotics and burning pain, which any woman with experience will probably avoid. So even if you think you are a nice guy, if you have bad hygiene you may not only repulse her, but be viewed as a potential threat.

There's no need to go to the extreme of metrosexual or any other such actions, but looking and smelling like a homeless person, does not make you someone that a woman really wants to take out on a date, much less keep around very long. If you want to have a happily ever after, try cleaning up your act!

Ways to Ward off the One: Cost Benefit Analysis

You come in for a lunch interview and sit across from a fellow interviewing you for a job. He tells you all the funny stories about the company, while glossing over the important details. From his charismatic presentation, he makes it sound like a fun place to work, but that's not why you would take a job. You have needs that this position is supposed to fill.

"So how much does it pay?" you ask.

He becomes surly as though you should be thankful for the honor to work for him, "it doesn't pay. You'll be expected to continue working to support yourself, and of course, the company."

"What is the job?" You ask skeptically, but in hope that maybe the position is still moving in the direction that you want to go with your life. He details how you will be expected to cook, clean, do the accounting, taxi, nurse him when he's sick, and put your life and health at risk to produce their product. You speak to other people who have worked for this company and they say how it sounded great until you started working for them and if you complained, they would retract all your benefits.

How likely would you be to take this job? Be honest, you probably would not want it.

Say you are looking at two houses. One is a fixer upper that will drain all your available resources, and the other is ready to live in, efficient, and takes care of itself. Which one would you choose?

The fact of the matter is, relationships are work on both sides. The work doesn't stop after you get the job, it starts after you get it and it requires constant maintenance. If you want to have a happy relationship, there has to be something in it for both of you. There has to be some sort of emotional compensation for the efforts contributing to the partnership that the two of you form. Relationships are an investment that both parties expect to see some return on and have a certain amount of protection. This is why marriage was originally considered a contract, but more on that later...

So...

Since my fiction writing partner... as opposed to a fictional writing partner, mine actually exists... is caught up in nanowrimo, I've been short on my writing goals as of late. I would nano... but I just don't have a novel idea at the moment. They seemed to have all been replaced with shorter essay type stuff and philosophizing, so that's what I'll do. As the art is not frequent enough to post, you'll have to endure some of this instead.

So what are these essays about? Well, I know a lot of guys, often geeks, who can't figure out why they don't get the right girls. They go so far as to think that they are "too smart" or that nice guys don't get girls. Well, one of the things that first has to be grasped is that the female of the species has many different motivations that are not simply emotional. It may seem that way, but there are often logical explanations. This series will be called "Ways to Ward off the One". Although aimed at educating males, it could probably work either way.

The other things that I was considering writing about was how the modern interpretations romanticize things like marriage, and this will be called "Romancing the Stone".

I understand if you are not interested, but it's been rattling in my brain wanting to get out, and what artist is not also in some way a philosopher and an observer of the world around them? So here goes... snuzz willing...

Sculpting Experiment Continued

Saturday was my Sister in Law's birthday and Sunday was my Mother's. Needless to say, I didn't finish the sculpture in time, but Sunday I did get another 2 hours work done on it, and my mother revealed that it was for my SIL, who then became enthusiastic and my brother insisted that "I had found my medium" and "should do more of these". I have to say in the realm of not dealing with color it is kinda easier, although time consuming. Something about it is therapeutic though. It's very relaxing to sculpt, and Buddy Bear was such a good model on Sunday.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures. Although I did bring my camera... I forgot the memory card. So there are also no pics of Morgan dressed as a butterfly on Halloween, albeit she was not very happy about it. I'm sure Halloween will be more fun for her next year :)

Well, I'm not done with the sculpture project yet and I have one more soapstone block, and alabaster block, and 2 pieces of marble left to sculpt. So far from finished! Also I have a big block of ... I think sandstone?

In the meantime, I have gotten an early Christmas of a Wacom board and am getting used to it. It's still making me want to get my fingers in the paint, but I'm quickly getting addicted to not having to a CLEAN medium. Now I just need some sort of tablet that I can paint on like a wacom board but some iPhone function so I can use my fingers to smudge the paint. Too bad I don't have millions of dollars to produce an art tablet.

Stone Sculpting Experiment

With my mother and husband watching my baby on a quiet Saturday afternoon, I had a chance to pull out the before mentioned sculpting kit that I had purchased at Pearl in Atlanta. It came with two rasps, sand paper, polishing oil, and three stones. Two of the stones were soap stone and the third was alabaster. The alabaster I decided to save for a project after I got things down with the soap stone. In addition, there are two pieces of marble that I bought, waiting to be carved (in memory of two dear friends) when my skills improve. Marble is freaking expensive, so I don't want to mess that up.

Four hours this Saturday, I spent sculpting a piece of green soap stone. This was my first time working in stone although I have carved other materials in the past. In college, I carved plaster for a class and discovered afterwards that I should have been wearing a breathing mask and should not have been doing it in a small dorm room space. That did not turn out so well, so I was sure to secure my mask and took a spot on the porch in the sun outside my parents house.

At first, I was going to attempt to carve from a photograph. The subject was my brother and sister-in-law's dog, Buddy Bear. He is an Australian Shepherd, very handsome animal (first picture at the top), and beloved of his owners. Thus why I was attempting to sculpt him for my sister-in-law's birthday on Halloween. Obviously I'm not worried about her reading my blog ;)

The photos weren't cutting it though, and when my sibling and sibling-in-law decided to venture forth to acquire food, my father helped me borrow Buddy Bear until they returned. Unless you know my family, that probably sounds a little more insidious than it actually was...

Most of the afternoon, was nice and warm, but my model got less and less enthusiastic, even after being treated to a piece of cheese. There's only so much a dog can take, I suppose, and it was taking an awful long time to shape, with fine soft sparkly dust, wafting about on the porch. Ultimately I had to give up on the project until I could find another stretch of time and a babysitter.

Sculpting took a very long time with carving, much longer than sculpting with clay, but it was certainly easier to work with than carving plaster or wood. I did not have to worry as much about pieces chipped off while I worked under and around crevices.

After oiling the stone a bit to see what it would look like when done, I felt like it looked more like a bear than a dog. Some people might even call it done at this stage, but what's the point of doing something if you aren't going to do it right? So hopefully in the near future, I'll have a chance to play with it again. I do have several other pieces of stone in need of work.

Also, today, I finally got my Wacom tablet! I have not played much with it yet, but might actually have some time this evening if Morgan doesn't stress her daddy out too much. Oh! Looks like email too! I might have to catch up on my word count quota!

Tomorrow

Since it's the weekend, I'm hoping to have a little baby-less time to attack that sculpting project that I mentioned before. My mother and sister-in-law's birthdays are both fast approaching, so they are going to be the inspirations for my first two stone sculpting projects. Both are tremendously difficult to shop for and thus tremendously difficult to figure out what to carve for them as well. More later!

The Writing Challenge

Although I have a writing buddy and we used to write back and forth all the time, I had some serious writers block until recently. Now I have a daily goal of 1000 words a day. So far I've done better on that than my diet goals ;)

Still, Tawmis and I are kicking out the Chapters and challenging each other. Thus I have revived some of my old solo unfinished stories that are not placed in pre-established worlds. I'm hoping that this means with a little help from Tawmis that I might be able to create something marketable.

Much of what I write comes from dreams that I've had. One idea I had from a dream looks very promising. It may all be crap, but there's something fulfilling in finishing a ... project ... sorry, my stack of unfinished oil paintings was glaring at me again. Apparently they have the watercolors on their side. Something about finishing old projects before starting new ones... they are going to be very disappointed when they find out that I'm getting a new waccom board.

In case you were wondering, I'm totally adding this scatter brained post to my daily word count ;)

Carved in Stone

This past weekend, a fellow artist friend and I went shopping in Atlanta where we ended up at Pearl Art Store. I had seen this kit before and passed it by only for it to be out of stock the next time I came looking for this set. When I saw it again, I had to grab it.

I have sculpted before with clay and Sculpey, and even carved wood and plaster, but this is a brand new medium, one that I'm itching to try out. It comes with a mask though, so I'm thinking that this may not be baby safe, which will make this endeavor a bit more problematic.

Being a first time, this could result in epic failure, but hopefully not as bad as the trying to do body paint at 2 am at Dragon Con.

In addition to the starter kit, which I thought would be a great place to ... well ... start I also have two chunks of marble, so we shall see how it goes, and I will post the results success or fail.

Da Vinci's Code

At one point in time, to be an artist was to be part inventor, part researcher, part engineer, part scientist, and part creator. It wasn't about a set style, but learning about the world and the way things work in order to achieve a higher quality of whatever it was they were creating that day and experimenting with the materials to create it. So in this same fashion I approach artwork. I may have some different styles, but it's about the discovery, stretching your wings and exploring new venues of creativity, as well as interesting facts about the world today, how things work, and how they came into being. Share the journey of discovery with me.