Art 48

Computer broke for a bit. Angst! Horror! Drama! It was awful, not only did i not have internet access, I couldn't stare at all my files and procrastinate! Four exclamations marks have been used in this post already, that's how terrible it was.

But now it's fixed. Hooray! I briefly* fell in love with the IT guy, the way one does with the doctor looking after your ill child, or, more to the point with me, the vet looking after your scratched-up cat. Siiigh. But I'm over it, it's all good, strictly professional relationship resumed. Next computer step is to buy a laptop, so I can take my work with me when I travel. Work other than a sketch book, that is.
*- about two minutes. Tops.

Meanwhile... Well. I finished sorting all the cryptomnesia pieces into colours! Awesome. Now I'm slowly and laboriously arranging them over a trial picture, which I may do several times before embarking on the final piece. It's a shot of Laura Palmer*, slightly recoloured so I can use snips that aren't exclusively blue-grey.
*- Twin Peaks!* Spooooky!
*- warning: tvtropes.org will ruin your life.

All the bits mashed together.

Trial piece with recoloured pic of Laura Palmer.
I drag and drop the snips over the pic.

Here you can see the snips I've arranged so far. Still a long way to go.

Have also started work on the cryptomnesia grid piece I mentioned in another post. Pixel by pixel. It may* take some time.
*- it will.

The pale blue is to differentiate the background from all the other
colours, for easy-to-use-ness.

In other news, I did a sketch of an idea I had while falling asleep. Some slightly grisly thing (hint - it involves teeth). No photos yet. Want to work on it more - had a couple ideas for other versions of it, to make it better, etc. It's the first home sketch I've done on an actual easel, though, which somehow seems important to me.

I also downloaded a journal app for my clever clever phone, to help keep a record of the art-making process. It FAILED. Well, it ate all my credit, so I deleted it. There are others I haven't tried yet... I should just get a polaroid camera and keep a physical journal, because that would be cool. Also super fucking expensive. Damn it, world, just give me more money! Then I'll show you! I'll show you ALL! (Note to google analytics/adsense - please don't take the previous statements as an excuse to send me more get-rich-quick ads. Thank you.)

Also! While I didn't have computer access, I started work on another project. It's a sort of... Well, I took seven struts from a broken umbrella, tied them together, and I'm now filling in the gaps with acrylic yarn. It's pretty weird so far. Vaguely sun-like, vaguely dream-catcher-ish, and mostly like a web made by an intoxicated spider.* Again, no photos yet. Really want to finish it, I'm curious to see how it's going to turn out.
*- google it. science is Crazy.

More newsish stuff - I looked at my deviantart print account tonight and recoiled in horror.* I like my idea of having everything in postcard-size-only, sort of thing, but the selection of pictures there... Ew ewwww. I'm reassured that even great artists are cringey of their work as years go by. Nevertheless, action must be taken! But what action? I could just shut the whole thing down and start again somewhere else. It wouldn't be much of a trauma - in five years I've made just over seven bucks with it, mostly through buying my own prints. But then what? I could find another site to sell on, I guess, or sell things through my main deviantart account. Decisions decisions.
Or I could sort of clean up the print account... Upload some new stuff, take away crappy old stuff. I dunno. I like the idea of starting over, though.
In any case, it's something that needs sorting out. I'm just not sure which direction to go with things.
*- slight inward cringing, more like, but that it isn't nearly dramatic enough.

I think that's it for now... Oh wait, there's more. I'm making a 3D fractal tree thing in Second Life now. Not properly fractal, given that infinity is a little difficult to fit inside the standard PC, but it shows/will show that kind of multiple branching that I'm so obsessed with. Currently up to 4 iterations, hooray. It always amazes me how quickly it gets complicated - 3 iterations is already quite a lot of branches. That's what being exponential does for ya.

Art 38

On Saturday* we went to a local Chinese New Year celebration. It was quite small, just a few stalls with food, lacquerware and pottery, calligraphy. Had a very good atmosphere, though. I wanted to stay a bit longer than we did - there was to be a mahjong demonstration that I wanted to watch. My companions were getting hungry, though, so we left for some Chinese take-out...
*-Saturday the 12th - it's taken me awhile to complete this post!

I really enjoyed looking at the pots on display. There were some beautiful mother-of-pearl inlaid ones, with a dragon on one side and a peacock on the other. There was also a lacquered pot with an eggshell inlay. For some reason that really impressed me, I guess because I'd never heard of (or even considered) the use of broken eggshells in art. Soo I did a little bit of looking around online, and found a nice explanatory article and some beautiful examples of eggshell lacquerware.

Meanwhile, I've added another quadrilateral type-1 koch snowflake to the set I'm working on. It's more inspired by the fractal than an actual example. I'm not entirely sure the design is even fractal in and of itself, but I think it might be.

Also, I made a few sketches a couple weekends ago:

I quite like how this turned out, mostly because it's my first okay inking.
Aside from that, I'm not entirely happy with the hair, or the feet.
She's wearing a faceplate, because she's in spaaaace.

Some alien/robot things. Just playing around.

Also! I've finally started a test piece in the Wings3D program. It's a cat. I'm familiar with cats.

Annd I think that's about it for now. Oh wait! I also have a cunning plan regarding an old shiel pack* and some not-yet-made-handbags. The canvas is all grimy with machine oil and miscellaneous grime at the moment, so the next stage is to cut it in quarters and take it to the laundry.
*-I can't find "shiel pack" anywhere online. It's kind of a large garden waste bag, made of canvas. I think cattle feed might also comes in shiel packs, but I'm not sure. I'm not even sure that's the proper name, but it's what's written on the label.

And and and, as a sort of for-fun side project, I've been drawing on a kitten-decorated bag someone gave me a couple Xmases ago. What am I drawing? Fine attire!

Gentlemen kitties.

Art 35

2011 has begun, yaay! And if you add all the digits together, you get 4. I like 4.

I actually made New Years' resolutions this year. Amazing. One of them is to try and get a little more serious about making artwork (as far as resolutions go, that's an inevitable one for me). Also promoting it a little more... That is, trying to stay more active with my deviantart account. :s Yes, that is thus far the reach of my ambition! I have a print account on deviantart, and I'd like to make more of the stuff that's on my computer into prints. And then buy a bunch of samples to show around.

Also I'd really really like to focus more on the making of comics... I think I'll cover a couple walls of my room with old comic books, just so it's always at the peripheral of my attention. That may mean removing the staples - gasp! I have a nice collection of pictures on my wall at the moment, things I've cut out and stuck up. Hm.

Last year(!) I was thinking a little bit about fractals, and the images they can generate. Maths isn't one of my skill sets, so the algorithms used to generate fractals are a bit beyond me, but I find the images pretty fascinating. One in particular I like - the Koch snowflake.

The first four iterations. To learn more about it, click on the link in the last paragraph.

I wanted to do some sort of colourific thing with this, but I couldn't find an equilateral triangle "grid" on my computer, so I decided to play with the quadrilateral type 1 variant instead, which, being quadrilateral, uses squares instead. Hooray! So I'm doing it in Paint, pixel by pixel.

Restrictions on size and what not mean the edge of my quad-t1 kochies (hehe) isn't infinite, but I can reluctantly accept that. As it is, each picture is effectively 1.55 metres square. With that I can get 8 iterations - the 9th iteration would be smaller than one pixel. 1/9th smaller, to be precise. :)

Well, enough of that for now. I've also started work on a wood-carving project, using the now-defunct Xmas tree. I stripped it of branches, and now I'm stripping it of bark. The plan was to make a staff, but it's a bit short, so I'll make a sort of rod, or sceptre-like thing. It's still quite sappy, will have to figure out how to treat it before I start the actual carving. I had no idea until tonight what to carve into it, but now, inspired by my previous art-specific post, I think maybe fish. I like this idea, and will ponder it more.

So, that's two new projects started, without any of the old ones being finished! Ah well. Such is my mode of operation, generally.

In other news, I am indeed still working on the cryptomnesia piece. There are about 500 snips left to import into the gimp file. Also I'm still repairing my handbag... Actually I've finished the actual repairing, and the sewing on of pockets. Now I "just" need to sew the inside to the outside. When it's all nice and complete I may take a photo.

Xmas '10

Yaay! I like Xmas.* The rushed shopping, the insane light displays, the Deep Ones** music... I love it all. We have a genuine tree this year, made from real tree, and stuck in a bucket of mud. I spilled some of the mud while moving the bucket (with the tree already in it, of course) and the splash resembled the image of a Mandelbrot set.
* - Which I refer to as thus because of Futurama. "Christmas? Oh, you mean Xmas!"
** - Not to forget the Old Ones.




The splash.



Mandelbrot set. Image generated by the gimp fractal explorer.

Pretty cool, huh? Holy fractal holidays, Batman!



                 Is this jolly?