Happy Late Totally Not Socially Awkward Valentine's Day

All my posts recently seem to be centered around holidays.  Well, I can most likely guarantee that I probably won't have anything relating to Saint Patrick's day next month.  But who knows.  I wasn't really planning on having anything related to Valentine's day this month, but then here we are, with a Valentine picture.

I honestly don't know why I decided to do this.  I was just feeling particularly inhibitingly awkward the other day and for some reason, this was the result.  I don't know, I think this speaks for itself.  I also just really wanted to draw my Box Elder Fettish in some Valentine related thing.  I really like her design and I'm thinking of maybe trying to do some 'professional-looking' comics with her.  I even decided to do the 25 expressions meme with her to try and work on consistency.

Yeah, the first ones are not the greatest.  I definitely think they got better as I continued.  It'd look better if I had them all in pen, but I've just been working on it here and there and since I have all the expressions at least in pencil, now, I figured I'd post it.  Silly I think is my favorite, or at least one of my favorites.

Oh! Speaking of my little Fettish.  In AP art we had a pre-show for the Springville Art Museum's High School Show.  It's an art show for high school students' work from all over the state and it's kind of a big deal.  Both my Fettish and Audubon, my robot, were selected in the pre-show to be judged at Springville for the actual show.   We sent 18 pieces from our class to be judged but only four made it.  Three of the 2D design students plus my Box Elder Fettish are going to be in the Springville High School Art Show.  I can't believe it!  The show opens this Wednesday and goes for a few weeks; I can't wait to actually go and see one of my baby creations in an actual art show.  Seriously, I don't know what else to say, it's kind of mind-blowing for me.  If anyone's interested enough, I would recommend going to see the show, not because I have something in it (you can just look at pictures in my previous posts), but I've been to the high school show before and there are some seriously talented kids out there.  It's really worth taking a gander at, especially if you enjoy museums and such.

That isn't the only thing that's been happening in AP art, though.  Recently we had to declare our concentrations for our portfolios.  I debated between a lot of things (art dolls, up-cycled material, wearable art, etc.) but I ended up going with art dolls.  I'm glad, because it finally gave me more reason to finish . . . Mystery Man!  Or, as was finally figured out, Hagrid.

For the longest time he was just a Sculpey head on an uncontained body of stuffing, lying in a corner of my room.  But now, he's a lumberjack Hagrid person, holding a little bundle o' Harry Potter (little baby Harry was part of a separate project I did over the summer).  His boots were especially fun to do and I love how they turned out.  My favorite part is actually his collar, although you can't see practically any of it.  I was so proud of myself, because I actually sewed it on like a real collar and it folded over and everything.  Curse his hair for covering it all!

Anyways, although we've dove head-first into our concentrations in AP Art, I still need a few more pieces for the Breadth section of my portfolio.  So, while being unmotivated to finish other projects, I started and finished a new project.

It's a guitar birdhouse feeder thing.  My sister just brought over this broken guitar once and wondered if I could use it.  Well, apparently I could.  I had some other plans for it originally, but then a friend of mine suggested I turn it into a birdhouse.  Well, being mildly to overtly obsessed with birds, I of course thought this was the greatest idea since sliced bread.  I mean, why not? it already has the hole and everything.  So I sanded the original paint off the guitar (it took forever! at least 4 hours) then added the peg and seed trough, added paper clay (you can't tell so much in this picture, but it has a lot of texture to it), and then I painted it.  I'd really like to have a picture of it outside with some birds on it, but unfortunately it isn't weatherproof, yet.  I need to get some marine varnish or something to help protect it from rain and such.  Can you tell it's supposed to be like an aspen tree?

The day I finished the birdhouse I was on a sort of productive rampage and decided to finish another project I had abandoned for a while.

I got a bunch of wire for Christmas and so I decided to experiment with wire-wrapping.  Originally this was going to be a ring, but I really don't have the right kind of wire for that, so it simply became a pin/brooch thing.  I like how it turned out.  I was going for a sort of steampunk hot air balloon thing, don't know if that translated very well, though.

It seems I've been doing a lot with steampunk lately.  I just barely finished the second costume design for a friend of mine's post-apocalyptice sci-fi short film he's been working on.

Annie's design became completely different from the first one's I showed, so I decided to return to Annie's original concept for the design of Lydia, her sister.  I like this one much better.  I don't know if I'll be doing anymore designs for my friend.  I was kind of late with my other ones, so I don't know if he's already worked out the rest of them.

It's not that I was slow working on them, or that I was procrastinating for no reason, I've just been rather overwhelmed with a ton of things recently.  As it turns out, college gets a little expensive, so recently I've been trying to find scholarships and such (no luck so far).  I've found a ton of art related ones, and that's mainly what I've been trying to focus on lately, though I'm only close to really finishing one of them.  The Doodle 4 Google scholarship contest.

I'm not entirely sure I like how it looks in Photoshop, so I've been thinking I'll finish my original sketch with either watercolors or colored pencils and then decide which one I'll actually turn in.  I am pleased with the design, though.

Okay, one last thing before I sign off probably for the rest of the month.  I bound a book!  I've bound books before, actually I bound some books for Christmas, though I forgot to ever take pictures of them, but I feel like its been ages since I just bound a book for fun.  It wasn't totally all on a whim, though, actually.  A few months ago I was talking with a friend of mine and we started discussing the phrase "for the record".  Her comments to me were "what record?  Is there someone keeping minutes on everything we want 'for the record' and if so, where is this record? who gets to read it?"  So, I decided to make "The Record" and I'll use it simply for that; writing down the random things people say with the preceding statement of "for the record".

Well, I guess that wasn't the completely last thing before I leave.

This month's recommendation I have for anyone who still reads my posts is to check out this awesome web-comic I've been reading lately.  www.seed-comic.com  I love the art style and the plot is really intriguing so far.

And, uh, my tip for the month . . . . um, don't work on projects you're frustrated with.  Step away for an hour or maybe a day or two.  Lock the project in a box and refuse to look at it until you've had time to cool down.  If you work on something while you're mad, you'll likely end up breaking something or ruining something which will only compound your frustration.  Yep.

"But can turning pants into a backpack be considered art?"

Happy New Year, everyone!  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.  Mine was pretty great.  I got to talk to my brother who's serving in Boston on an LDS mission for nearly four hours, I was given a bunch of new art supplies that I can't wait to incorporate into some of my upcoming projects, and, most importantly, I got to spend my vacation surrounded by amazing friends and family.  I was able to make a few presents this year, mostly for friends, but the only thing I have pictures of is a stuffed frog I made for my niece.
The day before Christmas I realized I didn't have anything for her, so I asked her what her favorite animal was.  She told me "a fwog".  I was so excited she hadn't said a cat or a dog or something normal like that.  A frog was different, a frog was interesting.  So I busied myself with the creation of this all Christmas Eve.  It was so much fun coming up with the pattern and sewing it.  Anyone recognize the fabric?  I used the sleeves that were left over from my Hobbit vest.  Hoarding seemingly useless things really comes in handy sometimes.

As 2012 heads out along with all of its apocalypses and doomsdays, 2013 comes roaring over the horizon.  What a fantastic year this could be.  I get to graduate high school and begin my young adult years as a starving college student.  What a prospect!  Currently, I hope to go to BYU down here in Provo and hopefully maybe study Animation . . . or Art Education . . . or Set Design . . . or Art Therapy . . . or all of them!  I just can't see me doing anything with the rest of my life that doesn't involve art in some way.  Goodness, even when I think of raising a family one day, I think of all the crafts and projects I want to do with them.  Even my New Year's resolutions are riddled with art-related goals.  I commit to putting one-hundred percent into everything I create.  No short-cuts, no excuses.  If I don't care about what I'm doing, why do it?  Just because I enjoy making things that are sometimes light-hearted and whimsical doesn't mean they're pointless.  You can be sincere without being stuffily serious.  As I continue my Create the Day project, I want to infuse art into my life even deeper.  I want to add personal artistic touches to everything I do - including organizing.  In fact, being more organized is somewhat of another resolution I have for this year, especially as I move away to college.  So far, I'm doing pretty good.  I recently just finished organizing my art nook under my loft bed.

 For me, organinzing in and of itself is pretty much an art.  It probably still looks hectic and chaotic to other people, but it took me forever to figure out what should go in which boxes and how those boxes should be stacked, etc.  I actually really like how it looks.  The longest part was divying up all my beads into jars and seeing which beads fit best into which bottles.  Then I decided to sort my buttons, as well, using these adorable little green boxes I got for Christmas.  And, along with the whole fusing art and life thing, I then decided to do this with the little boxes.

I have this thing where I just can't throw out drawings, especially ones that I like (okay, yeah, I do trash the ones that turn out awful).  But the thing is, if I have paper, 9 times out of 10 I'm going to cover it in doodles.  They're all over my notes and homework and tests for school.  And then, at the end of the year, I cut them all out and throw them in a box for future use along with all my other collage pictures.  Well, I think I've found a pretty good use for all the smaller pictures I have.  I have more, but I just decided to show these three.

I have quite a lot of plans for more creatively organizing my stuff, but we'll see if I ever get around to those.  What with AP Art projects that need designing and scholarships that need applying.  Moving on.

Though, speaking of school, a few good art-things have come out of it recently.  I just barely finished my Painting class (I'm gonna miss it so much D: ) and I have a few of my projects to show.  All of my watercolor paintings were chosen to be in our school's student art show, so I only have the acrylic ones right now.  I may have the watercolor paintings back some time in April or May, and I'll hopefully remember to post those then.

These pumpkins were our first acrylic project.  Unlike watercolor, my teacher didn't give us all that much instruction for the acrylics.  She just gave us the paints, plopped some pumpkins in front of us, and told us to paint them.  So, Ta da!  My first ever acrylic still life.  I was rather pleased with this.  Except for maybe the two smaller pumpkins in front.  There's just something off about them.

This was our second project.  We had to take a picture of ourself, posterize it on Photoshop, and paint it using different shades of one color.  This is a case, where I think I should've stuck to the assignment just a little more closely.  It's a picture of my older brother and I when we were smaller.  He's the green one on the left, I'm the sickly yellow one on the right.  It's kind of hard to get different shades of yellow that actually look good.  Blech.

This next project was a little bit terrifying.  We had to draw a group of people simplified (I chose the Fellowship of the Ring from the Lord of the Rings) and then we had to take that picture, cut it up into strips and put them back together, but displaced.  The whole finished product didn't quite fit on my scanner, but I think it gives the overall effect of how things turned out.  It was better than I expected and didn't completely ruin my painting, but I must say, running my art under a papercutter multiple times was a little like cutting off my left hand.  It was painful.  Although not nearly as painful as my last acrylic project.

Looks pretty nice, right?  It took me forever to draw it up and then paint it.  I was finally feeling a little more confident with my acrylic painting skills.  And then . . . this happened:

As part of the assignment we had to cover our painting in ink and then wash the ink off again.  No one told me that the paint would start washing off as well.  It looks awful!  But, I'm hoping it can still be salvaged.  I'm going to go in with my pen again and redo some of the lines that disappeared and fix the whites of the eyes.  I'm really disappointed and unhappy with this.  Erg!

Unlike my Painting class, AP Art seems to be moving rather slowly.  The last project I finished was a bit of an experiment our class decided to try out.  We replaced an assignment where we (and by we, I mean the 2D design students) would've had to do charcoal self-portraits.  Instead, we all drew names and had to paint/draw/sculpt that person from our class.  It was a little awkward, but fun all the same.

I had to sculpt a girl that I somewhat know.  She likes to longboard - hence, the longboard.  My only real satisfaction with this project are the folds and wrinkles and textures on the clothes, which don't really show up very well in this picture.  Yeah, I could go off about all the things that are horrible about it, but I'll spare you all and leave it at that.

In other AP Art news, we recently voted on pieces from our class to go to a rather prestigious high school art show in Springville.  We're allowed to send 18 works, I believe, and there's a possibility my Box Elder Fettish or my winged robot could be going.  But don't hold your breath.

Going all the way back to when I was talking about art in all areas of my life, I really like it when I finally get to bring my cultivating artistic abilities into my other classes.  This year, it seems Astronomy takes the cake for creative projects.  I recently had to design and draw an alien that could potentially live on a designated celestial body.  My assigned destination was Europa, one of Jupiter's Galilean satellites.  Scientists believe has underground oceans.  So I designed a fish.

The Hypostomus spatii, or Europan Suckerfish.  It's kind of obviously based off a suckerfish and an angler fish.  I had a lot of fun drawing and experiment with this.  I decided to whip out my tablet and continue to try and get better at that complex and confusing program known as Photoshop.  Overall, I'm pleased, not thrilled, but pleased.

Another resolution I have for 2013, is to stop saying 'not yet'.  I can't carve wood, yet.  I don't know how to sculpt people, yet.  If I never try, I'll never go anywhere.  In fact, there really is no try: do or do not.  Well, recently, I was sitting there, saying to myself "I need to continue researching stop-motion armatures; I can't build one, yet."  But then I stopped myself.  Why not?  I'd done quite a lot of researching, there really wasn't anything new for me to learn by searching the internet.  I know where the joints are supposed to go, I know proportions, I know how everything is supposed to move.  Why didn't I just sit down and make one?  And then I did.  I didn't need fancy welding materials or expensive dremels.  I had wire, sculpey, magnets.  Who says they can't be turned into a working armature.  So, I did it.  I made my own stop-motion armature.  It's super posable, proportionate, and it stands!  The feet even have joints for walking.  However, this is more of a prototype.  I know it's not nearly durable enough, yet.  One of the feet came loose the other day and the magnet tie-downs aren't nearly strong enough to always keep it balanced.  But I'm that much closer.  I have defenestrated that baneful phrase of 'not yet' and I intend for it to stay that way.  I can't believe what I accomplished in my first experiment with this.  I can't wait to build a better one.  In fact, I even went out and bought better magnets today at Hobby Lobby.  Ah! so excited.

Before I wrap up, now, I have one last project I'd like to share with you all.

Backpants!  I had these really awesome cargo pants that were getting some major holes in the knees.  I knew last Saturday would have to be my last time wearing them out in public, but I really didn't want to just toss them in the trash.  They were far too sentimental to me.  So, somehow or another, I got the idea to turn them into a backpack.  The pants themselves had a lining, so I wouldn't have to worry about adding one in to  keep them sturdy.  Plus, they were already covered in awesome pockets and the top even had a drawstring. There really wasn't all that much complex work that had to go into this.  I cut the bottom of the legs off right above the unsightly holes, used the extra, undamaged fabric to create a rectangular bottom for the bag and also the straps, did some sewing, and voila!  Backpants!  The hardest part was stuffing the straps for the pack.  I sewed down the middle of the straps and then filled them with fiberfil so they'd be padded (and let me tell, you they're pretty comfy).  But it took forever pushing each little bit of stuffing down the little holes and making sure it was all even and not bunching up.  I'm possibly thinking of incorporating it into a steampunk outfit I've been brewing over in the crock pot of my mind. Who knows!

And now, as we conclude this once again far too-long post, I leave you with some extra tidbits.

Helpful Hint
Eh, I don't really know what to call this section of my blog, yet.  Anyone got some suggestions?  Well, on to the tips.  Don't throw things away!  Well, do throw out stuff that really should be thrown out, like food and smelly things, but be very careful.  Before you scrap anything, ask yourself: is there any part of this broken old thing that has potential artistic value?  The answer is almost always, yes.  I'm considering doing my concentration for AP Art as Up-cycling or repurposing old stuff.  Luckily, when I was making my Backpants, I was able to use this old plastic clasp thing to keep the drawstring closed that I had scavenged off a dead backpack some years ago.  I had constantly debated about whether I should continue to let it take up space in my organizers and now I'm so glad that I did.  It was perfect.

Expanding Your Horizon
One of my all-time favorite artists is Shaun Tan.  He's an Australian illustrator/bookwriter/really awesome person.  He combines mixed media techniques and superb storytelling to create the most fascinating worlds that feel so real.  I first became acquainted with his work when I received his book Tales from Outer Suburbia from my dad for my 16th birthday.  It's so quirky and almost nostalgic for me.  The Christmas afterwards, I was given his book Lost and Found.  One of the book's stories deals with depression and it's really uplifting and inspiring and creative.  I love it.  That's part of the reason I like Shaun Tan so much.  His work makes me happy.  He's not one of those artists who get to be called artists because they have some serious mental problem and decide to use that to justify their depressing pieces of art.  He may be unique and non-traditional, but he certainly isn't depressing.  This last Christmas, I got his very first book that I believe won some prestigious award.  The Arrival.  It's so fantastic.  I really can't describe how fantastic his work is.  Look him up.  Read his books.  Here, this is his website: http://www.shauntan.net/ .

Obligatory Holiday Title

Now that I'm out of school and the Christmas season is supposedly in full sway, I ought to have more time to work on projects and update my blog (keyword: ought).  Each day I remember new things I need to get done before school starts again and each day I don't get a single thing finished.  But I decided to make posting in my blog at least once a prority (don't ask me why, I just thought it was a good idea).  So here I am.

As aforementioned in my earlier post, my friends and I went to see the midnight showing of The Hobbit.  It was a blast, the movie was awesome, and we had a ton of fun trying to find our way home at 4 in the morning.  I won't go too much into my thoughts on the movie so as not to give out any spoilers, but I will give a brief review.  I really enjoyed the story and the characters and the Riddles in the Dark scene was by far the best part of the movie, but it wasn't the same as The Lord of the Rings (for the record, I've read both The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings).  I'm kind of unsure about the whole Pale Orc stuff that they added, but we'll see how that pans out in the next movies.  My biggest disappointment was all the CG (computer graphics).  I understand it's a lot less expensive to create scenes and backdrops on the computer and I know you can do a lot of cool effects and things with all this technology we have, but a shiny, perfectly rigged orc just doesn't seem as real to me as the laytex and prosthetic-ized ones we saw in the trilogy.  The Hobbit was comical and a first-rate movie, but it was also just that - a movie.  A very believable and awe-inspiring movie (you should all see it, by the way), but at times it just felt a little impractical.  I'm sorry, maybe I'm so biased against CG because its downsizing my hopes and dreams.  Ever since the Lord of the Rings I've wanted to work with movies in set design or costuming or model-making, but ever since the Lord of the Rings CG is becoming more and more accessible and more and more popular, pushing traditional set designers who are no good with computers slowly into extinction.  I'm sorry, that actually ended up going on for probably longer than was necessary.  Let's move on to the real purpose of this blog and why I even brought up The Hobbit . . .

 My Hobbit outfit!  This actually isn't the completely finished product, but it's the best picture I have at the moment.  The only thing I actually made was the vest, and it's really not very good.  The shape is all wrong and it ended up too tight, but at least I tried.  Only one other of my friends dressed up, it was a little disappointing (just kidding, my friends are all amazing).  Also, just a thought I've had recently, but does this count as art?  The age-old question, "what is art?"  I mean, anyone can sew, given a little practice and instruction, but does that make it any less of an art form than something like, say, watercolor?  I'm really curious to hear other people's thoughts on the matter, so please feel free to comment and let me know.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned it on my blog before, but back in October, my teacher really wanted me to enter our school's Reflections contest.  She was completely convinced that my person-statue-thing fit the theme perfectly (by the way, it's recently been named Carl and will from here on out be referred to as such).  I'm honestly rather curious about how exactly she thought Carl fit the theme (The Magic of a Moment) but I just went along and filled out all the paperwork and carried the cumbersome Carl to the Faculty Room.  Little side note: it apparently had a wondrous adventure in that room whilst awaiting to be judged.  Apparently one of the teachers put it right behind the door inside the women's faculty restroom and a lot of people were freaked out.  It also apparently traveled to various other places around the school on Halloween in several different outfits.  The Reflections people were none too happy when they found this out, but Carl's none too worse for wear (except I had to re-glue the face) so I'm not all that offended.  I've learned to accept the fact that a lot of people think I make creepy things, so why not roll with it and be amused by all the comments like "what's that creepy thing?" etc.  Anyways, so I entered it in Reflections and by some stroke of miraculous luck, I won an Award of Excellence at the school level.  Another little side note: earlier that day I had had my interview for Sterling Scholar and it had pretty much just been a crazy stressful day in general, so you can imagine how elated I felt for actually winning something.  Then, however, one of the teachers came and told me I wasn't really supposed to get that award and unpinned my really awesome medal from my coat and took it back to the awards table.  My hands were full of Carl, so I couldn't really do anything about it and I just kind of stood there looking dumb.  And then, the Reflections representative had a . . . discussion with said teacher and brought me my medal back.  So I went from being stressed to deliriously happy to embarrassed and discouraged to just kind of exhausted.  It was a really interesting day.  Okay, side note over.  So, a week or so ago, I was informed that my piece has again received an award at the council level and is now moving on to Region 9.  I'm kind of excited, even if I completely made up my artist's statement about how Carl represents the Magic of a Moment.  In honor of this occasion, I decided to dredge up this photo of me that my sister took while Carl was merely a creepy papier mache thing that freaked people out when they came down the stairs in the mornings.

Yeah, Carl was kind of fun to make and I'm kind of proud of him, but ever since I decided that I was going to stop making things based upon what I thought the world would accept and started making only the things that really make me happy, I've been so much more proud of the things I've done.  Like our most recent assignment that I finished for AP Art.  The assignment was to do a close-up.  This project is easy enough for 2D artists, all you have to do is crop it in the right places.  You can't just 'crop' things in three dimensions.  After much internal struggling I decided to sculpt a bug larger than they normally are - therefore 'close-up'.  I started out with some designs for a soft-sculpture potato bug, but decided against it as potato bugs seem almost too common and I didn't really have the necessary materials.  I then decided upon a Box Elder, because they remind me of one of our old houses where we had this great backyard with a massive willow tree and a shed where we used to jump off the roof into the rhubarb bushes and my brother and I tried to build underground fortresses.  Basically, Box Elders make me happy.  Although, it turns out, a lot of people are actually creeped out by the adorable little bugs - ah, well, another project to add to the list of things that frighten my friends.  I wonder, is this how Tim Burton feels most of the time?

He took quite a long time to make, but overall, I think it was worth it.  He's made of Sculpey and I had to bake him in several stages.  I made the abdomen first (even though it was one of the last parts to be baked) then came the eyes, antennae, and proboscis-mouth-thing which were baked and then pressed in to the head.  The whole head was baked again and then attached to the body, at which point I finally baked the body and only had the legs left to do.  If you ever get into sculpting with polymer clay and you need an armature, make the whole armature all at once and not in stages.  I made the legs with a wire armature and then attached them the body and it was pretty much a really terrible idea.  You can kind of see in this picture that several of the legs are cracking.  That's because my armature isn't attached to the armature in the body and so the two don't really support each other.  I ended up propping his tail on a rock to relieve the pressure on his legs, but the cracks remain and all I can do now is hope they don't get any bigger.

 This is a rather . . . interesting picture.  I mainly put it up because I really like the view it gives you of his underside.  I thought it looked rather good and buggish.

 Detail of the back.  The end of the wings took forever, but they were also kind of fun.  Also, these pictures don't show it very well, but although I varnished the whole bug, the eyes and the ends of the wings have gloss varnish on them, so they're shinier than the rest of him.  It actually looked pretty cool.

But wait!  That's not all.  I don't exactly remember where the idea first came from, but I really wanted to have a little person riding the bug.  I warn you now, there are a lot of pictures.  All the details that did make it into this project are only a fraction of what I really wanted to do.

 Unfortunately ropes and ribbons and things don't hang the same way in miniature as they do on larger scales, so I'm rather disappointed with the reins on the bug.  They just don't look natural enough.

 This snail could've been a whole lot better, but he was kind of a last minute decision.  He also has a trail of slime I made with gloss, but you can only really see it in certain lights and from certain angles.

 I tried to paint markings on her hands and face similar to those on the Box Elder, but I don't really think it worked all that well. :/

 It took me all of "It's A Wonderful Life" to bead her belt.  I tend to get a lot of movie-watching done while working on these more detailed projects.

 I really like the perspective on her antennae in this one.

 That chair!  Again and again I tried to weave my own backing for the chair of the saddle and then what do I do?  Give up and sew on some burlap.  It looks great.  That is, it did, until I completely hid it behind the backpack and the creature.  Bah!  Why do I spend so much time and energy on things you can barely even see?

 Bundle o' sticks for making a campfire.

 By the way, this little creature is a rare species known to inhabit overgrown and remote backyards.  They are called Fettishes and range greatly in color and type.  They're very shy but tough and resilient creatures, not very apt to show themselves to any humans.  They're incredibly resourceful and love to tinker.  They're very hard to spot as they're light on their feet and only a few centimeters tall.

 The base was a lot of fun to make.  I don't usually make bases for my sculptures (hehe, what sculptures?) but as this was a project for school, I wanted it to be a little more stable for transport.  I started out by taking some rocks from a bag of gravel in our garage and placing them 'artistically' across the wooden base (acquired from Hobby Lobby).  Starting from the center I then glued down sawdust I had collected and had been planning on using to make my own mache.  I knew I didn't have enough to cover the whole base evenly so I made a sort of path shape instead and filled in the edges with modelling moss that was left over from a model my brother had built of Falling Water.  Then I glued the bug down.  Easy as pie, really.

 The bag was a lot of fun to do and it was kind of inspired by The Hobbit.  I knew there was going to be a bag and that I would roll up the quilt and attach it to the bag, but the accretion of those ideas into something more substantial didn't come until after seeing The Hobbit.

 By the way, I'm really incredibly disappointed that you can't see more of the detail on the quilt.

 This was a great concept in my head, but I don't think I quite managed to pull it off so well in creation.  Maybe it's the color of the thread, or the fact that the Christmas light doesn't actually light up.

 Can you tell the blue pouch is supposed to be a canteen?

 I want that hat.

I really really really love the lighting in this picture.  I love the stark shadows and the highlights in her eyes.  But I don't know.  I'm not a photographer, so there's probably a million things wrong with it.

Sorry for the overload of pictures.  I probably could've summed everything up in just one or two, but oh well.

There's really not much else I've been doing lately.  I have started to work on some concepts for a friend of mine for a short film he's making, I suppose I could show you those.  It's just a character and costume concept, but I like how it's going so far.

Now it's time for some Edumacation.  (Okay, where did that word even get started?)  I decided that since I'm blogging for the whole world to see (really just my family and some neighbors, actually) I should make my posts a little more helpful and informative.  So each time I post I want to include a spotlight on another artist or something artistic that isn't me and also some sort of word of wisdom or tip that I've learned through my very limited experiences.

Expanding Your Horizon
A few weeks ago I watched the movie The Dark Crystal.  It's made by Jim Henson and is kind of mind-blowing if you think about it.  The cast is entirely made up of puppets, and yet it is so incredibly believable (oh yeah, no CG involved).  If you haven't seen it, you should really watch it and then you should watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KPMc2VowQM  It's a documentary about how they made the movie.  It's way cool and really worth giving it a watch.

Words of Crafty Wisdom
I can't guarantee this will always be completely amazing and helpful, but this time I actually have a tutorial that I decided to make a while ago about how I made my hobbit vest.  I don't really know if anyone's interested, but here it is all the same.

It's kind of a large file, so sorry.  Anyways, it's time I signed out.

Hors D'oeuvres and More Costumes

Where to begin!?  So many art related things have been happening recently!

Well, before I get to the art, I'd like to take some time and talk about Thanksgiving.  Yes, Thanksgiving.  I love this time of year - people are happier with each other, sometimes there's snow, I get to eat a lot of good food, and things are just great.  I wish we could feel like this all year.  My favorite scripture right now is 2 Nephi 2:25 "Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy."  I wish I could make everyone in the world really believe in this.  People are supposed to be happy.  Sometime I feel like other people (and even myself sometimes) believe that you can't truly be living unless you're stressed or worried or unhappy about something.  Being happy isn't going to make it so bad or stressful things don't happen in your life, but it'll sure make it easier to get through those things.  For example, take the Sterling Scholar process I just went through.  At first I was incredibly stressed about the whole thing; I'd been dreaming about this since I was in 6th grade.  I knew I really didn't have a chance and I really started to beat myself up over it.  But when they made the announcement of who won, I was standing in the hall outside the faculty room with my friends.  It no longer mattered to me whether any of us won.  I was with the three nicest, smartest, awesomest people I've ever met, so I was happy.  What else could possibly matter?  I guess what I'm saying is that I'm thankful for this season of Thanksgiving and for all the things that make me happy - friends, family, skinned knees, space.  Good stuff like that.

Speaking of Thanksgiving . . .
Hors D'oeuvres Contest!  It used to be a tradition in my family that every Thanksgiving we would have a contest to see who could make the best appetizer.  We haven't done it for a long time, but my sister decided we should reinstate it this year.  So we did.  And this is what I entered.

Long gone are the days of plates covered in frosting and Roald Dahl's Revolting Recipes.  No longer is my definition of Hors D'oeuvre 'something weird I can do with stuff in our pantry'.  I now give you: Cheese Crackers and Tomato Basil Soup!  Actually, this wasn't even my idea.  A week or so ago I was at my best friend's house for lunch and he didn't have any bread so we made ourselves grilled cheese sandwiches on saltines and dipped them in tomato soup.  It was amazingly delicious.  Anyway, I had forgotten about our contest until the day before when I was at the same friend's house and his mom asked if I had any assignments for Thanksgiving.  That's when I remembered that I still hadn't come up with anything, so I decided to make this.  It's really simple.  For the crackers I had three different kinds - one with Gouda melted on top, one with Provolone, and one with a Cheddar and Monterey Jack blend.  Then I sprinkled Marjoram leaves over all of them.  For the soup I made a can of Campbell's Tomato Soup and poured a bunch of Basil in it.  Overall, it was pretty well-liked (even if the soup got kind of cold).

And here are (some of) the other Hors D'oeuvres.  My dad had sliced peppers in ranch, my oldest sister made Biscotti, and then there's a random pot of Wassail that isn't actually an entry in the contest, behind that are cupcakes that my brother's girlfriend brought over (she just happened to show up with some right in the middle of our contest - it was perfect), and my brother-in-law made a Sweet Potato and Pomegranate casserole.  Not pictured is a vegetable tray my mom put together and pretzels that my other sister made.  We never actually chose a winner, but my choice would be the casserole.  It was really sweet and tasted nothing like a sweet potato.  It was delicious.

Also on Thanksgiving I started a new sewing project.  Although I couldn't get very far on it because my sewing machine was broken at the time.  (Yes, my brand new sewing machine that I just got two months ago.)

My friends and I are going to the midnight premier of The Hobbit.  Being the die-hard Tolkien fans that we are, of course we have to dress up, so I'm turning this old plaid shirt I have into a hobbit vest.  I used a seam-ripper and took the sleeves off the shirt.  Eventually I'm hoping it will look somewhat like the picture on the left, except with three rows of buttons instead of four.  Unfortunately it will still button the way a girl's shirt does because I'm too stingy to redo every single button and buttonhole.  Also I'm not sure about leaving the collar on.  I like the look of it in my picture, but vests don't normally have collars, and I really don't have an eye for 'fashion' so if anyone would like to make some suggestions, I'm open.

Since we're on the subject of costumes - I finally got some 'action' shots of my Hallowe'en costume.  My sister and I took my niece out for what we call an "Aunt Day" and since we (and by we I mean I) didn't really have any money to take her anywhere we decided to go to this park and take pictures together.

Little kids do wonders to your inhibitions.  I would've felt so much more awkward had I not been running around with a four year old all day.  While we were driving I said that I felt ridiculous and my niece said: "You're not ridikulus, Aunt Amanda.  You're beautiful!"  It was just out of nowhere and the most adorable thing I'd heard all day.  So if you ever need to do something you're not totally comfortable doing, take a little kid with you.  They make everything better.  We ended up running around playing all sorts of make believe games - my niece was the princess, my sister the queen, and I got to be the king (although at the start of the day I was told I was dressed up as Snow White).  We probably annoyed several other people who were there taking pictures, but we were having fun and it's not like we ever got in anyone's way.

 Ummm, I'm in a bush . . . yeah.  And, as you can see, I never ended up making boots for my costume, so I just used a pair I found in our closet.  I know, it kind of ruins the effect.

This is absolute favorite picture we got.  I love the pose and the lighting.  Just ignore the picnic tables in the background.

I'm not entirely sure where the liripipe part of my hood is, but I like this picture all the same.

This and the rest of the pictures were taken back at our house and as you'll notice, I stopped caring about backgrounds and such.  These are mainly for showing certain details on my costume.  Like this one just shows the bottom part of my puffy sleeves.  I like the point that I made on them . . . when they're in the right place that is.  The sleeves like to slide and I end up with the point sticking off the side.

I wanted a picture to show the liripipe in the back.  I think it looks cool, but unfortunately it's not really functional.  Liripipes were supposed to be used as scarves when it was cold.  Mine isn't nearly long enough to be able to wrap around my neck.  But it also happens to be my favorite part of the costume, and surprisingly, it was the easiest to make.  So we'll just look past its disfunctionalness.

 And then there's the front of the hood.

 Detail of the detachable sleeves and the neckline without the hood.

I'm not really sure what it is about this picture, but I love it.  I think it's my odd expression.

And here's the costume without the massive sleeves.  Detachable sleeves sure seemed like a genius idea at first, but they're an absolute pain to lace on and off again.

 This picture ended up being my cliche cosplay pose.  Although for it to truly be a cosplay pose (minus the cosplay costume) I'd probably have to have some fiercely intense expression and be holding some massive weapon in one hand.  Overall, this picture is just odd.

Pants!  These probably took me the longest and caused me the most grief.  I ended up using my concert pants to create a pattern for the pant legs.  Unfortunately my concert pants are stretchy, while this material is not.  Everything was fine until I got to my waist.  Originally I had wanted to make a flap for the front (after visiting Williamsburg, Virginia and learning a bit about colonial fashion) but I didn't think I could work out the pattern.  But because of the goof in our pattern, the flap became essential.  And then when I was sewing the cuffs on the bottom of the pants, I accidentally made one too small and I couldn't bend my leg.  So, being lazy, I just cut a slit on the inside and sewed in a triangle of fabric to let it out a bit.  For my first attempt at pants, though, I'm amazed they turned out this good.

And yet another picture of my costume.  But in a slightly different format.  A few weeks ago I decided to rewatch the old animated Redwall series.  The Redwall books are amazing and I think the tv show wasn't half bad.  Anyways, while I was watching I decided that animation sure was an interesting thing.  And it's amazing how people can come up with such fluid styles.  Rather than trying to come up with my own style, though, I just borrowed the one from the show and sketched all sorts of Mossflower-type creatures in my sketchbook.  I really liked the look of this one, so I pulled out my tablet, did a quick inking and then colored it.  It's probably my favorite thing I've ever done with my tablet.  There are some things I missed and I'm certainly not a master with Photoshop, but I think I'm improving.

Alright, I really ought to be signing off now.  Originally there were a million things I wanted to put in this post, but I think it's probably already too long.  Hopefully that means I'll be posting again really soon, though, because there's a lot of ideas I want to share.