Masks and Misc.

Like usual, whenever I finish a big project, I'm a little lost afterwards. It feels freeing at first to not have something you are obligated to work on, but then you're not really sure what it is you want to work on. And none of my currently in-progress projects looked appealing (unfortunately!)

So as a quick little one-off project, I made Barry a kitty bed. He's happily claimed it as his own, and sleeps on it every night. He also has a long thing pillow that I made for him in the window when he naps out there. 

Now this started out as a bit of fun, blow-off-steam sort of project, but I think it's going to lead to something more serious. I've been watching far too much WWE pro-wrestling lately, and yes, I know that makes me a big nerdy 14 year old. But on the positive side, it's gotten me back into working out seriously and made me fascinated with the terrible/awesome outfits wrestlers wear. I decided to, just for fun, pattern out a luchadore-style mask, and after a few drafts, I think I was pretty successful. 

So of course I made up a sample one with the absolute tackiest fabric I can find, a floral crushed velvet that was once an enormous button up shirt. I like to think Macho Man Randy Savage would approve. 

Nothing quite this wonderful and tacky in the WWE right now, sadly.

More of a side view, it makes my already round face look very chubbed out though. Added some gold trim for the finishing touch. 

And, since I've once again caved and bought a moleskine, I can now do some watercolors in my sketchbook! I'm trying to get myself back into working with color a bit more. 

Seamus bought a new JLI trade paperback, and I couldn't help but do some doodles of the gang (and the Creeper) JLI makes me love Mr. Miracle, and now I'm wondering where else to start with his character. 

And to further show my stupid love of the fake wrestling (hey it's good practice for drawing different body types and strange poses, right?) a little bit of Team Hell No (this is a pretty good introduction), and I think that's Del Rio doing a cross-arm breaker on the other side. Cheapy Crayola markers actually work pretty nicely on this paper. 

As an aside, my next post will be my 200th!! I'm thinking of having a little give-away (don't know if I really have enough traffic for one though?) Keep an eye out!

Failure/Success

So do you want the good news or the bad news?

Good News: I finally got crystalzation. Pictures will be forthcoming tomorrow when I'm more lucid. Turns out that while suspending string in a glass with the mixture generally doesn't do much, pouring it in a shallow pan and placing the string in that works very well. The colors you can get are fascinating, the food coloring doesn't really mix if you make the batches seperate, so you can acheive ombre and tie-dye effects.

Bad news? I am so bad at printing fabric. So bad. So bad.

It's partially because we were using paper stencils for this one, but my registration was awful and I got a lot of fisheggs and white gaps. Picture also to follow on that. On the bright side, I mixed my colors really well--we were using transparent base and pigments, not pre-made plastisol or speedball inks, and it was tricky.

And since I don't want this to be text only, I think I found my inspiration for my next Projects Project. The theme is loose, spontaneous workmanship contrasted with very tight, controlled work.

I want to take this sort of idea from the Fall 08 Marc Jacobs and really expand upon it. I'm planning to do a high-waisted skirt with really tight, controlled embroidery on the top, then bring out the last stitch around the whole thing--like the strings coming out of the patterns here, but across the whole top band. Then take these and loosely net them together into a web of color over gathered fabric that will fill it up, and bring it all in at the bottom.

That is, if I convince my teachers of the idea, we'll see.