Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Late again, but with good reason.

Right, so, finals at school ate my life, time, energy, and brain.  The worst thing about finals in art classes is that it's not really an exam.  You basically take all the art work you did in class, display it, and stand up in front of the whole class and justify your existence...including your failures.


Epic Fail: Spirit of Earth

This was supposed to be "Spirit of Earth", AKA The Green Man.  It has bubbles, both ruptured and not (the popped ones you can see the base color in), as well as silver wire that has separated from the enamel.  This was mostly my hubris biting me in the ass.  Between the bad engineering decision that resulted in a face full of cracks (It's heavy enough metal that I can wait and counter-enamel at the end!), the physics-lacking jury-rigged solution (If I flip it over and counter it now, all the cracks will melt back together and everything will be ok), and over-firing at the end, the glass melted enough to allow the cloisonné wire to start falling out, and the glass to run down them.  It's a small miracle I didn't seriously damage the school kiln.  The only thing that survived were those totally perfect eyes...mocking me.



In happier news, Water is done:
Spirit of Water


I am pleased, especially with the metallics I got in the darker brown and the water.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Firebird!! Also in today's issue:marketing materials

The "Spirit of Fire" firebird was finished on Wednesday.  It was a royal pain and a learning experience, but it's done.  It took approximately 6 firings



I also have a whole series of pics of most of the process, but I'm still sorting those out.  So, for next week, we'll have process pics, and probably "Spirit of Water" as well.  That one's currently in the "fugly" stage, and I expect to have it done in another day's work.

I'm currently venturing into bookbinding for a school project, and that's been interesting.  My art business class requires us to have 2 portfolio books to show at the end of the quarter (a little more than a week from now), one big fancy book (for meetings with shops, galleries and clients), and one leave-behind book (to leave with those shops, etc. so they'll remember you).  I'm making the big portfolio from scratch, and playing with a couple of ideas for the leave-behind.  Since I'm running with copper, silver, and purple for my main colors it's been interesting to try to get the right balance and not go over the edge into gaudy.  I've got several options for the less-elaborate leave-behind portfolio.  There's the standard black vinyl with permanently bound-in page protectors, the 3-ring binder, the paper or plastic presentation folder with brads, and professional binding (which is expensive).  But, I found, in Office Depot, a form of spiral comb-binding that doesn't require a special machine to work the comb.  I'm thinking to try that in letter and half-letter size, just to see what it looks like. I've also got a few of the standard black variety in case the experiment looks odd or otherwise doesn't work.

Sheesh.  An artist's work is never done.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

elemental creatures

So, the new Big Project is the Elemental Creatures series, which I hope to debut at NorwesCon. It's my first major endeavor in enamel illustration.  I'm nearly done with Fire, have started Water, and have a working sketch for Earth.  Air is still a bit in the planning stage. Hopefully next week I'll have all the pics of "Creature of Fire" ready to show you.  I'm trying to document the whole process, through all the firings, etc.so all the exacting work is visible.

I'm also starting to look into project management software; something to help me keep track of my time and stay on top of my production schedule.  I've just done some figuring out of how much I need to sell to be sufficiently profitable, and producing that much may be a challenge.