musekicker | Entries tagged with art

Been feeling slightly like I'm back in a art rut again. Meaning I think I'm ready to grow some more art wise.

I am taking some steps, finally doing some work on a making a character sculpture out of parts of old toys and other materials. (i think it can be called scratch building or something like that.)

Nothing makes you feel more like a villain then cutting off the ears of one of those cute sylvanian families blind bag rabbits ( I mean, they are the perfect candidate for one of my sci fi universe species called a Hoplix, which is basically rabbit with different colors, and ears that look like those dna strand models. What we do for art.)

I did also make a armature for the new avaloner whose face is part of this dolphin toy's face.

That said, I've been feeling lately like I want to expand to bigger or more collaborating projects. To grow.

Been a bit since I made a entry here. Been in the art mood and working on a bunch of art. The art I've finished though is not so much what I'm just kind of chattering about here is a future art experiment.

I've been collecting some plastic bits and bobs in a attempt to get more into scratch building/making things from junk. And a thought occurred to me today. Doing that scratch building but also mixing in some paper mache somehow? Like the body is made of paper mache but a face, limbs, and some details might be plastic things?

A thought I'm going to expand on soon.

My mood for working on art has been pretty down for the last couple of months. Lots of different reasons why. But I am starting to feel a bit of my art mood coming back I think. Enough that I'm thinking of wips or new ideas I can work on.

Hopefully that sticks around.

So art has slowed down lately. Working more on writing then visual art. Though I have still made some slight progress in some experiments. Mainly with paper mache.

It's been learning curve of course. But it was very helpful to have some really good guides to paper mache art from youtube. Look up Jane Sawyer Makes.

So the idea of one of the paper mache projects I'm working on right now is suppose to be a sort of monster plant. Very early stages right now. But yeah, used a box cut up in a way that it looks like a sort of more box like plant head. It has space where I can work inside the mouth area too.

I'm thinking of making the eyes out of Styrofoam egg halves and paper clay. And make the tongue out of apoxie sculpt? I might actually try making a paper mache tongue with some gardening wire first and see how that goes too?

The teeth I'm thinking paper clay too.

And then I thought what about a base. I think I'll get a plant pot of some kind at the dollar store, decorate that. Maybe makes some fake foliage/leaves to go with the plant. Give it more character to the final look.

I also am taking steps to start making stickers or keychains out of some art of mine. Depending on prices and how many I need to order might make one sticker design and one keychain design.

I have a few art projects I'm juggling currently. The cliff side house piece one of them. But also one experiment piece with multiple layers of paper, tearing some parts of that paper, and laying more. Repeat often until happy. I'm thinking also using some mixed media paper scraps, gluing those down in a ring shape and kind of going for a portal feeling?

I also have a piece I'm working on that is brought up to the main piece I have to work on as it's for a upcoming art show. The theme being based off of tarot cards. I went for the lovers card for my theme. And I thought that using some inspiration from the painting "The Kiss" by Gustav Klimnt.

Not in the image itself. More like some of the repeating details such as some color schemes and markings. The image I'm working on is having two people walking through the woods hand in hand.

I have the background base color down and some green down from grass. I need to put together some trees. I've cut out the trunks but need to glue down some squares in three different shades of yellow to make up the leaf clusters of the trees.

Really hoping to use the trees and bushes to help make some depth in the piece too.

This is the first time I've tried to somewhat emulate a existing artists style. So we'll see how this goes.

I've really been working on the cliff side houses piece since last time.

One big change I've done in the process of making this piece is making the decision that I'm no longer filling the whole of the upper space with buildings. I've glued down a bunch of the house bases I've put together onto the canvas. The shape that they are making is a better balance for the piece I feel. So I've painted the empty space around it for a sky.

Now that the paint has dried I started also the work of getting apoxie sculpt bit by bit onto the house bases. I started on covering a bit of one house at a time because I want to make sure I can add the details to the houses before the apoxie starts to harden. I'm personally loving the roof texture I made.

One fun tip I have learned from some youtube videos was to use a bit a water on a detailing tool or a finger (make sure wearing gloves. I mentioned it before but doesn't hurt to repeat safety tips.) to be able to smooth out the sculpt. One of the most helpful things I've learned about using this material really.

Besides apoxie sculpt adventures, I got out to the craft store. Gift cards I got in tow. And in the trip I got the paper clay I needed. So I have a few art experiment projects put aside that have been waiting for the paper clay as I needed it.

Mainly I'm thinking the mask decoration project. Though I'm also thinking of using a bit of the paper clay to make flowers and vines for the cliff side houses piece. Would bringing a slightly different texture to the piece I think.

Also creation related, I joined in on "get your words out" this year, so soon to be lots of writing talk too.

I'm terrible at taking pictures of my art. Both in the actual act of doing so and remembering to do so. Another thing I want to work on getting better at in the coming year. That said, I do want to occasionally shares some pictures of pieces I've done that I do have pictures of and am proud of.

My stuff this year leaned more towards mixed media collages style art. Mostly little scenes though I did do some abstract. Part of my branching out with style/materials was this piece

Fun fact, the grass part are made of rolled up paper tubes I made from old medication bags from the pharmacy, painted green. And The textured sky is pieces of left over mixed media paper glued down and painted blue. I really love running my hands over this piece.

Working with a new medium can make me anxious sometimes. More so it there are some health issues that can pop up connected to the medium (( important note, always read the labels on new materials just in case.)) . That all said, I experimented with apoxie sculpt as part of my newest projects that requires some sculpting.

Gloves were required so made sure to wear those. I was also worried about making sure I got the equal parts A and B correct and even then mixed it right. Not exactly the best at eyeballing amounts when I use polymer clay. But it looks like I succeeded.

I just prepared a small amount to attach to the experiment project and detail a bit. Just to see how it'll look when it's cures and see how it looks if I add more of the same material on top of the cured version.

Honestly, really proud of myself for pushing myself on two art related things I've dragged my heels on.

So sometimes anxiety is a odd thing. For example, the case of the glue gun.

I've used a glue gun more then once. I've been burned by hot glue before and eh, is what it is with a glue gun sometimes. But up until today I've never used a glue when I was alone and in my own home. For some reason I was just really nervous about the idea and have dragged my heels on doing so for some time.

Maybe it was a good day. Maybe my wanting to grow my art in the coming year gave me that extra push I needed. But I finally did it.

It wasn't much to do. Glue some ball up tinfoil to a canvas (I had ideas for that I swear) and some eye shapes to a cardboard base mask project I have going on too. But still did it and I'm proud of that.

Now to experiment with the apoxie sculpt I got next.

(( technically this is the 4th of my art experiment journals. But the first one I'm posting up here in attempts to once again, use dreamwidth more. We'll see how that goes.))

So one of the presents I got this was the apoxie sculpt that I asked for. (( honestly my christmas list was a lot of art related things. I'm really hoping to grow my art and experiment more in the coming year.) . I am excited to experiment with it honestly and have a thought for a possible small piece to work on as a experiment.

The idea involves a smaller size canvas as this is more so a experiment. Best to start small. I will make a number of small house shapes out of cardboard (( maybe some cheap aluminum foil or newspaper wadded up as a sort of support for the cardboard too? Depends.)) Glue those down to the canvas and cover them with apoxie sculpt and add details to them ones by one. Then painting them after that.

I also like the idea of using crumbled up and piled on foil or newspaper to also cover (maybe with paper clay?) to be cliff sides/ledges look.

Related to that thought, something like that idea but instead of house shapes glue on open boxes cover with paper clay maybe. Ohh, and maybe make little figures for inside the boxes. That be interesting.

In a area of medium I don't work in much, I found out about nalbinding and I think this is possibly be my in to the fiber arts of sorts. I don't have a good track record with learning fiber arts well. I could learn it I think if I tried harder at it but it's a hard learning curve for me. Sewing mainly I want to get better at. Crochet I have a small bit of more experience with and am still trying to learn.

From what I seen in youtube videos nalbinding is in the crochet/weaving family? Fun fact, learned about nalbinding today from a fan fic I read. So will be experimenting with that too.

Less on the experiment side, the thought of cutting out a ballerina silhouette/shape out of gold colored paper. And making the outfit black, with a tutu formed out of small paper scraps that are glued down one by one.

As always, open to comments, questions, or just chatting about art.

Sharing a work in progress painting on here. I'm loving how it's turned out but I feel needs some stuff in the background to finish off the painting.

Image is safe for work, I'm just putting it under a read more for browsing reasons.

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