This Is What I Am Working On Today, And Possibly For Quite Some Time To Come. It Was Origionaly A Misprinted

This is what I am working on today, and possibly for quite some time to come. it was origionaly a misprinted canvas screen print of my deer skull and blackberry vines, (I made only two of those and then had to blast the screen so tragically there will be no more.) I am now adding hand embroidery in glow in the dark, and then variegated colors once I finish the outlines.

I am not awesome at embroidering but I'm getting better. I promise to put up better pictures when it's finished.

The thing about making art is:

If you're good enough to be able to see what you want, you can make the image/object itself out of pretty much anything.

Right now I'm working on sewing some color onto a print I made. most of its fraternal twins are on paper, it's not exactly an edition. I made more than I needed off the block and then burned it into a screen using a print on oiled newsprint and then printed more, two of which are on canvas. at the time I figured I needed bases for mixed media projects outside of school. turns out I was right and I wish I'd made more when I could. but yeah, I made a lot of these because the image itself pleases me. I didn't edition them, so I could color them in by hand and not have to deal with Printmaker Judgement, which is what one gets from other printmakers when the edition is inconsistent (or nonexistent).

I'm doing a very normal version of the colors I usually put on this, only difference is that it's fiber art and it's taking forever to finish because it's painstaking and I keep stabbing myself in the left hand.

last bit of that is normal for my process I guess. almost as much as inspiration striking me exclusively at 2am.

but yeah, mom wanted to go to the JoAnne's in Federal Way tonight. they were out of the glow-in-the-dark embroidery floss so I just picked up some more colors that aren't the variegated stuff I've been working with, and some pieces of felt to make things with.

brought the in-progress canvas scrap in to check it against the colors they had in the store, got complimented by the cashier on it being beautiful. so that kinda made my night.

anyways, I guess this is another picture of my tool-box. I will post the progress shots in victory when I finish the beast.

Fall Patch. approx 3" diameter, craft felt and embroidery thread, front and back.

this is what I made today. it took me about 3 hours off and on. figured I'm putting up so much old stuff I should mix it up with something new.

I'm taking a small break from working on my giant embroidery project to play around a little with other needlework techniques, and also working small and quick is rewarding. it keeps the dopamine flowing to finish things.

Jack-elope

linoleum block relief print, black ink on white. edition of 12.

did you know that male and female rabbits are called Bucks and Does?

another fun fact: any piece of dream-like visual symbolism you detect in my art that you cannot figure out is most definitely a visual pun, probably a horrible one. this is because my actual dreams also are full of horrible puns. I would say that my interior landscape is not quite as bad as Xanth, but it's pretty close.

less panty jokes anyways. not that that's a plus necessarily.

Lucky Rabbit, for ❤ day 2012

this is a four layer screen print of a rabbit skull with clover. bottom is the sketch I worked off of. I knocked out an edition of them for a valentines day exchange by drawing on transparent sheets of plastic with a sharpie paint pen and doing a photo emulsion on my screen with all of the layers in diffrent parts of the screen. tape over the parts you don't need, clean it well between layers, and that kind of thing can save time, photo emulsion, and energy. 

the valentines day exchange is where people brought each a set number of things and passed them out for one of each of the the things everyone else brought. which is possibly the best way to do valentines day. (like a kindergartner) I say things instead of prints, because while some of us made prints, some people brought food, and some people did little hand-drawn valentines. I still have a lot of the non-consumable ones on my bulletin board, I'm not showing them off because, as you might be able to tell, I am doing my best to make sure this tumblr is all my art and my art thoughts (and some songs that inspire my art thoughts) so I'm not going to show you Tessa's Garbage-Pizza Cat.  which is captioned "Lets get dirty" even though it is fantastic. nor yet the star wars valentine from Austin.

not really much to say about this one. it was an idea that was kicking around my head after I did the wolf and deer skull. never did do a fox-skull to pair with it because they are too visually similar to the wolf I had already done. it's pretty nice in person because the yellow is actually a gold, thus it sparkles like a son of a bitch. looking at it now, I should have put another layer on it, over the gold but under the black to give some dimensionality to the skull, that or left some of the white showing through, and maybe outlined in a different color, possibly a dark green.

Man, do I ever love special effects art supplies. stuff that glitters, is holographic, or glows in the dark, or changes color based on ambient temperature, or looks different painted on black or white. but that kind of thing never looks good unless the effect is understated, and to say that I am less than good at subtlety, would be an understatement in itself.

Take the Bull by the Horns. mixed media collage with modified south-western themed cross-stitch kit, and red label-maker labels.

the text plastic really wants to curl and not stick to anything, so this may require me to go after it with a glue gun in a bit to keep everything together.

whatevs, it was a break from my big project. and now I am going to sleep.