Saturday, December 22, 2007

Sonic and White Russians

Okay, two orders of business.

First, Sonic: America's Drive-thru. We finally have one :) It opened on Wednesday... Matt and I went there for dinner on Thurs. We had to wait in line for 15 minutes to get a bay... and the drive thru line practically wrapped around the entire building. Finally! Those Sonic commercials are relevant! I'm just tickled pink by the fact that I've been seeing those commercials for years and now there's a Sonic not 10 minutes from my house. Weird and wonderful.

AND, the second order of business: White Russians. Matt turned twenty-one about two weeks ago, and he arrived home from school Thursday afternoon. So, to celebrate (after we got home from dinner) he mixed himself a White Russian. I don't think words can accurately express how weird it was to watch my brother make himself a mixed drink in our kitchen. Definitely surreal. I think that's all I have to say.

Just... two weird experiences in the same day.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Done!

This semester's celebratory, Ben and Jerry's, ice-cream-for-dinner-flavor: Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream. Yummy :)

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Casting: heritage project



Well... this assignment was about family heritage.

However, I feel like this piece is less about my actual heritage and more about how I want to think about/remember my family. I made a heart box and filled it with little objects, each object representing a different family member, not necessarily that person's work, but how I think of him or her, what I've learned for that person, etc.

I really liked this project, both the project and what I made from the assignment, although I feel like this project got short changed in the time department. I was so focused on getting my Intermediate project done that I feel like this one has issues that I didn't have time to fix. Although, that said, I'm happy with what I made, just not the quality of it. There are a lot of things in this project that I think I think I'll revisit in later, both design elements and memories... I just wish I had had more time.

And that's all.

Printmaking: last three assignments




Alrighty, friends... this post combines my last three assignments in Printmaking I.

The top print is my second assigned intaglio print... based on an architectural arch and The Green Man. I shaped the plate with my jeweler's saw. I wanted it to be a little bit ambiguous... a little bit creepy... and a little bit fun :) I like it.

The second print is the first of my "Your Choice" prints... actually, both of my "Your Choice" prints are intaglio because I found out that I really liked intaglio printmaking... I liked the process and I liked that it suited my detail-oriented aesthetic. SO, that said this print is actually two plated combined into onto print. Again, I shaped them with my jeweler's saw... partly so that they two plated would fit together nicely, but also because I just wanted to work with shaped plates again. So, my print is of two animals (a tiger and a dragon) circling one another. Those two animals are traditionally associated with the Yin-Yang... but I took the overt Yin-Yang out of the picture to make the print a little more ambiguous and interesting.

I had a lot of trouble with this animal print because I was trying another technique along with it called schinko lie, which is where you overlay colored papers with glue to create more contrast. BUT, the shapes of the animals were so complex that after I cut out my schinko lie paper I couldn't get it to register correctly on my design. SO, what's you're looking at is like the seventh time that I printed that design, AND it is not schinko lie but relief rolled for those colors.

AND, finally, the last print is kind of inspired by my metal work... I was working on a metals piece that was inspired by the gingerbread trim on Victorian style houses. SO, I decided to make a "haunted" house print based on the same design elements. honestly, I think it is my favorite print that I made this semester. My professor thought that the moon in the corner was a little bit cliche... but I say that no haunted house is complete without an ominous moon hanging over it.

So, I had fun in that class... got to learn lots of fun and interesting things, play with acid and sharp tools... and over all, just play.

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Chimera Sioree 2007



The Sioree this year was fab... just like last year, excellent food, live music, an art show, a poetry reading (of which I got to be a part of again this year).

But unlike last year, I knew more people... featured above is part of the Chimera Lit crew... me, Stacey, Doug, and Bekka. Really nice people. Anyway, after the party, we went to a bar and just did some hanging out. Sweet.

I wish I had more to tell you about the event... but what it really boils down to is this: I had a wonderful time and that's all she wrote.

Jewelry Casting: alternative material and soft wax



Okay friends, I admit, I am disastrously behind in posting. But just in case there is anyone still out there... here's the deal on my last casting project.

Our assignment was to make a piece using alternative materials and soft wax. It just so happens that I split this project into two pieces. The alternative materials could be anything from leaves, to seeds, to bugs, to toys, or food, etc etc etc.

Now, the natural objects had to be dried so that they would burn out in the kiln and leave a cavity for the molten metal. BUT, you CANNOT burn out anything that's plastic or synthetic because the burn off creates toxins in the air. So, to create my car pendant, I first had to create a plaster mold of the car and then cast the car in wax... then I could invest that wax for burn out in the kiln.

The bracelet is simply made of soft wax. I took sheet wax and then melted wax dribbles onto it. I kinda like it... in fact, I think I like it better than my car bracelet.

And as for the color. Well, that was easy enough... both of these projects were cast in bronze... So, I painted the bronze with Gesso, like the stuff that painters use to prepare a canvas, and then I used colored pencil to get the color... layers and layers of colored pencil. And that's that.

Enjoy.