#303

Update on the girl. Photo of the computer doesn’t show the colour right,  but gives you an idea of what it looks like without giving you my work in progress files.
I changed her hands and gave her dress a lot more shading. I think it’s looking pretty nice. I’m not sure of I’ve been staring at it too long, but it starts to look strange and I get unsure if it looks good. My partner says it looks “fine,” which was a poor choice of words. I don’t want to risk over working it, but I really want it to look fantastic. At this stage I’m not even sure if I should define her toes, or make it that she’s wearing stockings/tights.

#302

Tiny sneak peek at what I was doing today.
Trying out some digital painting techniques that I’ve learnt from YouTube, and some things that I’m discovering on my own. I decided to try putting abase gradient down, then colouring the area based on what colours lands there. The picture that I’m using, I showed you a while ago, named fire fairy. I haven’t put her wings on, and I’m not sure I will on this version. I’m imagining this on a shirt, so I want to get it right. I need to change her hand position, and her back leg is too short, but I’m taking my time and having fun. It is a little unusual go change the sketch this far in, but I knew it didn’t look right, but didn’t know how to change it. Now I have a couple of ideas.
I’ll work on it between cleaning and sleeping.

#301

Reminder: invent odourless nail polish that is asthma friendly.
Next batch of overwhelmingly smelly yet very pretty objects popped out. They’re still soft, so probably should have waited a little longer, but I was impatient, and they’ll dry better not surrounded in the mould. I was looking at the other Mod Podge moulds that are in the set, and they have an actual gem shapes one. So, looking to be buying that asap. They’ll look lovely on boxes, I think and light enough for cards. Detailed for small projects. The bronze frames would work well as frames in a miniature room. The green and yellow ring fits inside a bottle cap, but I’m unsure what to do with that information.
If it wasn’t so cold, I’d do these things outside, maybe I should put it off until it warms up. Not like I have nothing else to create till then.
But they’re so pretty.

#300

Yay! 300 daily posts!
You may be wondering where I bought these cool looking gems and bee from, but I made them. Cool, huh? Using old nail polish (I love buying it but can’t apply it if my life depended on it, so I use them from craft,) I filled some small moulds full of nail polish, and waited for it to dry. When it dries, it kind of depletes, leaving a shell, so I refilled it once more with the polish, and when that dried, I filled the rest with glue, all before taking it out of the mould. The bee was a lot trickier to get out of the mould, but that was a sculpey mould, and wasn’t as dense as the other, Mod Podge brand mould that I used, which works so well. It takes quite a while for each layer to dry, and our house now smells like a nail salon, but I think they look awesome. The glitter polish seems to look best on the smooth cabochons, and more detailed ones are better with plain or superfine glitter. I have another bunch of experiments drying at the moment using the Mod Podge mould, including two colours and all the different shapes. Now that I think about it, I have a Wilton mould that might act similar to the Mod Podge one. There’s a whole bunch of moulds that I’d like to buy.
I’m working slowly on the website. Really slowly. Getting back into the swing of coding is fun, but there’s a lot that has changed. It’s less HTML and more CSS, and when did DIV replace tables? Eh, even getting the layout and colours right is tricky. Don’t even talk to me about the logo. I printed out a test and the raspberry colour was pixelated orange with unreadable words.
I brought out my tablet today after watching a video on Photoshop colouring techniques that I hadn’t seen before. Unfortunately, one of my cats decided it was a good time for cuddles, and kept stepping on my keyboard, changing my settings all the time. At least they don’t get messy stepping on my digital painting.

#299

Yeah, I’ll get around to cleaning soon. I just wanted to try out some quilling. And mould filling. With glue…and tissue…and nail polish. >_>
So, now that our house is smelling of pungent fumes and filled with drying objects, it’s time for bed.
I was talking about the selling thing that I’ll be doing, and we figured that I’d need a website to do the selling from. My lovely partner bought me the domain name, and we set it up using our gaming webspace that we have plenty of extra data on. It’s just bare bones at the moment, but, enter raspberrysheep.com. I even remembered to finally publish my Facebook page. I haven’t set up all the accounts yet, and the ones I have basically just show my posts from here, but you can always contact me through them, and hopefully I’ll be able to sell things once I get the software as well as the all clear from social security.
Now, all the hard decisions of web designing. It’s been so long since I’ve done any coding, but I love doing it. I even thought of doing it for pay once, but it didn’t work out and it does get frustrating. There’s not much room for artistic licence in commissioned sites. At least we can play with mine however much I want. First choosing a colour scheme, and maybe redoing the logo. It doesn’t look professional enough 😛

#298

Furry burry.
He turned out quite nicely, I think. The face is needle felted and it’s all done using acrylic yarn, with a synthetic filling centre. I’m still getting plenty of fluff peeling up as I hold him, so in experimenting with hairspray to try and keep him together over time. If only I could put things in blocks of resin to prevent damage and wear. Not very tactile, but at least they will last.
The, yet to be named, bear is showing off a very fashionable paper pack called “Surfs Up” by DCWV. I bought it today, as is was 75% off and it’s sparkly and pretty. I also got a couple of polystyrene balls to try out a quilling thing, and some cheap polymer clay, in pink and purple. I’d usually use my super sculpey and paint it after, but I want to try out clay canes.
I should be on a no mess for inspection lock down, so don’t expect a lot. I’ll try to draw still and I have a thing to plan for that might lead to selling. Anxious about it, but also excited. I’ll be getting a theme, then having a month to come up with a product to sell that suits the theme. I’ll let you know when I know more. I know it’s to support Australian artists and getting local business. I was kinda roped into it, but I think it’ll be good for me.

#297

Just an update on the bear that I started yesterday. Had to brush out some yarn for this colour, which I found in my stash. I have some darker brown for his paws and around his eyes and ears, but just getting a base on for now. He has noodle arms, hehe.
Loving this new camera-with-phone-attached. HDR FTW! Nearly true colour, for once.

#296

I haven’t been well for the last few days, so I haven’t done much in the way of moving, but today I felt a bit better, and got some things done.
First of all, I’d like to point out that the cute sock monster was not my original idea, but I did recreate him from only a picture that I found on Pinterest here. I did however use my own techniques to make it and will not sell anything, as it isn’t my intellectual property. I just saw it as a cute challenge for reverse engineering, which my brain is wired to do in art and craft. A lot can be learnt by challenging yourself to recreate things for personal learning purposes. Never to sell or profit from (underline, underline.) My rules for craft is “Don’t buy what you could make,” and “Don’t sell what you wouldn’t buy.” This isn’t great for the craft selling industry, as I can recreate many things, but I don’t think my quality is great enough to sell yet. I often enjoy making things more than having them, but often can’t bear to part with things. Paradoxical is a very good word for this situation.
So, when making the monster, instead of stuffing and shaping the neck with stitches, I sculpted two balls with needle felting and it kind of shaped the neck a bit. It wasn’t as dramatic as I’d hoped, but it sort of lead into making the bear. He’s all stuffing now, but he will probably end up with a nice coat of yarn fluff, in yet to be determined colours. I’ve decided that I’ll attach the legs to the body firmly, but make the arms movable with a threading through method. This one will probably take as long as a regular sewn bear, but less fiddly so far. Teeny bear arms are so hard to turn.

#295

Bows and a fairy.
I thought I’d switch it up tonight, taking a break from needle felting for now, and got out my ribbon box (which I promptly returned after to make my space pretend to be clean.) I’d been looking on Pinterest for crafts as usual, when I followed a trail towards bows. I like how you can choose images and migrate through the pages like thoughts, ever evolving and perhaps returning to images multiple times. It allows you to pick what you like, and show you more like it, it’s fun and doesn’t take brain power. In the end, the site learns what you like, and you might learn things about yourself. My journey often leads me to the miniatures section in crafts, which isn’t a surprise, as I’ve always loved miniature things. The skill that goes into the art of teeny tiny room making astounds me, and I’m yet to master this. Sure it takes a lot of different skill sets, that I may have, but it also takes a lot of patience and dedication to one project. Perhaps if I decide on a room and make a little bit each time I’m on a certain craft, I can complete something in a few years. If I had started when I first found this love. I’d have finished some by now. Come to think of it, I have a half painted wooden doll furniture set that I’m trying to customise. I’ll have to dig it out when I’m up to painting again. That might be after clay, if I ever start that.
Just like Pinterest, I have veered off course into a progressive path of natural thought. Letting your mind go on like this is good for idea generation and brain storming. Also helps with sleep if you write it all down.
Goodnight.