On the Day of Christmas my True Love Gave to Meeee....

.... a board game called Zombicide!

And a bunch of uber practicalityyyyyy!

You know how some people get socks for Christmas. Or a new sweater. Or a set up tupperware. Well, in my family, our 'parental practical gift of choice' is duct tape and rope.

My dad likes rope. And duct tape. They're like the universal fix-its of everything. And so he's always giving us children more of it. Dunno what I'm going to do with 3 rolls of duct tape.... though I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose the rope. Still not sure what happened to the bundles he gave me last year.

Not gonna lie.... it's always a little disappointing to get a bunch of super practical, boring stuff for Christmas instead of anything fun. Even if a few of these items I've been wanting and needing. Though what I'm going to do with 3 flashlights, I'm not sure...

I am really happy with that fold-out tool box. This is something I've been wanting to get for a while, if not in this exact incarnation.

For those of you who haven't vendored at any type of show, or expo, or event before, there's a lot more that goes into it then just some tables, a canopy, and a card reader. There's bag and paper to wrap up artwork in. You need to have on hand an assortment of hooks, hangers, wire, rope, tape, pens and markers, labels, note pads, personal care items, lights, coverings, etc... because you never know if something is going to go wrong, or breaks, or you suddenly don't feel good, or a customer wants something unusual, or.... etc... etc...  And so you need to have something to store all these assorted extra items in.

For the last couple years, I've been using my large luggage case. Which works fine... except this is my travel luggage. It's cloth and not very durable. It doesn't have a lot of extra storage areas. I have to lay it down flat somewhere in my booth, which can make it troublesome to get things out of.

I just don't like mixing my personal items with my business necessities. So for a while now I've been looking at other options. Namely one of these:

Technically it's a scrapbook tote.... but it stands upright on wheels, it has tons of pockets, and it takes up a lot less space then a large luggage case. But these things are expensive! So I didn't buy one.

Good thing too! Because what my parents got me is even better!

The fold-out tool box is tall and made of plastic, so it doesn't take up much room and is tough. Has wheels so it rolls. And it has lots of room! Once I put everything in there, I realized it was a good thing I hadn't bought one of those totes. I don't think it could've held everything I needed it to.

The other thing I got that still needs some further work before its read, is that 6in table grinder you see in the pic.

Last year my Aunty Chris loaned me a bunch of power tools to get my business up and running, because I just didn't have them and couldn't afford them.

And so my goal has been to replace those items she's loaned me so that I can return them to her and have my own. A table grinder was one of those items. In this case... the one she loaned me was pretty worn, so it's literally been falling apart on me. It's also bolted down onto this heavy, bulky, rolling work table. I sorta like the table for its extra storage areas. But since I've been relocated to another area of the shop, I have less room, and it's taking up too much room. So my new table grinder is going to get mounted on a smaller wooden base that I can tuck into a corner.

The last of my gifts, given to me by my amazingly awesome boyfriend, is a board game called Zombicide. Spotted it at the game store and thought it looked like a lot of fun. Since I started dating him and I've made friends with his gaming group, I've been working to amass my own collection of board and card games.

Unfortunately, most of my games are in big boxes! And they are rapidly out-growing my little duffel bag. I may have to start hunting around for a 'board game rolling tote'.

Hmmm... I wonder if they actually make those??

Remember, Remember, the Night of November...

Hello blogger readers!

This last month has been both busy and... kinda not.

When we last left off, I'd been recapping on my Halloween adventures, as well as voicing some of my financial concerns. Those concerns have not vanished.... though with some work rolling in, as well as a reduction in my rent (hurray!) I'm not stressing out over it as badly as before.

November turned out to be a busy month for me.

My sister got married on Nov. 17, 2012, so I and my boyfriend took the weekend off so we could travel down to Arizona with the rest of the family to attend that. It was a nice little ceremony, held at my Aunts house. Erin and Rick both looks really nice in their wedding clothes. Everything had a fun fall theme with oranges, browns, and rust-toned decorations. And after the ceremony, we had a BBQ!

Getting married is a special occasion. It's a celebration of a new start, a new family, and a new future. So I wanted to make Erin and Rick something special for the occasion.

If you've ever been to Arizona, they are REALLY in to southwestern/ native american/ wild west art and design. Everywhere you go you see this theme, from stores, to homes, to landscaping. So I knew I wanted to make them something along that line. Rick also happens to be Native American, so I really wanted to do something Native American in particular.

I had originally considered making a Kokopeli sculpture. My sister has always liked those, and in fact, my mom and aunt had spent 3 months making her a Kokopeli quilt. But after poking around Google Images (my primary reference source of choice) and thinking on it a bit... I decided I didn't really want to go with the Kokopeli thing.
For starters- it is a VERY VERY common theme. You see Kokopeli's features in artwork a LOT, and you can easily find a hundred different varieties and designs just strolling through a mall. I wanted this to be something cool and stand-out-ish. So the Kokopeli idea got tossed.

One of my absolute favorite Native American decorations is the Kachina Doll. These are also some what common, yet you really only find them in 'Trading Post' type shops, and not very often in people's homes. Kachina are also, in and of themselves, very interesting. They are nature spirits of a sort. Often times they are humanoids with animal-like characteristics, representing not only natural phenomenons, but also characteristics of human nature.

The idea of a Kachina Dancer stuck in my head, and after a bit of poking around Google, I decided to make an Eagle Kachina.

See how cool that is??? One of these days I plan to get one of these for myself!

So, once I had my idea, and a rough idea of a design and how I'd do it, I set to work. I told my sister ahead of time that I was making her something, but not what it was, only that I needed to know if she wanted a wall sculpture or a table sculpture. Important bit of information, as this would drastically change what I would be doing with the design. Thanks to a certain hyper active puppy, it was determined that a wall hanging would be best. Puppy can't go and smash a wall hanging down with his tail.

One of the reasons I really liked this project was because I was doing something I hadn't done much of before; craft a human form. Humans are both easy and difficult creatures to construct. Our basic forms are pretty easy. You can built a stick figure and make something recognizably human shaped. It gets harder when you start taking that simple form and making it bend. Giving it motion. Adding additional elements to it.

I've always had a hard time drawing human forms whenever I wanted them to do something other then just stand there. Even when I've gone to outside sources for references, my drawings never came out looking quite right.

An Eagle Kachina Dancer needed to have that recognizable human body, but also needed to incorporate wings and a birds head. It also needed to have motion. Kachina Dancers are rarely every displayed just standing there. I wanted my Kachina Dancer to be Dancing. A lot of different design aspects had to be positions correctly to get this to work out right. Even just 1/4in difference in the position of a wing, or a leg, or the body, means the difference between having this graceful, ceremonial dancer, or having some silly guy in a costume doing high-step exercises while flapping his arms around.

This was my final product.

The stained glass background was inspired by my Mom. I was originally going to go with a scrap metal back drop, when she suggested glass. This particular pane was snitched out of one of my other sculptures, since I didn't want to go and spend another $40 on glass. I also really liked this color, because it made the silvery dancer really stand out against the vibrancy of the red.

Unlike the traditional Kachina figures, I made mine look more avian, with a prominent, beak-like mask, and clawed bird feet. I had a lot of fun with those little brass 'needles' on the wings and head. I'm not entirely sure what they are... I think they're something used in cars, because I found a whole bunch of them in my last shop, which had originally been an automotive shop. But they worked great for this; giving the wings and head a distinctive design.

Most of this sculpture was colored using an oxy-acetylene torch, though I took an Insta-Rust patina to the Dancers belt and pants, since there were a few spots I specifically wanted to be brown. And to finish it off, I used my Migi Nail Art Pens to decorate the mask, wings, belt, and leggings. If you look at most Kachina Dolls, they always feature some sort of tribal decorations, whether its face paint, or designs on the clothes, and I wanted to have that same 'feel' on my Kachina.

The sculpture was a big hit at the wedding. My sister loved it. I got to show it off to my relatives.

I think I'll have to make more of these some time. These would make really nice table decorations as well, and I've been meaning to look into more sales avenues down in Arizona, so this would be a good one to have on hand.

Following the wedding was Thanksgiving!

Now, even though Thanksgiving isn't really much of a 'decorations' holiday, I still wanted to make something. And what better holiday/fall-themed sculpture then a turkey?

That's right... I made some turkeys! Couple of different sizes (thinking I may go back some time and make a little turkey). Not entirely sure where I'm going to sell these... they're kind of a novelty and a once-a-year type of decoration. Hmmmm....

The end of November ended up not being nearly as productive as it should have been. I was really stressed out and worried about finances and what I would be doing this next year, and even in the next 3-4 months. It put me in a really bad funk, and I didn't want to do anything, let alone try and create any artwork. So what should've been at least a few productive days turned into... not productive at all.

I suppose the only good part was that I finally got myself a new camera! This has been on my 'Must Have' list for a long time now. My old digital camera just wasn't performing the way I needed it to. And as an artist trying to get into shows and events, everything revolves around the quality of my images and being able to properly show of my artwork. And having images that were too dark, or blurry, or super grainy, just wasn't helping. I can't afford a professional photographer, so I've been trying to do it myself. And with Black Friday, I was able to get a nice camera for a reasonable price.

I'm pretty excited about this. This camera cost less then my old camera (which I bought some 4-5yrs ago), and it has more then double the megapixels, way more functions, a massive zoom that I can actually focus! And it doesn't eat through batteries like a 3yr old with a box of M&M's. Been taking picture of a dragon sculpture I recently finished, so we'll see how well the images come out.

Oh... and on a side note... if you've been letting someone check our your camera, you may want to make sure to check your settings to make sure they're where you wanted them. A certain brother of mine turned the image size all the way up to the 16 megapixels (which is movei-poster sized images) and I didn't realize this. No wonder it took me 30min to upload 19 images onto my comp... sheesh...