I love sweeties

Today I am mostly obsessing about sweeties I ate when I was a child and doing something artistically interesting with the yards of videotape I have been given with the challenge of making a hat, or a brooch, or a pterodactyl with it. If you get that film reference you deserve a sweetie. Let me know what you like and I will go to the magic sweetie shop and buy you some.

I think I may be suffering from a technology overdose, having been deprived, and I mean deprived, of the internet for 4 days. 4 DAYS. FOUR WHOLE DAYS!!!!!!!!

Calm thoughts, calm thoughts.

OK back to ( not quite approaching) normal.

Sweeties, I love 'em. I found a sweet shop in Hillsborough, which is the bit of Sheffield that thinks its quite posh, but it not really that posh 'cos it's in the North of Sheffield, and the proper posh places are what used to be Derbyshire and feel aggrieved that the boundary reshuffle in 1972 made them part of Sheffield, and in revenge they keep electing the Liberal Democrats instead of, well, a real party.

Bit of politics there.

Where was I? Oh yes, sweeties. I was, literally and figuratively a kid in a sweetie shop today. They had everything including sherbet in big jars, cherry lips, and my old faves, aniseed balls and the really hard sticks of liquorice you have to suck for a week to make it soft enough to chew. The stuff that leaves you with a brown tide mark around your mouth and chin. Numma numma numma.

As for the video tape, I'm crocheting with it. It's a bit strange to do it with, but it works and looks quite cool. Try, go on now you've got all your video collection replaced with DVD's and Blu-rays, crochet those old video tapes into beautiful items of jewellery and handy shopping bags.

I'll return to being a boring person soon, promise. This is what happens when I am cut off from technology. Let this be a warning to you all!

The canvas 10

Interesting that all the work I've put into this piece is summed up in 10 posts.

It is done, stretched on its frame and ready to be delivered to college tomorrow or Friday morning.

I am now very tired and very, very pleased with myself.

On top of completing the canvas, as yet untitled, I have also been asked to send a proposal for providing art workshops to young people at risk of offending. Dream job! I was so excited when I got the phone call I jumped up and down on the spot. Not a thing to do in public with my breasts!

Would love to say more, but need to get head into gear over the next couple of days to write business plan for life drawing and to start writing the proposal for the art workshops.

Here is the finished work, just for the hell of it.

Boredom

I don't do boredom, I've got nothing to do. Well actually I do, but I'm tired and need a day off, should I take it? I did the pots, and the accounts, and I'm modelling later, then on to a meeting after.

The question is, do I now finish off the canvas, fill the sketchbook with some of the mad polystyrene prints, make fish pie and treacle tart ready for tea when I finally get home (of course this is dependant on how hungry the boy is and whether he can manage to NOT EAT MY SHARE), or do I finally start on the books and bags I have to make for stock for the imaginary craft fayres I should be going to?

What to do........what to do.....oh and no-one's playing scrabble! Why?

Life Drawing

Been having a bit of a dissatisfying time at life drawing over the past few months, feeling like I don't get there often enough and I can't focus, and then people come who I've never seen before and they are just ace at drawing and I'm a complete waste of paper. Decided to really start working at developing my skills, to which end I have decided to try using a different method of drawing than my usual.

The method I'm using is the Giacometti method, which I read about in a blog ages ago, and if I can find the link again I'll post it.

Ah, here it is.

http://aseparatepieceart.blogspot.com/2008/07/article-giacometti-drawing-technique.html

Very useful, even though I've only used it a couple of times previously, I have had some success with it.

So today, I consciously used the Giacometti technique and it worked really well, so in future I will be more considered in the way I draw the longer poses at the life drawing class.

Here's what I did today.

The canvas 9

Finished it! Yay!

Well I say I've finished it, I've hung it on the wall to live with it a couple of days to see if it actually is finished and then I have to stretch and mount it. Plus I have all the sketchbook work to catch up on. I may also do some printing with the polystyrene plate I made yesterday. Always good to do some printing.

Plus I remembered that fun foam sheets are excellent printing media. So I may have a play with those too. Lots to play with.

Anyway here's the finished(ish) canvas. Answers on a postcard please. now!

THE Book 5

I have been making quite a bit of progress with this lately, although I've still not got all of the elements of the creation story together yet, I need a good drawing of a clam shell with legs and arms sticking out!
These are a couple of testers for the primeval gods that occur frequently in creation stories, variously vomiting, pissing, bleeding or extruding from nipples the stuff of life all over the planet. Although I quite like some of these stories, they are excessively complex and convoluted. I wanted a simple story that fitted with my own preferences and ideas.
So working from the chaos, I found a raven's eye, peering through the chaos, looking for entertainment.As he looks, the sun is formed and in the sky flies the raven, searching still for distractions. From here I am looking for an image of the raven that is both fairly natural looking, but at the same time mystical and stylised. To this end I have started to draw ravens.
Firstly I drew them from illustrations photocopied from books. Never a satisfactory way to get a good view of anything. Then I went back to the library and borrowed the books I needed. This was better because the illustrations are clearer and some are even photographs!
Then I traced over the outline of a particularly good drawing and have started to develop this image further in print.
This is the plate that came from it, using foam board of all things, which is rough and ready but meets my immediate printing needs. The plan is to explore this printing medium, with a view to using it on a smaller scale in the book. Probably using polystyrene as a printing plate, which gives a finer effect, but is still as immediate as the foam board, and both can be printed effectively without the need for intaglio inks or a press.

OMG, I've gone insane!

So, I pack my secure job in with the NHS and don't have a job to go to. The least of my problems.

I'm running out of money and the bills are mounting up. Not a problem.

I'm getting loads of life modelling work, for which I'm paid fairly well. Great news.

I've got to register as self employed and learn how to pay my tax, national insurance and do my books myself. Oh bloody bugger, how the hell do I do that?!

So I phone tax credits up, then I phone the tax office, who will send me an info pack, send me on a seminar to do my taxes and a self assessment form will be wending it's way to me. That's the easy part.

I now have to organise a set of books, a reciept file, and invoice file and at the same time model, got to college and sell my work!

Oh yeah, because I had to think of a name for me as a trading name, I am now Sam Dexter Enterprises! OMG! I'm an enterprise! One step closer to Star Trek then!

My journey with computers

I decided I wanted a picture on the back of my blog, like other people have so I added one, with the help of a tutorial and a lost of scary writing code and I did it! I'm so proud of myself for doing it!

Do you like it? It's a photogram i did last year.

Now back to the annoying sewing which is proving to be very frustrating and I'm getting increasingly annoyed at the crap cotton that keeps snapping everytime i try to sew for more than 2 minutes at a time.