EB

Otherwise known as, "An Opportunity to Brag on One of My Extremely Creative Friends".

EB (short for Emily Brown) is yet another person who I met in Colorado (one of the first, actually--she helped me shovel wood chips and spoke the entire first in an Irish accent). She is highly creative in several aspects--notably poetry, songwriting, and leatherworking.

She made this, which has been my journal for the past several months (the proceeds went towards my friend Tess, who was fighting spinal cancer at the time--she loves butterflies).

To say that I love this journal would be an understatement of the century.

It was also kind of exciting to find leaves that matched the cover. It made my little artistic mind very happy.

M-bar-M, or M-M, is EB's brand on all of her work. (Speaking of her work, you should check it out if you get a chance. Seriously.)







The following project has something of a story behind it. I had this canvas knapsack that belonged to my grandpa (on my dad's side) during WWII. It had been in a closet for ages, until it was pulled out for use by one of my brothers. They didn't use it much, so I grabbed it and made very good use out of it for about 8 years (from ages 14-22).

By last year it was starting to fall apart--the canvas was double-layered, but holes were starting to tear in the bottom and the straps were beginning to part from the back. It was to the point where I didn't use it at all, for fear that it would fall apart in my hands.

A couple of months ago I had the germ of an idea, and I texted EB to ask her what she thought. My idea was to send her the existing bag, have her use it as a pattern, and reuse the hardware as best she could.

This was the bag before:



(So floppy and sad....)

And this was after.

*screaming internally*

She did an incredible job, and every time I look at it I can't get over the sheer gorgeousness: how it was put together, the fact that she incorporated some of the original canvas (serial numbers ftw!), how much of the original hardward survived the process...I can't get over it.

I use it every day and love it to death. :3

Since getting this back I've handed out almost all the business cards she gave me, and know of at least one person who has ordered something due to my singing her praises. With that said, if you ever want a leather creation of great quality, go to her first. Not only will you be supporting a private entrepreneur, but all of her work is of incomparable quality and custom-designed to last a lifetime.

There's not many things that one can say that about. (And if you ever see M-M in stores, you'll know who makes them!)

Okay, I'm done bragging. For now....

Creative Ventures of 2014

Or, "assorted drawings from the past year". They are very few and far in between, to my great disappointment.

 

Let's kick things off with Tom Hiddleston as Henry V!

 

 

I rather like this drawing. A lot.

 

The Tom Hiddleston kick continued with a portrait of the self-same man:

 

 

This is also one of my favorite drawings. I had never drawn quite such a large grin before, or so many teeth. Hence it was an experience. This was finished in Colorado.

 

 

For Christmas I did this for my uncle. He had a cat who was 17 years old named Leo (and this drawing was just in time, because the same cat ended up getting sick and had to be put to sleep a couple of months later. O.o)

 

Along similar lines, but not the same as the drawings, is the big projects of 2015: hand-piecing a quilt. Apparently I can never do anything by halves, because instead of doing something relatively easy I decided to start with a hummingbird pattern.

 

 

This is an antique quilt that my mom has had in her possession for over a decade. In all of my searchings on the internet I haven't found another one like it (unless one was to paper-piece it, and that version just doesn't look as interesting). Apparently every other pattern that looked interesting wasn't fiddly enough.

 

 

This is part of my take on it....at first I was going to attached each row as it was made, but I was having trouble getting my points to line up in a satisfactory manner. Now I'm piecing the rows with the idea of ironing them and then piecing the rows all at once. I think the points will turn out okay once the whole thing is done and quilted...but we'll see.

 

My grandma hand-pieces hexagon quilts, the English flower garden pattern, and has made several over her lifetime. My mom hand-quilts, and usually has one project or another in a frame. I've machine-pieced several projects, but have never quilted or hand-pieced anything before. Considering the familial tendency towards quilts, this gravitation towards an old-fashioned project has seemed very natural.

 

Otherwise, I have either (a) not had time or (b) not made time as far as my art is concerned for the past several months. It's not that I don't want to, or I don't care....but I have a difficult time staying focused on projects. I have two large drawings sitting in a sketchpad waiting to be finished, and tons of ideas...but it's hard to get it all down when one gets home from work and wants to go riding instead, or bathrooms need cleaned, or floors haven't been swept in two weeks, or there's a sinkful of dishes, or lunch hasn't been prepared for the next day, ad infinitum.

 

I think the moral here is that I need to learn to manage my time better. And to start drawing for me again instead of for other people.



Thorin Oakenshield

After I drew the picture of Claire weeks ago, I had promised myself that I could finally start the picture of Thorin Oakenshield. I had it printed off and waiting in my sketchbook for the perfect time to start drawing...

...but that time kinda never came. So last Thursday I said to myself, "Self, you need to draw more!"

My self replied, "Then let's draw!"

To make a long story short, that was the beginning of the Thorin drawing. (I bet I could have saved you a lot of time by just showing you the picture. Meh.)

Please excuse the crappy cell-phone-camera quality of this picture:

Thus it began. :D

And tonight I finally finished it!

After staring at it for hours there are parts that really annoy me. (Like one eye turning out bigger than the other one. *twitches*) I AM very happy with the hair, the metal handle thing, and his armor, though, so I guess those make up for the perceived 'iffy' bits.

I also think that this is the darkest drawing I've ever done. The page was curling like crazy towards the end what with all the pencil lead and pressure...hopefully some time pressed down in the book will be good for it.

Tapping Maple Trees, Part 2

(I haven't been this excited about a project in ages!)

After the initial 1 1/2 liters of sap, the flow slowed down considerably and we got 3 quarts over 3 days. Considering that our neighbors were getting 2 1/2 gallons a day from one tree, this was a little disappointing. 

But then! Two days ago there was a crazy cold snap where it blew, rained, snowed, and went all March on us. The cold temps resulted in barely a dribble of sap, and what did dribble froze at the bottom of the bottles.

Today I noticed that a couple bottles were about half-full of slush, so I went out and collected the lot before going to work. But when I came home from work, almost all of the bottles were half or completely full! Observe:

This is off the tree on the patio--it has 3 taps and is the largest maple in the yard.

 

This picture and the one below are of two taps on the same tree, and this bottle was OVERFLOWING. I was so happy. :D

There's a bit of a story being this tree too: it's a medium-sized maple, with a big scar going from the base of the tree to about 4 feet up the trunk. I had expressed concern that it wouldn't produce very much, so initially we only put one tap in. Then we noticed that it was producing quite a bit, and put another tap in. And so far it's been producing the most out of all the trees....go figure.

 

That makes something around 5 gallons total--I'm so excited I can hardly stand it! *flails*

The idea of using a roasting pan to boil the sap off was suggested from the lady at church, so we poured 4 gallons into a roasting pan, turned that sucker on, and are letting it go all night in the garage.

(This'll save me from poking at a fire for hours and ruining Mom's chafing pans...heh.)

Now...we wait. And I'll try to get pictures of the in-between stages too--right now the stuff is just steaming on the workbench and it's too dark out there to take pictures. 

In other news, Mom and Dad brought pizza home and I, being absolutely famished after coming home from work, kind of ate 5 pieces. Now I feel awful. BUT IT WAS SO GOOD.

Ahem. Anyway. I'll keep taking pictures and posting as events warrant. Good night!

::Engagement Shoot: Gabriel and Abigail::

Or Gabi and Abi, as they are affectionately known.

Gabi is my brother-in-law (that is, he's my sister-in-law's brother, so I guess we're kinda related? We say we are, and that's what counts XD), and he's officially getting married on the 22th...

(On a side note: WOW. Where did that time go? O.o)

...to the lovely Abi Morse. They asked me to take their engagement pictures while I was down in Florida last November, and of COURSE I pounced on the opportunity. Thus, the following is their official engagement photo shoot. I've been waiting for MONTHS to get this up.... :3 *rubs hands together*

Oh yes, everything's after the jump!

Learning Video Stuffs...

Over the summer I was incredibly inspired by our photographer/videographer Josiah, a very talented young man when it comes to making videos and explaining his process in which he makes them. (Go follow his Instagram under the name josiahfilm. And his Vimeo. You won't be sorry.)

In light of that inspiration, I decided last week that I need to learn how to make good-quality videos, and understand a little more about film. I have Adobe Premiere for film editing, so over the last couple of days I've shot the film in the yard and strung together a couple of videos. They aren't anything outstanding, to be honest, but it's helping me to get a feel for the program. (And DANG, is it complicated. Thank goodness for the tutorials on the Adobe website.) 

I am working somewhat under pressure as well, because I just sent my re-application for Wind River in and something possessed me to apply for the photographer/videographer position after my default of wrangler. So we'll see what happens. In the meantime, I'm furiously learning this crazy program.

The second video I took of the rainy day and such, and put some neo-classical music to it. The effect...well, I'm not sure what I was going for, but the effect was hilariously dramatic. I can't even watch the thing without cracking up. In a facetious sort of way I posted it to Facebook, with the following caption:

"For the past few days I've been playing around with Adobe Premiere. I go out, take some video footage of random things in the yard, and toss together a little video to get a feel for the program and find out what recording size works the best. Most of the videos have been fall-themed, (a) because it's fall and (b) because I don't have any people to stalk.

Methinks I should get away from it for a while, though...this is the latest result and it's SO DRAMATIC. *may or may not be crying from laughing so hard*"

I thought the description was rather tongue-in-cheek, really, but I got several admiring comments for my talent. *sigh* That wasn't what I was going for, but oh well, that's how the worm turns, I guess.

If you're curious, here's the video in question. Feel free to laugh at the swelling music and artsy shots. XD

An Art Update?

Believe it or not, I *have* had time to draw out here. It's not much, but 20 minutes here and there certainly adds up, and being sick for the past two days has helped with the final push on a couple of drawings.

This is for EB...her horse Copper was out of commission for most of the last month, so I drew a picture of him. It turned out pretty good, methinks--now to bite the bullet and cut it out of my sketchbook so she can frame it. *gulp*

 

And then there's the Rascally horse...this one was fun. I love the markings of Appaloosas, but actually drawing them is sometimes a challenge. Fortunately this one was just fun rather than challenging.

I've done a lot of doodles and sketches (mostly of people's faces, and there's a piece of paper floating around in the barn with Remington on it), but nothing really noteworthy. I've been asked to do a portrait and another horse drawing, though--hopefully I'll have them done before the requesters leave. ^^;

There's also been a joke idea going around where I would write and illustrate a book called 'Darron-Specific Problems' that covers the issues that our very own Darron experiences (inspired by a story told by the man himself and EB's deadpanned 'that sounds like a Darron-specific problem'). That one is still in the workings; we'll see if anything actually becomes of it. First I have to figure out how to draw the goober--do you know how hard it is to draw people one knows?

In other news, I broke down and bought a Kindle Fire HD today. :3 Still have to wait for it to get here, but I'm expecting it by next week. I've never had a tablet of any kind before, and the Kindle Fire seemed to give the most bang for its buck (I've been researching and debating on this for almost a year--much thought went into it). To say I'm excited is a bit of an understatement. Heh. So here's to the first tablet! And hopefully more time can be spent on drawings and such in the future.

Thorse and Other Things of Importance

By 'important' I mean 'important enough to mention'. So here goes.

First in the order of importance, the Thorse! This is almost finished...

 
And this is completed. For some explanation: a few years ago I went through a phase where I was drawing Les Mis and Phantom of the Opera characters as horses...laugh all you like, but dangit, I had fun with it. This is just a hearkening back to those times, if you will. I have a very rough sketch of what might be horsey!Hawkeye. Maybe. Depends on if I can get his silly leg to look right. O.e

I bought this book last week after briefly glancing through it at a friend's house and liking what I saw. It goes through traditions of the church and traces them back to their original roots, pointing out that the majority of time-honored traditions (everything from having a paid pastor to sitting in pews to having a 'church building' to worship teams to dressing up for church) were things that weren't done during the first century of Christianity and, more often than not, were taken from pagan culture. (By 'pagan' they mean principles that aren't Christian or biblical in origin but taken from the surrounding culture, not necessarily something that is evil or wrong.)

I personally have found it to be a very interesting read. I'm not about to jump ship from traditional church or anything like that, but I'm going to work through the New Testament with an emphasis on seeing how the church operated back then. And by 'church' I mean the body of believers, not a building. XD

Colorado is approaching in 13 days. O.o I have a ride to the ranch, my train ticket is ready to be printed...this is really happening. Phew.

School is coming along...sort of. My last assignment has been sent back twice with a big fat 0 and no explanation/corrections as to why...hopefully my teacher will answer my email because I'm getting a little nervous.

In other news, it's very late and tomorrow is going to be a big day of cleaning. My room is a disaster area--since I haven't had to work or keep to much of a schedule lately I've kind of let it go loose. I'm typing this in a little space on my desk between piles of school books, sketchpads, piles of small pocket items, embroidery floss, and some cosmetics. I've heard it said that a messy desk is a sign of creativity...but this is a bit over the top.

The Latest Project

What do you think it is?

Hmmm?

Okay, maybe this one gives it away...I've taken up bookbinding!

(Quick backstory here: my brother had a friend from college who made a sketchbook for my brother's fiance, and to be quite honest it wasn't that good. Each section of pages (or signature) was like 20 pages messily folded in half, nothing was glued, etc. I'm not saying mine is fantastic or anything, but seeing that made me think 'well, I could do better than that' so this is my shot at it. *takes a breath* No offense if that friend reads this blog. I know he doesn't, though, so I should be good.)

This is just printer paper, folded in half, torn, and folded in half again to form a quarter-page-sized booklet. Each signature is 4 pages, and I think there's 8 signatures. The thread is normal polyester, two pieces folded in half so there's 4 threads total. I just used Elmer's glue for the binding because I don't have any other glue on hand. 

See the glue on the edge there? That turned out to be a mistake--it dried into a hard edge, and now the spine is wonky. But I think I know how to avoid that next time.

The cover is some scrap fabric over cardboard (the back of an old sketchbook, actually), all glued again with Elmer's. It seeped rather badly through the fabric, so I'll have to figure out a less messy way for the next time. 

I have a TON of old sheet music for craft use lying about, so one sheet became the endpapers.

And the inside is just printer paper. I think next time I'd like to use watercolor paper, or something of a similar heavier stock. 

On a side note, this entire project (including tearing and folding the paper) probably took me around an hour. The use of a hair dryer to speed up the glue drying helped immensely, but it wasn't NEARLY as hard as I thought it would be. I watched the original Planet of the Apes while assembling the pages (and tried very hard not to be shocked by the '70s--they had a fascination with butts back then. I saw more of Charleton Heston's backside within an hour and a half than I ever desired to see in my entire lifetime. *shudders*), and the cover took maybe half an hour to put together. 

You know what this means, right?

MOAR BOOKBINDING (and less Planet of the Apes)

On a random note, church was canceled yesterday due to an ice storm. Hence, no notes from the study. But fear not, we will be up and running by next Sunday, provided there are no more ice storms. 

On another random note, I'm still waiting to hear back from this one dude ranch in Colorado. *bites nails* All the people they called have told me that it's almost a certainty that I'll get the job...BUT THE SUSPENSE. *flails*

Job Applications, The Sequel

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I disliked writing out job applications. But I have put my nose to the grindstone and finished six in that time period...so I guess it doesn't matter if I don't like it, they still had to be done. 

Plus, who knows what crazy awesome opportunities may open up through said jobs? 8D They're all for dude ranches in Colorado, Montana (I think), and a kid's camp in Illinois. I'm really leaning towards a couple of them for sure, but it all depends on who responds. *crosses fingers*

This might seem like a random career change, but really it's not...when I was 18 I applied for a job out West, didn't get it, and haven't had an opportunity to apply since then. Now I can, and I'm really looking forward to whatever comes out of it. 

Tonight, because I was excited about the prospects of getting a job out West (yes, I know, I might not, but I'm still excited), I started looking up Western clothing on Pinterest. None of these things are ones that I would buy...but I'd probably make something inspired from them.

These are all from an Etsty shop called True Rebel Clothing. It's pricey, but definitely an interesting place to get ideas.

I'm getting somewhat obsessed with drapey, twirly skirts. Considering I hardly ever wear skirts, this may be a problem. On the other hand, this may be just what I need to get the sewing machine whipped out and in operation again.

Autumn Sunset

Got the resident great horned owl as he made his escape -- I saw him sitting in a tree next to the pasture, hooting away, and while running across said pasture to get a better picture he took off flying. So this was the only picture I got of him...oh well. There's always a next time.

The sunset was crazy a few nights ago. Just saying.

Don't believe me? This is without any tweaking at all:

And this is with a 75% layer of Soft Light in Photoshop, nothing else:

Just bumped the contrast a bit. It was pretty awesome to see. 

In other news, I finally got my sassafras. I may or may not have mentioned a deal I worked out with someone I know to trade cookies for sassafras...6 weeks later, he made good on his end of the deal. I'm currently sucking down sassafras and marshmallow tea in an attempt to soothe my sore throat. I don't know how well it's working, but it can't hurt and it tastes pretty good.

In regards to The Hobbit premiere, I pooped out at 10:15. There wasn't much going on and I can always get a recap later of the best bits (Andy Serkis running down the red carpet and high-fiving people was pretty funny). I'm thinking it's time to watch the extended Lord of the Rings in anticipation for The Hobbit. Maybe even toss in the commentaries? Yisssss....that sounds fantastic. I'll crochet dwarf beards and watch movies now that I don't have to do NaNo anymore.

Don't mock me. Crocheted dwarf beards are pretty cool.

 Mwahaha.

NaNoWriMo 2012. Status: Finished.

The first hideous clunky first draft is DONE. Now I get cool badges and a certificate and the right to put it down and never look at it again, if I so wish. I might (MIGHT, mind you) come back and try to do something with it. Maybe.

In the meantime, like my stuff?

The final winning count!

 

And my little website badge. I also decided to get a t-shirt because hey, doing something for four separate years has to have some kind of commemoration, right?

November 1st and Costumes and Foxes and Stuff

I'm going to try to update all the things, hokay? Hokay. Just don't worry if all the convolutedness makes you confused.

Today is November 1st! It's also NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)! I started doing it in 2008, and have done it every year except last year. I'm a bit more organized about it this year, at least...

For the uninformed, NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I always try to hit 2,000 words a day, just to build up a buffer of sorts (and once I get going that's a really easy goal). There's no prizes aside from the pride of knowing that one has done it--I mean, yeah, one could take 50,000 words and enter it in the word counter thing, but what's the fun in that?

What am I writing a novel about, you ask? Well....it's a story idea that's been percolating for a very long time, let's just put it that way. And I hate talking about my writing stuff because other people might find it silly. But I still enjoy doing it--I just don't show it to anyone. XD

Just know that it's a horse story. But there's lab experiments and stuff, so it's an updated horse story. 

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Yesterday I got to dress up all day--I don't like Halloween as far as the 'scary' stuff (I don't mess with stuff like the undead/dead/demonic/whatever. That's just something one shouldn't mess with, imho.), but I do enjoy cosplaying and it meant that I got to go to work dressed like Katniss Everdeen. Mwahaha.

(This was after being in costume for well over 10 hours. I think it held up fairly well.) (I would also like to point out that those shoes are slicker than snot on tile and I almost fell several times at work and walking into the house.)

Like the mockingjay pin? Ah made eet mahself. :3

I followed this tutorial on DA, painted it gold, and then sprayed it with shiny sealant. It's not exactly original, but it was fun (and better than the original idea of cutting out a picture and pinning that). Don't mind the flecks, they're just bits of ice cream from work...

There was a party at church for little kids (*cough* and the big kids too...), so my friend and I painted faces and hands and such.

I can paint a mean taco, apparently.

That was all fun in itself...and I got to go in later to dig through the leftover candy and pull the stuff that I wanted out. I have a bag full of Junior Minds and Whoppers and peanut butter M&M's hanging on my door to dole out over the next month. Ees gonna be awesome.

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This morning we saw the fox. Outside. In broad daylight. 

This happens VERY rarely. But it was still pretty cool.

As soon as I heard Mom yelling about it in the kitchen I ran to get my camera, and got exactly 3 pictures before he saw me. But again, it was pretty cool.

He (she?) was chasing some birds here or something, because he looked up in the pine trees after stopping.

This is my favorite--I was crouched behind a block of wood off the porch and keeping very quiet, but somehow he knew I was there. This was the expression he made for about 5 seconds before taking off into the tall grass.

I was able to get such a close picture because the zoom on my camera is awesome that way. ;)

We used to have battles over the chickens with the resident fox...but since we got rid of said chickens I guess we don't have to go after him anymore. He's way too pretty (and wily) to trap anyway. ;)

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Oh! Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles--I got my Kangen water filter hooked up today! I've been so excited for this--you have no. idea. 

So basically Kangen was is ionized water, and the filter allows one to chance the PH balance of the water. The more alkaline the water, the better it is for you (with 8.0-9.5 being the best range, alkalinity-wise). The idea is that people eat and drink things that create so much acidity in the body that they need to balance it out with alkaline foods and drink. I've known people who have been on Prilosec and acidity medication for years get off of it with this water, and it's helped my brother with canker sores in the mouth (they're triggered by acidic food). I've wanted this filter for ages, and finally bought one last month. 

I'm also excited because the various PH balances can also be used for cleaning anything from mirrors (6.0 PH) to sinks and tubs (2.5 PH--high acid), to taking stains and oils out of clothing (11.5--high alkaline), to mixing with essential oils (11.5 again), etc. It's just an awesome filter. These have been used in Japan for about 40 years in hospitals and such, and are starting to catch on in the US. I'll probably be spazzing about this water for a while and doing experiments and such...chronicling them here, of course. :D

But now...it's not even 9, and I'm ready for bed. All this getting up early and writing nonsense has put me back a bit. Sigh. I'll be back, hopefully before another week passes.

Elizabeth Marie ::Senior Pictures::

Last Saturday I had the privilege to take the senior pictures of a friend of mine. I think they turned out rather well...but see for yourself.

(This isn't all the pictures I'm giving her--just some personal favorites. It was rather overcast, so I got to play with exposure and different filters to achieve a warmer or brighter effect. That was fun.)

This was taken outside of an old run-down middle school here in town...the place is a mess, but there's little pockets of interesting-ness if one knows where to look.

A set of interesting doors at the same middle school.

Changing locations to off the square at the 'old jail'. Fun fact: my grandma used to live here because her dad was the sheriff. It's an art studio now, of all things.

If the streets in town weren't paved, they'd all have this brick cobbling. It's interesting to look at, but rough as all get-out.

Trying some different angles...

...and trying out one's modeling poses. XD

Taking advantage of a yard filled with leaves! Thank goodness for church friends and their beautiful trees.

I think this one has almost a washed look to it...not quite like a painting, but somewhat. I like it, anyway.

And this was at the lake. Said lake might not have many redeeming qualities, but it does provide a nice backdrop.

I hadn't taken pictures for anyone for a long time--a poor experience doing wedding pictures has scarred me for life--and it was really nice to get out and take some pictures without a huge amount of pressure or fuss.

(Thought I will never do wedding pictures professionally again. Just sayin'.)