Filed under: card, design, doodle, favorites, gift, holiday, paper by ramune

The Octopus Project – Music Is Happiness

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Octopi . . . what’s not to love? They are super intelligent and have a unique and amazing look to which I am consistently drawn. If I’m going to do anything for Valentine’s Day, I generally like to make something rather than buy a teddy bear or some other item that expresses one of many canned sentiments. This year I wanted to make a card with a bit of depth, so went with a layered pop-up card/diorama idea that seemed like the perfect opportunity to test out my cutting and diorama-creating skills. I am pretty happy with the result and think I might start making more of these.

Note: My Valentine gave me a card with octopi on it as well. Good taste!

Filed under: commission, enamel, favorites, jewelry by ramune

Deru – Peanut Butter & Patience

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As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was recently commissioned to make two cloisonné pieces as Christmas gifts. This is the second one which was inspired by this pendant for my cousin, but made larger and given a filigree look to it. That’s it for cloisonné in 2011.

Filed under: clothing, design, favorites, friends, gift by ramune

Crystal Stilts – Departure

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My friend Dirk moved with his family to DC from Luxembourg three and a half years ago for a temporary work assignment and this past weekend his stay here came to an end and he moved back to Luxembourg. I met him two years ago when I was getting more interested in photographing abandoned places and have really enjoyed getting to know him and going out on photo-excursions with him. He will be missed but I fully intend on making it out to Luxembourg sometime to visit.

As a going away gift, a group of us decided to make him a t-shirt. There were several design ideas going around, but the one we settled on was a graphic of his face in a comic book “kapow!” style. Here is the original design I created and a photo of Dirk wearing the shirt. We had the design printed at CustomInk and were really happy with the results.

Filed under: family, favorites, food, holiday by ramune

The Soft Moon – Parallels

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It’s that time of year again . . . and this year changed my life. My brother picked up four ostrich eggs (one full and three blown out) as well as some tiny (quail?) eggs to mix it up a bit this year. It was a bit intimidating to start out on a massive egg, but once I got going I was hooked. I didn’t have a plan going in, but just took it a step at a time and am pretty psyched with the results.

My brother boiled the one full ostrich egg and used it as his “battle” egg for our Easter egg wars (clearly there was no competition). After he opened up the egg, we were all pretty grossed out by the translucent quality of the egg white.

Click on the photos for a larger view and more specifics.

Filed under: costumes, favorites, holiday, photography by ramune

It’s been three years since I started this blog and I am looking forward to continuing the “weekly” projects in the years to come. There is no song today since I used up all of my good Halloween songs last year.

This year for Halloween I had my head in the clouds and spent an amazing evening among some pretty creative costumes (a guy you can count on, political puppet, double rainbow, Benoit Mandelbrot). Below, you can see the raw materials for my costume and the final product, as well as my jack o’ lantern for this year (although I have to say I like last year’s better). You can’t tell from the photo, but the mouth goes all the way around the pumpkin.

Thank you for checking out the blog and being patient with my sometimes inconsistent updates. Here is hoping this year I can really make them weekly projects.

Filed under: animation, favorites, music, painting, process, time lapse by ramune

Octave Violin from Ramune on Vimeo.

I was recently asked to paint a violin for the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra‘s silent auction, which followed a performance featuring cellist, Julie Albers. They asked a number of local women artists and I was more than happy to take a lonely violin and make a project out of it. When I arrived at their offices to pick up my violin, I had a choice between one without strings and a crack in it and one that was in decent shape and had two strings. I chose the latter, although looking back on it I probably could have made good use of that crack.

The first thing I thought before I had the violin in my hands was that I would strip it, stain it (either green or red) and then paint something in black acrylic. I am definitely much more comfortable using a pen than I am using paints (I love the control and clean lines when I draw with a pen), but I was looking forward to the challenge and the chance to bring out my paints again. I don’t know where they came from, but I think my acrylics multiplied since the last time I opened that bag (there are at least four large tubes of white paint in there).

Initially when I was thinking about designs, I imagined something using my bubbley tentacles, and then since octopi have been on my mind lately it seemed to be the natural progression. The title “octave” came after I was done painting and needed something more than just “Untitled”. I thought of naming it the obvious “octopus” or “octopod” and then “octave” hit me like some cheesy pun and I had to do it.

Below are more photos from the process I went through to paint the violin. It definitely took longer than I thought since there was so much waiting time between stripping, drying, sanding, conditioning, staining, painting and then varnishing. Along with the photos of the process I also set up my camera and created a time lapse video of me painting the octopus on the violin. You can even follow the link to the vimeo page and watch it in HD (larger than life for your massive screen). Enjoy!

Whether or not these violins are meant to be played, I am not sure, but I went ahead and bought new violin strings so that it can be played . . . although I will mention that the sound post popped out of the violin when I was sanding it. I haven’t played violin since I was a wee one, but I imagine that is somewhat important.

Side Note: Unfortunately I am out of town this weekend, so I wasn’t able to make it to the performance and auction last night, but I am looking forward to seeing photos from the event and all the other violins.

Oops, no photos from the staining phase . . .

Filed under: commission, enamel, favorites, jewelry, process by ramune

Big Lazy – Just Plain Scared

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After spending seven straight hours in the studio last Tuesday night, I was able to finish the art nouveau inspired cloisonné pendant! I am pretty excited that 1. nothing horrible went wrong in those seven hours (trying to stay calm and not rushing helped) and 2. I am really happy with the piece . . . so much so that I don’t really want to sell it.

To see the previous posts showing the original sketches and the first steps, check these links:
105 . . . Two Years and a Commission
107 . . . Cloisonné Commission II

Below I have compiled some photos of the process. I didn’t take photos of every single step because that would be incredibly boring (since it involves building up thin layer after thin layer after thin layer . . .), but I tried to show a variety of steps.

1. Put the thinner inside wires in place. These were a challenge and took up a good bit of time.
2. First layers of yellow and green (post firing)
3. Adding some gray to the edges (pre firing)

4. In the kiln.
(Side note: The previous week I had aluminum on the trivet in the kiln and managed to push it so it touched those red hot 1500 degree coils and I got a serious zap through my entire body. Lesson learned.)
5. I love the way enamels look right when they come out of the kiln, too bad they don’t stay that way. (post firing)
6. I made little paper patterns to protect my yellow areas from the gray enamel (pre firing)

7. After removing the paper patterns (pre firing)
8. Added in the pink/yellow for the flower. At this point I liked my colors as they were. (post firing)
9. Once I got the coloring I wanted (8), I filled in the empty spaces with N4, a clear enamel (pre firing)
10. After putting on enough N4 to build up the enamel to the top of the wires, I stoned the hell out of this piece. Here it is ready to go in for it’s last firing (pre firing)

My messy space

Filed under: doodle, enamel, favorites, jewelry, process by ramune

Song of the Week: Benoît Pioulard – Loupe

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I just realized that my two year anniversary is coming up in two weeks and well, that means I should be at around project 103 by now. Oops. Where did those missing 13 go? Spooky. Since I have two weeks to catch up, I am going to post a project every day until October 31st. I am not promising any Michelangelo here, and my commentary might be lacking, but I will do it . . . dammit.

In the meantime, here is something I am very excited about . . . PNP paper! I have been taking the same enamels class for two years now and (for the most part) do my own thing. Occasionally I ask my teacher for help/advice, but there hasn’t been much new in the way of techniques learned. A few weeks ago however, she taught the new students how to use PNP transfer paper. With PNP you can photocopy any black/white design to the paper and then transfer that to copper as a resist. We did not have great luck with PNP when we tried it two years ago, but after experimenting with some different techniques, my teacher figured out a way to successfully get the paper to adhere to the copper. I was pleasantly surprised with how well the details transferred and how well the PNP held up in the etch.

Below are some photos of the PNP paper after I had successfully transferred my designs. In some areas the PNP didn’t transfer, but it was pretty easy to touch up using asphaltum. It isn’t a huge deal, but I forgot to reverse the images before printing, so all of my designs are flipped. It bothers me slightly that everything is facing the wrong way. At least I didn’t have any words anywhere.

I was hoping to post some nice photos of my shiny new etched pieces, but I am having a hard time getting the PNP paper off of the copper. I thought I could use mineral spirits, since that’s what I use to take off asphaltum, but I think I need to use paint thinner. Instead of buying a large container for a few uses, I will just wait for class this week.

You may recognize this fish and this guy.

Luckily the touch-ups I had to do with the asphaltum were pretty minor. Here are the copper discs ready to be etched. The piece on the top right is my halftone test. It was also the first one I placed on the PNP, so the pattern is off a bit. My next mission is to find some photos I’ve taken that might work well on copper and transfer those.

Here are my original designs.

Filed under: design, favorites, friends, paper by ramune

A few weeks ago my friend Vaiva and I dropped by Philly for a night to visit our friend Rasa and help with any wedding planning/decompressing/relaxing. One of the things we did that day was help come up with themes for the tables at the wedding. After a few duds it was decided that the theme would be different kinds of leaves. I volunteered to make the leaves and the seating chart for the wedding and I am pretty excited with the results. At one point I sent Rasa a text message with a photo of the first two leaves I had cut and she asked if they were real.

The green leaves were for all of the guest tables and the gold leaves were for the head table.

In total I hand cut 39 leaves out of card stock. It was fun and completely worth it even if my wrist was screaming a few times during those spiky leaves.

Two of my favorite (and most difficult/time consuming) leaves to cut were the sycamore and chestnut leaves. Please excuse the distracting blur used to protect the innocent (and not so innocent).

I am not sure who suggested it or if it was a joke at first, but the leaf chosen for the head table was an Ent leaf. This posed a challenge because there is no one Ent leaf (well, there is no such thing as an Ent either . . . or is there?) and I didn’t want to make it too cheesy.

Len the Oak Ent

Rasa the Maple Ent

The seating charts were posted on a column in front of the garage (the reception was in a tent in the driveway and the food was served from a nicely disguised garage).

The centerpieces came together quite well I think. The wood bases were made by Aistis (a fellow friend of the family) and the Krupnikas (Lithuanian honey liquor in the little bottles) was made by my friends Vaiva and Aleksa earlier this summer when we were in Philly.

Since I was in the wedding I didn’t take too many photos, but I managed to get a few here and there. It all came together so well considering all the stress involved. Rasa planned the entire wedding herself with help from family and friends. The ceremony and reception were both at her parents’ house and her catering company catered the event. Those of us who were there before the wedding, from the locals to those who came a week to a few hours before, all helped out in the kitchen, setting up and doing pretty much anything else that needed to get done. All in all, it was a fantastic time!

Filed under: doodle, favorites by ramune

This guy materialized in front of me while sitting in my car last week. He’s a little shy and gets nervous when people look him in the eye, which is why he has all those decoy eyes . . . to throw you off. He doesn’t have a name yet but I think maybe he would not be as freaked out by you if you gave him one. Not Mr. Bubbles though . . . that just isn’t his style.

“Why were you drawing in your car last week?” you ask . . . well here is that story. A couple weeks ago I drove up to NYC for a change of scenery and to visit my sister and some friends. I could probably have taken the Bolt Bus up as I do quite often, but for a number of reasons I decided to drive instead. Although driving has it’s advantages, there is also the (necessary) annoyance of biweekly alternate side street cleaning (although I really think weekly would be fine). On my sister’s street I can either move my car every Monday/Thursday or every Tuesday/Friday depending on the side of the street. I opted for the Tuesday/Friday special. On each of those days during my visit I would go down to my car at 11am, sit with my windows open and wait until the street cleaners came through, at which point I would drive around and come back to roughly the same spot and then continue to sit until 12:30pm. Cops would come and go, but as long as I was sitting in my car I would not get a ticket. At first I dreaded these 1.5 hour disturbances in my day, but then I came to embrace them as forced moments away from my computer (I did try to bring my lappy 486 into the car and get wifi, but had no luck). Sometimes I would knit, sometimes I would draw and sometimes I would try to get some non-internet work done on my laptop. My friend above was one of these creations that kept me company.

The funny thing about all this is that I am not the only one doing the biweekly car rotations. There are loads of people all over NYC taking their lunch breaks in their cars twice a week while the cleaners clean their streets. What blows my mind is that most of them just sit and do nothing for those 1.5 hours. Please excuse the very brief and poor quality video I took with my cellular device, but you can kind of see the silliness of the situation. Cars sit on the street, then the cleaner comes up behind them and they basically just drive around in a circle and pull right back into their spots. I had to cut the video short because it was my turn to turn like the rest but I think you get the idea. I would really love to get an aerial video of the whole thing but that might have to wait.