{projects & progress}

I picked up Julia Cameron's book 'The Sound of Paper' a few years ago, when I was reading through 'The Artist's Way' for the first time. I didn't read it at the time; the short essays weren't for me (and I believe in reading a book of the moment instead of forcing myself to read one), so it was shelved, lost, packed, spilled on, and finally thrown behind a shelving unit in the basement.

Kelly Rae has a list of soul reads on her blog, and this book happens to be one of them. Reading her blog one day, I saw it and remembered I had a copy somewhere. Reading through the essays now is like visiting an old friend, and my understanding of Cameron has changed since reading her autobiography.

Instead of seeing her as this big, untouchable writer, I see her as an older friend I may run into one day. She was born and grew up in a town near here, one I visit frequently and actually worked in for years. When I pass the theater, I remember her talking about going there with friends. The high school she attended is still there (and a few friends of mine went there). She is a girl just like me, who came from where I am, and shows me I can make it, too.

Anyway, last night, one of the exercises told you to grab a sketchbook and track the progress of a project. And I thought – I have an art journal...isn't that the same thing? But since I see my journals as a project sometimes, I thought, what about my blog? I need to stop thinking I have to have something important to say in order to post here and use it to keep track and record my own thoughts.

So here is a painting I'm working on. This is the second stage.

A girl has to go on it – because I want to put one there! – so I sketched a girl in my journal and decided to color her watercolor style. Which was hard, because I only have fluid acrylics. A lot of water was used, but since I didn't gesso the page beforehand, it works!

I'll show you the final page tomorrow, because it has something important on it. ;) More on that tomorrow, though!

{misadventures in soldering}

My God, why did I ever think this was a good idea?

From an email sent mid-soldering. Halfway in, I knew I was out of my depth. First off, I was using plumbing supplies from Menards I picked up two months ago when I decided the actual jewelry soldering kit at my local independent art shop was a bit too expensive (at $60, of course). So I wandered the long, foreign hallways of the hardware store, looking for a soldering gun. Anything that would point to the supplies I needed.

And then, of course, there's all kinds of stuff there. Rolls and rolls of solder with these markings on them, percentages. I was a screenwriting major, for God's sake! Math was left behind at summer classes between my junior and senior year, as I'd failed, yes failed, it the first time.

I knew two things: that I needed this mysterious liquid called Flux, and that my solder shouldn't contain lead.

Okay. Flux, easy to find. Yes, it's a big bottle, and I'll probably never use all of it. It will go in the pile of Things Kira Bought When Something New Caught Her Attention. It will be in good company, out in the garage sale/donation box. And the solder wasn't hard, as I was looking for the words Lead Free.

Anyway, my soldering iron had gone missing months earlier, so all these supplies were bought for when I found it. And that date was unknown, as I wasn't really looking for it. So when a soldering iron showed up in Dad's office, I knew it was my time.

Now, living on the cheap, I had to find things to supplement those shiny professional and probably correct items. My mat was an old plastic one decorated with blue paw prints, previously used under the dogs' drinking bowls. The spongy thing to wipe off the iron was the soft side of a green kitchen sponge. The holder was an old glass ashtray that just was perfect for the iron I'd “borrowed.”

The basics of soldering are easy – brush some flux on the copper tape you've put around the item, hold the solder in one hand, the iron in the other, and drop beads of solder onto the tape. Okay. Easy enough, right?

Not so much. The iron I'd found only heated up on the arm, not the tip, so I was brushing sideways on the broad back of my teardrop pendant. Instead of getting those nice, smooth lines, I had globs. Big globs. Mountains. Distraught, I grabbed Dad and asked for his help.

His solution? A huge-ass electric soldering gun. Yes, a fucking GUN. Irons are so yesterday – get yourself one of these bad boys; you can literally feel the electricity humming through it as you smooth out your nice, thick, lead-free plumbers' solder.

Let me give you a piece of advice. Or, rather, a warning: the glass gets hot. Not hot-I-can-kinda-touch-it but Oh My God My Fingers Are Gone hot. And when your shaky hands let it drop from the pliers you're using to hold the thing, and it falls into your lap, be thankful you're wearing long pajama pants. I swear, I was playing hot potato with the thing until it clinked onto the floor and I could grab it with the pliers again.

But that's okay. It's back now, right?

I have always had very shaky hands; it's a by-product of the Fibromyalgia. In college, I could never be the cameraman when filming projects. A digital camera has to have the flash on or else there's a huge blur (thank God for tripods). I've gotten better at writing by hand, but paintbrushes go in waves, things bob, and soldering guns go all wonky.

So I'm sitting there, holding this huge gun, electricity humming through my hands, trying, desperately, to get the damn A-clamp holding the charm to stay put, watching my solder melt beautifully only to go in wavy lines or little hills.

After four unsuccessful tries at doing some sort of ring – a loop of solder melted all over the blue paw print mat, and a real jump ring just stood there, totally not submitting to my awesome power – I threw the whole thing down and declared it a mild success.

No, it is not smooth. It is a dull grey, lumpy thing with a pretty picture inside. Nothing to write home to Sally Jean about. But hey – I made it, tried it, and damnit, got to use a soldering gun.

{ new discovery: hand-carved stamps }

Ack! I keep getting distracted! The weather was hot and humid today, and work had my brains boiling up inside my skull after the hundredth frappicino. Came home and melted into a chair to relax and read fanfics -- ahh, yes. I rarely bring that up here (as I have a LiveJournal for all that!), but the new Star Trek's eaten my brain, and I can't get enough! So, I'm taking a break from reading and writing to post! *laughs*

I've never really been a rubber stamper. I think I can count with two hands the number of stamps I own, and in the last year, have used only my set of alphabet stamps in any of my artwork.

HOWEVER --

Last week or so, I was working in my journal, drawing more raindrops (as they're on my mind art-wise lately), and didn't like how un-uniform they were coming out. I don't mean little things here and there, but they just...didn't look right. So I decided to toy with the idea of making a stamp out of a nice, big, white eraser.

A trip to the dollar store later, I drew out my drop and, using my craft knife, cut around the shape, then down into the rubber. It's not the most practical way of doing it, but it's what I knew. I created a large drop, a small drop, and the cute little house there.

With my craft acrylics, I painted on the stamps and, well, stamped away!

A closed shop and an alternate, exploratory route took me to a beautiful new Michael's the day before Mother's Day, where I made a make-and-take and found the Speedball Easy Start Carving Set. It came with a piece of that, well, stamp carvin' material, the handle, and two tips with which to carve. Now, I thought it was going to be hard to do, all this drawing and carving, but let me tell you --

It's really, really easy!!

In fact, it's, well, addictive! After I made a practice star, I made several more fun shapes, carving until the light had faded and I had to turn on the overhead lamp. And then the next day, more shapes again. It's so easy and fun and calming! And then, when you use the right material instead of cheap dollar store erasers, you can even use 'em with regular stamp pads!

I love the look of a hand-carved stamp. It's solid and blocky and, with paint, looks...well...I just love how it looks! I use these wherever I can in my journal and in paintings, and am always on the look-out for new shapes to carve! *G* I'll be teaching a basic stamp-carving class during the summer journal workshop, but am free to answer any questions!

love, kira

P.S. Thank you for all your emails regarding yesterday's post! I'm gettin' to them as soon as I can, that is, when I'm taking reading breaks!

mini-project: self-portait girls mini-journal

Sorry! I've been so busy, any "free" time I have has been going towards painting, drawing, and reading, leaving the internet to be woefully forgotten in forth place. I've created many things I want to share, just haven't sat down to post for awhile! One of the projects done in the last week or so was this cute little mini journal created from a classification folder picked up at a store going out of business. At first, I was just going to create a fun cover and sew in some pages, but after finishing, I realized I'd created a picture of myself...a piece of myself. We all have different "personalities," pieces of ourselves that make up the complete ME. Or you, respectively. Think of them as hats: mother, sister, secretary, barista, reader, dancer, England-enthusiast, etc. By drawing these "girls," I found myself putting on hats I thought I'd taken off years ago, and found that there were pieces of me shouting to get out, at least for awhile. Here are a few guidelines for creating your own mini-journal of personalities:

1. Don't think. When doing the backgrounds or drawing the girls, let the brush do the dancing, not your conscious mind. If it wants big hair, let it do it. Drawing with ink means you can't "erase" mistakes, so let it flow. 2. Finish your drawing before asking questions of it. The meaning will be revealed in due time. 3. Create in a journal so you feel safe. It's just a journal page, right? So no one will see it. No one will judge it. No one will be buying it, etc.

Mine were created with a small round brush and sumi-e ink.

Page 1: Be Free

I really have no clue where she came from, at first. But then I realized her skirt was modeled after one I'd been dreaming of sewing for the last two weeks, and her hair was long, long, just how I'd like mine to be one day (it's only just passed my ears). Her wings come from the desire to fly free of all the drama of home, or to simply move somewhere new. Be free is my favorite expression, so it makes sense that it's there!

Page 2: Sunrise Kimono

Starting my sophomore year of high school, I've been in love with Japan -- the culture, language, landscape, history, and, yes, comics. In the years since graduating college, I've let my Japanese skills go, haven't really read any comics, and rarely listen to my Japanese music. This second portrait really tells me that the part of me once called a "Japan-ophile" is still alive and well and wants to come out more. I chose sakura, or cherry blossoms, for the kimono since I have some tatooed on my neck. And kimono usually correspond to seasons, so I chose sunrise to go with spring.

Page 3: Time to Dance

This one came as a COMPLETE surprise! As a little girl, I danced. A lot. Ballet, tap, modern. All until third grade or so. And after I moved, I danced all through high school. Lately, I've had the urge to take up tap again, and this girl showing up really meant something -- that those urges MEAN something, and that my body, so riddled with pain and arthritis from Fibromyalgia, is ready to get dancing again.

I could cry with joy.

One of the reasons I've been so busy lately is that I'm working more, something that, even six months ago, wouldn't have been possible. I haven't worked 8 hour days since, well, those first years out of high school, right when I'd recovered from my accident (that spured the FMS in the first place) and before I was slammed with the full force of the disease. I pushed myself harder and harder for years, trying to be "normal," only to make myself sicker.

This year, as I wrote in my new year's resolutions, is comitted to being healthy. Not pushing, not standing still. Health through non-action. Going with the flow. And every day, I feel better and better!

A note on videos:

I would LOVE to make you all more vids! Unfortunately, when my hard drive died, I lost most of my programs, including iMovie, which I used to record and edit videos. I do not have a back up copy. If anyone out there has a copy they could send to me, I would be eternally grateful. And would make all the videos I have in my head and am ready to post! I've discovered so many new things, branched out in new directions, and want to share them with you! I love nothing more than teaching and want to do it SO BADLY!

Share YOUR self-portrait mini-journals with me! Post in the comments and I'll come visit!

love, kira