earthworms...

By all accounts I was missing in action for most of September, or at least from my blogger account. Since I'm not a meticulous planner, I cannot say it was a planned absence, circumstances and life just kind of dictated that it occurred...

Part of what I was doing in that period of time (aside from sleeping, working, driving, eating, and watching television) was working on a project: the worms. Yes, worms.

I first "made" worms when I was about 16 years old. They were part of an art project I did either for AP art or ceramics when I was in high school. I suppose they were inspired in a way by Pink Floyd; more specifically the iconography of the film "The Wall." Pink Floyd is one of my favorite bands, and at the time actually seeing "The Wall" was kind of my white whale.

When I was in high school, this was back in the nubile days of 1996-97 when the internet came to people through landlines. Yes, there was a time before broadband and netflix and onDemand and, well, you know the rest...

Anyway if I really wanted to see "The Wall" I would have had to have rented it from our local version of Blockbuster... which I could have done if it was ever there on the odd chance that I happened to go to the local video store, which happened maybe 1-2 times a year. "The Wall" and "A Clockwork Orange" were never there, just that damned VCR case indicating that someone had rented it...

Yes, so anyway, I finally saw it somehow on some trip somewhere... but in the mean time, I was doing this project that involved making worms out of polymer clay.

Well, years passed, and projects came and went. And some time this last spring and summer I found myself standing in that aisle of the craft supply store where they sell the polymer clay... and well, just like riding a bicycle, I remembered the formula for mixing the colors and how I got the segment effect, and voilà: worms

Well, okay, so it actually takes some time to warm up the clay so that it's pliable so that colors can be mixed. But one Saturday afternoon over the course of watching "Medium Raw: Night of the Wolf" I cranked out a batch of worms. And then proceeded to cook them according to the directions on the package.

And then, while watching what was quite possibly one of the cheesiest Lifetime movies ever — "Pretend You Don't See Her" — I applied a coat of gloss varnish to my worms to give them the appearance of looking wet.

Now, some of the worms were created for a series of assemblage pieces. These were made out of a combination of illustration board, spackle, acrylic paint, varnish, and tea grounds. Yes, I said tea grounds. I wanted something that looked like dirt without actually being dirt... tea grounds, as it turns out, look like dirt. Fortunately I drink tea. So, this project incorporates some Twinings Spiced Apple Chai, Twinings African Honeybush, Mandarin & Orange Herbal Tea, and some Bigelow Raspberry Royale.
It took an afternoon of trial and error, because after laying down my spackle and then waiting for that to dry I knew I needed a coat of what would essentially serve as primer. So I had to mix up some brown-gray paint, and then paint that with a coat of umber colored acrylic... and then I needed to figure out how to get the tea to stick... some elmers glue, more umber paint, and some gloss varnish later - I had my formula. Of course, then I had to wait for that to dry too. A lot of time is spent waiting for things to dry...

Wow, that's a crappy photo!

Yes, after everything was spackled and glued and painted and sprinkled with tea and finally dry - then everything needed to go into the frames... and then the pieces needed to be photographed. From an idea-on-paper standpoint, simply photographing the piece is much harder to do well than one would hope. There were a lot of bad photos. Largely because it's hard to photograph something glossy and shiny (the worms) against a background that is dark and matte (the tea dirt) in a frame that has a shiny faux metal finish. Yes, there was some swearing and consternation and a lot of flipping thru the camera settings and trial and error and probably like 150 photos taken of 6 pieces, many of which were just terrible. Indoors, outdoors, with flash, no flash, lit... hell, I even set them up in the bathtub hoping for better light...

The other problem (particularly if you feel you take the best photos outside) is when the weather doesn't cooperate. Between just being dark and overcast it also rained, and rained, and rained, and rained. Things look wet in this picture because they were wet with rain.

The back of the old rabbit hutch is an ironically "etsy-ish" place to take photos... old white paint weathered on wood, and it faces away from the sun... plus I could just hammer a nail into it.

Yes, somehow that's the sweet spot for taking pictures, except for the relatively minor problem of the green grass reflecting on my faux metal frame...

These are my finished pieces:

digging in the dirt | tilling | fertilize
earthworms | unearthed | undulate

The rest of the worms were divvied up between two projects.

Yes, worm earrings. Ew, yes, I know. But they're polymer clay, so they won't nibble on your ear lobe, pinky swear.

You can see them here.

And now I have to get cracking on that other worm project...

Oh, so it's September now...

Yes, Mr. Calendar, I see how we're going to be about this. The sun goes down, the sun comes up, days pass... and suddenly it's the middle of September.

So, I've been working on some of those projects that I think about every now and then when I'm at work or doing something. Those thoughts you might have that usually begin with "that'd be cool..." Yes, those.

I've mentioned before that I enjoy kitsch. Yes, I like weird stuff. I decorate with color and silk flowers and have a massive collection of figurines of lizards and frogs and turtles and the occasional snail... I have birds & butterflies from the ceiling in the summer, and winter time is for glitter snowflakes.

Yes, I like kitsch.
So, every year I dress up for Halloween to pass out candy. I wear the same costume every year. It's a long dark robe (it's navy blue that's almost black) and it has lizards sewn onto it. I have lizard and spider barrettes that I made, and I do some gothy makeup.

Anyway, for whatever reason, I thought it'd be fun to make some lizard barrettes. Yeah. No, I don't exactly recall what spurred the desire to embark upon this craft project. I just went out & bought lizards and barrettes and glue, and well...

I sat down on the cement floor in front of the paper cutter last weekend with my acrylic paints and gave all the lizards new paint jobs while watching Haven on Syfy. Yes, that show is awesome. I like shows like that. I used to watch the X Files back in the day (Fox Mulder, whatta cutie) and I also like Fringe and Supernatural. So, yes, watching Haven and painting plastic lizards (and frogs, yes, there were frogs too, I just haven't finished them yet).

After I painted them I coated them with varnish, and then glued the barrettes on, and waited forever and a day for the glue to dry, and then went outside and took "product shots."

Yes, frightful, I know ; )
You can find them here in the Weird Stuff section of my sarahknight shop on etsy.
And yes, those are my green eyes, not contacts.

I finished this at the end of August. I suppose I made it on a whim.

fall fantasia

And now I have to get back to my craft projects... and maybe cleaning, before they have to send a professional organizer and a Hazmat team in here to deal with the after crafting mess.
: )

Here's a little peak at another project I'm working on...

all this stuff

It was a busy and sleepless week of stuff. It seems like a lost week, I suppose. I had things to design, things to draw, things to photograph, things to get done... and at the end of it all, there's still more stuff to do. Yes, the doing of things is endless.

hummingbird feeder | tigerlily | hummingbird brooches
beloved fish pillow | pile of paintings | sketches of birds
plastic fish in bowl | resin turtle | stack of sketchbooks

And the place is a mess. And cleaning everything up (which isn't so much cleaning as it is putting things back in the terribly impractical places where they seem to be stored) just isn't a relaxing activity. So, there's the chaos of all this stuff.

And then I went shopping... and bought more stuff. And it's not exactly like I'm a clotheshorse or something, so by stuff — I mean art supplies and craft supplies... So, yes, now there's more stuff, and it needs to be put somewhere.

So, excuse my absence, I need to put some stuff away and make the place seem like a place I want to be in, instead of a place I'd like to flee from.

And then when I get done with that I have more stuff to do, and for the love of all things, would someone come and put all that stuff away when it's time to move on to the next thing.

Oh, stuff...

Picture Story: nectar

I think that illustrations are often self evident. That's why they're illustrations. And that's what I do - I illustrate. So, I realize, when I talk about my work, instead of explaining what is in the picture or why it's there - I tend to talk about how I illustrated it.

So, on to the obvious: "nectar" is a picture of ruby-throated hummingbirds eating the nectar of fuchsia. Ruby-throated hummingbirds are native to the eastern United States, for most of us on this side of the country - they're the only species of hummingbird around. They show up here (in Michigan) in May or June and usually hang around until September, when they fly South for the winter. Ruby-throated hummingbirds have a head and body that are green and a white underbelly, only the males have a ruby-colored throat.

Contrary to the depiction in this picture - this species of hummingbird is very territorial. I have never seen 2 of them aware of each other at the same feeder or plant at the same time. However, you can find videos on youtube of multiple ruby-throats in the same feeding area at the same time coexisting peacefully... that just doesn't happen in my yard.
This clip has music - but this is what it sounds like on the back porch all day long: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twqrrlAEHf8 Just tiny little birds fighting and squawking over the sugar water (often referred to in this household as 'bird koolaid') in the plastic container.

"nectar"

"nectar" was one of my first experiments with coloring over a printed image. The fuchsia in the picture were actual flowers that I photographed. I then edited the backgrounds out of those photos, combined several photos together and adjusted the color on the image I had created. I printed that out and colored over it with prismacolor pencils, and then scanned that and edited it as the base of my illustration. The background is based off one of my photos of the sky. I adjusted the colors and then merged it with a color layer to get it the shade of aqua I wanted.

And the hummingbirds were also an experiment in coloring over a print out. They were originally drawn in pencil. And that was scanned and printed as a blue page — and then inked. And then I colorized the ink outline and printed that out and colored over that in prismacolors, and then scanned that back in and made another print out. I colored over that print out — adding details, and then scanned that back in and 'cut' the hummingbirds out of the background.

And then I added the hummingbirds into the illustration, in a layer that was above the sky but below the fuchsia.

I know, I know, the boring technical stuff is only remotely interesting to me.

Since it's August, I come home from work every morning to the sound of a 'bird fight' taking place on the back patio... and I imagine this squawking and fighting and chasing and otherwise all-out territory dispute goes on until dusk. They're lovely creatures and they're complex.

And when I go out on the back porch to do something I am often reminded that I am interrupting their visit. The hummingbird will just pause and hover and look directly at me, and then jut forward, and pause and look at me again, and then decide whether it's on to the feeder or to quickly buzz off to go sit on the edge of some nearby leaf and wait for me to leave... like as if I'm not the one who keeps making them more bird koolaid or something.

Yes, they're complex creatures.

ice cream, birds, and watercolors...

It was another hot week here in Michigan. Yes, I'm ready for fall. I'm ready for 60—70˚F weather. I'm ready for cool crisp mornings and cold dew on my car... but it isn't fall yet, it's just August.

So, in the mean time, I recommend sitting down and having a nice big bowl of ice cream every now and then. The greatest ice cream I have discovered this summer is Hudsonville's Orange Cream Swirl. If you remember or have recently had an orange creamsicle — it's like that translated into a tub of ice cream. It's delicious. Oh, and so is orange sherbet. Yes, I love that stuff.

Since I was drawing birds a few weekends ago, I decided to format some new pictures for sarahkdesigns:

say's phoebe | cedar waxwing
male northern cardinal | female northern cardinal

And then I worked on watercolors this week... which means I got out the salt, and the watercolors, and the gouache, and the brushes, and the paper, and conveniently used the empty tub from my orange sherbet to hold the water...

And after I use the salt I scrape it off the painting and reuse it... which is interesting, because sometimes it's covered in pigment and that transfers to the next painting.

details of some of the paintings of this week

And yes, I finally bought gouache. And decided to use it with my watercolors (although I did keep it on its own shiny new separate paint palette). I'm heavy handed with the pigment anyway - but it was interesting to see the white actually stay white when it dried.
(And for anyone uninitiated with my watercolor paintings - you can see the actual paintings here)

It's hard to explain making something abstract when you're not the stereotypical character archetype artist. I don't see the world through some narrow prism, and I don't think there's only one path to some ideal visual. When I sit down on the floor in front of the paper cutter with my paint and water and salt and brushes and paper - I have a vague idea of what I think maybe I'm going to do. But really, to a certain extent - whatever happens happens. And when I'm finally done putting paint on the paper or sprinkling it with salt - when I pick that wet painting up and set it down on the carpet to dry — I know it that when it dries it will look different from how it appears wet. Some of the salt will melt, some of the colors will run, pigment will be absorbed or overpowered by other pigment... and while some of it is knowable, there's a certain mystery and randomness to it.

So, the wet paintings sit there on the floor and I go to bed. And usually they're dry when I get up. And when I come home from work the next morning I scrape the salt off them and get to actually see the final result, which is the cool part. Because there's painting it and playing with color and juxtaposition and all that, and then there's finally seeing what it really looks like.

And then I have to sit there and name them all. Because, let's face it, I don't just ever paint one painting. Don't get me wrong, I like the paintings, but I can't imagine setting all that stuff up and having to vacuum salt off the carpeting for one painting.

Of course, I still have to do that vacuuming part.

So, stay cool and have some of your favorite ice cream : )

A week for the birds...

They grow up so fast...

We had a second clutch of eastern bluebirds in the backyard. This time it was 4 babies. And all 4 fledged this last week. They're such cuties, aren't they? Yes, they are. Look at the little blue tails!

mauve morning rendezvous

I got a picture done last weekend. Which actually means I spent a lot of time sketching, drawing, and coloring birds last weekend — blue headed vireos to be exact. This wasn't really like a planned picture. I mean, if planning involves more than me sitting at the computer and thinking "I want to do something mauve / lavender colored with sunshine, flowers, and birds..."
Every once in a while I just need to start something and finish it.

It's been a strange and stressful week, and I capped it off yesterday by sleeping for 10 hours. Yes, 10... at the very least 9.5. My car broke down, it rained, it thunderstormed, it rained and stormed some more, and then the sweltering heat returned... The car is fixed now, and it didn't rain tonight, so perhaps this week will be better? I hope so.

vacation...

I think I'll be back next weekend. It's not that I'm going anywhere. It's just that it's too damned hot. Yes, I was 9 in the summer of 1988 when we last had record droughts & heat here in the U.S. — and yes, I remember it. I was just conveniently young.

I went to the Art Fair on Thursday. It was kind of like a ghost town. Oh, and it was like 100˚F; evidently it was only 95˚F for the other 3 days. Anything over 80˚F is too hot... so, anyway, I think it's time for whoever plans the Art Fair to stop being obstinate and change the date to the end of June (when we have conveniently 70˚F days). When I'm not drenched in my own sweat and knowing that a sunburn and dehydration are going to happen - I'm better at buying stuff.

For those uninitiated with the United States inability to convert to metrics: http://www.wbuf.noaa.gov/tempfc.htm

Anyway, the day before I had googled the forecast, and it showed me a grumpy gray cloud with a lightning bolt. So I was hoping for rain. I didn't bring my umbrella. It didn't rain.

So, I guess maybe my fish are enjoying this time of year. Me? Not so much. Hopefully it cools down this week. Stay in the shade & stay hydrated.

lost hours...

Sometimes something seems to get done on the weekend... and other times not so much. I stopped by some field along the highway on my way home from work Friday morning because they had baled the hay. And, of course, there was some thistle in front of the hay - and an industrious bee... and then I remembered to wander out into the back yard and take a look around, and there was a damselfly... and the hummingbird perched way up high on the obsolete tv antenna.

And then I spent the rest of my night off reformatting photos for listings... and then I had to edit each of those listings. Which you can see here on SunshineSight

This guy has been hanging around the back yard a lot with his mate ; )

And then I finally took some photos of the paintings I did way back when (I mean last summer). You can see them at sarahknight on etsy. The problem was that there was no where in the house with enough light or the right kind of light to get any decent pictures (I mean short of going out and spending $300.00 on lights or something)... So I finally relented and just went out in the backyard and hammered a nail into the back of the rabbit hutch. Yes, it's, uhmn, rustic.

Although if you're familiar with etsy, you may know the sardonic joke that the 'etsy look' for photos is anything shot in a macro blur with kitschy objects that have nothing to do with your listing item on a gray / white / or otherwise neutral background that is either an old book or a piece of barn wood. The penultimate satirical commentary on this concept is this post from Regretsy. Now, if you're one of those people that doesn't ever make fun of something or enjoy snark or questionable language - then maybe don't click on that link.

Honestly, "barn wood" isn't really my style... but I kind of think if you've been here before and seen my work that you kind of know that.

Speaking of 'my work' — I have a piece in the U of M School of Art & Design Alumni Show: Things That Move.
Yes, you have to scroll forever down the page to get to it (like halfway). It's called "cherry apricot phantasmagoria" (because I come from the e.e. cummings school of thought). Anyway, it's bright red, or if you just do a "COMMAND F" and type Sarah Knight into the box, you'll find it.

• The show runs from 18 July to 6 August 2011
• Slusser Gallery hours are: Mon—Fri 9am to 5pm, Sat noon to 7pm
• 2000 Bonisteel Blvd.
  Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2069
• parking is behind the building which can be accessed from Fuller Road
  

bird brooches

I think about making stuff a lot, I suppose. And sometimes it takes me years to getting around to finally executing an idea, and sometimes something just gets done. So, last weekend was one of those 'just do it' kinds of weekends.

I decided I wanted to make brooches. Now, I'm not exactly sure precisely how I arrived at this conclusion, but I found myself standing in an aisle at the craft store buying a baggy of wooden shapes and then standing in the jewelry findings aisle looking for pin backs...
and well, now I have brooches:

Yes, so, I opened my baggy of wooden pieces and sorted them... and then picked the biggest ones and measured those... and then made a file of that size... and then spent a good hour opening files and copying and pasting and combining until I had at least 30 bird portraits...
And then I printed those out and cut them apart and began the odyssey of production... I painted the fronts and sides of my wooden pieces with black acrylic paint... and then I found my snazzy Elmer's craft bond glue stick (because I have used a lot of glue sticks - and unless it's paper to paper - glue sticks are a nice idea but not a great adhesive) and got to work gluing my printed pictures onto the front of my wooden pieces... and then I pulled out my jar of satin varnish (because, honestly, satin is the most desirable finish — not matte, not high gloss) and gave each tile a good 2 coats of varnish...
Amusingly, okay, so maybe it's really only funny to me - while I was doing all this I was sitting there at my desk watching "The Nine Lives of Chloe King" via the internet.

And then I took them outside on the back porch and proceeded to apply pin backs with a generous helping of E-6000 glue. Oh, yeah, it's industrial strength - and so is it's odor. E-6000 must be used in a well ventilated area and whatever it has been applied to should be left in a well ventilated (or open) area for at least 24 hours for some of that pungent odor to dissipate. Yes, not everything about craft projects is all sunshine and sparkles.

And then, of course, I had to photograph them... Now, as it turns out, I made 30 brooches, since 30 is the number of picture fronts I could fit onto a sheet of paper (and there happened to be at least 30 of the same sized pieces of wood in my little baggy). I mean, when I started I was just going to make like 3 to see if they turned out well enough to be viable... and yeah, by the end of the day I had made all 30.

Apparently, I cannot do things in moderation.

So... I have them listed on Etsy at sarahkdesigns


and on Artfire at "SunshineSight"


So, get some art on that lapel : )

for the birds

I spent the weekend working on a spur-of-the-moment project (I mean, you know I thought about it for like 2 whole days before embarking on it, technically)... so, hopefully I'll be done with it soon, and then I can get back to the butterfly mobiles.

It's been hot out, apparently so hot that we had our first power outage of the summer. Yes, you know because I had just arrived home from running errands - it was like 80˚F - and I went to put the cold groceries in the fridge and was surprised that it was dark in there. And then I looked around at the rest of the kitchen and noticed the clock on the microwave was blank, etc. Fortunately it came back on within 2 hours...

Anyway, there's a male cardinal out in the yard pining for some company. We had 2 of them out there the other day chasing each other around and otherwise jockeying for territory... at least cardinals have a pretty song (as opposed to robins which always just sound like they're yelling).

what they sound like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9LNexIoCW0

This is one of my cardinal illustrations: cardinal couple
It was part of the project that I have been working on this weekend.
Here's a little preview:



Yes, it involves my bird illustrations (which you can see at sarahkdesigns)
or
if you're more curious...

There's a cool giveaway at danielleorama's blog, that bunny is adorable :D

Now I think I'm going to sit here in front of the oscillating fan and catch up on Haven (season 1) - which I have been watching via dvd. It's an awesome show.

Hopefully you had a lovely weekend : )

just because

Evidently it's Wednesday... I forget that sometimes because I work midnights and sometimes the days just kind of blend together.

Apparently it's 79˚F, and the skies are sort of overcast and yet sunny — so there's that atmospheric light. It's humid, but it isn't ridiculous. It's warm, but it isn't sweltering. It's just nice...

And I've been sitting here, working at the computer this morning, indoors... until I finished what I was working on — which, as it turns out was the new background for my blog — which you may have noticed if you've been here before. There used to be a lot of #867cbb around here. But then I was meandering around my blogger profile or the blogs that I follow or something — and I opened this blog: http://bittersweet-enmi.blogspot.com/
And, yes, I was envious — in that I wanted a background and something maybe a little less generic — because her blog just looks cool.

So, yes, it's summer and it's nice outside and I've been sitting here at my computer tinkering and copying and pasting from my files like as if the design layout of my blog was the only thing that mattered... and actually, I didn't change the layout — I just changed the colors, made a new header and assembled 100 square samples of my work together into one large grid to make a new background — since I finally figured out that blogger will let me upload my own picture for the background.

So, thank you, Emmy Wahlback, for the inspiration.
And now, I suppose it's time to get back to cutting out butterflies... or maybe I'll go outside again.

Enjoy your summer, and the wondrous things that exist just outside the back door.

The lost week...

Sometimes the weekend finally comes and I sit here at my computer and wonder where the last 5-7 days went... and then I remember all the mundane things that ate up my free time. The last two mornings (because I work midnights, and that's what's left when I get home at the end of work) were spent on dentist's appointments. My teeth are clean, have been treated with fluoride, and I now have 1 less wisdom tooth... and now my mouth hurts.

So, if I disappear this weekend or this post seems exceptionally disjointed - that's why.

"midnight mist"

I made this painting probably about 3 years ago. And I finally got around to listing it on etsy. I also recently used its digital copy in my butterfly project. Which you can see here or in the picture below:

I sample or recycle my own creations a lot, I suppose. I mean, when I painted that painting 3 years ago I wasn't specifically thinking "I'll scan this for this specific project that I plan to do at this date." Because, really, I'm not a plan-on-a-schedule type of girl. I think things happen separately, simultaneously, and often cumulatively. And sometimes that means having an idea, letting it sit there for a long long time, and then finally just doing it.

Long before I finally actually did the butterfly project or painted that painting I was thinking about how cool it would be to decorate with butterflies — like as ornaments — as evidenced by my summer decor from this post. All those monarch butterflies were sort of a preliminary learning curve with photoshop and printing and aligning the front and back of an image on a print so that it could be cut out without any off-set... and that I used fishing line to hang them was probably an due to something from the 3D class from my freshman year at the University of the Arts. We had to build a cube frame out of balsa wood and then fill the cube without gluing anything to the frame - the easiest way to accomplish this was by suspending things with fishing line - which is thin, clear, and almost invisible and made to support X amount of weight...

So, every now and then I think about how nifty it would be to take the idea for the ornaments and convert that into a mobile or a wall hanging... so that's what I'm going to work on this weekend — which is also what's in the last 2 pictures. First I had to line up my images, and now I have to cut them out. Only time will tell how long it takes me to getting around to actually suspending them from something...

Have a good, relaxing, productive weekend — and a Happy 4th of July!