When it comes to drawing, I haven’t been the most productive or consistent producer this past few months. However, March was about rebellion against the adage that I am a creator who only draws for the consumption by others. Yes, there was an attempt to do an illustration for March 14 (White Day), but other than that, I spent the rest of the month avoiding the paintings I had planned.
I spent much of my time playing around with the three dimensional creation space — from realizing papercraft ideas such as depicting the Elpis flower in paper and then other materials, then briefly departing to make a flower wreath on the side. (On my mothers’ side I have one relative who is a terrific folk painter and paints screens and pillows and all sorts of things and another who is talented at flower arranging.)
Buying flowers for self is one thing, but as a craft for sale it is not a great place to make money. Artificial flowers are expensive to acquire. So I considered undertaking these projects for my own edification. The below was something I put together with reserve origami paper, some bamboo hoops, and leftover scrapbooking leaf pieces. It’s not fully done and probably will be expanded out into some kind of wall art to occupy space where there normally would be a headboard above my bed.
Some of the standees I had put together based on 2D works came in and they honestly are really great/better as 3D pieces of acrylic art.
In hindsight, after posting this video to twitter I realize that people can’t grasp my 2D diagrams all that well. I knew more or less what it would look like when I committed it to paper some months ago, but others really didn’t.
The other lesson learned this month was that maybe I should have explored buying some tools earlier. My insane dip into flower making made me think more deeply about getting a cutting machine. I’ve been discussing it with some friends for some time, but they impressed upon me how much easier it would be to do things if I had one.
Well, thanks to a tax return, I had some funds to go invest in a Silhouette Cameo at a local craft store. March started with handcutting flower petals and March ended with learning how to automate some portions of that process using different kinds of paper (origami, cardstock,and flower wrap) on a machine.
This also meant resurrecting /dealing with a printer that I put away before I moved a few years back. To my utter horror and delight it turns out it’s fine and can still turn out a good color print. I’m not honestly sure if this was a good thing, as it now means I have the ability to self-print color work as well as cut that work. So been poking around at the idea of stickers in small quantities.
The main issue right now is what do I want to produce and to what end? I’m well aware the sticker space is exceedingly crowded and well covered. (I went into Etsy to look up FFXIV stickers several times and have basically accepted that this is an extremely popular item to offer!) I really don’t have a burning need to create to make stickers/ rather I want to have outputs for some of the weird things I make (like emojis) .
I’m still mulling whether I want to make some precut material kits for people to make their own Elpis flowers or just make them /send them to those who are getting custom stands this year.
And I’m still pondering what to do about print matter. There’s a lot more introspection/thought I need to give to the direction I’m going to take this year. To be honest, I had a lot more fun making things this past month than I’ve had with drawing things. To that end I’m still thinking about more abstract things that involve collage and large canvases.
Or just drawing dozens of additional chibis.
We’ll see where April takes me.
The Swann Lodge 