I am not good at remembering to blog anymore. However, it is clear based on looking back on twitter and instagram that while summer happened , I did work on projects, albeit not in the traditional sense.
With the doom and gloom about recession constantly playing out in business media, I’ve pushed back against the idea of making things for the sake of making merchandise.
Since our last blogversation, I finished up the custom standees I made for folks (Elpis /WOL/Ancients). Then finished the first stationary print run and sent those out (or gifted to the person who egged me into doing it) and while work has been insane, used the free time to back off from drawing (which I wasn’t too motivated to do) to work on a different kind of art creation.
In non specific order I want to show you where my headspace wandered off to
There’s a lot less potential interest/clout in trying to make /craft for yourself and certainly fandom tends to be more interested in art and tangible things to buy. But sometimes learning something different is a reward in itself. I spent a lot of time this year on material research – looking at different types of papers and glues and bonding materials to avoid needing buying hardcore tools.
That said, I have regrets now for not taking more shop/home ec classes back in grade school as I think having more hand skills would be great so I could pursue art without limitation. I would like to know about lighting and strings and fabric to make beautiful inspired work that pays homage to its inspirations but that lives on its own. I like it when fandom art doesn’t have to rest on a likeness or style to be interesting. So consider the flower and wood crafting to be part of my exploring art for art’s sake, not for commercial sake.
In sum , nothing I did here is new and novel in techniques. For people who come from flower making or general crafting, this is simple stuff . (And thankfully because so many DIY posts and videos are out there on Instagram and Youtube, I got several ideas to borrow from.) But for me, who struggles with being bored with the cycles of art production fandom follows, this was a lot of fun.
I also got to play a bit more with video editing (on the fly with the phone). I’m truly impressed with the output of the iphone Pro series (which was used to shoot and edit all the above)
Speaking of which, random reading! I really hadn’t planned to keep going with any FF14 readings but this book is too cute to let pass unmarked. I read it on camera in hopes people will be encouraged to go buy it for small kids and large kids 🙂
There are a few illustration, merch related things to cover but will mull over what I want to say next XD .
The Swann Lodge 