New Etsy Monsters and a Contest!

Just for Hallowe'en, I've added four new knit monster-creatures at my Imporium Etsy shop. Check out this pic:



As you can see, a rather unsavory lot. But who's that in the front, you ask? Why it's a lovely black and orange Hallowe'en knitty kitty, who has apparently fallen in with the wrong crowd (his grandmother is beyond disappointed). Well, choice of friends aside, Mr. Hallowe'en cat with the bowtie is going to be offered up as a prize for one of Mrs. B's 31 Days of Hallowe'en contests! On the 23rd day, to be precise, which is next Friday, I believe. So don't forget to get on over there on the 23rd! (Don't worry, I'll remind you). Here's a close-up:



Speaking of Mrs. B's giveaways, one of today's is a real doozy, and has an incredible amount of stuff bought special in Salem, Massachusetts. Some of them are even from Laurie Cabot's store! So get over there and enter while you still have time!

Also, these are toys fifteen through nineteen of the One Hundred Toys Project. I'm nearly a fifth of the way there!

Even More Critters

I've been knitting and sewing up a storm the last couple days, and so have another batch of critters to put up at the Etsy store. They include:

This guy, in a lovely soft raspberry mohair, that, though it's synthetic is, seriously, kitteny soft:



Another one of the striped cats, this time in an op-artish bright red and bright turquoise stripe:



And another of the little Satan-guys:



Also, these are toys twelve, thirteen, and fourteen of the One Hundred Toys Project. That's almost a sixth of the way there!

Knitty Kitties

A sneak peek at about half the batch of new knitty kitties, to be put up for sale in my soon-to-be Etsy shoppe. (Yes, with two P's and an E. We're highfalutin', don'tcha know).

Also, toys number seven through eleven of the One Hundred Toys Project.

Knitty Stripey Kitty (Toy #6)

Another, this time a bit taller than usual. I'm really digging the stripes. Though I'm not sure if it counts as a minion, since it is, after all, a cat, and we are here to do their bidding, not the other way around.

Knitty Monster (Toy #5)

Front:

and back:

I have several more of these guys knit up that I haven't assembled yet. Minions, they are. Everyone needs minions.

Joe's New Sweater (Toy #4)

It's a Liz Claiborne, actually. I guess once he was out of the Navy he started paying attention to fashion. It looks good on him, don't you think?

Made from a $2 pair of socks; the wrong side is a toenail-catching tangle of Fair Isle strands, and quite unsuitable to put on a human pair of feet. As it was I had to take one of his hands off to get it on him.

Creative Every Day Update

I have been doing lots of creative things this last week, including some art, though I can't really show it right now as I don't have access to a scanner (my sister is "borrowing" it; "borrowing" in quotes since, after all, it is hers).

Those inertial blocks I started got hung up for a time, stymied by the ridiculous fact that I didn't actually have any newspapers for papier-mache; that has been fixed, courtesy of a stack of free car-advertisement papers swiped from the local grocery store.

I have been keeping track, quite faithfully, and I have to say keeping a Creativity Log has been one of the most phenomenally helpful things ever, for it is making me confront, and see, all the myriad creative things I do.

One of the things I did this week was play around a bit with intuitive drawing, though I'm not sure I like the results.

The main piece I did, though, was something I'm quite pleased with, though I feel sort of vaguely guilty about it too, which is ridiculous. After picking Al-Uzza for Goddess of the Week a couple of weeks ago, and realizing just how dissatisfied I was with the original art, I succumbed to temptation, and did another version. This is something I've been trying to avoid, because I most decidedly suffer from the Tolkienesque affliction of never being able to leave well enough alone, as far as my creations go. If I let myself, I know I would be forever going back into things and reworking and rethinking them; so, for the sake of being able to call something "done" and "finished" I have had to train myself to be quite ruthless about Letting Things Be.

But it was really nice, and in doing it I realized that, even though the rest of the Goddess Oracle Deck cards are a good ten years old now, I could still find plenty to explore within that format and that premise and that artistic style; and they're quick to make, too, unlike most of my other work, and the instant gratification aspect of it is a very good thing. So I'm conflicted. You know.

Mostly what I've been doing this past week, though, is working on getting a Sims 1 site together. I have surprised myself by being consistent at it; this last year I've been feeling so rootless and in-between with Things Artistic that I have had to resort to telling myself to just do something for half an hour, after which I can go do something else if I want to. But I remembered something I learned in college about using my time.

Some semesters, because of the schedule, I would end up having these little blocks of time, like an hour and a half, between classes. Time enough to go home and hang out, but not, I thought, time enough to actually get anything done. Which turned out to be not at all true, and once I started using those bits of time I found I got far more done than I ever would have thought, as it spilled out into the rest of my time. So, I'm relearning how to be productive, I guess. Perhaps I can smell spring on its way.

Anyway, here are a couple more examples of the little Sims dresses I've been making:

It occurred to me last night that, though I chose to make One Hundred Toys, I am in fact participating quite literally in the One Hundred Dresses Project too, with all the little virtual dresses I've been doing. Interesting.

Scarf and Hat Set (Toy #3)

Let me just say, Maude is a damned patient cat:

And, of course, the matching hat:

It's a miracle, obviously, that I managed to take that second photo in the .7 second window I had, and it's a little underexposed; but, still, they are quite fetching on her, don't you think?

It's made from that pokeberry and indigo smallish batch of yarn I tie-dyed back in November; the scarf is in seed-stitch, and the hat is my somewhat botched first attempt at decreasing stitches. She sat on my lap or next to me the whole time I knit it, while pointedly and generously ignoring my evil chuckling. She really is a bigger person than I.

Though, she may still opt to kill me in my sleep, you never know.

There Was Something Missing...

The result of a three-in-the-morning inspiration, aided and abetted no doubt by various prescription meds. I simply could not resist, as he was crying out for an apron. I think he wants to do the dishes, and I'm not going to stop him (hey, I'd sell my soul for less some days).

I put the pocket on his left since I figured he'd be left handed. I mean, come on--between dexter and sinister, which is Satan going to choose? And at any rate due to stuffing irregularities on the part of his Maker (myself) it does appear that his biceps are considerably beefier on that side.

Yep; still cracking me up.

Knitty Satan (Toy #2)

Oh my Gawd this guy totally cracks me up:

I like how the curved claws make him look vaguely pigeon-toed.

I have to admit I don't quite get the whole God vs. Devil thing. If the Devil is the opposite of God, shouldn't God be a hopelessly square utterly un-charming bore with no dress sense? Well, I guess there are reasons I'm not one of those monotheistic sorts.

Anyway, two toys down, ninety-eight to go!

Inertia

I've started another set of blocks, this time to be in papier-maché; seven of them all told, to spell the word inertia.

It's a funny thing, inertia. It can mean both being stuck, and moving. To quote Mewton's, er, sorry, Newton's First Law: an object at rest will remain at rest; an object in motion will remain in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force.

I feel I am right now stuck in the remaining at rest part of the Law; and trying to get myself to work on Something today, like these blocks, meant talking myself through it, the way a very depressed person has to carve up the day into tiny, manageable baby steps. Instead of looking at the whole project, which felt overwhelming, I told myself, Okay, now I'm just going to get the wallpaper paste out of the drawer of the art caddy. Just that, and nothing beyond that, right now. Turns out, though, I don't actually have any wallpaper paste, I just thought I did; but still, I did work on the blocks a little. And that counts.

Partially I'm sure it's the fact that it's winter, and all I want to do is hibernate; a little tricky, really, to get moving when Nature is telling me to remain at rest. But, also, it's that I have really gotten out of the habit of making things, and there is a lot of stuff to get moving, psychic, mental, and physical. So there's rather more to it than I'm assuming.

But, here are my blocks, so far:

Pardon the unphotogenic background; my drawing table does double duty as my sewing table. I hope to get that rectified soon, as I'm working on refinishing the spare room to be a proper studio space; right now my drawing table is set up in a corner of my bedroom, not the best way to go about things, if one has a choice.

Now, in the interests of showing myself (and the rest of y'all) that I have been doing plenty in the name of being creative every day, here's what I've put in my creativity log so far (I won't, probably, post in this much detail all the time; I just need to see it and make it real out in public today):

1/1/09: Danced a little to "Brain Damage Situation" by They Might Be Giants, which has a great groove; got doll's skirt attached and apron made; sketched a little; finished off the first set of Artist's Blocks; wrote a blog post.

1/2/09: Researched/wrote about Benzaiten for several hours (and let me tell you, Her history is unbelievably complicated!); and, oh, I'm gritting my teeth and making myself include this, I played The Sims for a while. Mostly I made the little houses, this lovely terraced neighborhood of Minoan houses with nice little gardens, &c. which, yes, technically, is creating something. (I will learn not to judge this one, dammit!)

1/3/09: Wrote Goddess of the Week entry; played more Sims and worked on the little houses some more (if interior decorating in reality is creative, so is this--yes, yes, I'm trying very hard to convince myself!); sketched some toy ideas.

1/4/09: Started more blocks; photographed doll; made a couple Minoan heads (these little bitmaps in Photoshop) for The Sims. (All right, Brain, listen up: this month's theme is Play; combine that with my word for the year, Permission, and it means I have permission to play. You know, like a game. Like, oh I don't know, maybe, just perhaps, The Sims! Oh, Brain, when will you learn?)

Here's that photo of the doll I've been working on. Right now she looks a little Amish (by which I mean the no face part; that's one way they reconcile the "no graven images" thing in the Bible). I have a vague idea what I want to do with her face and hair, but haven't liked any of the sketches I've done so far, so I've put her aside for now while I mull.

Artist's Blocks (Toy #1)

Well, here they are, the first batch of toys for my One Hundred Toys Project, as well as my Creative Every Day entry (not that I made all of these in one day!)

Participating in Art Every Day Month back in November I realized just how stuck and how blocked I was feeling; and, since if you can't think of anything to make, you can always make something about how you can't think of anything to make, I made:

A set of Artist's Blocks. (Har, har har.)

Each one has embroidered on it the letters F, E, A, and R, since that seemed to be the thing that was most contributing to my feeling stuck.

Or one might rearrange them to show off the other sides:

They can also be stacked, sort of (they are a little roly-poly):

Or, would you look at that! One might even spell other words with them:

Speaking of spell, in just playing with them I've found there are an awful lot of other, useful words hidden within those four letters: for example fae, ear, far, are, and rarr!

Art is magic.

Creative Every Day Challenge 2009

Well, I've decided to join in on this one, too, over at Leah's Creative Every Day blog. This one is a little looser than the Art Every Day Month challenge which I participated in during November, with creativity being defined pretty broadly. I am, however, going to attempt to be fairly literal about it (though I will of course sooner or later succumb to the inevitable head cold or bout of flu) and try to make something every day.

I suspect at times I will be scrounging for something to call "creative;" which, it occurs to me, might actually be a good thing. I discount so much of what I do, and if I have to start acknowledging the odd doodle, or sewing project, or Sims' little dresses, or God forbid, writing, as creative, as Art, I may just one of these days get it through my fool head that it is all good, all worthwhile, and all has meaning.

I've been working on the One Hundred Toys Project again since the holidays have slowed down a bit, though I still don't have anything finished enough to post just yet. The toys will be a big part of being Creative Every Day, I'm sure.

I plan to post about this (with pictures, hopefully) a couple times a week rather than every single day (because that is just too much of a pain in the a*s); so stay tuned. Anyone who'd like to join in, you can sign up at Leah's blog.

The One Hundred Somethings Project

Last night, after I left a comment over on Leah's Creative Every Day site updating my last two Art Every Day Month entries, I followed some of the links other participants had posted and ended up at mousetales, home of the lovely Miss Rosie Posie; and from there to the marvelous Tollipop, where I came across an open invitation to Make One Hundred Somethings.

Hmmmm, I thought. That is my kind of project.

But what clinched it was going from there to FairieMoon's version of it, in which she is making one hundred dresses for her doll Hitty Dauphine.

And when I saw those doll's dresses my heart just leapt. Oh what fun that would be! O wouldn't that be wonderful! And so I contemplated what one hundred Somethings I could make.

But then the tedious, overly serious Grown Up, the Artist, capital A, in me, the judgemental-yet-defensive Critic started in; and she subtly, and ever-so-reasonably started swapping out the idea of one hundred dolls' dresses for more serious, Artsy, Religious things, saying things like, Well, how about something like writing one hundred meditations? Oh and hint, one hundred Somethings should fit a Tarot deck inside of it quite nicely actually; then there are one hundred Gods you should be drawing, or, really, one hundred descriptions of Goddesses, since aren't you supposed to be writing a Book you useless procrastinator, you shiftless dreamer you? You should be doing one hundred Useful Somethings, one hundred High Art Somethings; why don't you take this as an opportunity to get your sad, sorry butt in gear?

And so I felt rather bad, and guilty, and all those other useless, harmful, judgemental things that actively stop creativity; but then I remembered something.

When your heart leaps at an idea, when you are so taken with something you longingly exclaim What fun! O! How I wish I could do that! That would be so marvelous!

That is the surest sign you must. For that is your soul speaking.

So, I will honor Inspiration, and the Muse.

Though it won't be one hundred dresses, I don't think. I have too many ideas for things, fun things, like the things I made when I was a child, to restrict it to that. So I'll open it up a bit more: I will make one hundred toys. That will include dolls, dolls' dresses, critters, and who knows what else; perhaps I shall even be inspired to make something in wood. (This may, also, indicate the beginning of an Etsy shop, so stay tuned.)

I don't know how long it will take me, probably some time, at least a year. But it is my kind of project. You may have noticed that I work well on long projects made up of small individual parts; my brain is wired in series, I guess (har har). Goddess Oracle cards, God cards, Tarot, even the Obscure Goddess Online Directory are all of that ilk.

I don't know where it will take me, and this is a good thing. I expect it will evolve and do its own thing. That is another wonderful thing about doing art in a series: through repetition of a theme one works through habits and prejudices about what one thinks things should look like, if only because one simply gets bored.

At any rate, by this time next year I should be more than qualified for a job at the North Pole with the Elves.

(Though, you don't think Santa would have a problem with my being Pagan, do you? I mean he is Saint Klaus, after all. I would assume, given his reputation for being the generous sort, and his (His?) ancient ties to Yule customs, he'd be an equal opportunity employer, right?)

Anyway, I do know that I have felt stuck in a rut lately, artistically. And perhaps I have forgotten how to have fun with my art. Before I fell into painting Goddesses, I was focussed on children's books, mostly of the fairy-tale princess sort. Not, really, that big a leap, stylistically, or thematically, when you think about it. But a lot more fun. I think that is what I really need now.