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Faux chocolat – métiers d’art
Sounds a lot fancier in French. ‘Fake chocolate – arts and crafts’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
I said I would be doing arts and crafts today … two people I am fond of are having birthdays next week. I thought it would be sweet to make their gifts.
Here’s what I did.
I like working with Sculpey – it doesn’t taste awful. No, you shouldn’t be eating it – but you’ll see why it was in my mouth in the next picture.
So, you start by kneading and molding and sculpting – then, since I think chocolates look more realistic if you take a bite out of them, you BITE ‘EM!
I decided one of the chocolates needed to have a coffee bean on top. Pushing the creative envelope lol.
Here’s a closer look at each:
You bake them when you’re satisfied. I had lost my instructions – so put them in the oven @ 275 degrees for half and hour – then checked on them every 5 or 10 minutes after that.
I was also painting boxes to put these in. The whole premise of my gift was ‘For a Sweet Friend’ but I couldn’t just hand them a fake chocolate.
So here’s the boxes rough painted and adorned with a small mirror. I figure they can use them for trinkets or jewelry afterwards.
And here are the boxes after a subtle paint job.
The hardest part about the process is waiting for the clay to cool down after baking it. I’m impatient. I want to paint immediately.
But, wait I did.
Then … the paint job.
Still have some touch up to do on the above ‘chocolate’ – but as impatient as I am, I had to blog too soon as well.
Now, today was REALLY REALLY windy. My initial thought was, I can acrylic seal these items and they’ll dry in no time!
*Do not gloss your crafts in gale force winds! * I had sealer in my eyes, on my hands, in my lungs. Probably not a good thing – but parts that were never shiny are now shiny.
As for ‘drying in no time’ – that also came along with a smattering of dust and local flora. (There may even have been an ant or two stuck to my ‘drying in no time’ boxes.) Nice extra ‘texture’ for my pieces. Live and learn. Live and learn.
I’m working on the cards – I’ll draw and paint tomorrow. And I really hope the recipients don’t read this post. I should have started with *SPOILER ALERT*. Oh well.
Here are the (almost) finished products.
I made a bracelet and the other box has a sentimental item in there too.
Homemade gifts say ‘Love’. I hope they do anyway. Just in case they didn’t, I made clay hearts too – they serve as gift tags
I’m so glad these ladies were born. Definitely worth inhaling acrylic sealer for. x
Now, I’m going to brush my teeth for the 10th time and finish getting the clay out of them 😉
‘Drawing the invisible’ My interview with James D. Foster
I am a proud comic book fan. (Okay, I’m a total nerd)
I am a member of The Mystic Order of Arachnid Vigilance (AKA: The Tick fan club) True story. Here I am with the Cypher Matic Decoder Wheel!
I am also a fan of artists, of finding out what inspires them. And I am in complete awe of natural talent.
So, it’s only fitting that I asked my long-lost/recently found talented friend if I could interview him. Because he has natural talent in the art department.
In spades.
I’ll start with sharing what he labeled as his ‘nerdy’ stuff. *Cough* bullshit *Cough*
For instance, this ‘nerdy’ drawing. Because we all know, hands are SO easy to draw. Not.
This is my favorite – amazing grasp of lighting and shading and … just everything!
Now a little gratuitous moment – we played around with a short story I wrote, and these were some characters that were going to appear in the comic version.
She’s the love child of Vanna White and Pat Sajak (in my story)
The main character – and I cannot for the life of me remember his name?? Arnold?? Anyway, the bananas had disappeared, but he’s holding one.
And I have to assume this guy was the antagonist – that, or Jim got fixated on bananas – notice the one on his lapel.
Yeah, Jim. Such ‘nerdy’ stuff. Early works – and amazing. Just amazing. Then he really found his stride.
Let’s chat with Jim shall we?
Me: So, you’ve handed your mom your first drawing as a child – it goes on the fridge?
Jim: Yep. That’s remembering pretty far back. But, I drew like any other kid in those days. Family members with pig feet; houses with smoking twirls from crayola chimneys; cavemen riding around saber tooth brontosaurus. I drew like any average kid back then.
Me: That was my next question (talented AND psychic) when do you first recall drawing something, looking at it – and realizing. Oh … that’s GOOD
Jim: 1981. I was bedridden with pneumonia for two weeks when I was 13. My Father had bought me this amazing book on the art of the ‘Dark Crystal.’ Somehow it all just came together, and I realized I was way better at drawing than I had thought. Plus, I was 13, I’m sure what ever hormones I was dealing with didn’t hurt either.
Me: So would you say that being exposed to a certain genre of art made something ‘click’ in your head? Like ‘Ah, there’s this other amazing way to have smoke curling out of a chimney’ The hormones I’m sure didn’t hurt, did drawing become an outlet for frustrations and expressing yourself at that time?
Jim: Like any kid dealing with all of that craziness . . . you gotta have an outlet, an escape. I had whole worlds living in my head, but never could quite express them in any meaningful way. So, that’s when I got my first sketchbook, pen and quill, and started to draw whatever influenced that escape.
Me: I love that you had whole worlds living in your head – only a few are able to translate them into something they can effectively share with others … what was the response of ‘others’ once you found your groove?
Jim: It helped that my first art teacher saw something in what I was doing, and at that age, someone seeing potential in what you’re doing is a tremendous push. All the other kids saw it too. But, it no way put an end to getting pushed around. I always had some kid bug the heck out of me, to draw some girl they had a crush on naked. Pretty much, I was just a kid who drew better than most of the other kids. But, it never won me any popularity contests.
Actually, I have to correct myself. I won ‘Most Artistic’ my Senior year. It did actually win me a popularity contest.
Me: You must realize now as an adult, that ‘pushing around’ stemmed from envy right?
Jim: The girls always liked it. So that always helped. And they always had me drawing something for them. I played two years of high school football, and two years a pole vaulting and track. So sports was not really my problem. I suppose any kid at that age is envious of everybody else. I think it just helped me more or less break out my shyness. It was kinda my ice breaker.
Me: Other than grades K-12, did you have any formal instruction with regards to art, or are you self-taught?
Jim: Mrs. Spann was my first art teacher in High School. She was an incredible influence my first year. Sadly she had a heart attack, and had to retire. The next three years were all subs. So Mrs. Spann was the only formal training I had. In Jr. College I took a painting course and hated it. So that pretty much sums up all my art schooling.
Me: Natural talent. That’s huge Jim. Seriously. Okay – fast forward. When were you drawn to comics? (No pun intended)
Jim: Actually I always wanted to be a writer, Lol. So it just kinda made sense one day. Frank Miller’s ‘The Dark Knight Returns,’ was a big eye-opener when I was 18. The art was great, but the story blew me out of the water. Up to that point, I had always figured that comics were just kid stuff.
Me: They’re definitely not kid stuff – and they’re a lot of work! And, you do it all, Concept, writing – then you’re the penciller, inker, colorist, letterer AND editor. What are your tools of choice?
Jim: A good pencil, a good pen, and blank piece of paper. That’s pretty much it. I love Photoshop, but it always feels like I’m cheating. But, it works, so I go with it.
Me: What kind of pen? Doesn’t look like any ink that’s come out of any of my pens lol
Jim: I used to use Rapidographs. But, i find that they’re too scratchy, and a pain to keep clean. Anything that has a smooth feel to it, and you can just throw away and not feel bad about it.
Me: Then I guess the key is to be wicked talented – not so much the tool. What medium do you use for the coloring process? You mentioned photo shop – I have no clue how that works, but I know you’ve colored by hand too
Jim: Photoshop, that’s it. I really need to get away from that too. Nobody wants to buy stuff you’ve Photoshopped. They want something real and original to hang on their walls. I’ve always wanted to check out silk-screening. Printing your own posters and all. But, for a long time it’s just been on the computer.
Me: Digital inking/coloring. I guess that’s a good thing – if you had spent a lot of time doing it by hand, then screwing up a section – starting over would have to be frustrating as hell. Ever do that? Finish a frame and not like the lettering or something and have to start over?
Jim: More times than not. That’s why I love the computer. It saved me a lot of good pieces. If I had actually gone to art college, maybe I would have a better grasp at doing it all by hand. Raw talent will only get you so far.
Me: Speaking of ‘starting over’ – you lost 6 years worth of art and sketch books in a fire. I can’t imagine how that must have felt.
Jim: Felt like hell. What the fire didn’t get, the fire hose did.
Me: I’m so sorry. So much work. Almost like losing years worth of diaries and photos …
Jim: That was right around the time the whole ‘Capzowski’ storyline really began to seed in my head. That was my first attempt at doing real comic pages. 11 x 14 bristol board. It was a real pain trying to figure out what I was doing. There’s more that goes into a page then one tends to think. Like 6-8 separate drawings that all have to flow and mesh like some weird dance on a page. I got about twenty something pages worth out of that year. Left them all on the drawing table. Got home the next day, it was all gone.
Starsky (on the phone)
Jim: When I stop asking questions at to what they like and hate and what not. That’s something I love to capture when i draw each of these character. I don’t need thought bubbles to explain their ego’s and personalities. You can look at them and see their thought process. That’s my favorite thing about art. Not just drawing cool characters, but drawing what you can’t see. But, it’s there none the less. Like drawing gravity. It’s invisible, but in the manner that you illustrate an individual, you can feel their body weight. That’s what I get a kick out of art. Drawing the invisible.
Me: One character that has a misleading look would be Francis … he’s so menacing, yet Sissy is the heavy?
Francisco (Francis) Wolfgang Capzowski
Francis ‘looking’ tough
Meet ‘Sissy’
Sissy colored
Sissy before color
Sissy after color
Sweet family table time?
Me: I love the feel of Neo Pompeii – I might even be convinced to move my Tick comic books over to make room for the first Capzowski issue. Okay, so the big question – I know your life is in transition – but, let’s say the your Art Fairy Godmother floats down from wherever they float down from … what would be your art related wish?
Jim: Lol. To write a novel.
Me: A graphic novel?
Jim: A novel first. Then a graphic novel. A combo piece let’s say. One would feed into the other.
Photo therapy
Lay in bed this morning with not a fiber of my being wanting to get up.
I am in a funk of all time funks for a myriad of reasons. But life goes on.
Laundry was skipped last weekend due to my tooth pain – blah, blah, blah – I’m so over talking about that. But, fact is, I had to do laundry today.
I milled about the house, crawled back into bed. Found myself watching ‘The Shahs of Sunset’ reunion show on Bravo. What the hell? I don’t even watch the show – no clue who the people were. But evidently, reaching for the remote and changing the channel wasn’t in the cards.
Get up Amanda.
I sat outside.
I haven’t been reading as often lately, tried to read a few pages. Haven’t picked up a paint brush in a while either, nor my camera.
“Go do laundry, and take some pictures” a voice in my head told me. From where I sat, I could see fog over the river – the mountains looked beautiful.
Okay. Get dressed and just DO IT!
So I did it. Shoved our laundry into a couple of washing machines and took myself and my camera off for some quality time.
Heads up – I’m the Queen of zoom and crop. Whereas, my son captures a subject and leaves in the surroundings, whether aesthetically pleasing or not, and his photos end up amazing. I love that about him. He doesn’t edit life. I just have a problem not editing my mouth.
Without further ado:
The reason I took my camera. Fog is rare here in the desert. It called to me. The Colorado River creates it from time to time, and every time it does, its gorgeous.
Decay and growth. I loved the juxtaposition of the two.
And here too. The area I was shooting in is prone to fires. The tree in the back obviously burned and the new growth in the foreground just made such a pleasing image.
Love the curl of this metal.
Beauty and the desert beast
The reservations irrigation system.
Looked like a mirror – or a framed picture to me
Gawd I loved these
Spent shell – wonder what was on the receiving end of this?
He’s a rocks rock
On my knees in rams head weeds to get this shot, pretty sure I have a couple of puncture wounds – but worth it
Home now – this little guy is growing through the steps. I won’t go into that metaphor. But I was proud of it and that little flower inspires me.
On the way home from the laundromat a song came on that for that very moment in time, couldn’t have been more apropos. Every word spoke to me. And I don’t know when this funk will break – but I know it will. I know this. But I’m nothing if not authentic, and I never ‘fake it til I make it’. I’m not going to plaster a smile on my face. I don’t feel like smiling just yet. I have big decisions to make, big changes to consider and time is slipping by quickly. I am sad, scared, 50 shades of blue and deep in thought. But life is still beautiful. I am still grateful. And tomorrow is another day.
Here’s that song.
‘Blending in with the desert’
My ghostly man amongst the cacti. It’s sunset and he’s very, very still. A desert meditation?
The transparent version
This one was fun to do. Involved wax, watercolor, and acrylics & using the front and backside of the paper. Oh, and artificial light. Love this one. I think it’s the first piece I’ve photographed and thought – ‘wow … ok, that’s actually good’.
An Angel in the dandelions
Did a lot of resting today (after a lot of work if I’m being honest). Did take time to play around with the paints and the camera.
Hope everyone had a wonderful Sunday.
Debauchery Soup 