Pleat-Love

An out-of-the-blue illustration opportunity arose last week which is taking me away from my personal projects for now. It's a more "fashionista" job, referred to me by some fashion illustration clients from a few years ago - so I'm in a fashion-y mood. And when I'm in a fashion-y mood a few clothing elements dominate my favorites list. First of these is pleats. I love pleats. They must be handled with such skill and trained with utmost care and when they are treated with respect, perform amazing visual and tactile stunts.

Inside my disorder

I have been fighting a losing battle with my ancient camera. Thanks to House of Trouble's modest revenues, however, I now have a shiny, new, tiny, awesome, RED camera on the way. I will soon begin posting progress on personal projects.

In the meantime, I've been wanting to post some original work; my last few posts have been just visual meanderings around the web. I needed something that would scan decently and thought my personal art journal might work nicely.

So here's a sampling of where my creative process starts. I was rather surprised, myself, at how much writing I do. I have to be careful about sketching ideas - I unwittingly end up doing the best version the first time I put it down and then can't recreate it satisfactorily in better materials. Too many of my favorite sketches are on the backs of bulletins and work memos. So I describe my ideas to myself in my journal.

I tried to cover up the most personal stuff, for my own sake. If you're afraid of TMI, may I suggest not zooming in.

Have a bizarre day!
Catherine

A Little Something to Make Your Day More Bizarre

Found via one of my favorite blogs, Dark Roasted Blend and right in line with my general train of imaginary wanderings this week.

Animation Meditation

I have been thwarted at every turn artistically this week. The congestion in my ear and head have conspired to keep me napping despite some very inspiring ideas. I find this ridiculously frustrating. Time for a little calming therapy. Enjoy "The Merry Circus" by papercut artist Jiri Trnka

Already behind on posting . . . . I do have a legitimate excuse, though. Bit o' cold brought on by too many late nights with an old friend over the weekend. Some Etsy orders have been coming in this week - this a relief since I thought my shop had been entirely forgotten in cyberspace! Here's a few things I've been musing on this week; have been on a bit of a carnival-kick lately. Hope to post some updates on my work soon.

From top to bottom:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/photogalleries/sea-animals/photo5.html
http://www.madphotoworld.com/2008/04/circus-arena-at-night.html
http://www.anthropologie.com/ - gladiator bird, raven
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sfduggan/62199231/

A Project That Can Travel

This originally began as a piece to submit to The Sketchbook Project http://www.arthousecoop.com/events/5-the-sketchbook-project. Essentially, Art House Cooperative sent each participating artist a tiny moleskin sketchbook, a theme and some very minimal boundaries, and in return the artists made artwork out of the sketchbooks and submitted them to the show to tour around the country. I didn't make the deadline for submission and rather regret it. We won't get into my lack of discipline today.

The up-side is that this is the perfect purse-size project. It is more focused than my art-journal (another sketchbook I tend to keep with me at all times) but less bulky. I'm sticking to silhouettes and drawings in ink, embossings and paper embroidering. So, depending on the page I'm completing, I can throw in either my pigment pens, my embroidery floss and needle, or my mini embossing tools.

At present, I'm only working on silhouettes so it's my pigment pens going for a ride in the purse. I'm not as big a fan of these Staedtler pens as I am of Pigma Micron pens, but these came in a nifty case. I'm a sucker for nifty cases.

The theme for the show was "Everyone we know . . . " Here's a sampling of the parts I've finished or begun. More pics posted as I fill more of the book. Would love to hear your thoughts on them.

Thanks for rambling by!

Adventures in Daydreaming

Alexander McQueen from 2006, some lovely hand-tooled book covers, and a wonderfully mono-chromatic medieval illumination. These are the elements inspiring me this week.