Six-Sentence Saturday 02/02/2013

It is still trippy for me to write 2013 in my dates. I'm not quite over 2012 yet, so I get all confoosled so easily.

However, off to my six sentences!

1.) Good news! I sold my very first Etsy item! That was a thrillsville, Kodak moment. :)

2.) I'm on a Phantom of the Opera kick. I just watched the 25th Anniversary edition, and now I'm listening to the Sarah Brightman/Michael Crawford edition.

3.) Why don't the Phantoms ever laugh like Michael Crawford?

4.) I freakin' LOVE Doctor Eleven! (You might be able to tell that from this post, seeing how many Doctor Eleven gifs I've been posting. :)

5.) I'm also rather fond of Matt Smith himself.

6.) If you liked the tutorials I've done in the past, good news! I have an eBook out through HowExpert on How to Draw Fantasy Art. Take a look here!

That's all for now. Until next time, I shall drink a glass of wine, and bid you adieu!

(Unlike the Doctor, I happen to love a glass of wine now and then. :)

Ta, then, folks! Talk to youse all later. Until Later, have a fabulous day, weekend, and then week. God bless!

Cat

Six-Sentence Saturday 08/13/11

Saturday again, and I've been working with clay! I absolutely love the stuff. Want to see what I made? Do you? Huh?

Well, okay. Hold on. First off:

1.) I LOVE working with clay... it is so relaxing.

2.) I just finished reading The Writer's Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy (which was a combination book of Orson Scott Card's How To Write Science Fiction and Fantasy and The Writer's Complete Fantasy Reference) and it was amazing.

3.) My eyes don't feel so bruised today, but my head still hurts a little bit.

4.) Snickers bars are probably some of my more favourite chocolate bars, along with Almond Joys.

5.) Coffee is my favourite beverage, though tea is nice for evening, along with a little something.

6.) Critiques are fun, but exhausting.


OKAY! On to my little clay man. He's ackshully a gnome. Innee cute? I know, I know! He really is. See all the detail? I love the band on his hat, don't you? I made that out of a strip of brown clay, with "stitches" poked into the surface to give it definition, and I used two flattened balls of crimson-ish clay to create the buttons. It turned out pretty well, didn't it? (Toot toot! That's me, tooting my own horn.)

See, you LIKE him, don't you? I do too. I really love his hat. I used a combination of yellow and "sunset" to get that nice warm multi-colour, and I love the added character it gives him.

I went shopping, see, on Saturday LAST week, and I got myself a clay machine that lets you roll clay out in nice, flat sheets (SO handy) and some clay punch-outs. They sort of look like cookie cutters, 'cept these are teensy and are clay cutters.

You can't see it too well, but on his hat is a cut-out of a little greeny-blue maple leaf. I added little "stitch-marks" to make it look as though it were really fastened to the hat. Cute, eh?

Oh, and this is my secret. This will go no further than you and me, right? See that patch on his pants? Waaaaaal, I ackshully ripped the clay (whooops!) so I had to patch it with a little flattened ball of reddish-brown clay, which I "stitched" most carefully on with my clay tools.

So, that's my little Garden Gnome. I dunno, what should I name him? Root?
I kind of like that. Root, the Garden Gnome.

You can win something like this! Head over to Cat's Mathoms, and enter the contest! You'll be the proud owner of a Cat original, the little Writing Buddy! He's a one-of-a-kind, and so easy to win, too. Just come on down and submit! :)

Saturday - MORE clay!

"Hallo There"

Yes, I have to admit, I have a weakness.

It's clay.

But really, how could I refuse this face? I mean, look at those eyes, that posture, that complete sad cow look? Isn't he adorable!

This little guy came to me at work. I was taking break in between pictures, and I drew a quick diagram of this fella on a piece of scrap paper. I wanted that cock to his head,  that sort of shy helplessness with his front hooves, and that all-around lovableness.

See his cute little bow? I
thought that was a cute
addition.

I'm not entirely sure what to call him. He sort of looks like a Monty to me. What do you think? Thankfully, since I gave him to my mother, who is a cow fanatic, I do not have to worry too much about naming him. I can just gloat.

For this little guy, I used a lump of white clay and mixed it up really good with the leftover clay that I used for my dragon critter previously. It created a really handsome aged white look. I took a lump of clay about the size of an olive, rolled it smooth, then formed it into an elongated teardrop. I pushed the bigger end down on the table, to create a flat surface for him to sit on. :)

Then I took another bit of clay about the size of a smallish marble and rolled it so it was just the teensiest bit oval. I angled it on the thin upper point of his body, and used my sharp clay tool to blend the neck and head together. For his wee bit snout I took a ball of clay that was about the size of a rosary bead and flattened it just the tiniest bit. With my sharp clay tool I blended that into his head, making the little snub-snout look.

Even his back end is cute!

I wanted to make sure he had a suitably round shape, so I worked at the clay for a little at this point, trimming off excess and rolling him in my hands until his upper part was narrow-ish and the "weight" sank mostly to his hips and belly. Then I took and formed a long snake of the white clay for his forelegs, with a small ball of black clay at the tips for his hooves, and smoothed those right onto his front, where it looked like his shoulders would be if he were standing. (Ignore that run-on sentence, 'kay?) Once those were positioned to my satisfaction, I took two balls of white clay, each about the size of a rosary bead, and rolled them out so that there was a snake of clay on one end, and a ball of clay at the other. I took the ball side, flattened it a little, and attached it at an angle to the back end of his body, so that it formed what looked like haunches and a back leg. I smoothed those legs in pretty good, until all the creases were gone. It took a pretty good while, but at last I was satisfied.

How'm I looking?

Once I got all his legs attached, I went to work on his face. For his horns, I mixed together orange and white until I got that nice woody sort of colour. Then I rolled the orange/white into a stubby snake, cut it in two, and rolled the separate snakes until I formed a point at one end of each the snakes. I curled these snakes gently in my hands, and with my sharp clay tool I positioned them on his head, and blended them on. For his eyes, I used my sharp clay tool (remember, I mentioned last time that this was my fav'rite tool!) to gently roll eye sockets into his face, then inserted two minuscule black balls into the sockets for his eyes. I rolled two white bits of clay into very very thin, fine snakes, and used those to form his eyelids. Then I used the sharp clay tool's point to form his nostrils and shape his snout. Next, I took a bit of black clay, flattened it really well, and cut teensy little strips off it. I twisted the strips ever-so-gently in between my fingers so that they made curls, and used my sharp clay tool to position each separate curl on his head, for his hair.

Ta da! Aren't I
aDORable?

After that, I rolled out some white clay into a snake and attached it to his bottom for his tail, and cut little teensy flat white strips of clay, which I twisted and then fastened to the end of the snake to form his tuft. Then I flattened two little balls of white clay into small circles, and pinched one end of the circle closed to fashion his ear. Again using my sharp pointed clay tool, I affixed them to his head under his hair with very careful blending strokes. For the last touch I mixed together crimson and white to create a very pale pink colour, and rolled out a long thin snake of that to tie about his tail, and give him a bow.

Then I baked him at 275 for about 35 minutes. When he came out, he looked just so pleased with himself. My mom was pretty pleased, too. In fact, all my little sisters are placing orders. Jacinta wants a Panda, and I think Annie said something about a puppy. We'll see. For now, there's the cow.

Thanks for stopping by and letting me gloat! I will see you all later.

God bless!

Saturday... LOVE my weekends.

I'm so excited. I got myself some clay, some tools for modeling clay, some inks for antiquing metals, and some liquid clay so I can get started on sculpting. It's terribly thrilling. However, since I haven't been feeling quite the best tonight, I'm waiting until tomorrow to dive in and create. So that's something to look forward to!

You know how you just have those days where all you do is have fun? That's kind of how my day was today. We, my mom and two sisters, drove to town and went to Michaels, Target, Walmart, and Bed Bath and Beyond. It was so much fun. We just did a lot of window shopping and browsing, and I was able to write my poem for the April PAD. (That's Poem-A-Day, for those who don't know what that means. For more information, you can go here: http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/ Join the fun, if you want to!) I also came up with another story idea, and have two poems that I want to edit and submit to different mags. That's in my to-do list in my day planner... or it's going to be soon!

Also, since I feel in a celebrating kind of mood, it feels like Spring out here. Seriously. We had an enormous dump of snow about a week ago, and we got so much that it was impossible to chuck the stuff on the berms. It was too high! Now, seven days later, I'd say a good 1/2 of the snow has melted. That's amazing! We went from about 6 feet to 3 feet in a week. Lovely, and I have to say, FINALLY! Snow is beautiful stuff, but shovelling is probably one of the few forms of exercise that I quite despise. I'm more than happy to see the sunshine.

At the end of the day, there's nothing quite so nice as sitting on the couch with a stuffed animal of sorts, (I know, infantile. But stuffed animals are SO comforting!) and listening to music. Right now, it's "The Secret Garden", a Broadway musical. Very soothing, and relaxing.

Steampunk Jewelry!!

There are days when writing just doesn't do it for me.

I went to Borders today (where else, right?) and found this absolutely fantabulous book called "Steampunkery". It's the COOLEST book! It's a jewelry book, actually, that involves using polymer clays and odds-and-ends to create Steampunk jewelry. Cool, huh?

I spent quite a lot of the day reading how to make Steampunk creations, and just dying to form some clay in my hands. I don't know how many people have actually ever worked with clay, but it's one of the most SOOTHING feelings in the world to fashion that soft, malleable stuff into something lovely. Anyway, this book shows how to create little different things, like metal-looking hearts and jointed, metallic bugs, and to insert cogs and gears into them so that they look to be clockwork jewelry. It's SO COOL! You can make necklaces, brooches, interesting knick-knacks, "pocket protectors", all out of clay and some oddments that you have lying about.

I think, if I ever have oodles of time, I'm going to take up clay. Seriously, you need to check out this book, and the authors website (which I have linked below) and tell me if you are not inspired to create Steampunk jewelry. 

So, that's what I read tonight. I haven't been quite this inspired in a while. :-)

http://www.cforiginals.net/