Juice by Abby

Two New Necklaces

2006-08-06T12:02:00.000-04:00

I've been making jewelry for the bead store I work at all summer, and finally got around to making stuff for myself. I'm planning on taking pictures of everything I've made and posting them. The first is faceted Czech Glass with silver lined bugle beads. The second is blue blister pearls and frosted Czech Glass.

B&W Self Portrait

2006-08-04T19:03:00.001-04:00

The Inspire Me Thursday challenge this week is Black and White, and I still wanted to play with ArtRage, so I used their "blackboard" preset canvas and black and white chalk and this is what came out. My hand is tired from holding up a handmirror, yeah.
I'm still not used to drawing with it, and it's a little weird feeling, so this is not what I pictured in my head... but good practice anyway.
It's only Friday, so I have the rest of the week, and I want to play some more with the black and white theme. I'm thinking real, tangible art, something in the way of a sassy collage?

Twinkle

2006-08-01T22:34:00.000-04:00

My response to the Inspire Me Thursday Music challenge. I used a similar method to the one I did to create this piece. The song is "Twinkle" by Tori Amos.
I did this in ArtRage 2, using the airbrush, layers, and eraser tools to simulate scratch art! I wanted my OWN color scheme, though, no black-and-neons this time.

Digital Shenanigans

2006-08-01T09:50:00.000-04:00

My new (borrowed) toys these past few days have been a Wacom graphics tablet and a copy of ArtRage 2. SO much fun.
I've been really resistant to digital art since... forever. Artmaking for me is such a tactile experience and the whole "paint can cyan here" just doesn't do it for me. This program is a little better about reproducing the "real" artmaking experience, except that I have unlimited supplies and no cleanup.
I will have to master pen control, because it doesn't feel like drawing and you're not looking at where your hand is going but a screen.
I will also have to get over the urge to dump virtual glitter all over everything.
And drop the obvious color schemes, but... all in good time.

Child's Play?

2006-07-24T23:46:00.000-04:00

This week's Inspire Me Thursday challenge is Child's Play. I immediately thought of my favorite toy as a child, which was basically a 2-D Barbie Dill on a hinge with the clothes shapes cut out. You could then sandwich fabric pieces in between the two plastic parts, so if you put in polka dot fabric and closed it, the girl would be wearing a polka dot dress. Since my mom made quilts, I had an endless supply of fabric to play with.
So I cut templates out of cardstock and got to work. I found that I wasn't just evoking the experience of playing with the toy but I was actually doing the same exact thing with different materials. There are two origami papers in here, the rest is textures cut from magazines. Working with found textures is one of my favorite things to do, and I wonder if that has anything to do with playing with this toy.
So right now I have these cards, and I am not sure what to do with them. I made them with the intention of arranging them in a "design-ey" grid as in the picture, but that just doesn't do it justice. Any suggestions?

Primavera

2006-07-12T20:33:00.000-04:00

I was inspired to paint a base for some sort of desert scene while reading Primavera by Francesca Lia Block, in which the title character can make all kinds of flowers grow in the desert just by singing. I didn't feel my desert was ready for flowers or anything else at the time.
Then this week's Inspire Me Thursday challenge came up. I thought to myself, gee, self, I wish I had the materials to do the image transfer. A few days later, instructions for making image transfers with sticky tape came up, and my desert paradise was born.
I like how it is random and eclectic, but it is nothing like what I had originally imagined. Then again, what I had originally imagined was paralyzing or I would have filled up the desert in the first place. I may come back to it and add more, I may not.

Skyline Part Two

2006-07-08T18:35:00.000-04:00

I painted this a year ago when I was overwhelmed and excited about moving to New York City. Acrylic and pen on canvas.
I am a little bit disappointed with how the picture came out- I'm blaming it on camera flash. The backgrount is not a gradient in real life and the center detail is not so... icky. There's actually some cool painterly strokes in all of this and it was entirely washed out. I'll have to go draft a photographer.

Skyline: You Said Something

2006-07-07T21:35:00.000-04:00

I was reading Artist's Sketchbook magazine, and it had a how-to article about painting to music. One of the songs that has been particularly important to me lately is "You Said Something" by P.J. Harvey. I painted this while listening to the song over and over for about 15 minutes.