Art « preeety crafty

i’m not dead!

May 1, 2007, 1:18 am
Filed under: ATCs, Art, Blogging, Crafts, Crochet, Knitting, Opinion, Photography, Ripple Blanket, Writing

though i might have led some to believe it…
i just took a break from blogging, cause i was really tired of my posts, them being so dull i bored myself to tears rereading them.
the reason i started blogging was so i’d lose my irrational fear of writing in the first place. it’s strange, because i have all these monologues in my head, and they make a lot of sense, and they are good stuff, but when it comes time to materialize them, through word or verse (yikes!) they don’t come out right. i was told once that the best way to learn to write is to read, but i do that a whole lot, and i mean a whole lot, and still i’m hopeless…
why is that i wonder?
so, as i took this blogging brake, i accomplished many things. and now for a list of them:

i did a lot of work on my ripple blanket. i’m half way through it! hubby loves it too, and thinks it’ll be a great addition to our room. of course he hopes i will bring myself to making the bed every morning, in the need to show off my craftiness. then again, he also hopes i will somehow become immensely rich and support him for life so he doesn’t have to work and can do his research all day (he just got his masters degree on philosophy of education, something about aesthetic education and some guy named schiller who lived in the 17th century – or is it 18th – and habermas and some other people – did i mention he graduated in philosophy? – and i actually understand his work, i just don’t have the heart to bore you to tears, but i’m real proud of you hon!). back to the ripples, they were going strong, and i got a lot done in a week, but my arm started giving me grief, so i laid off of it for a while. but it’s going great! i think i’ll get back to it in a few days.
i’ve taken up knitting seriously. seriously. my arms were in bad shape, but i couldn’t just sit iddle, and i must run from my wardrobe and it’s cry for help, so, after dabbling with the continental method in a scarf or two (every beginner’s project) i took on the mountainous effort of a hat/cap/thing-made-of-wool-that-goes-over-head-on-cold-days (agh!) for my sister-in-law. the only hitch is that i, being a newbie to the world of knitting, well, not exactly a newbie, but a recently converted member of such holy sisterhood, seeing as i first picked up a pair of needles and yarn at my grandmother’s knee by the advanced age of 5, even before i learned my letters, but not having really quite gotten the hang of it till i became proficient on crochet a few months ago, which i also learned at my grandma’s knee at the age of 5 or 6 – oh how i digress!!! see what i meant when i said i am a terrible writer!!! well, to get back to the subject. i made the damn thing too small cause i didn’t swatch it for the gauge, nor for the colours, so i had to frog it a lot because the (pink) colours weren’t working. then i had to frog again because i misread the pattern. and then because the colours weren’t working again. but now, after deciding the ~~hat~~ thing will go to my eleven year old cousin who also loves pink (as well as my 22 year old sister-in-law) so i don’t have to frog all of it and start over, i am almost done. just a couple more rows and a pompom to finish it off! yey!!! i don’t think i’ll get to show you pictures, but the explanation to that will come later.
i’ve joined threadingwater on her new Mother’s Day Project. I’ve been meaning to get back to stitching/embroidery for a while, and i think this will be a good kick-start. she’s looking for help, so hop on over and get to it! i’m also ~~working on~~ thinking of a button for the project, maybe i’ll even get to actually making it!
i did some more ATCs for a newbie ATC swap over at swap-bot. since there wasn’t a real subject to the swap, i was at loose ends, so i started looking through some random images, and picking the ones i liked, and pretty soon there was a common ground between them, so i went with it. i usually make a big picture which i cut down to ATC format. in this case, i turned it into four different ATCs. here they are, and the prints are on their way to TX and IA.

well, that’s that. oh, about the photo thing. i usually borrow my mom’s camera, and that hasn’t been possible lately, so… no photos yet. i will post soon, i promise. maybe this weekend!

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what the f&&**@%$!!!

April 18, 2007, 9:15 pm
Filed under: Amigurumi, Art, Babette Blanket, Blogging, Blogroll, Books, Crafts, Crochet, Current Status, Design, Finished Projects, Granny Square Bag, GrannySquares, Heaven Blanket, Hundred Flower Scarf, Knitting, Life, Matryoshka Doll, Memes & Quizzes, Ongoing Projects, Opinion, Painting, Paper, Photography, Quilting, Ripple Blanket, Sewing, Stool Covers, Thoughts, To-Do, Ultimate Blog Party, Vertical Scrap Blanket, Writing

first, watch this.

now, for the ranting session.

the amazon does produce a lot of oxygen, which it consumes right away.
the territory where amazon is located houses a lot of people. these people are for the greater part brazilian.
the people who are pulling it down are corporate america. yes. that’s right. huge “american” multinationals are taking it over, with the “purpose” of using the land for grazing. cow grazing. know what they do? they pull down all the vegetation. then they put one cow there. leave it for a while, and go on to the next piece of land. taking that same cow, by helicopter, while the ground burns to get rid of the cleanup job. and this is a very poor soil, especially after the burning, so the only thing that grows there is forest, cause they are self sufficient, and the fallen leaves and dead animals make up for the lack of nutritients in the soil. these are the same companies that gave the military money for the coupe d’estate in the 60’s, which led to our state as a military dictatorship from 1964 to 1984, a time when many, many hundreds “mysteriously dissapeared” after being taken by the military. these people were mostly tortured to death and disposed of in unmarked shallow graves. most of them are still missing. the military then went on to start hundreds of projects meant to “bring progress to the country”, but which ended up bankrupting us. and that is still a problem 20 years later. i could go on, but all this information is available, so…
there are minerals and gems and gold and silver and all that more around there. all of it protected. but, if you happen to own the land… need i say more? there is a huge speculation of diamond mines there as well.
not to mention all of the flora and fauna, many of which have tremendous medicinal importance, hence the potential to make pharmaceutical companies even more rich then they are already.

i’m gonna stop for now, but you catch my drift, right? the people who get their hands on that land is gonna such it dry, and make gazillions in the process. and all in the guise of “saving the green”. yeah right!

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robert rauschenberg

April 18, 2007, 3:17 pm
Filed under: Art, Blogging, Crafts, Crochet, Life, Opinion, Painting, Photography, Ripple Blanket, Thoughts, Writing

he’s the guy i think about when i finish a piece of artwork. basically, because i’m using the same technique as him, on a different medium. if you don’t know what the hell i’m talking about, check this. if you still don’t get it, don’t bother. it’s just artist schpiell. and boring, at that. artists are way overrated.

here’s one of his earlier works, the ones i obsessed about in college. and am greatly inspired by. i have a love/adoration thing with pop art. no i will not comment on it, cause my daily 2 hours of computer time are coming up, and i need to go. i’ll leave you with some rauschenberg eye candy.

and just so there’s some crafting done in the craft blog, the ripples are going strong!

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just random randomness

April 16, 2007, 7:42 pm
Filed under: ATCs, Art, Blogging, Crafts, Crochet, Life, Opinion, Paper, Photography, Ripple Blanket, Thoughts, Writing

manda mentions that sometimes she wonders how a former punk can be so influenced by florals. which got me wondering how the hell a former grunge not only gets influenced by florals, but actually crochets?

can you explain that???

i know i don’t.

oh well, another magical mistery.

the ripples go, and go, and go… with all the frogging and destruction, i am once again at the 20% mark, but what the heck, it looks better now, so no regrets. all else is ignored for the moment.

i’ve been unable to get a hold of my mom’s camera these last few weeks, but i wanted to give you guys some eye candy, so i’ll show you my latest artistical attempts, in the form of atcs. these are actually very close to what i was working on before my breakdown last year, back when i called myself an artist (delusion and grandeur and such…), and i’m very proud of myself for gettingback on the horse start producing again. it was over a month ago, but for someone who’s spent the last 18 months running away from anything resembling art supplies, it is a huge step. my former teacher only got stuck for about 6 months when the same happened to her, so that’s about the time she gave me, and when the 6 months came up and i couldn’t even pick up a pencil, she sorta gave up on me. can’t really blame her though. i wouldn’t go back anyway. but, it’s good to be doing something, and here are the results. hope you enjoy them as much as i did when i made them (self critic is high in these parts, which is one of the reasons i had the f^&#%$@ breakdown in the first place, but more on that never).

these are my view on “abstract”, and they are going to my swap partner, over at swap bot. since it seems to be going around like virus over the web, NO, YOU MAY NOT COPY IT!!

btw, it’s a triptic.

preeety abstract 01

preeety abstract 02

preeety abstract 03

7 Comments

photography and me

April 16, 2007, 12:54 pm
Filed under: Art, Painting, Photography

go way, way back. i used to wanna become a photographer, and even tried my hand at it, but life got in the way, and that’s another story. i remember when i was a kid playing at photography using cassette tape cases, the transparent ones. i took some great photos on those!

when i first started blogging, i used to blog other people’s photos that i found on the web, back before i got a flickr account. remember i said i was organizing? well, i did, and these are the photos that survived.

these are experimental, and some from istambul, some between photography and painting, the amazing aurora borealis, more experiment, and some of aliceblue’s great photos, some scotland, suresh’s photos, a post on photography well done, another on some photos, and last but not least, some paintings i like.

good viewing!

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On my head(er)

March 16, 2007, 2:50 am
Filed under: Art, Babette Blanket, Blogging, Blogroll, Crafts, Crochet, Design, Life, Opinion, Painting, Photography, Ripple Blanket, Thoughts, Writing

Futuregirl posted a comment on one of my posts a while ago, concerning, among other things, my header image. As I explained to her,

i had it (the image) on my hard drive for so long, i’ve lost the source. let me explain:
sometimes, while surfing, i come upon things i like, and usually save the pages for further reference (i am more organized now, thanks to del.icio.us, but i had no respect for navigator bookmarks) and sometimes i clean up, and somehow this image ended up alone in a folder, and i couldn’t remember where it’s from! i was hoping someone would, but forgot to post the question (as is my custom. i have the attention span of a goldfish, i prefer them to fruitflys, seeing as how they are kinda gross)
now i remember i had to post this and forgot. so if you know any info on it, please send me;-)

To which she replied,

About your flower header …

The artist is Henry Darger. If you do an image search on google, you will find a lot of his work.

Well, you can say a lot about me, but never that I am not a curious person, so I googled him. And I didn’t find my header there. I admit, there are some striking resemblances, but it’s not Darger. So I got all hot and bothered, determined to find the f&%*#@% thing. And, after googling countless keywords, I found it! I have a great photographic memory, and I can remember sounds pretty well, not conversations, but voices and stuff. I digress.

Anyway, I remembered what it looked like whole, and was able to find it. And here it is:

It’s called Flower Garden, by Gustav Klimt. My third favourite painter of all time (first one being of course colour-wizard Van Gogh, second being the wizard of meaning René Magritte). I actually went to his museum in Viena, and that was a gorgeous experience. So, the mistery of my header image is solved, and we can now all feel better for it.

And, of course, another blanket is coming out of this (for further explanation, view Ripple Blanket, right here on the sidebar – I am lazy, remember?). Maybe I’ll do the Babette Blanket with this palette. See ya!

btw – thanks for all the well wishes, I am better, if not cured. Bye now!

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Ripple Blanket & Other Things

March 5, 2007, 3:37 am
Filed under: Blogging, Blogroll, Crafts, Crochet, Design, Finished Projects, Life, Ongoing Projects, Opinion, Photography, Ripple Blanket, Thoughts, Writing

Today I have come to a decision. Upon reading my very own blog, I have noticed that there are a great deal of small posts written in the same day, so I will from now on strive to maintain the number of posts to 1 per day, on which all the subjects to be addressed shall be contained. (I read Meg Cabot’s A Little Scandal today, which answers to the proper use of The Queen’s English. Fancy that, huh?)

I have also determined to attempt for each post having at least one photo of an Ongoing or Finished Project, to make things a bit more interesting. Considering I don’t really own a camera, that part of the new concocted plan is in abeyance, conditional to my mother’s good will in lending me the use of her own camera, which, if taking place, will do so on week ends. Therefore I beg of you some patience on the subject. I shall attempt to photograph all the projects I have either finished or worked on during the week on Sundays, which is when my dear Mater has the guardianship of my offspring, thus allowing us to make the exchange of goods – one boy for one camera. Now, this is not a particularly good camera we speak of, otherwise I would be tempted to make the arrangement a permanent one. Just pulling your leg there, my baby is precious to myself and his Pater.

So now we shall continue to the actual news.

Sometime ago, I posted on this publication a desire to obtain a certain product, which unfortunately, due to shipping costs, is not available for me. Pease, being the good mate she is, attempted a lift of spirits by stating that I would be able, if sorely tempted, to produce one of my very own. So, I sat on the idea for quite some time, mulling over it, and came up with the following:

and by another angle:

I am perfectly aware of the dreadful condition of the pictures, but that unfortunately cannot be helped. The concoction is quite useful, and very well designed, I might add. The yarn does not escape one’s finger, and neither does it rub said finger raw. The fit is perfect, tied by laces in a most comfortable position, and such laces are in no contact with the skin, thus not abrading the area. Quite nicely done if I say so myself.

On the subject of our estimated Ripple Blanket, I am proud to announce we now have pictures of it’s progress, in quite an excellent quality. The actual process is still at the moment stalled, due to laziness on the maker’s part. The actual purchase of the necessary yarn requires the leaving of the house and a good thirty minute walk up hill, in drenching south american summer sun. Not a very pleasant experience.

I bid you farewell, with the pictures for your viewing pleasure.