Phillips art

The Wall Street Journal gets a prize for Art in Economics for their Phillips curve article. Abstract expressionist division, not contemporary realism, alas.

Source: Wall Street Journal

(For the uninitiated: There is supposed to be a stable negatively sloped curve here by which higher inflation comes with lower unemployment. Beyond that correlation, most policy economists read it as cause and effect, higher unemployment begets lower inflation and vice versa. The point of the article is how little reality conforms to that bedrock belief.)

Drawing II

It's strange to think that I took Drawing II a full year ago now. Stranger even that I never photographed my work to share on this blog! As of right now, this class is among the top three classes that I've taken at college. The semester was full of experimentation and just pure fun.

I got to draw, for school, for over six hours each week. And, unlike my Drawing I class, I got to choose a lot of the subject matter and style for the projects!

(I've shared artwork from my Drawing I and 2D Design classes in the past, and will continue to post class work on my blog-- you can easily access those posts here).

Below are just a few of the more finished pieces that I made in the class!

The funny thing about this piece is that it isn't a drawing at all-- it's a painting! I was so excited that my projects no longer had to be charcoal still life drawings.

My professor was an older guy who spoke very, very quietly but was always chock full of helpful advice and artists to study. 

He also had a great sense of just-go-for-it which I appreciated a lot. It's the style of learning that I was accustomed to from homeschooling and teaching myself art. If you don't think something is impossible, you won't be scared away from trying to succeed at it!

This project was supposed to challenge us in handling color. I painted these flowers in india ink without an underdrawing. Then, I reversed the way I would normally handle color-- and colored in the background with watercolors!

Um... so we also had to draw a skull and glue it on a photocopy of an earlier piece of art. Cue flowers with random skull on it. However, I did have fun with doing reversed colors on the skull.

I was really proud of this one. :)

(Even though when I displayed it for a Portfolio Workshop this semester, two different professors dismissed it as "kitchy" and "too cute" and "ridiculous with all those cartoony trees." The professors in the design department can be so much more opinionated and caustic than those in the art department.)

This is a large colored pencil drawing inspired by photos I took of Pike's Peak. It's a gift for my parents; I took the photographs on a family vacation a few years ago.

Every time I see this piece, I don't think about our Colorado vacation-- I think about Genghis Khan!

We were allowed to listen to our headphones during class. Whenever I am brainstorming or sketching, I like to listen to chill instrumental music. When it comes down to the hard work of doing repetitive details like 2,000 tiny trees, though, I become intellectually bored.

This is why audiobooks and podcasts are so great. I listened to the entire Hardcore History podcast about Genghis Khan while making this piece!

I know I've mentioned it once before on my blog, but my new habit of listening to audiobooks has done wonders for my listening comprehension. I'm slightly hard of hearing (that, or I have a difficult time processing audio), and over the past two years I've gotten much better at being able to focus on things I'm listening to. 

This is a two-and-a-half hour study of our little student lounge done in ballpoint pens.

Have mercy on the terribly squished perspective on the chairs. There is no excuse. It's just... there. Drawing from life is hard, my friends.

GUYS I DREW THIS WITH SILVER!

I'm not kidding. This is not done with pencil at all.

I prepped a piece of matboard with rough white wall paint. Then, I bought a small piece of pure silver and inserted it into the body of a ballpoint pen.

The silver scratched the rough painted surface, leaving very light and fine marks behind. After two months, the silver drawing had oxidized to the dark color you see here.

The process is called silverpoint, and it's just one of the many unique techniques that my professor showed us! Artists like Michelangelo used to use silverpoint for sketches, because it was cheaper than pencil lead and less messy than charcoal.

I literally drew Bag End in silver!

This is one of my new favorite techniques, and I'm excited for the chance to do some more illustrations in this style.

It's ridiculously hard to draw babies, especially your very, very little sister whose face looked different in every picture you took. The drawing of "Rose" on the right is much better. 

I still have mixed feelings about this piece, but I was grateful for the chance to work with pencil again. I hadn't had the time to work on a large pencil piece since I had made the From the Dragon Hoard drawing in my junior year of highschool. This drawing is nowhere near that quality, simply because I didn't put twenty-plus hours into it!

Hogwarts! In crazy colors!

Ink line drawings and wild watercolors are my new favorite techniques. I took this class a year ago; since then, this style has been my go-to.

The entire thing was drawn with a real quill pen that my professor made himself!

This is a sample piece from the Day of Drawing Wrinkles in Cloth.

The Disney artist Kent Melton had an exhibit at our university for two weeks. We spent two class periods sitting on the floor of the exhibition room with our sketchbooks. I filled my sketchbook with freehand copies of Kent Melton's beautiful animation sketches.

My roommate snagged this picture of me sitting on the dorm floor drawing. She has so much patience to deal with my crazy art student antics!

I forgot to take a picture of this picture when it was finished. I had completed all of the projects for Drawing II early, and spent the last week of class drawing my friend and her fiance. The final drawing had their name and wedding date calligraphied on it.

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Now, I just need to write up a post about my amazing Metals I class, and then I'll be done with updates about my freshman art classes. The ironic thing is that I am writing this just a couple weeks before I complete my sophmore year of college. 

When I am caught up in projects that take hours and hours of my time, I easily get lost in the small emotions that come with pouring so much energy into the pieces. A year after making these drawings, I have a much better perspective. This is both the blessing and the curse of being an artist; I am always looking for ways to improve, but I am also my own worst critic!

Merry Christmas! | Copper Tannenbaum Ornaments

I write this curled up on the couch, sipping hot holiday spice tea (compliments of Santa), with the Christmas tree lighting the room. Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry is on the couch beside me, and the rest of my family is asleep. This Christmas was beautiful; while we officially began our celebration with Mass on Christmas Eve, we really began Christmas break a few days ago when both my brother and I returned from college and my dad took off work.

A tornado of little children tore through our living room on a mission to create messes. The remainders of a long day are strewn every which way. Instrumental Christmas music is playing and there is the promise of a day of unwinding and cleaning before more family events.

I hope that all of you have had beautiful Christmases, full of family and friends and crazy weird traditions!

My Christmas gift, both to myself and from my parents, is a TORCH!

That's right-- I now have a propane/oxygen little torch that can heat up to, you know, just a couple thousand degrees. I also now have a crockpot labeled "poison" (for heating up pickle, a substance which cleans metal when it is discolored from heat and flux). I can now solder!!!!!

My little sister and I test-ran the torch, my metal stamping set, and my miniature hacksaw to create  these Christmas gifts! These Christmas tree ornaments are handmade from copper and brass.

My eleven-year-old sister cut out the brass banners and stamped the numbers on them. (Can you believe it?!) She requested to be my apprentice over Christmas break, and while she sometimes makes things take forever, on the whole she's actually been very helpful and is becoming quite skilled.

The trees are hand-cut from copper which I etched and then drilled.

Normally I would etch copper with ferric chloride, but I recently ran out and discovered that buying more would be quite expensive. I was using etchant from my grandpa's old PCB etchant kit before. So, I did some research, and my dad and I mixed up an acid bath that is essentially a cupric chloride --> cuprous chloride etchant. So now I also have an apple juice container with bright yellow duct tape that shouts "DANGER: Poison" in thick Sharpie!

Unfortunately I had already etched quite a few pieces of copper by the time I got around to etching the trees and didn't properly reconstitute the solution, so the etch was not very deep. That or my resist came off. I'm not 100% sure what went wrong.

I think that the idea of little handdrawn ornaments comes through nonetheless.

I then soldered the stamped brass banner onto the tree (THAT was a process because I had a difficult time getting the whole copper tree up to temperature).

As you can see, my sister and I had a lot of stamping to do. Each letter is hammered in by hand.

At the very end of the process, we submerged the ornaments in a Liver of Sulfur solution, sanded it down, and sealed the pieces with a spray expoy resin.

Then, we strung glass pearls onto headpins, and made a pearled tree hook from an eye pin!

I am so fascinated by all of these new metalwork processes that I am discovering. :)

My grandparents gifted me a dip pen for calligraphy (and for my upcoming illustration class) so I'll be experimenting with that, too! I've been using a worn-out fountain pen with three nibs since I was eleven or twelve.

But that is not now. Now is time for bed, and visions of sugar plum fairies-- it's almost surreally peaceful tonight.

The Love of Starlight {Painting}

I got started on Tumblr a few months ago (I'm shaylynnann over there), and I've joined the Tolkien Read-Along event, in which a bunch of Tolkien fans got together and are reading The Silmarillion together.

(For those not nerdy enough to know what The Silmarillion is, it is basically the history and mythology of the world that The Lord of the Rings is set in. It's fantastic but something of a difficult read-- it's not a novel!).

On Sunday I had the rare luxury of free time with nothing to do and nothing hanging over my head, shouting deadlines in my ear. I spent the afternoon and evening drawing, inking, and painting this picture!

It is inspired by the Elves and their love of the stars, and features four quotes from the chapters The Silmarillion that we are covering in this week's readalong. 

For lack of a better name, I am calling this The Love of Starlight.

Click "READ MORE" to see the rest of this post-- behind the scene of the artwork, and an explanation of what is going on in the picture.

Fact: I can't EVER listen to anything but calm background music while doing this part of a drawing. It takes too much brainpower.

It's not exactly a secret that 1) I love basically everything Tolkien-related, 2) I love illuminated manuscripts, and 3) I love bright colors and detailed inkwork.

In this first picture, you can see the start of the drawing. Oh, the fun of rulers and compasses. I have to say that it is really nice to sit down and "doodle" a drawing. I know that this really doesn't qualify as a doodle, but I got to approach it with the same mindset. There were no assignment parameters, no specific challenges to meet, no particular story to tell. Just me, the paper, and some quotes from a book.

I've got my sketchbook with my old painting of the Two Trees of Valinor open because I wanted to echo the tree design in the new painting.

Fact: Listening to audiobooks and podcasts during this stage is the BEST.

I ran into some trouble with the inks.

I use an old fountain pen turned dip pen with interchangeable nibs, and the top part of the pen has somehow disappeared, so I just use my pencil extender to hold the nibs in place to write. The problem is that if I get carried away it's easy to pop the nib out of the extender and make the ink bleed everywhere... which it did, twice.

Also, my india ink somehow isn't perfectly waterproof. It was on 90% of the drawing, but on the quote "Even among the radiant flowers..." it bled like crazy when I attempted to paint it yellow. I'm confused.

The finished inking!

Next the watercolors!

I have a bit of a downfall when it comes to colors. I originally wanted the drawing to be mysterious and starlike in muted shades of blues, purples, silvers, and greens.

haha yeah right that was going to happen.

Instead I made a veritable rainbow. I still like the finished project, it's just not like what I originally thought up.

The good news is that I did not overly plan this painting (I sat down to read the chapters, decide what to draw, start, and finish, all in about six hours).

The finished piece! The last touch was to use some really cool shimmer paint that I found in my mom's  old scrapbooking kit. It doesn't show in the scan (the first image in this post), but hopefully the above photograph shows how sparkly, silver-y, and starlike the shimmer paint is.

Oh yes, and I also used masking fluid in order to make the stars. I originally was going to just load some white paint onto a paint brush, bang the brush on the back of my hand, and let it splatter, but then I remembered that I bought masking fluid and never learned to use it. I think I've got the hang of it now, and MAN does it SMELL!

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Now to explain the quotes and symbolism in this painting:

Fan of The Lord of the Rings know that the ancient, mysterious, and wise Elves love starlight. The Elves honor a semi-angelic being called Elbereth. Elbereth is also called Varda. Close readers of the book will recognize these names-- Frodo sings a song or hymn to Elbereth, as do the Elves.

The Silmarillion explains the reasons why the Elves love starlight and Varda so much. The short story is that the Elves came to being before the Sun and Moon were made.

(It helps to keep in mind that Tolkien's work is meant as a type of mythology and creation myth for the world of Arda (the world that contains Middle-Earth).  The Silmarillion seems to draw from old English and Norse and Germanic myths, but with the interesting mix of Tolkien's Catholic worldview flavoring it.)

So, in the beginning, before the Elves and Men were Awakened on Middle-Earth, the Valar (semi-angelic beings of a sort, including Varda) worked on Middle Earth. One of the Valar, Melkor, decided to go off and do his own thing and becomes the Head Honcho Evil Villain Of All Time.

The Valar made great Lamps to light Middle-Earth while they created the land and everything on it according to the plans of Iluvatar. Eventually Melkor destroyed the Lamps and set great Fires raging over the land. The good Valar decided they needed a break and went over to their special island called Valinor, there to wait until the Children of Iluvatar (aka Elves and Men) came into being. Meanwhile Middle-Earth was darkened by Head Honcho Evil Villain Of All Time.

Valinor was lit by the Two Trees of Valinor, which I explained a lot about back when I did a painting of the Two Trees. Basically, the Trees started keeping track of time. One gave off warm light for half a day, the other gave silvery blue light for the other half. The light of these trees was captured in the gemstones called the Silmaril, which caused a bunch of drama and after which The Silmarillion is named. Oh yeah, and the light of the two trees eventually became the Sun and the Moon. 

The Valar eventually learned from Iluvatar that the time for the coming of the Elves was nearing. They were worried about having to go fight Melkor, but decided to wait a while. In the meantime, though...

The Valar named Varda began a great labor, fixing the fires of innumerable bright stars in the sky. She worked for many years to bring light to Middle-Earth.

The Elves were Awakened on Middle Earth by a lake that reflected the light of the stars. They lived there for a time, learning about the world around them and developing language. But there was as yet no Sun or Moon.

When the Elves first appeared on Middle Earth, there was no light besides the light of the stars.

Later, the Valar wanted to keep the Elves safe from Melkor and invited the Elves to go to the Heavenlike island of Valinor. Many of the Elves did go, and were amazed by the beauty of the light given off by the Two Trees. 

Despite the beautiful light of the Trees (and later the light of the Sun and Moon), the Elves never lost their love of starlight and their special devotion to Varda, the Maker of the Stars.

The top of the painting features a quote from Iluvatar (who is basically a sort of allegory for God-- I know that Tolkien didn't like allegories but that's the best way to explain who Iluvatar is). He says:

"It is doom that the Firstborn shall come in the darkness... Great light is for their waning."

(The Firstborn are the Elves). Basically, Iluvatar is letting the Valar know that the Elves will not know the light of the Trees or of the Sun and Moon at the beginning.

The quote at the bottom of the painting reads:

"Varda took the silver dews from the vats of Telperion, and therewith she made new stars."

Telperion was the name of the Tree that gave off silvery light (and later created the light of the Moon). This quote is about her labor making the stars.

The central quote says:

"The eyes of the Quendi beheld first of all the stars of Heaven. Therefore they have ever loved the starlight."

(The Elves called themselves the Quendi). This is pretty self-explanatory.

The quote inside the larger ring needs some more explanation:

"Even among the radiant flowers of the Tree-Lit gardens, they longed still at times to see the stars."

Remember how the Valar invited the Elves to Valinor? And that the Two Trees lived on Valinor? This quote is about how the Elves never lost their love of the starlight.

The design covering the field of stars connecting the center calligraphy to the outer ring is a copy of the heraldic device used on the cover of The Silmarillion.

And the trees in the pictures (the bluish one and the yellowish one) are obviously the Two Trees.

The Silmarillion is very confusing to explain-- just read it to appreciate the beauty! But it was strangely inspirational right when I needed something random to draw. I hope you've liked this lengthly peek into my process!

Tea and Jewelry

In the midst of studying for the four tests I take today (yes you read that correctly!) I was pretty productive this last week! Here's a quick look at my latest projects. :) 

(Also I need help naming posts, apparently. I was going to name it "New Finished Projects" or "Updates" and then decided to be boringly descriptive and name it "Tea and Jewelry"... oh well. Please tell me that other bloggers have this problem, too!)

New in the Sketchbook:

You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.' - C.S.Lewis

I'm working on a series of small sketches and illustrations for the wonderful Regina Doman. It's actually an old project that didn't go anywhere before-- she's bringing it to life! Regina Doman is the author of some wonderful fiction novels (such as the Fairy Tale Novel Retold series) and fellow fans of hers have been very instrumental in my life.

During her travels, Regina will do "Fairy Tale Tea Parties" in which she will give talks and sign books at small tea parties hosted by fans. The illustrations are for a tea party booklet!

This is a work in progress shot from my Instagram account (which y'all should follow for more behind-the-scenes of making art and jewelry) with a couple more of the sketches.

 New in the Shoppe:

Here's a peek at the newest listings in my Shoppe. I made some pieces for custom orders, too.

Bluebell Chainmaille Bracelet-- I'm especially proud of figuring out a brand new chainmaille weave! (Well, brand-new to me!)

Aurora Rhinestone Pearl Earrings -- designed to go along with my Princess Aurora circlets and cuffs

Blue to green ombre chainmaille bracelet

This bracelet took quite a bit longer than most pieces I make using this weave, since it is too tiny! It's more feminine and elegant, and of course I made this with my all-time favorite color pairing: bright, non-tarnish sterling silver, and a huge variety of shiny blues and greens!

Autumn Red flower spray leaf hair clip -- that's a really long name for this piece but at least it's descriptive. 

Here's the same hair clip on a lovely model!

Mint Green chainmaille flower bracelet. I LOVE combining the ultra-modern, sleek look of colorful enameled wire with the historical look of chainmaille and the whimsical fun of my signature leaf flowers!

Golden Galadriel Star Flower Earrings-- with green crystal dangles

Rustic Celtic Copper Cuff

OK, so this one is a bit of a cheat-- it's not a new item in my Shoppe. It's been up for a couple weeks. But during a fantasy-themed photoshoot, I photographed this stunning model wearing the copper cuff from Eowyn's Jewelry Set. The gown was handmade by a friend of mine, and the sword is a replica of Glamdring-- Gandalf's sword from the LotR movies!

Summer Greens Enchanted Forest Earrings. The Enchanted Forest earrings seem to be a favorite-- they are at once elegant and elven. I normally make them in solid colors, but these various shades of green just called to me. Also, can I geek out about this photograph? I don't know how I got the sunray to be "just so" but I'm loving it!