Freshman Year -- Drawing 1 Art Dump

Pegasus Carousel Horse

Last fall was my first "real" drawing class!

My junior (or was it sophomore? I am going crazy!) year of high school I took art classes from a local artist who taught from her basement, but she focused on giving me some some challenges and then just letting me have at it while she (and occasionally another student) also worked. I found that very helpful-- I had never before worked on artwork in the same room as someone else working passionately on a piece of art. She was very encouraging and helped me tremendously, but it wasn't a traditionally structured class.

(For new readers: I was classically homeschooled from sixth grade and and absolutely loved my education. I am not the least bit sore about not taking any "real" art classes. There simply weren't any available in our town, and homeschooling gave me the freedom and drive to pursue art in my own time and on my own terms. I spent a good deal of time drawing and painting, but even more time learning artisan crafts like the jewelry that I sell in my Shoppe. This opportunity to start my own business doing the things I love was amazing, even more so because my family has basically zero artistic background and yet my parents still supported me.)

I still don't know how I feel about my first drawing class. Structured art classes are an interesting thing. On one hand, being forced to sit and work continuously for three hours twice a week (plus homework), helped me out of pure brute force. By taking Drawing I and 2D design in the same semester, I spent more dedicated time on artwork than I ever had in the past.

Being able to make art for SCHOOL and not feel guilty about working on art before finishing other homework is the coolest thing ever.

Art classes are held in an old brick food factory a twenty-minute bus ride away from campus. The room was oh-so-lovely and weirdly creativity-inducing in a dilapidated kind of way.

We got to sit at the most uncomfortable wooden art-horse-benches in the world (who the in world came up with the idea of straddling a wide slab of wood while leaning forward to draw on paper which you clamp onto another sheet of wood, which stays still only by magic and lots of muted swearing?). I loved the days when I got to class early and requisitioned an easel and stool. No sore back!


My favorite thing? We were allowed (and encouraged) to wear headphones. I started off just listening to music, but then discovered the joy of audiobooks. It's true that I do have some slight processing issues-- mostly because I'm such a visual person that 90% of my attention goes to what I see and I easily lose track of what I hear. However, I listened to some books that I've read before and the lack of skim-reading and the beautiful narration brought another dimension to the stories.



Drawing I consisted entirely of charcoal still lifes (except for the homework and final) with no pencil underdrawings or anything. By the end of the semester, I felt like screaming:

"I HATE CHARCOAL"

"WHY DID EVERYONE LET ME RIDE THE BUS BACK TO CAMPUS WITH CHARCOAL ON MY FOREHEAD, CHIN, AND NOSE? WHERE IS HERMIONE WHEN YOU NEED HER?"

"WHY THE HECK DOES MY PORTFOLIO CONTAIN ABOUT TWENTY DRAWING OF GOURDS WITH ELEPHANT TRUNKS, SHOES, VASES, AND BOWLING BALLS?"

(Also, don't forget the chairs).

Click "READ MORE" to see the rest of this post!


At first, I desperately wanted to make my own still lifes. But life for an artist looking for a job doesn't consist entirely of making the coolest, most personal art your whole life.

I believe that it is important for an artist to make a distinction between personal work and work work. Personal work is incredibly fulfilling and enjoyable, and you can obsess over it all that you want. Work work can also be fulfilling, but you are (at least in part) catering to someone else's desires, usually with a deadline. Work work needs just as much dedication and attention, but you have to always remember that it is work work. Otherwise, you will drive yourself crazy and feel creatively stifled.


Once I realized that I would not be making any grand masterpieces in that class, I gave myself the freedom to focus on learning everything I could from simply practicing techniques. So I have to draw another anatomically incorrect headless mannequin bust?

Whatever. Let's see if I can focus on perfecting the lighting and making the charcoal blend smoothly. Focus on better contrast.



How much did I actually learn from that class? I'm not sure. The professor was nice enough and gave me some helpful tips. However, she decided to pick me and one other student to be teacher's pet, and that made the class atmosphere a little tense.

I've actually had fellow students tell me that they really want to hate me but I'm too nice for them to do it properly. I can't tell if that's a compliment or some sort of passive aggressive statement, but considering that the people who said it were very friendly and talented themselves I'm taking as a sort of compliment.

One thing that I DON'T miss are the critiques. Every art class I've had with the exception of Drawing II has a weekly or biweekly critique session that lasts an eternity in one second. To quote John Green, some infinities are bigger than others. Art critique infinities are the biggest I know.

Who knows? Maybe once I've graduated and have all those sessions under my belt, I'll actually appreciate what I learned from them. Right now? I'm glad it's summer vacation, as far as critiques are concerned.

This bicycle drawing is my favorite piece from Drawing I! It took a couple of weeks... plus weekends. Unfortunately it looks best close-up. I had some difficulties making it look very cool from a distance. So try pulling the full-size picture up on your moniter if you feel like it. The drawing is quite big like all the pieces from this class. It's 18" x 24" I think.

Here's just a couple more pieces: a really poor self-portrait (I CAN'T DRAW MYSELF) and some sort of taxidermy animal on load from Bass Pro Shops. 

There were many more drawings but for the most part rather boring so I won't bother photographing them all!

Oh, fun fact: This beauty is written above one of the toilets in the art building:

Most of our homework had a weird theme: carousel horses.

Thankfully I really like carousel horses.

I even took my siblings out to a local carousel one weekend I was back home, so I could get some reference photos!

The finals project was to create a super-huge drawing of a carousel-horse hybrid. What did the hybrid have to be? Just about anything. Some of the more interesting ones were a skeleton, a centaur, a flowering vine, and a lamp shade.

I opted for a pegasus.

THIS THING IS HUGE.

(The flash washed out the colors but at least you can see the size).

YES THE WINGS ARE NOT MATHEMATICALLY POSSIBLE. My dad is an engineer and kept pointing it out, but 1) I have no idea how to draw wings to begin with and a huge drawing like this isn't the best start, and 2) the HUGE paper was not huge enough! :)

I did it in chalk pastel (my first chalk pastel work since fourth or fifth grade), and it took ages. I kept having to check out the conference room in my dorm in order to get a table big enough to work at.

Chalk pastel gets EVERYWHERE.

Handy dandy Nupastels, I do love you so.

Finals week for art students is a whiz. Just critiques and picking up graded portfolios. The real terror is the two weeks before finals, when you have to do your finals projects.
I had intended to make this a piece to be hung in my baby sister's part of our parent's room, but it was TOO BIG. Right now it's thrown up on the wall in our TV room (see our awesome projector?).

I'm thinking of taking an X-acto knife an cutting out just the horse and hanging it up in the room that my baby sister and little sister will be sharing in a few months. Part of the wing will have to be cut off but I don't really care. It's not a great masterpiece that I want to preserve for a long time, and I'd like it to be put to use. It's dead creepy in the dark TV room with eerie reflected lights on it at all times.

(Sidenote: Art students don't wear ponches to keep themselves dry during a downpour. They tape their ponchos onto their portfolios to keep their semester's worth of work dry.)

Here's a peek into my sketchbook for Drawing I! Lots of carousel horses, of course!

They were all assignments, so some don't reflect my normal drawing style or subject matter.

One of the most peaceful pages from this sketchbook was actually one that didn't turn out (the ink I used wound up not being waterproof as I thought it was). I got to my Honors English class early-- I always tried to, as it was my all-time favorite class of the fall semester. My professor was one of the nicest people I've never met and made everyone love her even when she assigned multiple giant research papers.

Anyway, I was camped out at my tiny baby thing of a desk, with my Altoids watercolor box and watercolor crayons, drawing, talking with classmates, and having Starbucks for breakfast. Our campus has this thing where you are required to buy a card for the restaurants on campus, none of which are the best, so I found myself splurging on Starbucks a lot so I wouldn't waste the money! (Of course, I always enjoyed the chai tea lattes, too!).



The above drawing was so much fun that I wrote a quick, rambly post about it over on my Tumblr.

Hello, Steampunk Pennyfarthing Mechanical Carousel Horse. I hereby name youKtesibios after a Greek inventor in Ptolemaic Egypt who is considered the “father of pneumatics.” Sorry I have no idea how to pronounce your name, Ktesibois.  [...] I hereby declare that Ktesibois the Steampunk Carousel Horse with Invisible Pegasus Wings is also a time traveler. He is the Time Lord version of a Middle-Earth Mearas.

(you can read the post here)

Fun fact: carousels were invented as a tool to help young squires and knights practice jousting.

Here's a short video tour of the sketchbook:

My class got to be filmed while drawing out mascot (my drawing was from the back of the Bear) and they stuck the camera over my shoulder for quite a while. It's supposed to be featured in the video for incoming students! :)

Below are the "gallery shots" of some pieces from our class section:

Well, this truly was an art DUMP-- lots of stuff here. I spent WAY too long writing this blog post-- but that's what iced chai tea and a quiet evening is for!

So far I've written a blog post about my other freshman fall art class-- 2D Design. As I keep writing posts about my college art classes, you'll be able to see them under the "college art class" tag {link}.

DIY Simple Ear Cuff Tutorial {Video}

Awhile back, I made a picture tutorial on how to make ear cuffs. Amazingly, it has been my most popular blog post to date!

I've had several people write to ask questions about how to do certain steps, and I felt that a video tutorial would probably be helpful!

The video is embedded below, but if you can't get the embedded video to work, here's the link!

Here's the picture tutorial for how to make a simple ear cuff. I also have tutorials on making a swirly ear cuff which can have interchangeable dangles and a double-loop swirl ear cuff!

The Other Ascended Masters

Guy Warren Ballard (1878-1939) and his wife Edna (1886-1971) were photographed in San Francisco in 1938.

Guy Warren Ballard married Edna Anna Wheeler in 1916.  He was employed by Ford Motor Company and she was an accomplished harpist.  They met in 1912 soon after Ballard moved to Chicago.  Upon seeing a gleaming gold harp on display at a music store, he felt impelled to learn more about the instrument.  What happened next is reported in The History of the "I Am" Activity and Saint Germain Foundation: In the Ascended Masters' Words and the Recollections of Those Who Were There (2003).  He was sent to Miss Wheeler's studio on the second floor and a "profound recognition occurred between the two young people."

There are thousands of transcripts of discourses dictated from 'ascended masters' to Guy and Edna Ballard.  Volume III of the 20-volume Saint Germain Series The "I Am" Discourses (1936) is the first book presenting the transcripts.  The 33 discourses in the book were described in the Foreword as having been "dictated over a Visible Light and Sound Ray in our home during 1932 by the Ascended Master Saint Germain and those other Ascended Masters directly concerned with This Activity."  The History reported:

Mrs. Ballard copied down each Discourse in longhand, later completing it in typed form.  The earliest known Discourse was given on June 13, 1932 ("On Visualization"), and was published in The Voice of the "I AM" for April 1936.  These early Discourses, directed to the family and their current Students, were not published until 1985, as Volume 4, Ascended Master Instruction.

On October 3, 1932 at 1:00 p.m., Beloved Saint Germain began the series of thirty-three Discourses on the Word "I AM," published as Volume 3 in 1936, the third of the foundational Books of the "I AM" Teaching.

Here is a transcript excerpt from the April 1936 magazine presenting Saint Germain's June 13, 1932 discourse.

There are thousands in America who recognize a Supreme Presence, which enables a certain amount of energy to flow through and sustain It.  NOW the Conscious Understanding and effort of the "Mighty I AM Presence" has come forth and will sustain It still more powerfully.

In the thought, desire and vision are the Self-sustaining Power, if you can but be conscious of it in your use of them.  In all activity that you start into motion, be always conscious that it is Self-sustained.  Then you give it the Full Action and Power that belong to it.

 
The first two books in the Saint Germain Series are Unveiled Mysteries (1934) and The Magic Presence (1935) by Godfré Ray King (pen name for Guy Ballard).  An Editor's Note for the first book signed by 'Lotus Ray King' (pen name for Edna Ballard) explained:

. . . the material in this book is written in a plain, direct manner with no attempt to conform to artificial literary standards, or outer world authority.

The material in the first two books is simply a record of the author's experiences in the order in which the events occurred, stated as clearly as possible and in words that convey to the reader the feeling of the experiences.

The Foreword by Godfré Ray King further defined the book's scope.

With the exception of Saint Germain, the real names of the Ascended Masters, exact locations, records, and treasure herein described are withheld intentionally—at his command—for reasons that are obvious, because only by the Service of Love and invitation from the Ascended Masters is the right earned to be with them in visible, tangible, living, breathing bodies.

I can record only a part of the events that took place and the instruction I received.

The saying that, "Truth is stranger than fiction," applies to this book.  It is for the reader to accept or reject as he chooses, but the Ascended Masters, whose help I have received, have said to me often:—"The more humanity can accept our 'Presence,' the wider it opens the door for Us to pour greater and greater help to it . . ."

To those who read this work, I wish to say, that these experiences are as real and true as mankind’s existence on this earth today, and that they all occurred during August, September, and October of 1930, upon Mount Shasta, California, U.S.A.

At the beginning of Unveiled Mysteries, King wrote about spending his leisure time investigating a rumor of a local brotherhood of divine men during a government business trip to a town at the foot of Mount Shasta.  During a hike, the author/narrator visited a mountain spring when a young man—"no ordinary person"—filled the hiker’s cup with a creamy liquid.  The drink was reported to have an astonishing taste.

"That which you drank," he explained, "comes directly from the Universal Supply, pure and vivifying as Life Itself, in fact it is Life—Omnipresent Life—for it exists everywhere about us.  It is subject to our conscious control and direction, willingly obedient, when we Love enough, because all the Universe obeys the behest of Love."

 

The stranger spoke about many spiritual truths before his countenance altered to "become the living, breathing, tangible 'Presence' of the Master, Saint Germain, smiling at my astonishment and enjoying my surprise."

 

He stood there before me—a Magnificent Godlike figure—in a white jeweled robe, a Light and Love sparkling in his eyes that revealed and proved the Dominion and Majesty that are his.

 

Germain explained: "We—in the Ascended State—can control the atomic structure of our world as a potter controls his clay.  Every electron and atom in the universe is obedient to our desire and command, because of the God-Power by which we control it and of which we have earned the right to be the Directors."
  

Ballard writing as Godfré Ray King delineated Saint Germain reviewing with the narrator previous lives in other Earth lands.  Saint Germain is quoted: "An Ascended Master may if he choose, revivify or reclothe the individual's record of former activities wherever that person happens to be for the pattern upon which the Master coalesces the atomic structure is always in the aura of that individual.  When the Master reclothes the record of a locality he must do it in the same specific place . . ."

The narrator experienced going forth from the body as the ascended master increased the rate of vibration of the atomic structure in both the mind and body.  

The Godfré Ray King Foreword of The "I AM" Discourses explained:

Only fragments of the real understanding of the "I AM Presence" have been given to the outer world until now.  The Ascended Master, Saint Germain, says: "It is the most important Understanding mankind can ever have; and there is no Freedom nor Perfection for the individual, except through this conscious application."  He considers It of such paramount importance that He dictated more than thirty-three discourses in which he explains what happens in the outer Life of the individual when one says, "I AM."  He also says: "Nothing will bless the individual to so great a degree as the conscious Understanding of this 'Creative Word.'"

The initial series of discourses came forth twice a week through December 29, 1932 when Saint Germain was quoted:

It is so important that the students have the benefit of the manuscripts, that We must discontinue the Instruction until they are completed; for according to their ability to accept that which is illustrated in the manuscripts, will the "Great Judge" determine what shall next be given.

"I AM" is the Intelligent Active Principle within us, the Heart of our Beings, the Heart of the planet and the Heart of the system.

 

The next dictated discourse—when Saint Germain during the Invocation said, "Now I will step aside and let our Beloved Brother speak his heart"—was from Jesus on December 24, 1933.

Following the transition of Guy Ballard from his Earth life on December 29, 1939, the cosmic beings resumed their dictations on January 2, 1944 during his widow's public "I AM" class.

Edna Ballard was quoted from a September 12, 1965 interview with students:

Some people have made the statement that I just say what I feel.  Well, I do nothing of the kind: I both see and hear at the Inner Level, and I have since I was about thirteen years old . . .

The Ascended Masters select the Student!  We do not select the Masters!  And when They selected me, They prepared me for it.  And I have always had to give certain obedience to the Cosmic Law before It would permit the Great Privilege which was mine to come forth, through which the Ascended Master could tell us the truth.

There is no mediumship because my Free Will is in control at all times, and I am fully conscious.  At no time is there any trance state. . . .

A footnote added: "Mrs. Ballard, sometimes pausing for several moments between phrases, other times speaking rapidly, usually stood with her eyes wide open, looking directly at the audience."

In comparison, Guy Ballard was quoted in the October 1936 issue of The Voice of the "I AM" as having said on August 30 the same year in San Francisco:

As Saint Germain flashes his Words to you, before me in Letters of Living Light, I shall repeat Them to you.  I keep my eyes closed, that I may hold a more Powerful Concentration on the Words as They come so rapidly.  So far, I have always been able to convey Them clearly and definitely; and if He speaks words concerning yourselves, will you kindly keep yourselves as receptive as possible, that He may record That Assistance in your consciousness, at least the Radiation, and do for you the Greatest Possible Service.

 
Stenographer Betty Mundy took down the discourses channeled through Edna as had also been done for Guy.  She is acknowledged in the Author's Appreciation for the first edition of The "I AM" Discourses completed in Long Beach, California on July 20, 1935.  She took down in shorthand the ascended masters' dictation as voiced by the Ballards for more than thirty years. 

The early discourses published in the third and fourth volumes of the Saint Germain Series are dated from July 4, 1932 to January 1, 1935.  The following excerpts provide some examples of the ascended masters' statements found in these two books.

The Seven Centers are the Points of Anchorage of the Individualization of God in the physical form.  The pineal gland is the Point of Anchorage and Radiation of the Great Central Sun.

 

When we come to a certain point of achievement in the prevailing activity, we sometimes make contact with Wisdom gained in previous, forgotten experiences; and if there is a necessity, we call that Wisdom forth and use it.  In most instances it is done unknown to the outer consciousness.


Within the Divine Record of every individual there is registered all constructive experience.
 
  
Whenever you see a negative expression by the press, command all the press to be God's Messengers of Right and Truth — for ere long, it will not be a shield or puppet in the hands of politicians.

 

 

Again, I feel I must say how really fortunate the Student is today in having the Assistance of the Mighty Cosmic Christ.  It seems to Me that when the Student really learns this, he will exert everything within his power to harmonize himself within himself, because he knows he has the Assistance of this Mighty Cosmic Presence.

There will yet be a Chamber of Records that will be unsealed, when the New Age has been entered into sufficiently and the Christ Power has gained sufficient Dominion.  This Chamber will reveal another period of civilization's progress, far greater than the one known at present.

The machine to read the Akashic Records will not come forth until humanity is sufficiently evolved to hold to the Christ Presence with no danger of slipping back.

The Truth is that the Great Central Sun is a Presence, a Form, and a Place within the Center of Creation, radiating in all directions.  I assure you It is a very Tangible Place, a Mighty and Tremendous Reality.

The substance that came into form was at one time far denser than now.  The animal element that came through the lower activity, or the conscious lowering to creating for pleasure, caused the creation of the animal form in the atomic structure of the outer world.  In other words, the bodies of animals are the objectification of the thoughts and feelings held in the outer consciousness of human beings when they created simply for the gratification of appetite and pleasure sensation.

The people of today have too much reticence in sharing their experience of the many wondrous things they have received; because of human opinions, in most instances they have held these locked within their own Hearts, lest they should be ridiculed.  When one is consciously with God, moving in His Mighty Presence, why should that one fear what any man might say?

Before fifteen years have passed, you will find the World smaller than ever.  Television and the right aerial transportation will make the World like a great audience chamber.

The reason that flesh food does not belong in the human body is because there is a certain animal quality in the natural structure of the flesh and this automatically acts from its own trained environment of activity.

 

 
The average individual uses about five percent of his or her brain.  When you begin to call forth your Eternal Divine Memory, then the vastness of Infinity is in your grasp.  If you want Conscious Association with the Ascended Masters, this human has to obey.  You have to clean house and not give it its own way under any circumstance.  You have to flay it alive until it does only the Will of the "Mighty I AM Presence."

 

 

The Power of God's Life which beats their hearts is absolute proof that they have the Intelligence and Power of God within them . . .

The question within the mind of all thinking individuals is that certain herbs or remedial agencies have a certain natural chemical action corresponding to the element within the body.  I say to you: What gives or makes the chemical affinity?  The Power of your "I AM" which enables you to think!

Surrounding each individual is a thought-world, created by him or her.  Within this thought-world is the seed, the "Divine Presence," the "I AM," which is the only acting Presence there is in the Universe, and which directs all energy.  This energy can be intensified beyond any limit through the conscious activity of the individual.

It is not your province to judge another, for you do not know the forces playing upon another nor the conditions.

Throughout all ages, there have been business associations, in which there were one or possibly two with the deliberate intent to do wrong; and through this association, a number of individuals absolutely innocent of any wrong intent, have been imprisoned.  I now tell you, as an Unfailing Law that cannot be changed, that the individual or individuals who cause innocent persons to be incarcerated—thus depriving them of their Freedom of action as God intended—will bring that exact experience which they have desired for another into their own experience—even unto the third and fourth embodiment following.

 

If one feels critical, inquisitive, or out of harmony toward a person, place, condition, or thing, it is a sure signal that the outer self is acting and the right attitude is to correct it immediately.  Everyone, especially students, must realize, that they have only one thing to do and that is to feel, see, and be Perfection in their own worlds.

 

It is very easy at times for the student to think that his acts or thoughts are under cover and not known; but to the Ascended Host, there is no act or thought that can be hidden from them; because everything you think or feel is registered in the etheric world about you, as plain as the nose on your face.

 

In the Oriental activity, there was a secret society, in fact it began in China, maintained gloriously in the Light, until the one then in charge at the head of the order, thought in one of the war ravages that his daughter whom he loved so deeply, was killed by an Englishman—which however was not the case; but it brought about the breaking up of the order and the pictures of "Fu Manchu," of which I think there have been four produced, are the picturing of this to the outer world, showing how the "Light" may be distorted by something starting the feeling of revenge.

 
 
Remember, the "I AM Presence" knows all things for all eternity, in all ways past, present and future without limit.

 

Any kind of knowledge or power is absolutely worthless unless used. Those who will apply and enter into the use of the "I AM Presence" with deep feeling, will see and feel within their own Beings, as they again come in contact with other channels of understanding, how transcendent the knowledge of the "I AM Presence" is, in comparison with all other ideas of Truth.

 

There are intriguing parallels and some variations found upon studying the philosophical commentary recorded in the case of the Ballards and comparing it with the earlier case involving H. P. Blavatsky and the transcendental communication of 'masters of wisdom'; and with the contemporary case of JZ Knight channeling ascended master Ramtha; as well as the ongoing case of Brazilian trance channel healer 'John of God' (all topics of previous blog articles).  The metaphysical insights possible for readers of the books providing firsthand testimonials about these cases will find further corroboration as one becomes knowledgeable about still other cases involving what people today refer to as 'paranormal phenomena.'  Previous blog series of articles have included such topics as Edgar Cayce, UFOlogy and contactees, Mark Probert, Rosemary Brown, Leslie Flint, Spiritualism, and 'talking poltergeist' cases.

The Making of Hand Drawn Copper Jewelry

Today I finished listing some new jewelry in my Shoppe that I am honestly very proud of. Making these copper components was one of the most complicated jewelry-making processes I've ever attempted. This was also my first first non-class project with a jeweler's saw (I took a Metals 1 course last semester, which I will be blogging about in two or three days!). Altogether the jewelry took a full workday to complete and photograph.

This isn't a tutorial so much as just an overview of what I did to make these pieces, but if you have any questions about the process feel free to ask in the comments or via email and I can explain in more depth.

(While I occasionally do use store-bought pendants in my jewelry, it's projects like this that make me want to laugh when people ask where I buy all my jewelry parts from. Thankfully I don't because that would be rude, but it's lots of fun to explain the processes!)

I started with a sheet of solid 18 ga copper and drew the designs I wanted to make with Sharpie.

The next step was sawing out all the individual pieces, bit by bit, completely by hand. 

I managed to break three saw blades and then break the fragments which I was still using to saw. I'm not particularly proud of that; my sawing technique needs a lot of help.

The bench pin I am working at is made out of pine. I simply cut out a v-notch and clamped it to my workbench. The yellow and black thing you see on the right of the picture is beeswax. I originally bought it for my pysanky egg-decorating, but it works pretty well for conditioning the saw blades.

At this point the pieces looked like this. (For those who don't get the reference, "OKAY" is an important line in The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. The movie just came out and, of course, my cheeks turned into rivers and the shoulders of my tshirt into overtaxed sponges. The story is so sad and so beautiful.)

Next, I etched the designs.

Sharpie works as a resist, so everywhere that I drew with Sharpie remained raised and everywhere else got eaten away by the Ferric Chloride acid. After soaking the copper in the acid bath I neutralized it in a solution of baking soda and warm water. To be on the safe side, after that, I dusted pure baking soda onto the dried-off copper and rinsed it off.

Copper looks like this after etching. It's not much until you attack it with steel wool.

You can't imagined out relieved and excited I was that this actually worked well!

The raised designs weren't very obvious, so the next step was oxidizing the metal!

I used my metal/leather hole puncher to punch the pieces (so I could string them on thin copper wire so  they wouldn't be so difficult to remove from the acid bath-- I learned that the hard way with the ferric chloride) and, wearing gloves, thoroughly scrubbed the pieces to remove debris and fingerprint oils.

(Fixing a the broken schnozzel for my hole puncher wasn't fun. I mostly bring this up because I love the word schnozzel. SCHNOZZEL.)

Then I prepared a Liver of Sulfur bath. This stuff smells like... well, sulfur. The rotten-egg variety of sulfur scent, to be more accurate. BLECH.

After neutralizing and cleaning, the copper is basically just black. Then I begin the process of very gently brushing with steel wool and polishing with three different grades of sandpaper. After a while, the raised designs are shiny and the recesses are dark brown or black (depending on how long I had them in the LOS).

Next, I filed and then sanded the edges. Sawing metal can create lots of nicks. You definitely don't want them catching on your skin, so I file every single edge. The sanding is to create a smooth, even shine on the surface of the copper.

Some of the pieces required more sawing at this point. The Celtic trinity knot was saw pierced, a process that lets me meticulously cut shapes out of the inside of a metal design. The new edges were filed and sanded, too.

I then used a spray called ProtectaClear (a body-salt resistant resin) to seal the oxidation and ensure that the nice polished raised designs won't naturally oxidize over time.

(Raw copper pieces-- like all of the copper wireworking I've done in the past-- naturally reacts with oxygen and turns dark brown over several months. A gently scrub with vinegar brings back the fresh, shiny copper).

One of the best things about the spray is that is keeps your skin from turning green! The greenness is not actually an allergic reaction, as I was taught growing up. It actually is a chemical reaction very akin to oxidation (the reason that pennies turn brown then green) and is just a buildup of molecules that washes right off the skin with soap. It's never a fun thing to deal with, though, which is why I am so fond of this spray. It's nontoxic, don't worry. :)

I used a dapping block on this small pendent to dome one of the pieces.

I haven't finished it yet but I'm doing another piece that is purely saw work with no etching or oxidizing.

The next several hours were spent doing techniques I am far more familiar with: beading and wireworking.

The results?

This "Mischief Managed" bracelet is inspired by the Marauder's Map in "Harry Potter" and has chainmaille in Gryffindor colors.

The bold, fantasical swirly thing bracelet (I literally can't come up with a nice, catchy, cheesy name for it-- sometimes coming up with names for pieces when listing them is really hard), modelled by my little sister.

 Medieval Swirl Hair Fork-- the front design was inspired by some circular knotwork I saw in some medieval manuscripts I was studying. Yes I do that. Yes it is fun. Some of the artwork in old manuscripts is beyond amazing.

The Fault in Our Stars inspired necklace-- the iconic "OKAY".

Another piece difficult to name-- "Etched Leaf Pendant" which is this cool fern-like leaf design that I use in a lot of my drawings.

Another TFIOS necklace-- "Okay? Okay. Necklace"

Triquetra (or "Trinity Knot") necklace.

I am SO BEYOND EXCITED about this technique, even though it's crazy complicated. The possibilities are well nigh endless!!!!!!!

That being said, what do you think I should make? I am looking for ideas because when I try coming up with ideas on my own I get so many that I can never narrow in and decide and can thus wind up using none of my ideas!