Wisconsin: Art, Crafts, Shooting, & Beer!

My time in Wisconsin has continued to be entertaining, and also fairly uneventful, a relief after some of the “interesting” times I’ve been through lately. I’ve been taking this week as a good chance to re-group after Pennsic, rest, work on some projects, and I’ve also been doing some “real work” and am learning some new digital art skills.

As many of you know, I show some of my artwork at science fiction and fantasy conventions. They are a fun place to display (but usually not sell) some of the more interesting and obscure things I create. I also have started doing prints of some of my 2D work, and that’s actually where I actually make a little bit of my money back, selling cards and the occasional larger print. Recently I’ve been inspired to start some new projects, and one of my goals is to become proficient at creating digital paintings and art. I’ve just started in on the learning, and while in Wisconsin I’ve been borrowing my friend Ursula’s Wacom Bamboo tablet to use along with my copy of photoshop. My first totally digital piece is still in progress, but here is a sample of what is on its way:

Of course this means I need to get my own tablet before too long, and preferably a Wacom Intuos. And at some point I may pony up for a new copy of photoshop. And a new computer that can handle all of the digital editing. Weeee. But for now… learning!

The other projects I’ve been working on include a fourteenth century fitted dress that I’ve had partially done for a while now. I’m currently trying to complete the arduous task of making and sewing on a gazillion buttons and the button holes to go with them. I have all of the buttons on one sleeve done, and am almost done with the button holes on that side.

One of my hosts, Brian, helped me with another project, making a sheath for the cute little carving knife I got at Pennsic. This is my first time making a knife sheath, and it’s still drying in shape (hence the wrap around the knife in the picture), but I’m really looking forward to when it’s done and I can play with it!

And there was shooting! Brian also took me to his local shooting range where I fired a gun for the first time since I was a teen. It was great! Now I just need some more excuses to go shooting back home.

Let’s not forget the other element of relaxation: beer. After making good art, and blowing stuff up, some nice micro-brews are definitely a good way to top off the night. The beer pictured below was quite tasty along with the brownies we made last night. Plus, it is made by Valkyrie brewery, and since Valkyrie is the name of my apprentice, I just couldn't pass it up.

EDITED TO ADD:

I totally forgot! I also had my first fish fry! This tradition is apparently a staple of the upper mid-west. Everyone goes out on Friday and partakes of fried fish! Since Ursula and Brian had yet to experience this, we did a google search for the best fish fry in Eau Claire, and settled on an option. A deceivingly seedy looking establishment of drink which was already known to serve great burgers, so we had hopes for their fish. Apparently other people share the opinion that this place (the Court-N-House) serves edible food, because when we got there it was standing room only. We got a seat maybe 20 min after we got there (though a waitress took our order right away), and then our fish came. It was pretty frikkin' good! Nice thick chunks, tender and moist inside, crispy on the outside, served with fairly tasty coleslaw and nice crispy waffle fries. We are counting it a win!

And tonight at dinner we had some more brews from the multi-pack we got from Valkyrie Brewery:

The entertainingly named "Dragon Blade," behind a locally made brat, with Brian photo-bombing in the background. :)

Additional local brews we've been experiencing. 

New Art! And Cats...

Ok, here they are, what I know you all must have been waiting for, new original artwork!!! There will be both the originals and prints available at Orycon on the weekend of Nov 2-4, in Portland, Oregon. After that I'll have prints up for sale in my etsy store, vandycraft. Here are some pictures of artwork along with their inspirations:

Art!

I keep putting off blogging and I keep saying I’m going to do it… so here I go!

Eventually I plan on transferring my art blog to my website which will be getting a facelift soon: www.vandyhall.com. But for now, it can exist here, even though all of my past entries are terribly out of date.

Here are a couple pictures of a project I’ve been working on recently. It’s mostly done, and I went ahead and photographed it since I needed photos to apply for some scholarships. Allthat’s left to do is to sand blast some imagery and text on the glass vessel. Well, and disassemble and reassemble it of course. And take more pictures. It will be interesting to see how differently I arrange the contents of the glass once there is imagery on it. I originally planned on filling a lot more empty space with images rather than objects or texture. I may risk over doing things at this point, but hey, I have pictures of it now and can rearrange the contents as much as I need to in order to make it work after I do the sand blasting, so it can keep evolving as a work of art.

One of the things I’d like to eventually spend more time blogging about are interesting materials I try out. In the above project I made great use of an interesting two part epoxy resin produced by tap plastics. It’s a two part putty that you knead together and then model like clay. I shaped it over wire armatures. I have several other projects in mind with it and will try to remember to take some in progress pictures. And to actually look up the name of the stuff. One thing I was VERY impressed with was the fact that it was still good. My dad bought me a couple gallon buckets of the stuff as a Christmas present six or seven years ago and it was supposed to have a one year shelf life and it was almost as soft as when I first opened it when I dug it out for this project. At any rate, I promise to come back to this subject with more facts. But TAP Plastics, a seriously cool place!

In addition to making stuff I’m attempting to actually set some goals for myself and get off my butt and send in entries to shows again. I realized a little while ago that I’ve become incredibly lazy when it comes to shows. I’ve pretty much only done the shows that have fallen into my lap in the last several years. Most of my recent work has been commission based and craft or theme driven. But I’ve been really wanting to do more Art. A good way to make this a priority is to make doing more shows a priority. And I actually have some new stuff, probably enough to do a two or three man show even. I was reading a metal art blog where the artist was writing about having a goal of applying to a minimum of 24 shows a year. That seems like both so little and so many all at once. But it also seems like a good goal for me. So I spent some time last night looking through calls for artists and have five on my list so far as possibilities to submit for and am going to keep it up. I’m hoping that writing this stuff in a public forum will also help me live up to my goals…

Well that is plenty for today. I’m spending this weekend working on finishing up a wedding present and the wedding is tomorrow. You know I’ll be doing finishing working until the wee hours in the morning, because that’s how we work, so it’s back to the grind stone for me and I promise pictures after the lucky couple receive their gifts!