Thursday, January 5, 2012

More Whimsy

Side by side...we wandered around the yard deciding where the third outdoor (I have my first one in the living room) totem should go and in the end we decided side by side. I am pretty sure that I need one more short one to round out these two, but I am going to refrain from mentioning that quite yet.




Here is another shot of the veranda totem with the sun glistening behind it.



Yesterday was a breakthrough day with illustrator. The one that took me from constantly anxious, to I may actually be getting this.
In the beginning Rachel sat with me an entire day and I have my notes and it was instrumental in me getting started, but at the time I didn't know what I didn't know, so I missed asking things that would have been useful. Sometimes you need to wait until you are further along the learning curve to take on extra bits of knowledge. Yesterday two different bead illustrators came to my rescue with pertinent knowledge and made a huge leap in my learning curve.

And then I accidentally discovered the eraser tool on my wacom tablet pen when I had inadvertently turned it upside down and started to draw. That was a fun moment.

After that I decided to play with 3 d a bit and here is a pretty good jumping I drew. I had drawn another before I discovered the scissors and join anchor point tools, and I had to improvise for the split, then I redrew it with my new knowledge. Which creates the dilemma....Am I going to go change out all the jump rings I already drew?



and then colored in blue, an excellent rendition of an anodized aluminum ring.



Days like this with illustrator are fun, although I know I will still run into frustration with my efforts, I see progress and that is a very good thing.

6 comments:

Helen said...

Beautiful - they look great together. I think they are waiting for a smaller friend to join them....heheheh.
They remind me a little of some of Dale Chihuly's smaller garden sculptures.
Thanks for sharing.

Terry from Alaska said...

With the wonderful weather you have why not invest in garden ornamentation-as bead artists it is in our genes to embellish.

ChrisD said...

One of the things with learning is that we are at the edge of our comfort zone so it's hard when there are other stresses too (like deadlines and wanting perfection). As you say it's only when you come to apply something that we realise what we don't yet know!

As a (fairly) new beader I've had to tell myself to jump in knowing that I'll make mistakes and learn from them. What I've found so often is that I know where the mistakes are but other people don't notice them because they see the piece as a whole. Will others notice if you use two versions of the jump ring drawing? Probably not. They will simply see the beauty of the book as a whole.

Good luck Marcia. I'm looking forward to seeing the books

Unknown said...

I love the totems! It is so good to see that even an artist like you can show how things can be difficult to understand and how you find your way out of it.

GreenDotCreations said...

These are trully lovely! I could easily have adorned a spot in my garden with such beautiful sculptures! Very good job, well done!!

Tycialk said...

Love the totems! They remind of something from the Wizard of Oz, which was a favorite from my childhood. I read where the last "munckin" died the other day. By the way, I did not mean that in the wrong way but as the character.