Stamps!
I love carving them and stamping paper. It’s like a trip back in time to childhood.
My favourite to carve is the Intestine, below, as it has such nice curvy lines which are the best when carving.
Sorry for the exclamation points. I’m addicted to them since Elaine had that outburst on Seinfeld.
Anyhooters, we’ve launched our Kickstarter, here.
Here’s a brief explanation why we’re doing it.
Simmone and Andrew are both passionate makers and teachers.
Simmone is the coordinator at Hands on Brisbane and also teaches many of the workshops helping people learn new skills.
Andrew is a long term electronic tinkerer that creates things like The Asteroid Belt and games for the Uzebox like Tornado 2000. He regularly teaches people how to make electronic things. More to the point, over the years he has taught scores of people how to write computer games.
That is where the Uzebox DTV comes in. The Uzebox itself is an awesome platform for learning to write games on, however many people are intimidated by having to build it themselves. The Uzebox DTV is pre-built, so you can use it immediately, without having to know how to solder. It will help build the Uzebox community, and hopefully can help get YOU involved in writing games, and sharing them with your friends.
I’d be moaning to Andrew, my partner, about wanting a proper upstairs computer for a while. I had a laptop but when I used it for work it always crashed (every 5 minutes, no kidding) and it was a laptop. Andrew found me a Brix on Gumtree and we got that going. Cue setting up a monitor, keyboard, and mouse at the dining table.
I knew I wanted a desk that could slide under the couch so I could go full-on couch potato when working in Inkscape and Fusion360. I find working in these programs a little stressful so I wanted to be able to lean back and relax whilst working.
I showed Andrew a few examples of what I was thinking. We decided on the shape below. To the left is the unpainted desk, to the right the painted finished version.
The top of the desk is varnished Plywood. The legs that slide under the couch have “castor cups” underneath to slide around the floor on. The body of the desk is 50mm by 25mm RHS (Rectangular Hollow Section Steel) painted with some shitty no undercoat paint, not the best choice as it isn’t great quality but it’s good enough for now.
I’ve already got heaps of couch time use out of the desk as well as been watching iView and weaving tutorials.
And the boy loves it too.
Ugh! Taking product photos. It’s one of the biggest challenges of selling online. Each improvement in photos means I want even more improvement next time and then when it’s not working out, well that stinks!
I’d been taking really terrible photos for a while. The colours were off and the products were not clear. See, I’d been sitting somewhere slightly different and didn’t even realise this was the problem until one night just before I went to sleep (and was lamenting my terrible shots and how I might fix them) it came to me, I’d been in the wrong spot! Phew, I’ve changed back to the old spot. The pics still aren’t perfect but I’m working on it!
I first learned to carve stamps from Kay Watanabe in a workshop at Hands On Brisbane. In that workshop I did a very crappy tree and a little mushroom but despite my initially bloody horrible job I did keep at it and started making my own stamps from my own versions of anatomy.
Below are the Kidney, Brain, Uterus, Intestine and Pelvis.
My favourite is without a doubt the Intestine. I’ve even printed onto shrink film and shrunk it down for a brooch and collar clips. I really need to make some of these for myself.
I was looking for something, a hand necklace, to replace one that sold and I found a bunch more brass anatomy. It was re-found, dug back up, surfaced again, something like that.
So I’m thinking I at least have to add a kidney and a brain into this mix.
These brass pieces were all made 2-5 years ago, nothing too recent and they are done batches of 5-10 at a time. The process is fairly involved and the etching part is done in a spray etcher, made by my partner.
The only piece of the collection I have kept for myself is the skull. Maybe next go around I’ll keep a hand and a ribs…
It’s almost half way through February and I’m still plugging away on replacing anatomy that sold before Christmas as well as recently sold bits and pieces. Lots of hand sewing in front of the TV to keep my eyes all good, even though I recently got glasses.
I’m currently addicted to Pretty Little Liars which my sister loaned me. I’ll start season 5 next week to see what happens with Alison being back. I read that PLL is like “I Know What You Did Last Summer” meets “Gossip Girl.” I never watched Gossip Girl but my Mum loves IKWYDLS so have seen that so many times. Although I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s quite like IKWYDLS it is a very addictive mystery with lots of weird story arcs that leave you going WTF?!
Below-Brass Ribs Necklace, Brain brooch and Lungs Brooch
Hands On Brisbane are always announcing new workshops, or working on new workshops. The facilitators are always working with new techniques to be able to bring new workshops to us. This is part of what makes my job so rewarding, I get to sit in and learn new techniques as well as the students. This means I can help with the workshop next time and learn a new technique to take home and work with. Most recently I sat in on Simple Journal Making and picked up techniques to make little notebooks, one is shown below.
This week I am putting together the new season and trying to figure out what workshops we want to see next time. Any ideas?
One of the most interesting workshops for May is this one Bespoke Jewellery Making where we use Milk bottle, stamps and resin to make unique jewellery.
I’m also looking forward to seeing what works the student make in Relief Printmaking. It is so fun seeing other people create art in 2 hours!
Paper and fabric notebook with a grain weevil stamp cover.
I’ve been wanting to try out some drawn threadwork techniques for a while and finally got around to it this afternoon.
This is my first piece of threadwork and I think my eyes are going to fall out. It’s not very neat but is a little bit charming how it is.
I also tried Hardanger embroidery and Cutwork embroidery . They need much more practice to get them neat. What a mess! I also need a new pair of embroidery scissors which I will grab tomorrow during Easter spotlight and Lincraft sales.
Hands On Brisbane is my day job and we’ve recently launched our 2015 schedule. It is sitting at only a few workshops but there is more to come.
I’m looking forward to making a journal and seeing what people come up with in ceramic decoration and Japanese tissue transfer.
Your Organ Grinder 