Making things
feeds my brain and my soul.
(Here’s a marvelous jumble of my favorite projects)
First project of 2022 - a stargazer fish bud vase who I have fondly named Leopold. Scroll to see my process!
Sculpted with airdry clay, and now in the drying phase. This stargazer fish will probably take 3-4 days until he's bone dry and cold to the touch.
All dry, and now it's time to seal it! The benefit of airdry clay is that you don't have to fire it in the kiln - you can go straight to waterproofing it with paint.
First swatch of paint on! Am I making a mistake? (50/50 chance)
Poop brown is probably the most accurate description of this initial layer of color (tbh, I'm still unsure of my color choice at this point).
Added low lights, and the fish is about to be viciously paint flecked with a stiff toothbrush.
Here he is, almost done, and I am loving his derpy eyes! Now he just needs a matte finish (and a fancy plant stem to finish the look off).
Here he is in all his glory.
Thanks for looking!
My first attempt at sculpting, and I made a dog lamp out of airdry clay and somehow won Sculpd of the Month! Scroll for my process.
Every idea begins with a sketch. Here's my first one, where I figured out the general idea (and planned for where all the bits would go)
Then, I used some armature (thick, bendy metal wire) to form the skeleton, and padded around it and the electrical wire with aluminum foil. Painter's tape holds it all together.
Here it is, looking... weird?
Starting to layer the clay on thick. Lumptastic!
Here it is after I smoothed it out. The clay has to air dry for about 3 days - you know it's dry when it's white-ish and cold to the touch.
Revisiting my sketch, so I can finalize coloring. This look matched my aesthetic, so off I went!
Now the fun begins - painted on a waterproof sealer, then covered patches of it with painter's tape. and flung paint at it for the splotches!
Removed the painter's tape, and went to town with enormous big bold patches. Screwed in a bulb, plugged it in, and voila!
Procreate on iPad
Procreate on iPad
Procreate on iPad
Procreate on iPad
Hands continuing to be a challenge for me, but I'm working on it!
Procreate on iPad
I took a papier-mâché workshop, and made my dog Thomas, forever chasing a donut.
Sorry papier-mâché Thomas, you'll never reach it.
He definitely loves his donuts.
Fact: A German study has found that cows tend to face magnetic north or south when grazing or resting, regardless of the sun’s position or wind’s direction. (grayscale markers)
Fact: A newborn blue whale calf weighs about as much as 100 men and is 7.5 m long. Each day, a calf nurses enough to fill a bathtub. (grayscale markers)
Fact: A Portuguese man-of-war is actually not a true jellyfish and is not even a single animal. It is a siphonophore, which is an animal made up of a colony of organisms that work together, with this particular breed consisting of 4 separate polyps. (grayscale markers)
Fact: A lion's bite is 30x stronger than the bite of a housecat. They actually have the weakest bite of all the big cats, at 2,000 psi. (The animal with the strongest bite is the Nile crocodile, at 5,000 psi, and myself, when biting into a banh mi). (grayscale markers)
Fact: Three mechanical sharks were made for the movie “Jaws”. They cost almost $225k (almost $1M in today’s currency) and were named “Bruce” - after Spielberg’s lawyer. (grayscale markers)
Fact: Dollars are referred to as “bucks” because in the 18th/19th century, deer and deerskin were a common form of currency. And this is “buck” as opposed to “doe”, a deer, a female deer, and haha now that song is stuck in your head. (grayscale markers)
Fact: Giraffes are so tall that their heads can’t easily reach the ground - they have to splay their front legs outwards in a sort of split in order to drink water. (grayscale markers)
Fact: Fox parents take on nannies to help their pups (because, date nights).
I painted a 6 sided block with acrylics and sprayed it with a matte sealer. This side is my favorite: MYO person/animal!
...and objects on another...
On another side, you can build a house!
...or make shapes on another...
Numbers, anyone?
And finally, letters!
Illustration for Malu (drawn on Procreate)
Illustration for Malu (drawn on Procreate)
Illustration for Malu (drawn on Procreate)
Illustration for Malu (drawn on Procreate)
Illustration for Malu (drawn on Procreate)
Illustration for Malu (drawn on Procreate)
Illustration for Malu (drawn on Procreate)
Illustration for Malu (drawn on Procreate)
Illustration for Malu (drawn on Procreate)
Illustration for Malu (drawn on Procreate)
Illustration for Malu (drawn on Procreate)
Illustration for Malu (drawn on Procreate)
Before I was a product designer, I studied fine jewelry design. This is one of my favorites pieces, 3D sculpted with gold wire and carved gold, and finished with a small diamond.
This one is sans diamond, and shows the 3D quality.
One of my favorite bracelets.
Jewelry design, like any other kind of design, always starts off with a sketch