There’s a House in my Boot!

I never knew spray-foam insulation was so fun... but I had always assumed it was.

This project was actually for a drawing class. The prompt being: draw a shoe but make it *your own*.
So I tried drawing shoes, but I just wasn't inspired. Eventually I started drawing the little-old-lady-who-lives-in-a-shoe's house, and my teacher came over and asked, "You wanna build that?". My brain gears went into overdrive, and I basically planned the whole thing right there where I sat. 
I had never tried it before, but I wanted to use spray-foam insulation to make a blob, and then sculpt it into a shoe. I decided to make a frame out of foam core, and spray the insulation into that. It worked flawlessly.

As expected, the carving result wasn't perfectly smooth, so I ended up paper mache-ing it before adding details and painting it. My teacher ended up adding the shoelace, because for some reason I couldn't think how to lace a shoe.

A project like this would normally take a diligent student two weeks. I was finished in three or so days.
​I went into the art room at every opportunity I had to finish the frame, paper mache it, and paint and detail it. It was one of those projects I wanted to finish, so I didn't stop until I had. The result is all the better for it.

Art Studio in a Van

The main thing I'm scared of when it comes to a mobile anything is the likeliness of a crash. I have yet to even experience one, and still the threat seems so real. 
I'm afraid to invest in renovating a van (not that I even have a license yet), outfitting it with art supplies, and then getting sideswiped by a pickup or smashed by a semi. But... I think it'd be a really awesome van.
The idea would be, rather than traveling and taking these amazing reference pictures, I would simply travel and paint or draw the reference directly. Being able to see everything actually in 3d might make it that much easier to add realism to the artwork. 

There are plenty of mobile studio boxes out there that can magically fold out into a studio, and I think that will be a fantastic temporary solution to my dillema. That doesn't change that it would be the coolest to have the layout of the van be a studio from the get-go. The seat in the middle taken out, replaced by a work station, and the side walls decked with supplies as a start. 
Something about (not that I paint that much) having an easel just built-in to the trunk, rather than being taken out of the trunk and set up, is appealing to me.
Of course I would still take pictures of the places I travel to in this souped-out van. I just think making the art there too would be beyond inspiring.

Disney Mashup w/ @k.steely_the_artist

First off, check out my sister's awesome work on instagram @k.steely_the_artist! I admire her ability to actually follow prompts and not procrastinate things like #inktober.

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I'd love to take full credit for this collaboration idea, but it was truly a joint effort. My whole family is a Disney family for sure. Not necessarily the Disney Channel stuff, or Disney World, but after Disney bought Star Wars, the majority of our viewing has been consolidated onto the one paid platform. 
I'm obsessed with art swaps. Artists don't nearly do enough of them. There's something about not only being able to collaborate with a completely different art style, but also the ability to only start a piece, and not worry about finishing it. I guess the problem comes with people being scared to mess up the other person's piece. That's where collaborations like this, where we both agreed changes were bound to and should be made, are superior. 
The prompt was: Each artist must choose two Disney characters and write them down so as they cannot change it after seeing the other person's picks. The first will be the one you draw a posed sketch for, and the second will be what you try and transform the other person's sketch into using line art and/or color. 
I went easy on myself, and it worked out great. My sister wasn't so lucky. 
My choices were: Gaston from Beauty and the Beast (I can relate to his egotistical personality so well) and Cruella from specifically the best live action movie ever: The 2021 Cruella featuring Emma Stone.
Her choices were: Princess Kida in Atlantis (Yeah I didn't watch the movie either) and Rafiki from the Lion King. 
Yeah. Turning Gaston into a baboon was probably a bit harder than turning a princess into basically a cooler princess. They both turned out amazing though. 

Free Caricaturist

Surely everyone must have seen them. I know I have.
The caricaturists at zoos.
I want to be one.
For free.
Sure, it might take a couple years of learning to draw caricature art, practicing, and getting fast enough to do it on a time crunch with impatient people, but I think it'd be fun! Just picture it. A nice, relaxing day off. What better way to spend it than at a bustling zoo making peoples' days with fun portraits?! 
I asked a classmate if she had ever considered being a free caricaturist. She said no. 
Surely I musn't be the only one. 

Art in Trigonometry

Is math an art form?
When struggling through a completely new concept in Calculus, it surely doesn't seem that way. (Unless you're counting the confused circles and arrows surrounding problems I don't yet understand). 
But in Trigonometry, there was one assignment that was inarguably art. 

Desmos is an online graphing calculator, and graphing calculators, if you aren't aware, are beasts. They're basically phones, as in you can play full levels of geometry dash and mario on these things. On Desmos, it's even fancier, with equation folder features and an infinite range of colors. So of course it makes sense that they hold art competitions. 
When I tell you the art that comes out of these things is insane... you better believe me.
As a small trigonometry class with limited time, however, we did not submit to the Desmos contest. Instead we had an inspired, rubric-guided assignment of creating a drawing on Desmos using certain equations and creativity. 
After originally wanting to make the panda express logo, and diving into the extensive circle copying and pasting, my teacher hinted that my method of overlapping basic shapes wouldn't get me full credit. Soooo I decided to graph my other math teacher's face. The result was magnificent. 
I have a way of making art that translates over to most things I am interested in. I tunnel vision and focus on basically the one thing for an unreasonable amount of time at once. So of course, that means I made this graph over 11 hours on a Saturday. Boy was it worth it. Not only did I get a fantastic grade, but the reaction of my math teacher was priceless. It's not every day your face gets desmos-ified by a student. 
See the graph in full at: www.desmos.com/calculator/lms24npuq7 

Frogs for a Good Cause

Oooh, this was a fun one. 
I moved to a new school my 7th grade year. What better way to spend the first holiday season than making origami frogs and selling them to fund a shoebox for Samaritan's Purse?
If you don't know, these shoeboxes could be the only good gift a kid recieves for the holidays (or even their whole life) in these impoverished communities. 
​Sure, the pricing of the Frogs was more along the lines of "donate whatever you want", but it worked out.
I raised enough money to go to the Dollar Tree as a proud twelve year old and fill a shoebox with toys, a toothbrush, and an origami frog. 
Origami is an art form, and like every art form, it can be used for a cause bigger than ourselves. 

Check out how to make one here: https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Fold-a-Jumping-Frog/

Art Museum Sketching

The visit to the Art Institute of Chicago was a good one. And not because of the art.

As an AP art class, we visited the Institute to see the art... I think. Really who wouldn't pass up on a trip to Chicago. I wrote my name down just excited to ride a train for the first time. 
When zooming through the Museum, trying to absorb all that I could in the time limit, I spotted a cart.
On this cart were pencils, clipboards, papers, erasers, and chairs. Standing next to the cart was an employee. Spread across the room were at least a dozen people. Sketching. Art. At the Art Institute. Sketching the art. 
How could I resist. 
I went and introduced myself, got a stool and supplies, and started searching for something to draw. 
Now this just happened to be a cultural exhibit, and being a bit uncomfortable drawing random deities, I settled for one resembling a pig. There I sat for roughly three hours, drawing a pig. 
People passed by, complimented my work, and one even snapped a picture (after asking), but none were as helpful as the artist. 
Now the artist had gone around to every sketcher, and was giving tips on how to elevate their art. I had waited for a while, hoping she would walk over and give me some tips too, and then she did. 
After politely introducing herself, and asking how much I had drawn before (I had done the artist thing of drawing a billion polygons to show the form before detailing), she asked if I wanted advice. I did.
The 2d drawing was great, she said, if not slightly disproportionate, and when on to share the tips.
The main takeaway though, was the advice about tones. Not music, but the squinting, looking-at-a-pig-sculpture tones. I learned that artists squint not to see the piece better, but to see it worse, or rather, in less detail. They squint to see the values and tones in order to make sure the piece actually lines up to real life. If artists don't use the tones that are really there, they may fall into the amateur trap (as I had) of shading everything simply wrong. The backgrounds of pieces aren't just shaded for the sake of it, but to match the darkness or lightness also backing the reference.
When drawing portraits, it is so much simpler if you have a midtone background, because then you only have to go halfway to meet each extreme. Highlights are white, and dark tones are black, while the rest is already the middle. You can always fall into the issue of some part of your drawing matching the background, but having it non-white is just better.
When shading the background properly, it elevates a piece from 2d to 3d. When you see an apple that seems to pop off the page, it's not just because the apple looks great, but because the shadow is so accurate.
Now that's​ food for thought. 

Hamsters

I have the sudden urge to get another hamster just thinking about Oreo.
Oreo the hamster came home as my big 12th birthday present. I had done my research, got everything ready early, and was super excited for a furry friend. Oreo was perfect. 

It definitely wasn't having a pet that I could pick up that was incredible (I had owned fish before), rather, it was creating things that Oreo could interact with that I found the most impactful. 
I made many a cardboard house, chew toy, and climbing wall for Oreo, and it was beyond rewarding to see her enjoying them. 
Because of the lovely experience I had with Oreo (she died 3 months after we got her and was buried in an oreo minis container in our backyard flower patch), I would say hamsters are one of the more crafty pets to have. Of course, anything in a hamsters cage will be devoured, so my love for hot glue had to be replaced with safe, dissolvable glue paired with the popsicle sticks and cardboard. A huge part of the craftiness is the scale at which something can be built for a hamster. Detail after detail can be added in such small projects, and the hamster will appreciate every bit... and then promptly eat it.
​Make sure to get pictures right when they are first exploring! 

Of course we musn't leave Cocoa out of the hamster talk. Cocoa recieved a lot of pampering, toys, and buildings, but none of the petting Oreo did. In retrospect, I was too friendly too early, when I should have gotten familiar with Cocoa first, as I did with Oreo to start. Too late to realize this, we returned Cocoa to the store, ending my hamster ownership indefinitely. 
When building something for a hamster, just know it will rarely be used the way it's intended. The perfect door can be right there, but the hamster will use the window every time.
I would absolutely recommend a hamster as a pet, but only to people I know wouldn't treat the hamster as a toy, but rather a living creature. Everything I built was for the enjoyment of my hamsters, rather than my own entertainment, and having that mindset is incredibly important for the safety of the animals.