Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
We seem to be in some kind of local hot spot for wolf spiders–you know, big, hairy, brown and tan stripes, five-inch leg span, quite fast but shy. Now I am happy to live and let live with them–having one in your house is kind of like having an eight-legged Terminator that targets nastier things like roaches and centipedes. (Don’t get me started on the local centipedes.) But I sure wish they weren’t the same color as our carpet. The other night I could have sworn a particularly large specimen was following me around. Go down the hall to the bathroom, flip on the light . . . motionless wolf spider in the middle of the floor. Detour around spider. Back up the hall to the kitchen, fix dinner, head back out to the living room . . . nearly step on wolf spider, which pulls back four legs in an “oh EEK!” gesture. Detour around spider. Fifteen minutes later in hallway, spot scurrying brown thing. At that point I stopped and informed the spider that if I found it on my pillow later, there would be a serious Incident.
I know things didn’t work out the way you wanted them to, and it’s totally understandable that you’d feel down in the dumps now. It’s OK to grieve some for the hope that didn’t work out. But you still have a lot to be proud of. You got out there, took a leap of faith, and changed your career field for something that’s better for you. And the doctors and the patients loved you, so job or no job, you succeeded! You proved that you were right, that this is a field that suits you and that you perform strongly in. Nothing on this earth can take that achievement away from you.
Too old to change? Hardly! You just completed a two-year program that was all about change. The gal now learning how to handle a samurai sword is NEVER too old for or afraid of change.
You’ve cleared the biggest hurdle of all, which was completing your schooling and getting your certificate. You found something that matches what you want to do with your life. Hang in there and don’t let go of that dream. The road may take some odd twists and turns, but so long as you keep after your dream it will eventually lead you back to it.
I wasn’t even a blip on the radar when the moon landing was made, but as a young wild-eyed space nut I read everything I could get my hands on about that mission. I still consider the moon landing to be one of the greatest achievements of modern times. Those astronauts had incredible courage: I mean, think about it, they went to the moon in what today looks more like a Model T Ford than a spaceship. Sure, it was the best technology of the time, but the margin for error was so small and they knew it. But they went anyway, and they succeeded.
Wow! I wish I hadn’t missed this thread earlier, but it has been a delight to read through it and watch Bugger develop from a twinkle in the eye to gorgeous, in-full-color completion! He looks particularly fine in his Siamese and Goby suits, and I am in awe of the paint job OpalDragon gave him. What a marvellous little fellow you’ve created, Robin! 😀
Lawsey. 🙁 I’ve been away from the Forum too long–I hadn’t realized what you were going through was so severe! I’m really sorry to hear it.
It sounds like they are slowly chipping away at the list of possibilities. I wish it were not such a gradual process–it’s hard to be in limbo, not knowing what is causing you so much grief–but unfortunately the digestive tract can be like that. It only knows how to do a few things to signal that it’s unhappy: cramp, throw up, and diarrhea. That’s not much of a vocabulary, and it can get frustrating trying to figure out why it’s teed off. Especially since it can be upset because of so many things: food allergy, infection, the neighbors acting up (gall bladder, pancreas, liver), or a long-distance argument with some other system (endocrine disease).
It’s good that you’re keeping a log of symptoms: finding the patterns can be essential to nailing down the cause. I sure hope that they figure out some solutions soon! Hang in there.
:jawdrop: PINK dragons? Oh, by all means practice on them! They can only benefit from some different colors. I know there are folks on the Forum who love pink, and even pink on dragons, but for me pink has always been the color of That Horrible Dress my mom spent years trying to guilt me into wearing. It was the color of Pepto-Bismol, hung like a sack, and made the wearer look like a giant naked mole-rat. Geh. 😐
You’re very welcome! I’m glad that you’re looking into painting. I agonized over my first PYO (a Muse) for days, then spent a couple of weeks painting her, and to my surprise she actually turned out pretty good. It was hard to take the plunge on the next PYO, though, and I would have been a lot happier if I could have done more practicing. I still have two started griffins that are in the “oh my gosh this is ugly” stage that I haven’t gotten back to yet! But one of these days I’ll figure out how to continue them. (Griffins can be a tricky piece to paint. I recommend the small dragon for a starter, after the Muse.)
The trial and error thing really does work, with painting. My inner critic is a real picky-pants, but I’m learning how to put a muzzle on her. Every PYO I’ve done so far is like a baby parrot: it goes through the “AAAGH UGLY!” stage, and eventually it grows through it and starts looking nice. Despite the “growing pains,” I really enjoy painting PYOs. I hope you do too! 🙂
Bayoudragon did the most wonderful repaint of a resin dragon that’s wound around a clock face. It looks AMAZING! Here’s the page: http://windstoneeditions.com/forum/show-your-colletion-thread-6?page=6
The piece was originally one of those black-and-gray resin items. According to the post, it was painted using Golden fluid acrylics and a dry-brushing technique. I am thinking that it might also be possible to repaint something like this using glazes over the original with no basecoat, or possibly some antiquing and highlights of pale gray first to accentuate the shadows and highlights of the piece before glazing.
The nicest thing about those resin pieces is that they’re relatively cheap and highly detailed, so they’re very good for dry-brushing practice. Some of the dragons are just plug-ugly, though, and it can be difficult to find one that looks nice. The one Bayou chose for repainting is one of the finest I’ve seen. There are some nice resin dragon lamp sconces out there, and a handsome mantelpiece clock with a dragon wrapped around it. There are also some great dragon bookends; I’m gearing up to try repainting a set sometime this month.
If you can’t find resin dragons in stores, or if they’re too expensive, try looking on Amazon under “dragon statue” (search All categories). You’ll get about three thousand hits, but the gray resin dragons will be in the first hundred or so. You can also check eBay. I’ve had good luck on both sites when looking for these.
Another option is to work your design in layers using thinned paint. I haven’t done a piece in tiger stripes yet, but I’ve done several with banded feathers or edging on the scales. It is always a big leap of faith to hold a loaded brush over your basecoated piece and say, “OK, here goes, gonna do some edging!” The nice thing about using thinned paint is that you can develop the look gradually, and if it starts doing something you don’t like it’s a lot easier to fix it. Once you’ve got the stripes the way you want, you can tidy up any bobbles on the edges of things using thicker paint.
Or if you want stripes with really clean edges, you can plot out where you want the stripes to go using thinned paint, and when you like what you see, use thicker paint to “ink in” the design. I don’t have a steady enough hand for this technique; I can’t get past the habit of “sketching”! But this is where practice, practice, practice would probably fix that problem I have.
Practice helps with everything. The Muse makes a great practice piece, especially for dry-brushing. I’ve looked for little figurines to practice-paint, but haven’t had much luck finding anything other than poorly-detailed bunny rabbits and lopsided doves. –But then again, maybe they’d look cool in stripes? :~
WAHOO! Pam, I can’t thank you enough for posting your remark about the absence of the Notify button meaning that a few pups might reappear when they timed out of carts. I was watching the site and all of a sudden two pups popped up out of nowhere. :O I nearly sprained a finger on the mouse. While I am sorry for the person whose cart my little dudes timed out of, I am so grateful to have them!
Regarding practice items to paint: at work there was a boring gray resin lizard hanging on the wall. He had a thermometer set into his back–just an inexpensive little item, probably from Wal-Mart. Nobody minded if I repainted him, so I took him home and did him up in browns and greens using washes, then added some metallics. It was a lot of fun and turned out better than I had expected. So you might have some luck with little gray resin figures. Even if they’re black, you can still overpaint them with interference paint and metallics.
These little guys are so darned cute, and they simply beg to be painted in pairs . . . geh, I’d start with six. My sisters would want some, and their daughters would want some, and I want some . . . yeah, start with six. And probably go up from there. I have no filter when it comes to cuteness plus opportunity to play with colors. 😉
I agree with bayoudragon: do some layering with thin washes. It will give the piece more depth and emphasize the three-dimensional effect that the netsuke has. The nice thing about using washes is that you can develop the effect to the degree that you like, apply it only where you want it, and you have a fair amount of control over how much color (and which colors) you add. Regarding which colors to use: the netsuke has a fair amount of yellowish olive color on it, in addition to the brown that you’ve already used, so I’d try working that in. I’d also use a combination of that yellowish olive and the brown. Just remember to work with THIN washes, and not a lot of paint on the brush at a time. Develop the intensity of color and the final balance of hues gradually. You might even consider deliberately keeping things a little asymmetric, too, just like the patina on the netsuke.
I love working with washes. Often I don’t even prime the Windstone, just start with my base color in a wash, because the blotchiness and irregular pickup of the color actually works in my favor later on, when I’ve layered on five or six washes and the blotches have become muted. In the finished piece they look like faint shadows, and they always seem to accentuate the curves and shapes of the carving. To my eye, the netsuke has that same kind of serendipity to its patina.
If it’s any consolation, I had a PYO dragon that I gave up on in despair for over a year. He’d been done in browns and yellows, and looked so awful halfway through that I started calling him The Turd With Eyes. I couldn’t stand to look at him. But after a year of painter’s block, I picked him up one day and began working him over in washes. It turned out that his problem was that his coloring was too stark and lacked depth. After many hours of fiddling, he finally arrived at his final color scheme . . . which wasn’t even what I had originally envisioned for him! But he’s one of my favorites.
I like these guys! Are both sculpts being considered as PYOS? They’d make an adorable pair. 🙂
Just throwin’ it out there–if the “stone finish” is a pest to create, I think they’d be equally delightful in a lightly detailed “live animal” finish (not as heavily detailed as the regular PYOs, but a little more detail than the Pebble Cats). It would be fun to have another PYO with short fur like the Unicorn has: it makes a great canvas, and these being smaller, they’d be faster to paint. (My painting speed is best described as “glacial.”) And in keeping with the rest of the Gargoyle group, these mice don’t need glass eyes: layer some base color and a little metallic onto the gypsum eyes, and they’d look great.
This would be fun! Please add me to the list of fans of this idea. 🙂
