Art and other whatnot

New stuff!

2010-06-12T00:38:00.001-07:00

So I should know better than to think I would do anything every day besides eat, sleep and work. I quit drawing every day, but I did complete several projects in the past couple weeks. I hand-beaded a wedding veil for my friend Kasey, I made an amigurumi squid for my fiance, and I made a skirt for myself. Photos, you say? Why, yes.
I used tiny seed beads and went all the way around the border of the tulle, which has glitter sprinkled liberally on it.
I hope Kasey likes it!

Here's my skirt:
I made it out of a pillowcase and some purple fabric for a lining that I had leftover from a quilt I made my cousin for Christmas. I broke a needle and learned how to replace it on a sewing machine. It was a lesson I could have done without, as I had a moment thinking I was going to have to have a professional repair person look at it, and God knows where one finds that in Southern Illinois. I really like this skirt, but I have a sneaking suspicion I may be the only one.

This is Dan's squid. He almost didn't let me attach the tentacles to it, because without them, this little guy bore a strong resemblance to a slime, a character from Dragon Quest.

The cat seems to enjoy it, anyway.

Super post

2010-02-12T00:23:00.000-08:00

My apologies for sucking at this "a drawing every day" thing. I probably do draw something or another every day, but they're all mixed in with my work notes, which are at work.
Here's a lady from a mascara magazine ad. And for some reason, all my scans today are showing the stuff behind them, which is just effing awesome.

Here is someone from a show I enjoy. If you can't tell who it is, I have failed terribly. I will give you one hint: "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica."
This person is a rather famous celeb, but drawn terribly.
And this is another character from a show I like. I kind of like this drawing a lot. It's not great, but I think I caught the spirit of the character.

I'm bad at blogging

2010-02-04T01:23:00.000-08:00

So I just got netflix. It is literally the best thing ever. My fiance and I are in the midst of watching The Office. We can watch all of it, anytime we want. And so my past few evenings have been spent laughing uproariously rather than drawing. I promise I will get back to posting within a few days, as we're in season four. Only two seasons to catch up on after this one.

Saturday night's all right

2010-01-30T18:33:00.000-08:00

Here's some pencil sketches. It seems like drawing with a certain kind of pencil makes me draw like I did when I used that pencil last. Using mechanical pencil was like, oh, let me draw like I did when I was trying to start a web comic with my pal Brent.
This guy bears no small amount of resemblance to the main character of the web comic-that-never-was.
This vampy lady looks like every thing I've drawn since I started drawing in middle school.

I like this girl. She kind of looks like that "Tik Tok" girl.. Kesha. I refuse to put the dollar sign in her name.

Dan

2010-01-29T00:08:00.001-08:00

Is much more attractive than the sketch I am about to show you. But Dan is my fiance, and my most patient subject, so he modeled for me (actually he was reading). This sketch has lots of problems, but he moved a lot. And well, I think it goes without saying, but I suck at drawing.

Ew

2010-01-28T19:36:00.001-08:00

Is what I think this guy is thinking.

January 27 post

2010-01-28T00:16:00.000-08:00

Last night I got a little tipsy, so I forewent the posting. I actually had drawn something and had it all ready too. For shame. Anyway, here's a sketch page - the person on the right is a cartoon approximation of me, and the person on the left is no one in particular.
The splotches at the bottom are where I was testing shades for flesh tones.
I might post again tonight if I get around to it, if not, well. I have something more essay-ish floating around the back of my head, about facebook and song lyrics and the oral tradition. If I don't forget, I might post that here as well.
Buenos nachos, mijos.

Double post!

2010-01-26T00:26:00.001-08:00

As I promised to myself, here is my double post.Here is my finished Abby. Man, coloring takes a long time. And I'm using a completely, shall we say, motley mix of colored pencil brands- prismacolor, prang, crayola and several "color over photographs to make them look old-fashioned" pencil sets. I think the finished version looks more like Abby. I could be wrong. I may well be. I was gonna make her skirt plaid, but then I got lazy. I want to draw more!
I also finished my first Domo Kun amigurumi. I've done a couple other amigurumi, but domo kun always makes me laugh, so I tracked down a pattern and bought it. So obviously, I did not create this pattern, and I'm not showing you this for any profit. I'm just showing it in the same spirit as the rest of this very young blog - to encourage myself to improve.

Man, it doesn't really look anything like what the pattern shows. I just started crocheting this summer, though. I think I made his arms too long. If you want to buy the pattern for this amigurumi "mascot," as the creator calls it, go here.
My fiance wants an orange one for his birthday, so I'll get to try again here soon.

Cheating

2010-01-25T15:29:00.000-08:00

Ok, I'm in trouble, I know. I didn't post anything yesterday. I have a good reason though! I'm crocheting a domo kun. He's almost done, and I will post pix when I get him all sewed together.
I'm just going to post a post it i doodled on, right now, but then you will get a double post of colored Abby and domo kun goodness, I pinky swear.
P.S. is there anyone actually reading this? Just curious.
Mmmm, not sure whether that's dirty nasty post it or dirty nasty scanner screen... I am using the scanner at work right now. Texture, right.

Abby!

2010-01-24T01:57:00.001-08:00

This is supposed to be Abby Sciuto, the well-loved lab tech character from the CBS series NCIS. I have drawn the basest of fan art scribblings tonight, but it was fun, and I might color it later. There are a lot of proportion issues with this one, like her right leg is too small and I think her head might be too big altogether. I'm pleased with her hands and her hair. I always have trouble with hands.

Continued...

2010-01-24T00:20:00.001-08:00

My fiance's desktop has a really nice printer/scanner, and so I'm using it to scan my doodles. He doesn't have photoshop, though, so I had to do a little shuffling to move one of the scanned items over to my laptop, because it got saved as a PDF, and you can't upload pdfs in blogger, I guess?

These are sketches of my kitten, Butterscotch. I had intended to draw a cartoon of Pauley Perrette, who plays Abby Sciuto on NCIS, but my cat fell asleep next to me. She's just so cute I decided to draw her instead. She's a tortie, mostly black, but she has an orange nose.

Day 1

2010-01-23T23:59:00.000-08:00

Here are my sketches from the beginning of my quest for drawing skills.I have always done a lot of drawings of girls and women, ever since I started drawing intently, about 2000-2001. I was in middle school. Of course, all my class notes through college are covered in bad drawings subsequently. I'm not very good at coloring, so I apologize for that. I need to learn how to color properly with my tablet. These are, of course, just pencil.

Waffling

2010-01-22T23:21:00.000-08:00

I deleted my Etsy. I am a reporter; I work a full work week and I love my job (most days), and Etsy wasn't panning out for me. I didn't find my "niche," as they're always telling people to do in the "quit yer day job" e-mails. I haven't even found my hobbying niche. I knit, I crochet, I draw, I dabble in origami and I sew on occasion as well.
Anyway, post holidays, I'm tired of knitting and sewing, so I decided to start practicing my drawing again. I follow several web comics, and their advice is always that if you want to get any better, you need to draw every day. So with the inspiration of the blog Funny Cute, I am going to use this blog to post my everyday drawings. Of course, the writer/artist of funny cute is actually good at drawing, but that's not what's important. Drawing is one of the many things that give me joy, along with singing overly loudly in the car and my kitten Butterscotch. Plus, no one reads this. If my horrible sketches offend you, I apologize. I do not claim to have any skill. I'm just doing this to get better at drawing, hopefully. And I like the funny cute set up.
So the first post with sketches will be either later tonight or tomorrow, imaginary readers!

Old Dog. New Tricks.

2009-08-11T19:20:00.000-07:00

I have been insanely busy lately - finishing up my last college course, moving half my crap an hour and a half away, and other things I can't divulge just yet. One thing I have been doing in my scarce free time is teaching myself to crochet.

I'm a long time knitter, and I always thought crocheting seemed so difficult. However, I've been seeing lots of adorable amigurumi animals on etsy. I decided, by hook or by crook, that I was going to learn to crochet. So I headed to Hobby Lobby and bought a crochet book aimed toward preteens, with super awesome photos from 1996. I made some awesome projects, like chain flowers and a can cozy.

I dutifully followed the patterns in order, learning how to chain, how to single crochet, how to half double crochet, and so on. Most amigurumi patterns contain nothing more complex than single crochets, so I felt confident to try some patterns. I've made two animals so far- a polar bear and a sport weight piglet. Do you think anyone would want something like this? I adore them, but I'm curious about what you, dear reader, thing. Please let me know in the comments!

Summer Sale!

2009-07-22T21:33:00.000-07:00

I am having a major sale right now. All my jewelry is 30-80% off. If you follow me on twitter, you can convo me and I will also give you free shipping.
I'm having this sale for a couple reasons - I missed the yart sale, I wanted to have a summer sale anyway, and I'm hoping to raise money for a special event coming up in my life!! Can't go into detail right now, but I'll be shouting it to the sky soon enough.

Serious sales going on here. Please take a look!

New Twitter!

2009-07-16T07:59:00.001-07:00

I juuust started a new twitter especially for my etsy store. Please follow me at http://twitter.com/knitterye!

Summer sale?

2009-07-15T07:03:00.001-07:00

I missed out on the YART sale this year, mostly because I was too busy with other crises to join in. I am thinking about having a sale in August, maybe 50 percent off jewelry or something. I may also start transitioning into selling more knitted items, just because there is SO much jewelry and SO many talented artists on Etsy that my having strung some pearls on some wire tends to pale in comparison. If i learn how to sauter and make my own metal pieces, then I might consider continuing... I will definitely make jewelry until I run out of beads, but I should maybe not buy much more. My fellow Etsians have been telling me that sales in the summer are slow, and I should expect them to pick back up in the fall. I think maybe having my sale in August will perk up my sales a little. Hopefully, anyway.
Do you have any suggestions for what I might do to perk up my sales this summer?

I want to win this contest!

2009-07-11T08:26:00.000-07:00

A fellow etsian, missesbird, is having a contest for people to win a free custom silver ring, it's beautiful and you should check it out at her blog here.

I want to win it! So pretty. Do check it out.

A short side note

2009-07-03T01:06:00.000-07:00

Today there was a "handpicked" front page on etsy that was all items under twenty dollars. I think that's really refreshing to see, because it seems like a lot of the time people just pick the most expensive crap they can find.

Sagara

2009-06-29T16:01:00.000-07:00

So I finally posted the necklace I've been working on; you can see it here. I was at a complete loss as to what I should call it, so I googled my way to a baby name website and looked for something cool with an appropriate meaning. I found the Hindi name "Sagara," which means ocean. The necklace is dominated by blues, so I thought it was fitting, and pretty too. The photos turned out nice.

I got some gorgeous afternoon sun in the gazebo, after getting back from a pretty fun excursion to Nashville (Indiana). I had to go to the bank to sort out some unfortunate identity theft issues, but after that I went and had a sandwich and an Italian soda at my favorite coffee shop, The Daily Grind, and wandered around the shops. I succumbed to the urge and bought an ice cream cone to eat while I drove home. Bliss.

Something summery

2009-06-24T15:37:00.000-07:00

I just posted a new fun anklet. I had so much fun making this anklet I decided to make myself an albeit much simpler bracelet. Seed beads are such a great way to bring some color into your wardrobe.
Anyway, you know the drill, http://knitterye.etsy.com

Making something pretty

2009-06-20T14:51:00.000-07:00

Today I finished a sketch for a necklace I hope to start putting together soon. It was really slow at the coffee shop/ gift shop where I work, so I got to color and do some planning. I am waiting on the delivery of some really cool end cap beads before I can start stringing, but the wait will be worth it, I think, because this is hopefully going to be a really beautiful piece of jewelry. I was talking to my coworker, who is actually majoring in fine arts with a concentration in jewelry, and he kind of put me to shame. I have been branded with the most foul of terms - crafty. I'm no artist, who spends hours thinking up a deeper meaning behind my pieces, and few to none are even conceptual. I just want it to be pretty.
I'm excited to start working on it, but I think the wait is prudent because I start my last summer class Tuesday. I may need to concentrate on that, seeing as how I would like to graduate and all. Anyway, here's my workspace - it's no lofty studio with floor to ceiling windows, but it works. I'm headed home for Father's day, but I will hopefully check in soon.

A possible beginning of legitimacy

2009-06-19T17:33:00.000-07:00

Hi, my name's Rorye. I make stuff out of yarn, and stuff out of rocks, as you might have gathered. More specifically, I knit (scarves, purses, iPod cozies and other simple stuff) and design gemstone jewelry. I have a website here.
I have been knitting for a long time, but I sort of stumbled into jewelry making about 7 months ago. It is quickly overtaking knitting as my favorite thing to do in my free time. I'm starting this blog because I am sort of starting to be more professional about this designing thing, with sketches and plans and crazy stuff like that, and I want to be able to share my process with everyone.
I just added a new necklace to my store, called the Hillary. That's it up there. You can see it at my Etsy store!
I'm about to go put the finishing touches on a sketch for a very exciting necklace, so I will hopefully talk to you, dear reader, soon.