Serpentaires

I guess this is the end...

2011-01-19T15:07:00.001-08:00

... of an adventure. I enjoyed blogging over here for a while, but as I recently stated, time has not been on my side lately, and this place has suffered from it. I find it hard to motivate myself to maintain two different blogs, and since I've started posting about my costuming adventures here as well, I figured I'd just as well redirect you to oen place where I talk about all my creative endeavours.
Hop over to my regular blog ! I'm still babbling over there !

Danke Cay !

2011-01-13T08:15:00.000-08:00

I got an award from the lovely Cay ! wOOt ! Thank you Cay !
Here's the (rough) translation from the award text :
You got and award and want to get it going round ?
Post the "Liebster Blog" (favorite blog) image and the instructions (this text you're reading right now). You should also link to the blog of the one who gave you the award and comment there to tell them you accept the award and give them the link to your award-post. Then thing about 3 to 5 b of your favorite blogs, link them in your post and tell the blog authors about the award as well.
The goal of this action is to give some exposure to good, still not so well-known blogs , so please don't link to blogs that already have 3000 followers, but to the talented beginner bloggers and the one who've already been blogging for awhile but aren't that big in the blogosphere yet.

You know guys, it's hard to choose ! There are so many blogs I love to follow... Some of those already got the award... Hmmm, ok, here's my choice, in different languages.
Femmes en 1900 - come on, drool with me !
Cotumière hystérique - awesome creations !
Etching birds - because I always learn something from there !
Le dressing de Mademoiselle de L'Isle - she's amazingly talented !

And now it's back to sewing.... or to trying to sew, as it appears I lost my bodice pattern - which I needed for the sleeves, frack !

Sewing in progress !

2011-01-11T09:34:00.000-08:00

I can has a skirt !
I figured I'd show you the end result of my hem ordeal? Sans closures for now, as I prefer to leave them until the last minute (superstitious me... or lazy me ?), and on a dress dummy without tummy padding - it hangs astonishingly well even without it !

The skirt is one layer of cotton (the yellow bit you see peeping out through the side opening), poly-cotton satin (the grey pleats), wool-silk-poly brocade, home-made toddler zooming past, poly-cotton velvet and a polyester red and purple shot something. And it's *heavy*. Ouch ! I think it's heavier than my green wool bustle skirt - probably due to the giganormous quantity of fabric I draped over the back. Not sure I'll do much dancing in this !

The reason why I'm not a superhero

2011-01-09T10:13:00.000-08:00

If I was one, my archnemesis would be called "Hem". I don't think that's very good in terms of merchandising. Besides, I always *flee* before hems. I spent actually a ridiculous amount of time turning on my lappie, logging into blogger and typing this. Instead of hemming my bustle skirt. Which is like, the last thing to do on said skirt - almost. I still need to handsew one pleat in place. Then closueres. I guess Closures could be Hem's sidekick, actually. I've worn some petticoats more than once without a proper closure. I even think one of those petticoats still neither has a button nor a buckle, nor ties.
The hem is done now. It isn't pretty. Everything that could go wrong, did. The weird electrical itch that sometimes happens with TheSphynx (didn't last long, thankfully), the tension tightening itself, the bobbin being empty 20 inches before the end of the (huuuge) hem, the not-purposefully-gathered hem, the escaping pins,... In the end, my good old iron seemed to save the day and make the hem look acceptable. Hopefully it'll still look okay by daylight.

Did I mention wrangling half a ton of fabric over 8 square inches wasn't practical ? This is a picture I took while re-threading the machine... Yup, the fabric was crunched up like that.

Working on it...

2011-01-07T03:49:00.000-08:00

Nono, I'm not dead, I've just been engulfed in holiday stuff and general fatigue. Oh, and sewing ! I have sa lot of projects for the new year, my next historical costume is due by the end of the month, then I have some research sewing projects lined up, some pirate stuff, lots of printmaking, a little bit of drawing, and a general website overhaul. And a baby. That's kind of a big programm already, and I expect more to come.

I'm slowly making progress and trying out new techniques at printmaking. Still working on the etching and most of all the wiping processes, I feel like I had found the right thing to do last year and completely forgot it over the summer ! It's soooo frustrating ! I used to be able to get good results with just cloth wiping, now I need to use paper or/AND the hand. I'm not not not proud of myself. And of course it seems like I'm the only one in the course with such an issue. *feels pouty*

(BTW, the upper plate a) looks much better in real life than on the flatbed scanner and b) is a collaborative work with Lady Fi)
So while I was fighting with ink last Tuesday, I granted myself a break and tried out a new-to-me inking process. The plate is an etched zink plate too (I think I posted it while it was in progress), but I only inked the upper part, not the etched ones. I couldn't get a smooth inking due to the plate and the roll not being very even, so I used my smaller roll and went for some intentional marks. I think I'm onto something that might turn out interesting, I just need to practice more...

I'm not putting up anything new in the shop for now. Iaybe later, when I have something I'm more satisfied with...

My creative space...

2010-12-23T02:52:00.000-08:00

... is all decked up in holiday cheer !

I recently rearranged my sewing space, due to the holidays, my usual sewing machien needing repairs, the arrival of the serger... amoung other things.

The sewing machine is a 1933 Singer - it only does straight stitch, but it does it well, and for the rest, I have the Babylock. I should get my Pfaff back one of those days but I might stay with the current configuration, it saves space on the big table and I've come to *love* the Singer.

Above the machine on the wall are family photographs and wedding pictures from friends (and ours). I still want to add a few, and I'd love to find my grandparents' wedding picture to add them as well. The little cabinet on the left of the machine is decorated with etched metal plates by my Grandma and holds little sewing and knitting supplies.

In the picture on the far right you can see Karringa (the dress dummy) in my newest corset, and Madame Veto (the styrofoam head) sporting a hat-in-progress

Thankful....

2010-11-26T02:07:00.000-08:00

We don't celebrate Thanksgiving here but I love the idea of, once in a while, reflecting about all the things that make our lives beautiful and wonderful...
I'm thank-full for my beautiful son. Two years ago I was standing in tears because some doc thought I would never be allowed to have children, and here I am, with a beautiful and charming one-year-old sitting on my lap while I type this, and expecting our second child.
I'm thankful for my wonderful husband, always supportive, inspirationnal, and just as charming as his son. Over the years he's brought out the best part of me.
I'm thankful for all the matvelous friends I've met over the years.

I'm thankful for my hobbies, for the joy and light they bring into my life and the time I'm able to spend with them. I get to spend blissful hurs every week making art and learning about printmaking techniques (wait until I can show you my monotypes ! Monotypes are made of Awesomesauce !). I have an impressive collection of period material I can use as inspiration for my costume creations, and I have recently spent time scanning those pictures.

My creative space...

2010-11-04T03:51:00.000-07:00

... has been a little wuiet lately. The printmakig workshop was closed during the holidays, and the whole family has been sick in turns. We're all tired and slowly recovering. But I did manage to sew a teeny tiny bit !

It's not the prettiest t-shirt ever, but it's my first one using my serger/coverlock machine, which I adore ! I'm so happy I actually paid the extra $$$ for the Babylock and the cover stitch... I want to make a lot of things with this but I need pratice first. Lots of practice !

Hop over to Kootoyoo's blog for more creative spaces !

Transparency

2010-10-21T00:14:00.001-07:00

This is my latest venture into testing possible etching materials. May I present you : Rhenalon. It's transparent and flewible and very easy to work into with the drypoint. I want to do some tests with superpositions of plates as well. I'm curious about how it will turn out, but won't be able to find out for the next two weeks - the workshop is closed during the school holidays. *sad panda face*

Hop over to Kootoyoo's blog for more creative space !

Grump grump grump...

2010-10-14T02:05:00.000-07:00

Today my creative space is grumpy. I have been trying out new materials for drypoint, as working on a shiny mirror kinda hurts my eyes. Yesterday's try-out was a "Schappa" plate. It's a kin d of platic, very soft, very bendable, with one smooth side and one matte side. The engraving was very pleasant, as you can draw in pencil on it and the drypoitn moves easily through the plastic. The printing however, was NOT.

The one problem with the plate is that it is BLACK. And the ink is black as well ! So I never knew how much ink I was applying or wiping off, it was a nightmare. Byt some miracle, the first print I made (the one in the center) is somewhat okay. I want to re-work it a little, spruce it up with a little bit of color. The others ? I almost threw them in the trash right away. I was SO angry. Next week I'm giving the material one more chance : I'll try light colored ink (yellow or white) on a dark background. And I still have to try the matte side of the plate as well... but still, I'm so [censored] that the print didn't work out... I really, really loved the design. In fact, I may re-draw it on another medium.

Hop over to Kootooyoo for more creative spaces !

A fight against the skies...

2010-10-13T13:39:00.000-07:00

Today, I tried to defy the obvious celestial will, and I failed miserably. The skies were black an grey from threatening clouds... and I wanted to take pictures - pictures of pictures, in fact. In the end, I gave up and just scanned them. there's not so much room for composition or accessorizing, but there isn't much room for white-balance-hair-pulling either.

This linocut I mentionned previously is now up for grabs ! There will only be one like this !
And below is another print now to be found in our shop. It's an intaglio print (meaning the ink is in the grooves of the plate before pressing). The hand-drawn image was acid-etched on a zinc plate. The picture was printed on an ivory velin paper. On a print, there's always some room left on the paper around the plate. The paper is wet when is is run through the press, to it takes the form of the plate and the area around it stays a little raised after it dries. That's something you will only find on an original print. (Lithography is another story, but don't expect me to talk a lot about it - as I said before, it's not my thing)

Between January and June, I kept most of my work focused on fairy tales. this one is an illustration for a greek tale, "The five times fair". It's similar to Snow White, except there's no evil step-mother, there are two jealous sisters instead. And the one telling them that the youngest sister is the fairest of them all is the Sun.

Tailoring !

2010-10-09T15:35:00.000-07:00

Tonight I'm working on a commission for my brother - when the Home Geek and I got married, we made a deal with him : he'd make our wedding cake, I'd make him a "pirate" wardrobe. Shirts, vests, and a coat - or a justeaucorps, as you'd call it in mid-eighteenth century France.
The shirts are done already, as is one vest (Oh dear, it's embarassing, I don't have any picture of the finished product...). The coat, however, is a BIG project for me. It is my first venture into fitted, not sleeveless menswear, and the first one where I actually have to do some tailoring. Luckily, it doesn't need to be either perfectly historically accurate or a Saville-Row. I'm fairly new to tailoring, and I'd like to show you around while I'm learning. It involves padding (placed over the chest in 18th century manner), interfacing, patience and handsewing.
(Don't worry, I'll de-cat-hair it before he gets it !)

Lines and lines of hand-sewn basting stitches... this is what awaits me on my sewing table now (errr... that would actually be the living-room table), and this is what will hold the fashion fabric to the more stable interfacing.

Lack of inspiration

2010-10-06T18:34:00.000-07:00

I probably have a weird creative process. I start from an idea of what I want to make, I start drawing and then the picture just creates itself, it tells me what it wants to become. Sometimes though, I get stuck, I lack the starting point. That's when I look at places like Illustration Friday or the weekly European Etsy Street Team for prompts. This time I dug up a challenge theme from a few weeks ago : stripes.

(Hard as hell to photograph, evrything is shiny on this !)
This is a good opportunity to show you a part of the printmaking process. This zinc plate has been polished and covered with a coat of protective varnish. I'm drawing on this with a metal point, scratching of the protective layer. When I put the plate in the the acid bath, the acid will attack the metal in the unprotected areas.
I started doodling and thinking about all the stripes one could see in a picture, about their regulatiry and imperfections, and about how rain is often represented by vertical stripes... This is a work in progress, it may well change again before I print it !

There are a few other things going on in my brain right now - actually, there are so many I couldn't sleep !
There's the sewing, and the writing about the sewing, and there's still this drawing in progress on the desk, and two knitting projects, and I have blogs to update, and at least three different plates I want to prepare before our next printmaking session...

I was totally going to stop here, but on my way to my blog en français, I stumbled upon this beauty by Criska.

I'm not usually blogging that much about other people's product, but this is just... wow ! I can't justify buying it for myself so please, let someone take it to a good home...

More creative spaces at Kootooyoo's blog

My creative space

2010-09-23T02:43:00.001-07:00

Long time since I haven't shown you what's going on in here, he ? Let's see what I have...

What's this ? you might ask... This was, in its past incarnation, a 1892 woollen evening cloak, which I wore to a ball many years ago. But I don't like the shape, it's too wide on me to be wearable in everyday life, so into the recycling bin it went, and it is going to be remade into a man's rococo justeaucorps. Quite a change ! Unpicking all those decorative stitches was time-consuming to put it mildly.

This is more familiar... Black ink and colored pencils, we'll see what it morphs into...

A week in pictures...

2010-09-12T03:17:00.000-07:00

Or actually, a little more than a week. Im trying for the umpteenth time to follow the 365project bandwagon. I gave up sticking to one picture a day, so some days I play catching up for the days I missed. I have a pretty pretty DSLR now, but I might still toss the old digicam in my pocket if I ever find the charger again.
With comments on FlickR.

Une semaine, ou un peu plus d'une semaine, en images. Pour la ixième fois je reprends le projet 365 (une photo par jour pendant un an). Je sais que je n'arriverai pas toujours à me tenir à prendre une photo par jour, alors certains jours je fais du rattrapage. J'ai un nouveau réflex tout beau tout neuf mais il se peut que je fasse encore appel à mon vieil appareil de temps en temps - si jamais je retrouve son chargeur.
Images commentées sur FlickR.

Some sewing !

2010-09-01T05:35:00.000-07:00

I do realize I have neglected this blog for far too long... The kid keeps us both very, veyr busy and I've been working on personal sewing projects like a madwoman. I didn't even get to sort out all the pictures from past costume events yet. But I was relatively efficient following the victorian picnic organised by the Ministère des Modes in Lyon at the end of August. Hence, pictures from my 1872 polonaise !

The dress is a very light cotton print which almost reads like a solid on pictures. The trim is yellow cotton organdi - I normally use it to line my victorian bodices but I happened to find it in this color and I was out of fabric for trimmings. I know ruffles and pleats are more common for this year but I found a few examples of solid stripes applied as decoration as well. I'm wearing it over my black set of victorian undies, my victorian corset, my giant 1872 half-crinoline, and my flounced monstruosity of a petticoat. I patterned the polonaise with some help from Lady Fi and my 1885 bodice pattern, altering it to match period illustrations. One button that holds up the polonaise's skirt got loose on the inside of the skirt on the left side and I only noticed when I looked at the pictures - I'll have to make the ribbon loops smaller.
The hat is a regular straw hat I hacked down, wet and dried in its new shape. Then I added lots of stuff on it and kept adding things until it looked victorian enough.
On the whole, I loved how the dress turned out. I'd have preferred if the fit had been better and if the bustle hadn't had some issues during the day but it looks amazing in pictures and I had a fabulous time wearing it.

Alive and kickin' !

2010-07-24T02:56:00.000-07:00

I went a loooong time without updating. There have been an awful lot of things happening left and right and it all boiled down to me reassessing what road I want to take. There has been a shift of focus in things I want to do and this will reflect heavily in what I will put in the Serpentaires blog and shop in the future. But don't panic : there WILL be new things.

I haven't been idle theses past months. I worked my way through dry-point, etching and linocut techniques, discovered I have about zero interest in lithography, and had one of my pieces selected for the art school's exhibition at the end of the year. It's an embossed version of the linocut below. Unfortunately I wasn't able to retrieve it before the school closed for summer - ad I also discovered prints are incredibly hard to scan and photograph. they look much, much better in real life.

There was also a lot of sewing, costuming and pattern-making, and you should expect a lot of that to show in the stuff I add to the shop in the future. There's actually a BIG project brewing and a new crew member in the Serpentaires team. You should go take a look at her work ! In the meantime, there have been a lot of "smaller" projects...

That's just a small part of it, actually. better pictures of two outfits are still waiting in my digicam. But I suspect that will be the content of another post, as it's meal-time for little G.

Oops, I'm late !

2009-12-28T04:02:00.000-08:00

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas ! It's not quite over yet at our place, we celebrate with my parents, my adorable co-creator Lady Fi and her family on the 31th, so the fingerless mitts above are still waiting under the tree.
I've been filling the little free moments I have with needlework experiments...

... just some embroidery samples, fashioned after victorian designs. I'm working on a tablecloth for the 31th - and of course, thinking about how I could turn that into something for the shop. Who said monomaniac ?

Rise of the undead and what I do with patterns

2009-12-18T13:25:00.000-08:00

So, my digicam-that-was-dead is again not-quite-dead-yet. Yay ! Proceed to rising not-quite-dead and well, pictures !

This is to prove that a) I have taken up knitting again for some last minute Christmas presents (the fingerless mitten shown in this picture has since been finished, as has her sister. But neither the light nor the baby were cooperating to take pictures of the finished objects) and b) I do strang ethings with patterns. Like...
- turn a scarf pattern into a pair of fingerless mittens (granted, I knitted the scarf last year)
- heavily butcher them (see exhibit A, my avant-garde gown,, a mix of a Truly Victorian and a Reconstructing History pattern
- lose them and sometimes find them when I don't need them anymore. I'm almost done with reconstructing a 1872 half-crinoline out of bits and bobs of period instructions. And last week I stumbled upon Laughing Moon's bustles patterns.
- lose them and never find them again, I have a chronical issue with Past Pattern's edwardian straight-fronted corset pattern. I KNOW I ordered it twice already. I just haveeno idea where both patterns went.

Inspite, or maybe because of this twisted relationship to patterns, I have every intention to make this pair's of mittens pattern widely available to the customers in our stores... When I have enough time to polish it up :)

This blog just got a lot more interesting... sarcasm off

2009-12-12T09:11:00.000-08:00

Not posting much lately, right ? The reason for that is currently sleeping next to me - he obviously decided to start the night early after babbling all day. :)
Let's see, what happened over the past few weeks... I took care of little G. I had my second printmaking workshop, printed a few more editions from the Medusa print I showed you last time. I took care of little G. I put up the Christmas tree. Took care of little G. Designed and printed the birht announcement cards (what ? Two months late ? No way ! Where did the time go ?) Took care of... See a pattern ? *broad grin* I have things in the works but it's taking me ages to finish them. And then, when I meant to take a few pictures to show you around my current life and even maybe *gasp* list something new... then... my digicam gave up the soul. And I still haven't ordered the new one - well I guess that's on the menu for tomorrow.

(I have my secret Santa's present under this tree, but I'll be strong, I'll wait until Christmas !)

But so that this doesn't sound like a pity party - which it frankly isn't. Really, I do have rough days when the kid is cranky for 15 hours straight, but today was amazingly good ! - well, so that you don't think I'm just drowning in exhaustion and post-partum depression, I have to thank the lovely lovely people who bought Christmas cards from me ! I have only 7 left, total, so if you want some grab them QUICK ! Lady Darkstone is coming on Tuesday and wants to buy some as well, so some designs will just be out of stock until next year !
Now to further assess that I'm on a roll, I am going to leave the kid in his father's care and grab my knitting needles for a last minute Christmas present. AND if this goes well, I might even open the "Knitting and Sewing" section of our shop in a few weeks (I'd say day, if it weren't for the kid and the looming holidays and assorted family visits).

Prints vs. Printmaking and a Question

2009-11-22T09:50:00.000-08:00

... also titled : "I'm EXCITED !"

One of the good things about getting a kid is that I can get a small allowance to stay home with him for six months after my maternal leave. Which I AM going to do. That will take me to about the end of the schoolyear. A whole schoolyear without work... That means I was finally able to take some classes at the art school. I had my eyes set on a nude drawing class for years (my Grandma was kinda kicking my butt on this one but it always clashed with my work schedule *sobs*), and when I started scheming this art classes plan after I got pregnant, I saw the art school also offered a *printmaking class*. AWESOME ! I wasn't able to attend the first two courses but yesterday I was able to leave the kid with his father, leave the house and just worry about learning printmaking stuff and doing art for four hours.

I was just experimenting with drypoint on plexiglass, without a real plan, but I'm already really, really happy with what I got. Now I have to buy some materials for the class... this is also my entry for this week' EST challenge, "Mythology". My only problem being that I'm not sure I want to put the first print I'm really happy with up for sale. :s

This is from the "prints" category, although it won't be technically a print, but a reproduction of a digital creation. I hope to finish it sometime this week. All the work with ink and paper is done, all that's left is the computerized magic.

And since we're talking digital, I'm begging for and advice from the crowd. My digicam is dying, and I want to upgrade to a DSLR. I want a Canon, because I want to be able to talk, get advice, compare and try lenses with Argyronete and our friend B, who both have a 450D (if I recall correctly). I'd need a standard lens, and maybe a macro one to take good macro pictures for the shop (and because macro is FUN :D ). Most of all, I'm hesitating between the 500D (which seems like a step up from the 450D, and isn't tha tmuch more expensive anymor) and the 1000D (which is a bit lower-class compared to the 500, but also a lot cheaper, so that I could splurge more on lenses). What do you people use ? What would you suggest ? I'm taking non-figurative pictures and some landscpae pictures when I'm doing the one-picture-a-day-thing (I've stopped trying to call it a 365 project until I actually manage to do one year in a row), close-ups of the items I'm putting up for sale, and well... baby portraits. Soon to be kid pictures.

My current pet peeves with my old Ixus, beside the fact that I have to hit it every time I turn it on to get the screen to work, are :
- no personalised adjusting of the white balance,
- horribly grainy pictures without natural light.

Fishy dilemna

2009-11-18T09:16:00.000-08:00

I drew this for last week's EST challenge but wrangling four kilos of screaming monster prevented me from finishing it in time to submit. And now that I can take a step back to look at it, I'm not sure anymore what I should turn it into. My original plan was to make the blue very light and use the pattern for a writing set. But I'm starting to think it would work great as a print as well. What do YOU think ?

Christmas before Christmas

2009-11-17T07:55:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned previously, I got a very, very lovely package from the Shop Swap &Blog. My package came from Amy from VintageFern, and I was soooooo excited when I found it in the mailbox !!!!

I was so eager to open it I couldn't wait until I got back home, I opened it right in the car !

Hmmmm What's this ?

A set of pretty pretty cards ! In some of my favorite colors, that's even better !

And a big tote for me and even a awesomely cute onesie for G !

Can I say awesome ? A-we-so-me ! Go have a look at Amy's shop and at her blog. I just adore her textile creations !

Let's see what she has to say about herself and her creations...

I am a stay at home Mom to 3 beautiful girls and I am very lucky to be married to my best friend.
I started my business because I love creating and I need to be busy. It's really just more of a hobby for me, it's just a plus that I can make money with it. I get to do what I love best, being creative !
Not sure if I could say just one favorite online shop, I love Etsy !

Thank you again Amy ! I wish you lots of success with your creatiosn on Etsy !

In lieu of an apology....

2009-11-12T00:31:00.000-08:00

... I have been silent for a looooong time, and I owe at least one post to the "Shop Swap & Blog" organized by Pattie of Structured Chaos. Bad, bad blogger !

But look I managed to take a picture of my creative space ! Which, in turn, means there IS such a thing as a creative space, that is, something else than milk bottles, feeding times, diapers and falling into bed whenever the kid sleeps.... I can barely believe it.
Theses are the cards I had printed for Christmas and that I've started putting online on Etsy. It's a first batch, so I only did 25 of them and I'll see which designs work best. Actually, 10 of them are already taken (I just don't know exactly which ones), so grab some quick if you want them !

If you'd like to peek into other artists' creative spaces, check out Kootoyoo's blog !

What to do on a week-end

2009-10-17T11:25:00.000-07:00

It's already Saturday evening, but that doesn't matter much in the end when you're on maternal leave and your husband is on vacation, right ? Except for groceries shopping, all days are about the same. Yet I'm stealing Karuski's idea and posting what's on the plate for this week-end.
- buying fruit and veggies and chesse - done, thanks to the Home Geek
- having Lady Fi, her husband and Mel come over and be all awww and aaaaaah over Gabriel - done, and happy to have seen them
- pick up some more baby stuff - partially done, still need to go to the store for a scale
- list one item in the shop - done. For the first time ever, I'm putting an original for sale. The Happy Hippo print will come later.
- take care of Gabriel
- get some rest
- get some creative time if at all possible - well, a blog post is already something, right ?

This drawing was actually done before I left for the hospital, but I didn't have enough time to list it. It was my challenge entry from, wait... two weeks ago ? Something like taht... The theme was "This is for you", and this was an hommage to Renate from Kreativlink. Funny whimsy meets some degas-esque inspiration...

I have to learn to type and draw single-handed...

2009-10-16T04:13:00.000-07:00

Here's the reason why I've been silent lately. We came home on Tuesday with our little Gabriel. He's really adorable, very calm and fuss-less. And he's, of course, the most beautiful baby in the whole world. Yes, I'm biased :)

Monday Moodboard - a little bit of sunshine

2009-10-05T03:23:00.000-07:00

It's grey out there, but here you have a splash of color ! By JKphotography, ZsBcreation, JuliaFelt and Binkaminka !
More moodboards ? Go check Fleur Fatale's blog !

A quiet weekend

2009-10-04T09:07:00.000-07:00

The Serpentaires workshops haven't been very busy those past few days. Just a quick get-together for some tea and a chat, Lady Fi has been busy with some website designing and sewing custom orders, and I have mostly been waiting for the little alien to decide when he wants out of my bump, not sleeping at night and sleeping through the day.
During one of those sleepless nights I finally took the time to correctly set up our two other shops besides Etsy. So now we have a lil' shop on Zibbet, and a french shop with a blog on ALittleMarket.

Les ateliers Serpentaires n'ont pas été très actifs ces derniers temps, juste une petite causette autour d'une (ou deux) tasses de thé. Lady Fi a entre autres été occupée par la création d'une charte graphique pour un site web, et des commandes de couture, et j'ai surtout attendu que le petit alien se décide à pointer le bout de son nez, entre insomnies nocturnes et siestes diurnes.
J'ai mis à profit l'une de ces nuits sans sommeil pour enfin me pencher proprement sur nos boutiques en dehors d'Etsy. Nous avons à présent très officiellement une annexe sur Zibbet, et une BOUTIQUE EN FRANCAIS avec un blog attenant sur ALittleMarket. On nous en avait déjà fait la demande, il suffisait de trouver la plateforme qui nous plaise. Merci à Chichiboulie de nous avoir montré le chemin !
Cela veut surtout dire qu'à partir de maintenant, ce blog sera entièrement en Anglais et orienté vers nos boutiques en Anglais. Pour le blog en Français, c'est désormais par là !

Just a quick note...

2009-10-01T14:18:00.000-07:00

Monday evening has been a little chaotic, so I com-ple-te-ly forgot to post an official announcement here... The final winner for the "Life on Mars" challenge is LeelaBijou, and you can see the new theme with already a LOT of entries on her blog.
I'm working on my entry tonight. I'll have to tweak my original plan quite a bit, because I couldn't find one particular component at the nearest store and I don't think running around town in search of it is a good idea with the boy being due any day now*. So I'm trying to find some creative solutions and hoping I can get it done by Monday.
And I just realized now that I could use some green ribbon for my entry, but don't have any either, bummer... Though I could probably locate THAT easily.

* This ia also a kind of warning to my lovely readers, don't worry if this place goes silent for a while in the next few days ! :)

My creative space is on fire today !

2009-10-01T11:19:00.000-07:00

See ? Quite litteraly ON fire.
This is not the place I usually most of my time in - although I do love to cook. But not to the point of spending all my productive time there. This is where I spent these last few days however. I am preparing meals and freezing them for the time after the birth when we will be very tired and trying to adjust to our life as new parents. I don't foresee much time for cooking then, pasta everyday does not sound that appealing, and the pizza place nearby has closed. Hence, I'm preparing homemade pizzas, salted cakes, and some dishes that are easy to cook in big quantities and taste better when reheated. I have one more rabbit to cook tomorrow, and an onion tart, and after that I'll probably have to stop because the freezer will be full. I feel very productive seeing the little boxes with the labels "blanquette" and "bourguignon" waiting for a lazy evening !

For more creative spaces, have a look at Kootoyoo's ! Come play with us !

Monday Moodboard

2009-09-28T01:53:00.000-07:00

Today it's all about Black and white !

Berniolie, palepink, Babongo and Vaisto
More moodboards ? Hop over to Fleur Fatale's blog !

My creative space...

2009-09-25T10:42:00.000-07:00

... is a day late, I know, I know... I actually took the pictures yesterday, but after a busy afternoon I didn't feel very well in the evening, and just vegged out with my knitting and pencils (okay, so that's not technically vegging out... but still).

Two big changes ! First, the antique craddle. Isn't it pretty ? We're still waiting for the mattress, we had it custom-made and it should be here next Thursday. The craddle was in a really sorry state when we bought it, but my Dad is an awesome woodworker and redid the damaged pieces, you can't even spot them now !
Second, you might notice it's the first time I post a picture of my computer desk from that angle. The reason being I can now open the window right next to said desk and step out on the balcony ! We replaced the old window and door with two big sliding doors. now I can show you the big mess that is my work area... I just need to have all that inspiration around me, the pictures, the materials and the projects in progress. I know some artists can't work amidst chaos, but I can't create without it.
As usual, see more creative spaces (from yesterday) on Kootoyoo's blog.

Proof that it works : two new listings in the shop. The Autumn print has been waiting for me to photograph it for some time, now it is finally online. Then comes another World Wonder, the Pharos lighthouse. I really have to thank Baahar for this wonderful challenge theme, it keeps me inspired ! I'm working on a third print on that subject and it has brought me so much... I'll have to make a separate post about it.

I do have to thank all the wonderful euro and UK peeps who included us in treasuries lately. It's been amazing to meet so many adorable and wonderfully talented people through Etsy. Thank you so much !

Sweet treats - Argyronete's Kougelhopf

2009-09-23T13:00:00.001-07:00

Yesterday autumn still seemed to be there (it's gone again today, we're back to summer and my feet complain about it. A lot) and I was craving some hearty food. Out of the blue I took a recipe I had been lying around for years and never came around to actually trying out : traditionnal Kougelhopf by Argyronete. I adapted it to make it in the breadmaker (no hand-kneading = less physical effort for me = good !) and this is what came out of the oven !

Looks yummy, right ? It is !
And here's the recipe, with breadmaker :

Take
one big handful of raisins
a glass of alcohol, kirsch is best, rhum works
225 grams of butter
6 eggs
375 grams flour
10 grams yeast
2 tablespoons milk
10 grams salt
75 grams sugar
some almonds

Cover the raisins with the alcohol and let them aborsb it for a few hours.
Mix a little bit of sugar, luke-warm milk and the yeast. Let it rest until it has doubled in volume. ou can also use dehydrated baker's yeast in the breadmaker, just add it to the flour then.
Cut the butter in small dices, put them in the breadmaker. Add the whole eggs, the flour, the sugar, the yeast, the salt. Make sure the salt does not touch the yeast. Let the breadmaker knead the dough until it no longer sticks to the sides of the dish. Then drain the raisins (you can keep the alcohol for another maceration), add them to the dough and let the breadmaker do its work once more.
Put in a well greased Gugglhupf form. Let it rise for half an hour. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 180° Celsius.
Bake for 40 minutes. Take out of the oven, out of the form, and add powder sugar on top. Yum yum !

In Etsy news, we have been featured on another blog ! See some of our articles on Crafted by Design's Monday Mentionables - although we aren't Monday... :D Monday or not, it's still really nice to be featured, thank you Kerianne !)

WOOHOO !

2009-09-21T13:38:00.000-07:00

I'm super-duper-mega happy ! I just won the European street team weekly challenge on Etsy. The theme given by Baahar was "Seven World Wonders", and the Babylon Print won. I am soooo happy ! Can you tell I'm happy ? Because I really, really am !
This means it's up to me to host this week's challenge. So the new them is...
...
*drumrolls please*
...
LIFE ON MARS !

A short reminder of the "rules" for newcomers:
The deadline is next Monday 21:00 CET. It has to be something created for the challenge or at least finished and listed in this week. It can be showed somewhere else. Please, take at least one picture from your creation, upload it somewhere on the web and send me the link as convo on etsy.

And the entries already started rolling mere minutes after I announced the new theme !

Meteorite Necklace, by LeelaBijou

Life on Mars adjustable ring in moss green enamel, by FleurFatale

Life on Mars, Leather Journal, Suede, by Kreativlink

Traces of the past necklace, by Happyment

Life on Mars Heart Padlock Chocker, by dinafragola

Evidence of life on Mars keyholder, by barbarix

Mars Craters Red Crochet Beret, by heileen

Life on Mars Neck Warmer, by kraplap

Mars Earrings, by bijouxdellostregatto

Life on Mars felted bag, by ingermaaike

Life on Mars earrings, by gr8jewellry

Life on Mars bracelet, by staroftheeast

Black-white nuno scarf, by creationsbyeve

Life on Mars dangle earrings with black wooden beads, by karuski

Monday Moodboard

2009-09-21T03:23:00.000-07:00

We're entering autumn today.The sun is hiding behind the clouds here in Grenoble, but I have found a little autumn sun online...

First row : Gold peacock earrings by Steinschmuckdesign, Golden Growing journal by Kreativlink and Aurora Borealis by staroftheeast.
Second row : Ewok mouse by TheHouseOfMouse, Brick Red Bricks and Taupe Pillows by BacaCaraJewelry and Cinnamon handwarmers by Ayca.
More moodboards Fleur Fatale's blog !

A girl's day on her own

2009-09-19T12:03:00.000-07:00

So what's a girl to do when her husband has deserted her to go to a wild party in the South ? (don't worry, he'll be back tomorrow, I'm just jealous because I'm not allowed to travel that much with my bump and will as a result enjoy neither the party nor the faboo chinese food there. Jeaaaalous !!!) Let's see.
Work on some picture editing and listing new stuff in the shop.
Draw a little while the computer busy computing stuff too heavy for its little brain. (My computer is a bit slow. He understands things quickly once you've explained them at great length)
Do some more scanning and picture editing.

Think about taking care of the laundry.
Draw a little more while the computer thinks big long thoughts by himself.

Decide to have a cleaning frenzy rather than have lunch.
Have lunch eventually. After the whole downstairs area has been cleaned, that is.
Spend some time rereading a teenage favorite. Think I should work on some illustrations from that text.
Get phone calls by Mom and Stepmom. None of those are ever short. Answer copious amount of questions about the little alien inside the bump.
Realize at some point in the afternoon that project warm bath has been forgotten. Apply oneself to said project.
Hop to home decor store to pick up a new picture artefact, as shown below. Well, I couldn't decide on which one, so I got two.

Forget about the laundry. Actually I think that happened a few steps earlier.
Come back home ravenous.
Discover that the nearest pizza place is still closed. I think they are taking Ramadan month off. Wish I was a muslim for a short while and knew the dates of Ramadan this year so that I could order pizza again - I think it ends today ? Am I right ?
Settle on a big plate of pasta with tuna and parmegianno.

Eat in front of Sex and the City. A girl has to take every opportunity to make an evening truly girly when she's home alone.

So this is my entry for this week's EST challenge, "Seven world wonders". I am *dying* to be allowed to do metal engraving again but acids are just a big no-no until the baby's born. So the design of this piece is very much inspired by my Grandma's and my own style of metal engravings, only I did it in black ink and digitally added the color. I quite like the result. I felt pretty inspired by the theme, I chose the hanging gardens of Babylon because luxurious foliage and exotic birds are a theme that regularly popped up in my Grandma's work, so it almost natural to have my own take on it. But now I want to push this further, hence the other drawing, the Pharos lighthouse, where I am trying to infuse nautical and egyptian elements into this style. It's also very interesting because it makes me work on coposition in a way I'm not used to. Now I just need to find ideas for the five remaining wonders of the ancient world ! *laughs* I have a weird addiction for working in series, even though I don't always get to actually finish the series.

New stuff ! Exciting ! Yay !!!

2009-09-19T02:55:00.000-07:00

The title about sums up how I feel about the new line we're currently introducing in our shop. Yeah, I'm *that* excited about it. We have kid's birthday invitation and birth announcements lined up right now, with more to come and wedding invitations to be added.

Ever since I started working on our own wedding invitations, I got addicted to designing those. I'm very happy that the next month will provide me an opportunity to design another - a birth announcement -, but I have to many ideas to just narrow it down to one. So here it is, the new Serpentaires line of customized, print-your-own wedding and children stationery !

We dedided to go the print-your-own route as this is the greenest way in terms of shipping and also the most cost effective we can offer to our customers. Of course we are very, very much interested in any form of custom work in this line. Not just mere personalisation of an existing design, we'd be thrilled to work on a design from scratch following a client's desires !
The first ones will be in similar soft watercolor tone, but we have many more ideas. Stay tuned for more, including work by Lady Fi !

Old school

2009-09-14T13:24:00.000-07:00

That was the theme for this week's EST (European Street Team) challenge on Etsy. I've had a blast working on the previous entry already "Enchanted Forest" (see above). Below is the entry for this week. My fingers have been itching to sew lately - there's not much I can sew for myself right now, my water-melon-muggling time is coming to an end in about a month and baby sewing isn't half as fun as costumes.
Or maybe I was just looking for an excuse to make a few rag dolls (like several of you guessed). I just love making rag dolls. This one turned up a lot simpler than the victorian kitties I previously did. It was fun buuut... I think I'll go back to the over the top ones, they are even MORE fun to make, and they feel more unique.
I present you Margot, the old school girl. When I think old school, I almost immediately think of tartan. Don't tell Margot, but I'm jealous of this skirt of hers. I can't wait until I've dropped my watermelon-shaped alien and I can make myself a tartan skirt out of this fabric.

"Vieux jeu", c'était le thème du challenge de l'équipe Europe (European Street Team) sur Etsy cette semaine. Je m'étais déjà bien amusée avec le défi de la semaine précédente,"Forêt Enchantée. Voici ma participation d'aujourd'hui. La machine à coudre me démangeait ces derniers temps. Je ne peux pas coudre grand'chose moi tant que je suis en mode matrioschka (plus pour longtemps), et coudre pour le bébé n'est de loin pas aussi amusant que de faire des costumes.
Ou peut-être que j'avais simplement besoin d'un prétexte pour coudre une poupée de chiffons. J'adore les poupées de chiffons. Celle-ci est beaucoup plus simple que les chats victoriens que j'ai pu faire précédemment. Je me suis bien amusée avec maaaais... je crois que je vais revenir à des choses plus élaborées pour les suivantes, c'est encore PLUS rigolo à faire et plus "spécial".
Voici Margot, une jeune fille adorable et un peu vieux jeu. Le thème me fait tout de suite penser à du tartan, allez savoir pourquoi. Ne le dites pas à Margot, mais je veux la même jupe qu'elle. Vivement que l'alien qui me squatte le bidon soit sorti pour que je puisse m'en coudre une !

Cum pedibus

2009-09-13T02:42:00.000-07:00

I know my feet look ok in the picture but trust me, they're not. My feet have the worst karma ever. Just the other day, I managed to break a toenail and slice a toe open by hitting a stool. Not a rough edged, dangerously looking metal stool, noooo... A perfectly homely and peaceful wooden stool with nice, not sharp, well-rounded corners. A stool that has been sitting in the same place fo the workroom for weeks and I just forgot it was there, bumped into it and hopped away crying ouchie. Now you can laugh at me. Weirdly enough, the bad karma is limited to hitting things, and sometimes having items fall on them. This is quite odd given the biggest hazrad for bare feet in our house most certainly is pins. They are stray pins everywhere, no matter how much I pick them up and vacuum, there's always at least one pin on the floor in any given room. It used to scare my Home Geek to death...

Je sais que mes pieds ont l'air ok sur la photo mais croyez-moi, ce n'est pas le cas. Mes pieds ont le pire karma du monde. Pas plus tar qu'il y a quelques jours, j'ai réussi à me casse run ongle et m'ouvrir un orteil sur un tabouret. Pas un tabouret méchant avec de grandes dents et des bouts de métal coupants qui dépassent, nooon... Un tabouret parfaitement paisible et civilisé en bois avec des coins bien arrondis. Un tabouret qui occupe la même place dans le bureau depuis des semaines, qu'il m'a suffi d'oublier pour entrer en collision avec et m'éloigner clopinante. Maintnant vous pouvez vous moquer de moi ! Le plus étonnant, c'est que mon mauvais karma pédestre se limite aux heurts et parfois aux chutes d'objets, alors que le plus grand danger pour un paire de pieds nus dans cette maison est sans aucun doute la présence d'épingles. Peu importe combien de fois je les ramasse et je passe l'aspirateur, il y a des épingles partout, dans toutes les pièces. Ca terrifiait le geek domestique au début de notre relation...

My creative space

2009-09-10T10:26:00.000-07:00

I've abandonned my desk and drawing desk and invaded the living room wiht my sewing gear. Can you guess what I'm working on ?

J'ai abandonné le bureau et pris possession du salon avec mon attirail de couture. Saurez-vous deviner à quoi je travaille ?

Green + Happy

2009-09-09T12:34:00.000-07:00

Right from the beginning, we have aimed at producing stuff with the lowest possible ecological impact for a reasonable cost. The balance is tricky to find, but we truly do our best to use eco-friendly materials and processes whenever we can. Choosing our paper plays an important part in this, and we are lucky to have found a local recycled paper producer who does an amazing work. If everything goes according to plan (I'm a little cautious here as we've already had many err... issues), their work should get used in our future tarot deck.

Dès le départ, nous avons visé à offrir des produits avec un impact écologique minime pour un coût raisonnable. C'est un équilibre délicat à trouver, mais nous faisons vraiment de notre mieux pour utiliser des matériaux et des procédés aussi respecteueux de l'environnement que possible. Le choix du papier est un point essentiel, et nous avons eu la chance de trouver un fabricant local de papier recyclé qui fait un travail superbe. Avec un peu de chance (je suis prudente, vu le nombre de... petits soucis que nous avons eu), nous utiliserons son travail pour notre jeu de tarot.

Aaaand... I'm extremely grateful, we have been featured in a Treasury West ! It's our first time ! *happy butt wiggle* Thank you so much Gr8 Jewelry ! (who, BTW, really does an amazing work !)

Eeeet... toutes ma reconnaissance éternelle à Gr8 Jewelry (qui au passage fait un travail superbe) pour nous avoir incluses dans un Treasury West ! C'est la première fois ! *youplala*

Silly me !

2009-09-02T18:27:00.000-07:00

While sketching and coloring, I'm also working on putting a third trial run tarot deck together. I worked on it some yesterday - well today - let's just say : last time I was awake before now. Then I let it dry overnight and went to bed like a good girl. Or so was the plan.
I made the mistake to go have a look at it during the night, to discover that it had gone awry. The wallpaper was getting wavy and all. After that, I unsuccessfully tried to get back to sleep, but my mind was just running in circles, I kept thinking about how to best fix this mess and other options to make that deck. So I got up again.
I *think* I am going to keep working with the current method. Half of deck #3 is now drying between stacks of books. Here's hoping it still looks okay in the morning.
Silly me although thought I had to go buy fixative. Turns out I already did last time I went supplies shopping !
Now I'm trying to get back to sleep, I need it, but I'll leave you with a little previwe of my "Enchanted Forest" sketch.

En parallèle avec mon travail de dessin, je fais des essais pour la troisième version d'essai du jeu de tarot. J'y ai bossé un peu hier - enfin aujourdhui - disons : la dernière fois que j'ai été réveillée avant maintenant. Puis je l'ai laissé à sécher pour la nuit et suis gentiment aller me coucher. Enfin c'était le plan. J'ai commis l'erreur d'y jeter un oeil quand je me suis relevée cette nuit, pour constater que ça n'allait pas du tout. La tapisserie se mettait à faire des vagues, ack ! J'ai bien tenté de me rendormir après ça, mais impossible, mon cerveau surchauffait à se demander comment réparer ça et s'il n'y avait pas de meilleures solutions pour fabriquer le deck. Donc retour au bureau.
Je *pense* que je vais rester sur ma méthode actuelle. La moitié du deck numéro 3 est en train de sécher sous des piles de livres, en espérant qu'elle sera toujours présentable demain matin.
Ma petite tête de linotte était aussi persuadée de ne pas avoir de fixatif. Sauf qu'en fait j'en avais acheté lors de mon dernier passage chez Arteis !
Ce coup-ci, je vais essayer de retourner dormir, j'en ai besoin. Mais je vous laisse avec un petit aperçu du croquis pour "Forêt enchantée".

Automne

2009-09-02T06:35:00.000-07:00

A little sneak peek of what I'm working on this rainy Thursday - yay rain ! Autumn is finally coming and I *love* autumn. It inspires me, autumn colors somehow always work out right on my drawings. Not to mention the heat was a bit hard on me, and being able to open windows and go out again is a bliss.

Un petit aperçu de ce sur quoi je travaille par ce mercredi pluvieux - youpi, il pleut ! L'automne arrive enfin, et *j'aime* l'automne. Il m'inspire, les couleurs automnales sont celles que je dompte le plus facilement sur ma palette. Sans parler du fait que la chaleur était un peu dure à supporter et que c'est une bénédiction d epouvoir de nouveau ouvrir les fenêtres et s'aventurer dehors.

What the cards say...

2009-08-31T01:56:00.000-07:00

I'm back at work after a summer break, or at least I'm getting back in gear. I am still experimenting a lot on how to best produce the complete Manesse deck. In the meantime, we decided to offer the drawings as A4 prints in our shop. The first two have been listed today.

This is a collaborative work between Argyronete and myself, with Lady Fi chiming in with comments when needed. We drew a lot of thematical inspiration for this deck from the Codex Manesse, but stayed relatively close to the traditional Marseille motives. The cards were illustrated by hand in ink, and adorned with a medieval inspired border. Each card has a different border.

Me voilà de retour après une pause estivale. Je suis toujours à la recherche d'une bonne méthode pour produire le deck entier du tarot Manesse. Pour le moment nous avons décidé de mettre en vente dans notre boutique des reproductions au format A4 des illustrations des cartes. Les premières ont tout juste été mises en ligne.
C'est une collaboration entre Argyronete et moi-même, avec de nombreux conseils de Lady Fi. Nous nous sommes beaucoup inspirées du Codex Manesse pour ce deck, tout en restant proches des motifs du Marseille classique. Les illustrations ont été créées à l'encre, puis ornées d'une bordure d'inspiration médiévale. Chaque carte possède une bordure différente.

Three pictures...

2009-08-27T01:29:00.000-07:00

Trois images pour résumer ma longue absence...

Une coiffe à froufrous de dentelle, une chaussure à moitié recouverte de brocard... J'étais plongée dans le dix-huitième siècle ! Mais les arts graphiques reviennent sur le devant de la scène, maintenant que ma casaque 1740 est finie.
Je fais des essais à l'acrylique, beaucoup de travail pour trouver la bonne forme d'expression en ce moment, je ne suis pas sûre que la majorité ne finisse pas dans un carton mais j'aurai au moins appris quelque chose.

Three pictures to sum up where I disappeared... A frilly lace cap, a shoe in the process of being recovered with brocade,... The eighteenth century got me ! But I'm transitionning back to graphic arts now that my 1740s casaque is done.
I'm doing trial runs in acrylics right now, working a lot on finding what media works best for me. I'm not sure most of it won't end up in a storage box, but at least I'll have learned something in the process.

Steel and music fail

2009-07-09T06:11:00.000-07:00

I've made the ugliest pair of pocket hoops this side of the Milky Way. Don't know where the fabric came from (several degrees of hand-me down) but it's nasty. Pocket hoops involve boning, which in its turn means cutting steel. I dug out the Mighty Things That Cut from the garage, wrangled with the steel and the duct tape, marked the right length, wrangled some more, made a dent, a little bigger dent, managed to cut it, yay !... and... the remaining coil of steel fell from the balcony. Good thing we don't live in an apartment anymore, I'd have been very embarassed to ring at the neighbor's door to retrieve my steel.

Second fail of the day : I have weird cartoon songs stuck in my head (Heidi folks, Heidi !), trying to get them out I open XMMS on random... and out comes Megumi Hayashibara... So now it's no longer just in my head, I have the Slayers soundtrack on repeat. :D

Just for the record : I have a sad and long history of twisted love for awful prints on period underwear. See my multicolored checked bustle for a proof.

A little bear

2009-07-08T04:01:00.000-07:00

I already saw quite a few people draw bears for Million Dandelions - if you haven't, I urge you to do so ! I was worried I had missed the deadline, but no, it runs until the 20th of July.

I'm sorry, Lady Fi, I did *not* listen to your color recommendations at all. All I could think off was working with my quills and inks, they're the one medium I feel most comfortable with now. They feel sort of like... home.

J'ai déjà vu un certain nombre de gens dessiner des ours pour Million Dandelions - si vosu ne l'avez pas fait, il est encore temps ! J'avais peur d'avoir loupé la deadline mais non, elle n'est pas avant le 20.
Désolée, Lady Fi, je n'ai pas suivi tes conseils de couleurs. J'avais trop envie de travailler avec mes plumes et mes encres, c'est le medium avec lequel je suis le plus à l'aise en ce moment. Je m'y sens... chez moi.

And there was much rejoicing... err paper-cutting

2009-07-07T09:36:00.000-07:00

Today was the day of paper cutting and card making. I'm pulling hairs on the Manesse deck trying to find the best way to make the printed cards sturdy and usable for tarot reading purposes. I know how Lady Fi proceeded with her deck, and am trying to adapt her modus operandi. I want to get the same organic feeling and the same sturdiness for our cards.
I also finally finished the ATCs for the costumer ATCs exchange. I moved away from my first concept and went with linocut prints.

Aujourd'hui était le jour du découpage de papier et de la fabrication de cartes. Je m'arrache les cheveux sur le deck Manesse pour rendre les cartes imprimées solides et utilisables pour la cartomancie. Je sais comment Lady Fi a procédé pour son propre jeu et j'essaye d'adapter le processus. Je veux obtenir le même feeling et la même solidité pour nos cartes.

From start to finish : I went from a personal drawing inspired by some millinery drawing form the 1890s. Drew it on lino, trying to get a feel of how the print would look like. Promptly noticed my design was a tad too intricated for my carving skills. Printed about three times as much as shown here to get the needed number of correct prints. Am now wondering what I can do to salvage the "oops" ones... Ideas ?

Du début à la fin : je suis partie d'un croquis inspiré d'un dessin de modiste des années 1890. Je l'ai repris sur le lino, en tâchant de voir à quoi l'impression ressemblerait. Je me suis vite aperçue que mon design était un peu ambitieux pour mes talents de gravure. J'ai du imprimer trois fois la quantité nécessaire pour obtenir le bon nombre d'épreuves correctes. Et maintenant je me demande que faire avec les ratés. Des idées ?

Ten things - dix choses

2009-06-27T15:15:00.000-07:00

Inspired by With Love and Affection I was thinking today about all the things I want to get done in the next few months. I figured making a list of the ten top priorities would be a nice start. Ten things, let's say, before autumn comes around.
1. Prepare the baby's room
2. Make the Tarot deck ready to sell
3. Create at least one art doll
4. Sign in for a nude drawing and an engraving course
5. Sew a pregnancy rococo outfit and wear it to an event
6. Get into the promoting stuff
7. Open a shop on Craftiz.fr
8. Reorganize my personal website to link it to Serpentaires
9. Buy a new digicam
10. Make enough stock to add new items to my shops every few days (I'm a blatant copycat on this one)
Oddly enough, it seems doable - a bit unusual for the woman who always makes unfinishable lists. I'll try to keep track of this over the summer and to keep you posted ! Anyone wanting to share their ten summer projects ? Consider yourself tagged!

Inspirée par le blog de With Love and Affection je pensais aujourd'hui à ce que j'aimerais accomplir dans les mois à venir. Lister les dix items prioritaires serait un bon début. Dix choses à faire, disons, avant l'arrivée de l'automne.
1. Refaire la chambre du bébé
2. Finir le jeu de tarot
3. Créer au moins une poupée
4. M'inscrire à un cours de dessin de modèle vivant et à un cours de gravure
5. Coudre un costume rococo pour femme enceitne et le porter à une sortie en costume
6. Faire la promo de nos boutiques
7. Ouvrir une boutique sur Craftiz.fr
8. Reorganiser mon site web personnel pour le relier à Serpentaires
9. Acheter un nouvel appareil photo numérique
10. Produire suffisamment pour pouvoir lister des nouveautés plusieurs fois par semaine (Je fais une copie éhontée pour le dernier item)
Etrangement, cela semble faisable - ce qui est plutôt bizarre pour uen adepte des listes infinissables. Je vais tâcher de suivre mon progrès et de vous tenir informés. Quelqu'un qui se sent de partager ses dix projets estivaux ? Considérez que je vous refile la patate chaude !

My new best friend

2009-06-26T09:16:00.000-07:00

This... is going to make my life so much easier soon. It is amazingly light and fits in one (my !) hand. This is so much closer so a woman's tool than any of the power tools I've panipulated until yet, my non-existant muscles are extremely thankful. Before I had this lovely little hand-grinder, I had to make to with sanding paper. It's doable for little surfaces like the ones pictured below, but not for the bigger home-improvement projects we have planned.
(For the record, I don't think a woman's tool should be pink. I think it should be the right size and weight to be used by a woman)

Ceci... ca rendre ma vie bien plus facile dans les jours à venir. Elle est toue légère et tient dans une (ma !) main. Enfin quelque chose qui ressemble à un vrai outil pour femme, pas comme ceux que j'ai pu manipuler jusqu'à maintenant, mon absence de muscle est très très reconaissante. Avant l'arrivée de cette petit ponceuse excentrique dans notre ménage, j'en étais réduite au papier de verre. Ca va encore pour de petits projets comme ci-dessous, mais pour les plus gros travaux comme ceux que nous avons prévus, ce n'est pas faisable.
(Pour la petite histoire, je ne pense pas qu'un outil pour fille soit nécessairement rose. Je pense que c'est un outil d'une taille et d'un poids adaptés à la morphologie féminine)

I'm not sure the hand-grinder would have really alleviated my pain with those... The sanding wasn't that problematic, but the painting was ! The non-toxic paints I got (special paints for toys) did NOT behave like they did on the test piece. They were NOT nice. The white was much more opaque than all other colors, whereas the black was barely gray, and the wood reacted badly eveyrtime I tried to achieve a clearer tint by diluting the paint with more water. The colors bled, and the outlines bled even more. And the same happened when I applied the matching sealant.
My bad, there are things I know I could have done but didn't bother with. Applying some kind of primer or linen oil to the wood so that it wouldn't absorb the colors that much. Making a test piece on a cube bought from the same place. Sanding lightly between coats.
I'll do it all for the next series of cubes I'll make - a few more friends will get custom presents for their babies. Then, if I get good enough at working with the medium and fast enough, I might put some up to sell in France. Sorry for you guys in the US, I can't afford to deal with this CPSIA crap. Although I know my cubes are okay for kids.

Je ne suis pas sûre que la ponceuse à main m'aurait beaucoup aidée sur ce coup... Le ponçage n'a pas été torp orblèmatique, les ennuis ont commencé avec la peinture ! Les peintures aux normes jouets que j'ai achetées ne se sont pas DU TOUT comportées sur les cubes comme sur la pièce de test. Le blanc s'est avéré beaucoup plus couvrant que toutes les autres couleurs, le noir était à peine gris, et le bois se mettait à boire comme un trou dès que je tentais d'éclaircir une teinte en la diluant dans plus d'eau. Les couleurs coulaient, et les contours encore plus. Et rebelote quand j'ai passé le vernis. C'est en grande partie de ma faute, j'ai sauté certaines étapes du travial du bois dont je sais pourtant l'utilité. Passer un apprêt ou de l'huile de lin pour empêcher le bois de se gorger de peinture. Faire un test sur un bois de même provenance. Poncer légèrement entre deux couches...
Je serai plus consciencieuse pour les prochaines séries de cubes - d'autres copains vont recevoir des cadeaux personnalisés pour leurs bébés. Après ça, si je me débrouille suffisamment bien avec le medium et que j'atteint une vitesse d'exécution suffisante, j'en mettrai peut-être quelques-uns en vente en France. Désolée pour ceux qui sont aus USA, je n'ai pas les moyens de me coltiner le CPSIA. Même si je sais que mes cubes sont sans dangers pour les enfants...

Etsy wow !

2009-06-23T09:57:00.000-07:00

I meant to make a post about something... but then something else happened. I have finally started setting up our Etsy shop last week. On Sunday I listed our two first items, two reproductions of drawing by myself, Green Martha, on recycled paper. I didn't even start promoting, I was still learning how to set up things, I'm slowly making more stuff for the shop.
And then...
... on Monday I got an email : one of the two prints has sold ! We made our first Etsy sale only one day after listing our first items ! Even now, my brain still turns to pudding when I think of it. The print was mailed this morning, I guess I'll only calm down once I know it's arrived and the buyer loves it in person too.

J'avais prévu de faire un post... et puis ile st arrivé quelque chose. Je me suis enfin attelée à notre boutique Etsy la semaine dernière. Dimanche j'ai mis en ligne nos deux premiers articles, deux reproductions de dessins de Green Martha (moi !), sur papier recyclé. Je n'ai même pas vraiment commencé à faire de la pub, encore en train de comprendre comment ça marche. Je suis toujours en train de faire de nouvelles choses pour le boutique, petit à petit.
Et puis...
... lundi j'ai reçu un mail : une des deux illustrations a été vendue ! Nous avons fait notre première vente un jour après avoir listé nos premier sproduits ! J'en suis encore toute tournechamboulifiée rien que d'y penser. L'illustration a été postée ce matin. Je pense que je ne me détendrai vraiment que quand elle sera arrivée et que j'aurai confirmation qu'elle plaît bien à l'acheteur une fois qu'il l'a en main.

PS : Did you spot the new layout ? Graphic part by the three Serpentaires Girls, techie stuff by the Home Geek and friends, thank you boys, you saved my non-CSS-savvy neck !
PS : Avez-vous remarqué le nouveau layout ? Graphismes par les trois artistes Serpentaires, technique par le Geek Domestique & friends. Merci les gars, vous avez sauvé ma vie de non-pratiquante-CSS !

Lost along the way

2009-06-16T15:31:00.000-07:00

Feeling a little bit under the weather today. Sometimes I hit those places along the road where I don't really know what path to take next, what I should work on now, which areas I'd need to explore. I suppose it's a normal part of an artist's journey, once you have cleared some obstacles on your way you have to make new decisions and set new goals for yourself. Right now it feels a little overwhelming, though. I have a lot of ideas, but they're elusive and often disappear before I can write them down. There are new techniques I want to try my hand at, but I'm stalled trying to do that on my own. There are different styles I want to give a go to, but I feel restricted by some of my technical abilities - or lack thereof. There are, in short, a lot of question marks and ifs and buts. Which is highly probably not a good thing to cultivate on the long term, even though now and then they will open new doors where there were none. In the midst of this mental down I must admit to have neglected my 365 project photography lately. I think I have a one week gap :/

I must say I have come a long way since embarking on this journey. Looking back, I think it started last August with the sudden death of my paternal grandmother. She's always been the artist in the family, she worked as an art teacher for her whole life and once she retired became an artisan. I'm lucky enough to have quite a few jewelry pieces and scarves made by her, including my wedding jewelry. She learnt to work with glass about fifteen years ago, and explored many new-to-her art branches with it. I always adored her style, and was very very lucky that she gave me some private art lessons over the years. She's the one who taught me the basics of perspective, drawing the human body and metal engraving.
Over the last few years I had been neglecting my drawing and painting a bit. I'd created things that were still quite close to works of art - historical costumes, interactive freeform roleplaying events - but where the primary focus was not on making "art". My grandma's unexpected passing away started a reflexion that slowly drove a point home : I could no longer ignore my longing to create, especially graphic works. I needed them. Sewing or developping plots and characters was too long a process, with too many strings attached (historical references, fabric availability, sewing machine failures, players' satisfaction...) to satisfy the creative craving I had inside of me.
So back to the drawing board I went, and dusted of the vague project I had to open up a shop in the virtual world. I knew just creating for the sake of it could not get me any further than it previously had : some nice pieces, a lot of unfinished ones, some voluntary custom work that wasn't quite satisfactory. There have been times in the past where I drew a lot, but the outcome wasn't very brilliant, nor was my personnal progression as an artist because what I created did not really matter in the end. It had no impact on my life, so it didn't really matter that much to me, and when I drew for someone else it usually was in such an amateur context that they took whatever my first suggestion was because they just needed a picture, and which one they got didn't matter that much either.
If I wanted to go anywhere with my art, that needed to change. Opening a shop on the web isn't for me just a way to turn my creativity into money. It's a challenge to myself. It's a way to push myself further in what I make, to make the outcome matter, to force myself to go as far as I am able to go with my art. I can't satisfy myself any longer with knowing that this piece has a good potential, that the composition in that one is good, and that the color in the third is pretty good. I need to create something that works as a whole. I have to make a rounded, complete piece of art. In the end, I need to put up a cohesive line, something that says "me". I learnt a lot of thigns about this "me" lately.
I don't think I've often been so graphically productive as recently. I have discovered my inspiration works well in series, and I enjoy the self-imposed limitations they imply (the love of self-imposed boundaries is not new to me, the series thing is). I previously showed pieces from the Domestic Wonderland print series, I have three others in the early sketching stages. I think the Pendragon Tarot should also be considered as one.
Another thing I learnt is that I love children's art, and childhood inspired themes. I still go back to fantastic elements I have been inspired by in the past, but the focus has shifted a bit. This might of course have something to do with the impending arrival of our first child. It might also be related to moving a little bit further away from comics books and closer to illustration. The comics style and way of working is still a very strong influence, but I've come to detect this influence more frequently, rather than just accept it the way to work.
And so I have come to change the way I work, little by little. I have been forced to look for other ways to work around my limitations, to think around color and composition. Those steps are of course needed and pushing me forward, but not standing on a firm, familiar ground is scary. Working with Lady Fi and Argyronete has helped immensely - although they are a bit quiet on this blog and very busy in other areas of their lives right now, they are my creative soulmates and the ones I turn to when artistically in doubt. I am thankful I can find my path with such amazing friends and artists by my side, their work and styles never fail to give me the right insight to get back to my own sketchbook with a fresh eye. Thanks a lot, girls, see, even typing this long-winded post made my mind clearer.

Busy Bee !

2009-06-11T10:29:00.000-07:00

I've spent the past few days rrrrrrunning... Whizzz... whizzz... So this was ready a few days back but I didn't get to post it until now.

Illustration Friday - Craving

J'ai couru de partout ces derniers jours... du coup impossible de poster cette illus avant aujourd'hui, alors qu'elle est finie depuis le début de la semaine...

Creative space

2009-06-08T08:28:00.000-07:00

I'm experimenting today... I dug out the non-toxic inks and played around a little - see the little elephant ? That's my trial run. And.... WOW ! Those are A-WE-SO-ME ! It really doesn't compare with my previous experience of painted wood (with gouache or watercolor). This is so much more like watercolor on paper... I'm super excited about them, unfortunately I have an appointment now so I can't start really playing with them right now but when I'll get back I'm going to have some fun, teeeheee !
Je fais des expériences aujourd'hui. J'ai ressorti mes teintes transparents aux normes jouet et j'ai fais quelques tests - vous voyez le petit éléphant ? C'est mon essai. Et.... OUAH ! Elles sont GE-NIA-LES ! Sans comparaison avec mes tentatives précédentes de peinture sur bois (à base de gouache et d'aquarelle). C'est beaucoup plus proche du travail de l'aquarelle sur papier... Je suis excitée comme une puce, mais malheureusement j'ai un rendez-vous et je ne peux pas me mettre au travail tout de suite, mais à mon retour j'ai l'intention de profiter de mes nouveaux joujoux... Yeeeha !

Of pirates and expecting mothers

2009-06-07T07:45:00.000-07:00

I just finished sewing some custom creations and took pictures right away. In the absence of the recipients, the garments will be modeled by Karringa, the fakir-woman, and Nick, the nearly-headless dress dummy.
Je viens de finir quelques commandes que j'ai photographiées aussitôt. En l'absence des destinataires, les vêtements seront présentés par Karringa, la femme fakir, et Nick, le mannequin presque-sans-tête.

This blouse was a specific request for a pregnant lady. I reused the pattern from a pregnancy blouse I have made for myself. Both garment are made from upcycled fabrics - cushion slipcovers and bedspreads. The pocket actually conceils a spot where the fabric was ripped and patched.
Cette blouse était une commande pour une jeune femme enceinte, d'après le patron d'une blouse que je me suis faite. Les deux tops sont faits dans des tissus recyclés, d'anciennes taies de coussins et couvre-lits. La poche cache un endroit où le tissu avait été déchiré et rapiécé.

Which buttons do I choose ? For what you ask ? For a pair of pirate shirts... Aaarrrrh !
Quels boutons choisir ? Boutons pour quoi ? Pour une paire de chemise de pirate, moussaillon !

I went with the dark bronze, plain military style buttons in the end. I know I have enough of those for the matching waistcoat and justeaucorps. Nick was nice enough during the photoshoot, he neither collapsed nor tilted so far to the side that you'd mistake him for a hunchback. That's not common for him, so please say with me : Good job Nick !
The shirts are a mixture of 18th century patterns and the client's wishes. They're machine sewn, finely pleated at the neck and wrists, with gussets at the armpits and shoulders, and an applied piece to reinforce the end of th neck opening.
Je me suis décidée pour les boutons vieux bronze tout simples, de style un peu militaire, car je sais que j'en ai suffisamment dans ce style pour le gilet et l'habit assortis. Nick a eu la gentillesse de ne pas s'effondrer pendant les photos, et de ne pas non plus pencher au point de paraître bossu. C'est plutôt rare de sa part, alors, tous avec moi : Beau travail, Nick !
Les chemises sont un croisement entre des patrons du 18ème siècle et les desideratas du client. Elles sont cousues à la machine, finement plissées aux poignets et au col, avec des goussets sous les bras et sur les épaules, et une pièce de renfort au bout de l'ouverture devant.

And finally, something I'm rather proud of... The logo is still in the works. We have a temporary version but I can't send that to have labels printed so... I present you the all handmade shirt, with matchign handmade label !
Et pour finir, j'en suis assez fière... Le logo est en cours de finalisation. Nous avons une version provisoire, mais pas quelque chose que je puisse envoyer pour faire imprimer des étiquettes donc... Voici la chemise où même l'étiquette est une pièce unique !

And with color...

2009-06-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

I told you the color version was coming ! The black outlines are worked with a Pentel calligraphy inkbrush, and the color is watercolor. I used up the last sheet of Cotman water colour paper I had for this one, it is a truly remarkable paper to work with a water-based medium. The only problem being it's heavily textured, so it's hard to get good reproductions in print.

Je vous avais bien dit que la version couleur arrivait sous peu ! L'encrage est fait au feutre-pinceau à calligraphie Pentel, la couleur à l'aquarelle. J'ai utilisé ma dernière feuille de papier aquarelle Cotman pour ce dessin, c'est vraiment un support exceptionnel pour travailler avec de l'eau. Malheureusement c'est ausis un papier avec un très gros grain, ce qui rend la reproduction sur papier du dessin un peu compliquée.

Illustration Friday - Adapt

2009-06-05T03:44:00.000-07:00

I went back and forth a little and in the end decided to go for this version. The tea-cup lady will get finished as well, don't worry, just not for this week. I'm going to color this one as well - not feeling the greatest this week and subsequently slowed down in my work.
I've been very fond of Goldilocks' story as a kid, and loved the idea of going back to it to illustrate it. What if the little girl had just tried to pretend to be a bear as well ?

Après mûre réflexion, je me suis décidée pour cette version de l'illustration. La demoiselle à la tasse de thé sera finie également, pas d'inquiétude, mais un peu plus tard. Et cette illus aura droit à de la couleur aussi - je ne suis pas très en forme cette semaine et considérablement ralentie dans mon travail de ce fait.
J'adorais l'histoire de Boucle d'Or quand j'étais petite, et j'ai trouvé intéressant d'y revenir pour en tirer une illustration. Et si la petite fille avait tenté de se faire passer pour un ours ?

The Lamp's name is Mario

2009-06-02T06:59:00.000-07:00

To me this little fellow is italian, there's no other possibility. Here's a glimpse of my first print series, Domestic Wonderland. These will be available as 8,3"x11,7" black&white prints once the shop opens. We're currently working on branding finalisation - logos, that kind of stuff. There's probably a blog make-over in the works as well. Stay tuned !

Pour moi, ce petit bonhomme est italien, forcément. Voilà un aperçu de ma première série d'illustrations, Domestic Wonderland. Elles seront disponibles au format A4 en noir & blanc dès que la boutique ouvrira. Nous sommes actuellement en train de finaliser les détails de l'identité visuelle - les logos et tout ça. Le blog va sans doute avoir droit aussi à une nouvelle façade. Restez en ligne !

Illustration Friday - Cracked

2009-05-31T04:04:00.000-07:00

I know, I missed the deadline. But anyway, here's my take on last week's "Cracked". I have a porcelain doll that fell on her head once. It's not so nicely cracked, more shattered, but the face is still intact and provided the inspiration. This one is going to end as a print in the shop !

Je sais, j'ai loupé la deadline. Mais voici quand même mon dessin pour IF de la semaine dernière, "Cracked". L'inspiration m'est venue d'une poupé een porcelaine qui a fait une chute malencontreuse. La tête n'est pas joliment fissurée comme sur le dessin, mais bien en miettes, mais le visage est intact. Ce dessin sera disponible dans la boutique !

And before I get late again, here's the sketch to this week's IF, "Adapt". I'll admit it, it's a little bit personal... I actually have another take on the subject brewing in my sketchbook, but that one will take longer to get done.

Et avant que je me retrouve en retard à nouveau, le croquis pour IF de cette semaine, "Adapt". Avec de vrais petits bouts de moi dedans... J'ai une autre interprétation du thème dans mon carnet de croquis, mais il va me fallori un peu plus de temps pour la terminer.

Steampunk copy and original

2009-05-27T03:38:00.000-07:00

Pour changer j'ai envie de vous montrer un peu la travail en chantier. Ca commence par un simple croquis au crayon, sans encrage, sans couleur, sans rien, avec des lignes même pas encore abouties.
Ce qu'il y a de rigolo, c'est que mes crayons otn leur volonté propres et ne dessinentpas toujours ce que je suis partie pour dessiner. Voilà ce que j'étais partie pour mettre sur papier.
For a change I decided to give you a little insight of my work in progress. Bare sketches in pencil, no inking, no color, no nothing, not even very finished lines.
The funny thing ? My pencils have their own will and I cannot always bend them to mine. This is what I meant to draw when I took the pencil.

Et voilà ce qu'a donné ma première tentative.
And this is what came out on the first round.

A part la position de la tête et l'ambiance un peu steampunk, pas grand chose à voir, non ? Ca m'arrive régulièrement, ça représente peut-être un tiers de ma production. Parce qu'une chose que j'ai fini par apprendre, c'est que quand je n'arrive pas à rendre sur papier ce que j'ai en tête, mieux vaut commencer par laisser faire le papier et le crayon.
Apart from the inclination of the head and the hint of steampunk, not much in common, right ? Happens all the time, it probalby accounts for a third of my drawing. Because there's one thing I learnt over time : when I can't put my thougths on paper, I'd better let the paper and pencil do their own thing first.

Illustration Friday - Contagious

2009-05-19T04:04:00.000-07:00

Fashion is a form of contagion - the same item spreading, getting worn by more and more people, regardless of their personalities or body types. India ink and GIMP. (Click for the full picture)
La mode est une forme de contagion - le même vêtement qu'on retrouve sur de plus en plus de personne, quelles que soient leur personnalité et leur morphologie. Encre de Chine et GIMP. (Cliquez pour l'image complète)

Week-end

2009-05-19T01:17:00.000-07:00

We spent the week-end in Briançon (1200m above sea-level, near the italian border), it was warm and sunny, we walked, ate, and got sunburnt. And I took loads of pictures !

Nous avons passé le week-end à Briançon, par un temps magnifique, à marcher, manger et prendre des coups de soleil. Et pour ma part, à prendre plein de photos !

Lots of pictures of doors. The rest of my week-end pictures can be found on my Flickr photostream.
Beaucoup de photos de portes. Le reste des photos du week-end est visible sur mon Flickr.

Pom Pom Popom... Pom Pom Popom...

2009-05-14T08:11:00.000-07:00

Un peu en retard, le résultat final de mes créations pour le mariage...

Mamaman, en orange et bordeaux, la deuxième en partant de la gauche. Patrons de 1912 et 1913 modifiés selon ses souhaits, jupe en laine bouillie avec doublure en satin et triplure en organdi de coton, veste en brocard de laine et polyester, col et revers en soie sauvage.

My Mom is the second person from the left, in orange and dark red. Pattern adapted from original 1912 and 1913 patterns, skirt of boiled wool, interlined with cotton organdi and lined in satin, jacket of wool and polyester brocadre with silk collar and cuffs.

Ma robe, photographiée sous toutes ses coutures par Heileen (merci !). Patron d'après Simplicity et Jean Hunnisett, années 1820, soie sauvage et châle type cachemire (j'en ai acheté deux, un qui a été découpé pour les appliqués, un autre que je porte sur les épaules). Un petit parasite a rendu la robe un peu serrée le jour J, mais ça passait encore !

My dress, photographed in detail by Heileen (thanks !). Patterns adapted from Simplicty and Jean Hunnisett, 1820's, silk and fake paisley shawl (I bought two shawls, one was cut into pieces for the appliques and I'm wearing the other as a stole). A little bugger made the dress a little tight on the D day, but it still worked !

Ce que j'ai appris de ces projets : je n'aime pas travailler la soie. Le passepoil c'est long mais c'est joli. Je ne pourrais pas vivre sans mon mannequin ni sans Lady Fi.
What I learned from those projects : I do *notù like working with silk. Piping takes time but is pretty. I couldn't do without my dress dummy and Lady Fi.

Copy and original

2009-05-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

Voici ce qui traîne actuellement sur ma table de travail : la dernière arcane majeure d'un jeu de tarot réalisé en collaboration par Argyronete et moi-même, avec les conseils éclairés de Lady Fi. A gauche, la version d'origine d'Argyronete, comme elle avait été faite dans un certain rush, le résultat est à retravailler - l'épaisseur des traits n'est pas uniforme entre le fond (réalisé séparément) et le premier plan (qui lui a été assemblé digitalement). Vu l'ampleur du travail, le plus simple est de reprendre et de re-encrer le tout.
A droite, le crayonné de ma version. J'ai conservé le design d'Argyronete (qui est très proche d'un Marseille classique), et allégé le fond. J'ai également ajouté une bordure - comme il y en aura sur chacune des arcanes majeures.
Après ça, c'est presque fini ! Il me reste à finir le crayonné de l'Impératrice (également sur une base d'Argyronete), puis à encrer tout ça. Et ce sera fini pour le noir et blanc !

Here's what's on my drawing desk right now : the last major arcana of the tarot deck that was drawn by Argyronete and myself, with many helpful commentaries from Lady Fi.
On the left is Argyronete's original version - it was done in a rush and has some issues - mainly with the width of the inking not being consistent between the background (that was made separately and digitally added into the picture) and the foreground. Given how much work it'd have been to digitally edit that, I decided to restart from scratch.
On the right is my sketch. I stayed close to Argyronete's design (which itself is really close to a classic Marseille arcana) and made the background lighter. I also added a border, like on all majors.
Once that is done I only have some sketching work to do on the Imperatrix, then it's onto inking what's left, and the B&W set of major arcanas will be done !

My creative space

2009-05-08T08:20:00.000-07:00

What's brewing today. This one gave me a hard time, partly because it's hard to take pictorial license with something you know as well as rococo underpinnings. And it isn't gettign any better as I have NO IDEA what to do with all the blank space around her. None of the few tries I did looked convincing.
In the top right corner are two wooden cubes that are in the works for our friends' kid, little E.

Sur le métier aujourd'hui... J'ai sué sur cette illus, notamment parce que j'ai du mal à mettre de côté l'exactitude historique sur les sous-vêtements rococo. Et ça ne s'améliore pas, je sèche sur le fond de l'image, mes quelques essais n'ont rien donné de concluant.
En haut à droite, deux cubes en cours de réalisation pour le fils de nos amis, E.

And the good news ? We've found a new car ! It's big, it's red, and it should be our in ten days. Yay !

Et la bonne nouvelle c'est que nous avons trouvé notre nouvelle voiture ! Elle est grande, elle est rouge, et elle devrait être à nous d'ici dix jours. Youpi !

RIP Pilot V5... or not

2009-05-06T02:46:00.000-07:00

So the reason why it was getting so hard outlining the frames on the major arcanas wasn't me getting shakey, or my wrist being too badly sprayed (I fell down yesterdya and twisted it more than you normally should), or my blood sugar being too low. It was my pen dying. Luckily I have a few spare pens at home, so I wasn't stuck without a trustworthy Pilot 0.5 . It's the first time I've used a Pilot so much it refuses me its services. Usually I lose them before that happens.
Oddly enough, the dead pen seems to not be quite dead. I was able to doodle some with it a few minutes ago... Weird.

Donc si je n'arrivais plus à encrer correctement l'encadrement des arcanes majeures ce n'était pas ma main qui tremblotait, l'hypoglycémie ou une entorse du poignet due à ma chute d'hier. C'était mon stylo en train de mourir. Par chance j'ai quelques stylos de rechange à la maison, donc je ne me suis pas retrouvée coincée sans Pilot 0.5 . C'est la première fois que j'en use un jusqu'à ce qu'il me refuse ses services - d'habitude, je les perds avant.
Bizarrement, le stylo mort n'a pas l'air si mort que ça, j'ai pu faire quelques gribouillis avec tout à l'heure... Etrange.

Doodles

2009-05-03T14:39:00.000-07:00

I have just finished a new companion for this little fellow under here. This is a start of a series of small black & white prints - I'm currently narrowing down sources for pretty AND green paper. I have more trouble finding enveloppes to ship the prints in.
Working in black and white really is one of my favorite things in illustration. I find it quick and easy and you can do some interesting stuff with textures and composition. This series so far has been inked with 0.7 and 0.5 pilot pens - another favorite tool of mine.Je viens de finir un nouveau camarade pour ce petit bonhomme. c'est le début d'un série de petits illustrations en noir et blanc - j'ai quelques sources en tête pour du papier *recyclé* de qualité mais j'ia plus de mal à localiser des enveloppes pour l'expédition.
Le travail en noir et blanc est un de mes modes de fonctionnement préférés. Il est facile d'accès et me permet d'avoir des résultats rapidement tout en jouant sur les textures et la composition. Cette série a été encrée jusqu'ici au Pilot 0.5 et 0.7 - un de mes outils favoris.

Nouveau bureau !

2009-04-26T10:47:00.000-07:00

J'ai un nouveau coin pour travailler avec mes pinceaux !
I have a new drawing desk !

C'était un pupitre que ma grand-mère s'était fait fabriquer pour pouvoir dessiner debout... De toute évidence, je suis plus grande que ma grand-mère :D Et dessus, la preuve que je travaille sur notre tarot.
It's a scavenged piece from my Grandma's attic, she had it made to be able to draw whilst standing. I'm obviously taller than her ! And on the desk, pictorial evidence that I'm working on our tarot deck.

Progress !!

2009-04-25T15:50:00.000-07:00

Après un certain nombre d'heures à parcourir les illustrations du Codex Manesse, j'ai enfin une idée assez précise de comment je vais pouvoir finir notre nouveau jeu de tarot.
Scanner toutes les cartes.
Les imprimer toutes au même format (je vais m'arranger avec le format des tiennes, Argyronète).
Crayonner un cadre et compléter le dessin si nécessaire.
Encrer le tout.
J'ai trouvé plusieurs modèles d'encadrement qui me plaisent et s'adapteront à différentes cartes, je pense que je ferai chaque cadre individuellement pour rappeler l'aspect légèrement imparfait du manuscrit. Et comme ça je pourrai jouer sur de légers débordements de l'image sur le cadre, comme sur les enluminures d'époque. *se frotte les mains*
I spent quite some time browsing the Codex Manesse, and I finally have a clear idea of how I want to finish our new tarot deck.
Scan all cards.
Print them all on the same format (I'll find a way to deal with yours, Argyronète).
Draw and ink a frame around it, complete illustration if necessary.
I found several frame themes that I like and that will work well with the different cards. I think I'll draw each frame individually so as to keep the orginal hand-drawn look and to be able to reproduce some overlapping found in the manuscript illustrations. *rubs hands*

Et pour vous dire qu'on continue à bosser sur les autres projets, mes encres de couleur sont arrivées, et j'ai une source potentielle pour des cubes en bois pleins, de récup', non traités. ..\o/Que je ne pourrai absolument pas utiliser pour la boutique... /o\
We're still plugging ahead ont he projects that were previously mentionned : the coloured inks have been delivered, and I've found a potential source for upcycled, untreated plain wooden cubes... \o/ Which I probably won't be able to use for the shop... /o\

Fatum

2009-04-08T14:49:00.000-07:00

Ce soir je voulais ressortir un projet du fond de mes cartons, en attendant de retrouver l'inspiration sur ma vendeuse de ballons. Seulement au fond de mes cartons, je n'ai pas trouvé ce que je cherchais... Du coup, bien obligée, j'ai fini par exhumer ma plume Atom et par encrer la vendeuse en question. Et il se pourrait même que j'ai une idée de comment possiblement la continuer...

Tonight I meant to work on some old project until I found some inspiration for the balloon seller. Except I couldn't find the old project I wanted. So there I went, dug out the Atom quill and inked said balloon lady. I might even go as far as having an idea about what to do with her next !

C'est le printemps !

2009-04-05T11:15:00.000-07:00

C'est le printemps au jardin... et dans ma tête. Il y a des fleurs dans ma pelouse et de nouveaux projets sur mon bureau.
It's springtime in the garden... and in my head. There are flowers in the grass and new projects on my desk.

For now I'm experimenting, I'm not quite sure I'll take this item into our shop. Though I like the concept of painted wood cubes, they are quite time consuming. Several of our friends recently had kids, kindly providing me some guinea pigs.
The cubes are little boxes I sanded smooth. Since then I found some plain cubes online - they may be sturdier than the boxes, but then again I love double-duty objects.
Les premières versions sont des expériences, je ne sais pas si ces cubes peints feront à long terme partie de la gamme de la boutique. C'est qu'ils prennent du temps à faire ! Par bonheur, je vais pouvoir répéter l'expérience, plusieurs de nos amis ayant récemment eu des enfants, pour voir si je me fais suffisamment la main pour que le produit soit rentable.
Les cubes sont en fait de petites boîtes - depuis j'ai trouvé où me fournir en cubes pleins en ligne. Je gagnerais en solidité mais je perdrais en utilité.

J'attends l'arrivée de ma commande de teintes spéciales aux normes jouet pour la couleur.
I'm waiting for the special toy paints I ordered to arrive to actually paint the wood.

Vendeuse de ballons aux pieds fourchus

2009-03-29T14:49:00.000-07:00

Je dois être bizarre, parce que c'est ce que je dessine après avoir lu une histoire de zombies. Bon ok, il y avait au moins une demi-ligne évoquant ce hmmm... on ne peut même pas dire personnage.
Pour le moment j'ai un croquis sur du bon papier, et comme souvent ces derniers temps, je ne sais pas quoi en faire ensuite... Aquarelle ? Crayon de couleur ? Pastel ? Fusain ? Plume ? C'est frustraaaaaant !
J'ai un autre projet en phase d'esquisse mais j'ai besoin de lumière pour aller observer les fleurs au jardin, je crois que c'est mort pour ce soir...

I must be weird, this is what I draw after reading a zomdies story. Granted, there was about half a line about this figure in the book...
Well, it's just a rough sketch on nice paper, but I don't know how to go further with it. Watercolour ? Pastels ? Crayons ? China ink ? Charcoal ? It's so frustrating to be stuck in indecision...
I have another project in the rough stages but I'd need some daylight to go have a look at the flowers in the garden - that won't happen tonight, obviously.

Atelier couture

2009-02-10T07:39:00.000-08:00

Comme on a pu le voir dans le précédent post, je couds. Souvent. Et comme on a vu dans un post encore avant, je me marie sous peu. Ce qui, si on recoupe ces informations, amène à penser que je couds pour mon mariage. Ma robe est finie est soigneusement accrochée à un cintre, et actuellement sur mon mannequin il y a un tailleur pour ma mère, d'après des patrons 1912 et 1913 - adaptés aux mensurations et desideratas de la cliente. Même si honnêtement, les adaptations ont été minimes. La jupe assortie est en laine bouillie orange.
La lumière est mauvaise sur les photos du bas, il faisait nuit mais j'avais besoin d'envoyer les photos à ma mère pour qu'elle me donne son avis sur les revers de manches.

As it's been shown before, I sew. A lot. And it's also been shown before, I'm getting married soon. Which, when you connect the information, might lead you to think that there's some wedding related sewing happening around here. And there actually is ! The bride's dress is done and properly stored on a hanger, and right now I'm working on a tailored suit for the mother of the bride. It's made from original 1912 and 1913 patterns, adapted to the measurements and wishes of the clients - and there weren't many changes needed. The matching skirt is of orange wool.
I'm sorry for the bad lighting in the second row of pictures - it was still dark outside but I needed to mail pictures to my Mom to ask her what she wanted for cuff treatment.

J'ai également commandé un devis d'étiquettes "Serpentaires" à coudre sur nos futures créations textiles. Avec le logo de notre blog. Yeah !
I also asked a specialised firm to quote me a price for "Serpentaires" labels, woven with our blog logo, to attach to our future textile creations.

Kitty is going goth

2009-01-20T01:54:00.000-08:00

Ceci est la deuxième édition d'un cadeau que j'ai fait il y a plus d'un an pour une fan de Hello Kitty (des photos de qualité moyenne à bof par là ) : une poupée de chiffons inspirée de Hello Kitty en tenue victorienne complète. La première version portait une toilette de dpiner 1870 en satin dorée. Celle-ci est un croisement de styles gothiques et 1880, dolman compris.

This is a repeat of a gift I once made for a Hello Kitty fan (bad pictures here) : a HK inspired rag doll in full victorian attire. The first project had been a gold satin dinner bustle dress. This one is a gothic themed natural form outfit, including dolman.

La poupée est cousue à la main et à la machine, et porte un opulent noeud noir orné de dentelle sur l'oreille. Son visage est brodé à la main. Elle porte un ensemble de lingerie noire d'époque bordée de dentelle noire plissée et de noeuds de ruban, un corset en satin violet avec applications de dentelle et oeillets cousus mains, un jupon en batiste noire brodée, une jupe rassemblée en plis en éventail derrière, avec une tunique en damassé noir, un corsage à la polonaise à revers en damassé, et un dolman de satin violet et velours noir. Le dolman est doublé d'un fin satin noir et orné de noeuds de satin noir.
Et après avoir tapé cette description j'ai vraiment l'impression que je suis bien barrée pour coudre ce genre de choses. C'est probablement le cas. Quoi qu'il en soit, le chaton est fini et emballé, et devrait être posté demain matin.

Goth Kitty is sewn by hand and machine, and has a decadent black bow of fabric and lace sewn onto one ear. The face is handembroidered. The Kitty comes with a set of black period underwear trimmed with pleated black lace and ribbon bows, a plastic-boned purple satin corset embellished with lace appliques and hand-sewn lacing holes, a black embroidered batiste petticoat, a fan-tailed underskirt with attached damask apron, a polonaise-style darted bodice with damask cuffs, and a purple satin and black velvet dolman. The dolman is lined in black an trimmed with black satin ribbons.
And typing this complete description made me think I was reaaaaally crazy to sew something like that. I probably am. Anyway, the Kitty is done and packed in it's box, and should get in the mail tomorrow morning.

Some stuff going on

2009-01-18T02:59:00.000-08:00

J'ai quelques idées d'images qui tournent sous mon crâne... ce qui n'est pas la meilleure idée possible quand on est charrette sur des tenues et de la déco pour le mariage. Passer des heures à dessiner n'est pas vraiment une option, et évidemment je ne peux penser qu'à ça aujourd'hui.
I do have a few graphic concepts and ideas brewing... which isn't such a bright idea when I'm in a time crunch to finish several wedding outfits and some DIY decoration for the wedding location. Spending hours drawing is very much NOT an option and yet, it's all I can seem to be thinking of today.

- Pentel sur papier -

Je me demande bien ce que je vais en faire... Encore une de ces idées qui font "paf" et qu'on se dépêche de noter...
A y regarder de plus près, je vais probablement le retravailleR. J4aime bien les chouettes-chats, mais le reste moins.
I have no idea what I'll turn this into. It's just one of those ideas that suddenly popped into my head and I had to put it onto paper.
Actually, after looking at them more, I think I might rework it. I love the owl-kittens, but I'm not so happy with the rest.

Faire-parts, faire-parts...

2009-01-17T11:26:00.000-08:00

J'ai été soudainement réveillée ce matin par une idée amusante de faire-part de naissance. Non que ce soit d'actualité, mais je me suis précipitée sur un carnet pour noter le concept. Et comme je n'ai pas eu le temps de faire de vrais croquis qui ne ressemblent pas à des gélules, je vais poster un autre faire-part... celui de notre mariage ! Comme vous pouvez voir, il y a un un léger thème geek dans l'air...
I woek up today to a brand new birth announcement card concept, and had to jump out of bed to note it down. Of course, I haven't gotten to sketch anything more precise than a vague elongated shape over the course of the day, so in lieu of said card, I'll show you our wedding invitations. Yup, we're slightly nerdy.

Les enveloppes, en train d'être découpées. Heureusement, j'ai eu de l'aide, ce qui a sauvé ma main droite.
Cutting out the enveloppes. I'm thankfull for the help I got that saved my right hand.

Les invitations elles-mêmes, dans l'enveloppe, la première page, et l'intérieur.
The invitations themselves, in the enveloppe, first page and inside.

Et le coupon réponse, sous toutes ses coutures. Pas mal de gens ont refusé de nous le renvoyer, soit-disant qu'il serait trop mignon ! Je suis super contente du résultat, c'est un bel exemple de collaboration, entre votre servante au dessin, le geek domestique (aka le futur époux ) à l'édition du PDF et au lettrage, Lady Fi à la retouche d'images et son époux derrière l'imprimante. Oh, une petite erreur s'est glissée sur la première page du faire-part, elle a été rectifiée par la suite !
Then there's the answer card, all inside and out. I'm so so SO happy with the way the invitations turned out. They're the result of a great collaboration between myself (drawings), the Home Geek (assembling text and pictures and making the file for the enveloppes), Lady Fi (mad graphic editing skillz, she has dem) and her husband behind the printer. Oh, there was a tiny mistake on the first page of the inviation, it was corrected afterwards.

J'ai adoré travailler sur ce projet, et j'ai bien l'intention d'offrir quelques faire-parts originaux dans ma future production. J'en ai quelques uns en projet dans mes cartons, mais surtout, j'espère bien trouver des clients avec qui développer des concepts sympas !
I loved, loved, loved working on those, and I fully intend to offer some nifty wedding invitation sets in my future production. I have a few projects in the making, but above all I hope to find some clients interested in developping unique concepts.

Artist Trading Cards (ATC)

2009-01-16T15:26:00.000-08:00

Sisi, y a encore de la vie ici ! Mais entre deux jeunes mariées, une future jeune mariée, quelques ennuis de santé, les fêtes, tout ça... je n'ai pas trop eu le temps de poster. Mais promis, je vous garde des images des faire-parts et de la robe sous le coude !
En attendant, pour la détente, je me suis inscrite à un échange d'ATC organisé par la charmante et talentueuse Jen Thompson. Thème : le costume historique (niak niak niak !)
There's still life over here ! But between two just married team members, being soon to be married myself, some health issues, the holidays and so on... I really didn't get to post. But Ipromise wedding invitatiosn and dress pictures !
In the meantime, to sort of unwind from the stress, I'm taking part in an ATC exchange organised by the lovely and much talented Jen Thompson. Theme : costumes (mwahahah !)

Pour ceux qui ne savent pas ce que c'est que des Artist Trading Cards, c'est expliqué ici et sur la communauté LiveJournal dédiée
. Cliquez sur l'image pour la version complète. Le travail est encore en cours, pour le moment ce sont des feuilles volantes d'un côté, des cartes pokemon de l'autre...
For those who don't know what Artist Trading Cards are, it's explained on the dedicated LiveJournal community
. Click on the pictures for the whole image. Work is still in progress, right now the ATCs are just loose pieces of paper onone side, and Pokemon cards on anoher.

Here i am...

2008-10-23T07:52:00.001-07:00

A propos de moi...
About me...

Je me présente : Lady Fi, de mon nom complet Zéphire de Foreshadowing, jeune sorcière de 27 ans, dessinatrice la nuit, cartomancienne le jour, et costumière dans l'historique à mes heures perdues. J'habite un petit village de montagne avec mon époux et nos chats, Boumaph et Kernell. Pour ceux qui veulent tout savoir, Boumaph c'est de l'hébreu et Kernell de l'informatique, ce qui revient à peu près au même suivant les points de vue.
Let's introduce myself: Lady Fi, from my complete name Zéphire de Foreshadowing, 27 year old sorceress, painter at night, fortune-teller when the sun shines bright and costume-maker in historical fashion at my lost hours. I live in a small village surrounded by mountains and woods with my husband and our cats, Boumaph and Kernell. For thoses who wonder, Boumaph comes from the Hebrew and Kernell from informatics – which is about the same in some way. ^_^

Je suis actuellement sur un projet de Tarot inspiré du "Tarot de Marseille". Inspiré... Cela fait en vérité 10 ans que je tire les cartes, ayant appris au départ avec un jeu de ma confection. J'ai dessiné mon premier jeu, composé seulement des 22 arcanes majeurs, à 16-17 ans à partir des reproductions en noir et blanc de 5 centimètres de haut qui se trouvaient dans le seul livre sur le tarot qui était à ma disposition à l'époque. Depuis, j'en ai lu beaucoup d'autres, tout en ayant égallemment bien étoffé ma collection de jeux de cartes. Ma vision du Tarot dans son ensemble s'est affinée et précisée, ce pourquoi je ressens aujourd'hui le besoin de reprendre mes pinceaux pour cette fois réaliser un jeu complet (de 78 cartes).
Vous risquez donc, lecteur, de me retrouver (pour le moment) plus souvent dans la partie "tarot" qu'ailleurs, puisque c'est là bas que je posterai les avancées de mon projet.
I am currently working on a project of Tarot inspired by the Marseille deck. Inspired... For now 10 years I have been reading Tarot, I learned that art from cards I drew by myself, when I was 16-17 years old, copying the small black and white illustrations from the only book I had at my beginnings. Since then, I've read many other books, while collecting many other divination decks. My vision of the Tarot as a whole is now refined and more precise, which is why I feel today the need to take up my brushes agaun, this time to create a complete set (of 78 cards).
You will so, reader, find me more often (for the moment) in the “Tarot” part of this blog, since it is where I will post the progress of my work.

D'ici au prochain post, je vous souhaite les meilleures choses et un bon surf, sur notre blog ou ailleurs.
Till the next post, I wish you the best things and a good surfing, on our blog or elsewhere.

Lady Fi!

Un week-end qui laisse sans voix

2008-10-19T14:16:00.000-07:00

An illustrated summary of our week-end in Toulouse. Click to enlarge !
Le week-end dernier, mon geek domestique et moi, on était à Toulouse chez Geo. Déjà, avant le départ, ça allait pas fort... Petit résumé en croquis rapides - cliquer pour une version plus grande et plus lisible !

Heureusement, il y avait de quoi se remettre sur pied là-bas...

Et puis une soirée pendaison de crémaillère pour finir le tout... y compris mes cordes vocales entamées à la trachéite violente !

Je suis allée voir le toubib pour ma gorge entretemps, et je parle de nouveau à un niveau audible. Un super week-end par ailleurs, merci à Geo, Tidav, au Farf' et à ceux qu'on a croisés à la soirée pour cet accueil. Toulouse c'est bieng (avé l'assengue !)

Expanded blogroll

2008-10-19T13:56:00.000-07:00

C'est fou tous les sites sur lesquels je suis tombée récemment qui sont bourrés d'inspiration et de jolies choses à regarder. Mention spéciale aux blogs BDs, qui ont fait subitement grandir le petit cadre à droite. Je me sens très nulle à voir le travail de certaines... je me rassure ne me disant que je ne suis pas (encore) spécialisée dans l'illustration mais... pfiou, y a bu boulot !
I've recently stumbled upon a crazy amount of inspiring websites and blogs - especially illustrator's blogs, as shown on the little column on the right. I'm amazed by the quality of some women's work - and feel very, very humble when I see it. Granted, I'm not (yet) a professionnal in illustration but darn... there's a lot of work ahead !

I should have posted this some time ago already... Some years ago I was asked to draw a tarot deck (well, just the majors) with a medieval feel to it. I looked at many pictrues form the Codex Manesse - but only after I had drawn the Fool in a not-totally-medieval style. Some weeks ago, I eventually redid the card in a matching style. Pictures of the rest of the deck still to come.
Un dessin qui attend d'être posté depuis quelques temps. Il y a quelques années, on m'avait demandé de dessiner un jeu de tarot (enfin, les majeures seulement) dans un style médiéval. Ce que j'avais fait, en me documentant beaucoup sur le Codex Manesse, mais seulement après avoir dessiné un Mat dans un style plus contemporain. Il y a quelques semaines, je me suis enfin attelée à refaire un Mat assorti aux autres cartes. Oui oui, je vais aussi poster des images du reste du deck.

One-woman team blog ?

2008-10-13T13:46:00.000-07:00

Ce serait un concept...mais je sais que deux de mes collaboratrices ont accepté et reçu l'invitation (dans l'ordre inverse), il ne leur reste plus qu'à poster, hein ?
En attendant, une petite présentation de, ben moi !
Now that would something... different. But I know for sure that at least two of my fellow ladies got and accepted the invitation, so now we'll just wait for them to post, right ?
In the meantime, here's a little introduction of well, me !

Je rigole, j'ai arrêté d'utiliser le ballon de gym comme siège de bureau, trop épuisant après une journée de taff, et je ne peux plus trop m'asseoir en tailleur depuis que j'ai dit adieu à un ligament au genou gauche la dernière fois que j'ai chaussé des skis. Pour ce qui est des informations importantes, je suis la blog-addict de la bande (mon blog couture et costumes est pas par là), et à part taper et lire beaucoup sur le web, je dessine et je couds, plus deux trois extras avec d'autres media de temps en temps. Côté couture, beaucoup de costume historique et un peu de fringues de tous les jours, voire un mix des deux, quand l'envie me prend. Pour le dessin, je suis accro au noir et blanc - ou alors je suis une quiche pour ce qui est des colos, selon les points de vue. Ca se voit du côté de la bannière et des illustrations des posts jusqu'ici. Oh, et je fais beaucoup de fautes de frappe mais je me soigne...
Just kidding, I stopped sitting on the gym ball at my desk, that was too much to ask after a day at work, and sitting cross-legged is a no-go since I mostly destroyed one knee the last time I went skiing. To sum it up, I'm the the team's blog-addict (here's my sewing and costuming blog), and beside typing and reading a lot of stuff on the web, I draw and sew, and dab at a few other creative outlets now and then. I'm usually making historical costumes or mundane clothes, sometime smixing both. When I draw, I tend to stick with black and white - probably because I suck at color. You can see the result in the blog's banner and the previous illustrations. BTW, I make way too many typos but I try to get better.

Aaaaargh ! Labyrinthe...

2008-09-21T01:24:00.000-07:00

I've just spent a few hours untangling status problems. And let me tell you, it's COMPLICATED here to get the equivalent of a business license. Complicated and expensive. I posted somewhere on my To-Do List for the shop "Not get crazy about it !!!" and I think it's the right time for that. Must. Not. Get. Crazy. I'll try to throw some questions at the few artists I know personnally and see how they do it.

Je savais que c'était le waille... mais en fait c'est pire ! J'ai passé la matinée à essayer de démêler l'URSSAF, le statut fiscal, la retraite, la sécu, le statut d'artiste libre ou pas. Et c'est.... à s'arracher les cheveux, comme en témoignent les nombreux posts partout sur les forums "Mais comment je fais ???" avec à chaque fois des réponses différentes des impôts et de l'URSSAF. Vaste rigolade. Jaune. J'ai quelques contacts sous le coude pour demander à des artistes en exercice comment elles font. J'avais noté quelque part au sujet de ce projet "Ne pas devenir dingue !!!", je crois que c'est adapté.
En tout cas, le moins qu'on puisse dire c'est que notre pays ne favorise pas la création indépendante... Ca me donnerait des envies d'aller m'installer ailleurs, ça.

Introduction

2008-09-20T13:51:00.000-07:00

It's Saturday night, and I'm a little too worn out from the work week to be 100% productive with the pencil and the needle, so I figured I'd as well post a little introduction.

About us four, first. We're four friends scattered through the South (that is, not too much in the North) of France. We're all crafty in various ways - we mainly draw and paint. A good half of us sews, too, and makes pretty photographs. After taking custom orders here and there or selling our production by ourselves, we decided to get together, joining our forces and creative minds, with in mind the option of opening an Etsy shop. Stay tuned for reports of our progress, more infos on us and sneak peaks from our work !

Samedi soir, après une semaine un peu fatiguante. comme je n'arrive pas à être à fond dans le dessin ou la couture, autant en profiter pour taper une petite présentation.

Pour ce qui est de nous quatre, pour commencer, nous sommes quatre amies réparties dans le Sud (au sens moitié pas trop au Nord) de la France. Nous avons toutes nos petite spsécialités, toutes dessinent et/ou peignent, une bonne moitié coud et prend de jolies photos. Nous avons travaillé sur commande ici et là et avons fini par décidé de rassembler nos forces pour créer ensemble et peut-être à terme ouvrir une boutique genre sur Etsy. Bientôt, vous pourrez trouver ici plus d'infos sur nous, les progrès de notre projet et des aperçus de notre travail en cours !

Every beginning is small

2008-09-17T13:56:00.001-07:00

I have been struggling with the set-up of this for hours. But at least *now* we have a banner. Not a perfect one, but that'll make do for now. There's still waaaay to go to make this blog look good. But it's a start, right ? Hello world !

Bon, après quelques heures de dérapages, une destruction, une reconstruction et un catalogue d'erreur côté serveur (air pas content de l'utilisatrice...), je crois que les fondations sont posées. Je crois. Bonjour Blogspot !

Fi, ne t'inquiète pas de la double invitation... en répondant à la deuxième ça devrait marcher. Et si tu as le temps de jeter un oeil à la bannière une fois que tes commandes seront prêtes... ;)

Serpentaires

I guess this is the end...

Danke Cay !

Sewing in progress !

The reason why I'm not a superhero

Working on it...

My creative space...

Thankful....

My creative space...

Transparency

Grump grump grump...

A fight against the skies...

Tailoring !

Lack of inspiration

My creative space

A week in pictures...

Some sewing !

Alive and kickin' !

Oops, I'm late !

Rise of the undead and what I do with patterns

This blog just got a lot more interesting... *sarcasm off*

Prints vs. Printmaking and a Question

Fishy dilemna

Christmas before Christmas

In lieu of an apology....

What to do on a week-end

I have to learn to type and draw single-handed...

Monday Moodboard - a little bit of sunshine

A quiet weekend

Just a quick note...

My creative space is on fire today !

Monday Moodboard

My creative space...

Sweet treats - Argyronete's Kougelhopf

WOOHOO !

Monday Moodboard

A girl's day on her own

New stuff ! Exciting ! Yay !!!

Old school

Cum pedibus

My creative space

Green + Happy

Silly me !

Automne

What the cards say...

Three pictures...

Steel and music fail

A little bear

And there was much rejoicing... err paper-cutting

Ten things - dix choses

My new best friend

Etsy wow !

Lost along the way

Busy Bee !

Creative space

Of pirates and expecting mothers

And with color...

Illustration Friday - Adapt

The Lamp's name is Mario

Illustration Friday - Cracked

Steampunk copy and original

Illustration Friday - Contagious

Week-end

Pom Pom Popom... Pom Pom Popom...

Copy and original

My creative space

RIP Pilot V5... or not

Doodles

Nouveau bureau !

Progress !!

Fatum

C'est le printemps !

Vendeuse de ballons aux pieds fourchus

Atelier couture

Kitty is going goth

Some stuff going on

Faire-parts, faire-parts...

Artist Trading Cards (ATC)

Here i am...

Un week-end qui laisse sans voix

This blog just got a lot more interesting... sarcasm off