My Other Miscellaneous Geeky Fangirl Doings

Besides working on fashion illustrations and sewing plushies, I've also been crafting my fandoms and doing some cosplay-lite. I wanted to chronicle these, however briefly, before SHB#2 arrives, since this blog is supposed to be a record of my haphazard (and some are definitely more haphazard than others) projects.

I was late to jump onto the Hamilton bandwagon, but I console myself that once I jumped on, I jumped on hard. The soundtrack has been on repeat in my car for oh, more than half a year now, and SHB knows and enjoys a good half of the songs (his top requests: anything sung by Aaron Burr or King George; not his favorites: cabinet battles, anything having to do with Maria Reynolds). Although I'd seen it recommended by basically every blogger I enjoy and many real-life friends I love, I didn't get into it until my best friend's girlfriend got her into it. As a thank you to the two of them for finally getting me into my favorite musical ever (sorry Les Mis, you've been relegated to second favorite, although you'll always have the distinction of being my first love), I drew/painted these two pieces:

I took all of Alexander Hamilton's and Aaron Burr's best lines and turned them into a ham (A Dot Ham!) and a burr (A Dot Burr!).

Time is such a theme in Hamilton, so it seemed appropriate to make a clock. "Why do you write like you're running out of time?" 

Bonus LOTR-themed clock that I pyrographed for Elaine:

I love the new craft kits that Target is putting out! 

It's really thanks to my fashion illustration classes that I even did the first two pieces; I had all my nice pens and paints at hand already and felt empowered to use them. I also drew this little illustration based on my best friend's cat for her husband, who is a Toothless the dragon fan.

Cactus the cat looks a lot like Toothless the Night Fury, don't you think? Color pencil and pastel illustration.

It's been hard to find the time and energy to make proper costumes this year, thanks to pregnancy and a busy schedule, but I'm proud of myself for still managing a couple of less-involved outfits. Elaine and I went to see the next installment in the HP symphony series at the Silicon Valley Symphony, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I originally planned to make a Fawkes costume, but time and a baby bump got the better of me and I went for a much more low-key and goofy costume: the actual Chamber of Secrets! I'd seen all those Buzzfeed-ish "articles" about ridiculous uses of a baby bump in cosplay (Krang! the Death Star! an alien/parasite bursting out!), so it seemed to follow that my incubation chamber should hold a basilisk. I painted some painter's tape to make a quick "sticker" because I didn't want to paint directly onto a perfectly good black tee, then painted the door to the Chamber of Secrets onto a piece of craft foam and fastened it over my belly.

I put a bunch of painter's tape onto a piece of waxed paper and used acrylic to paint the basilisk, then cut out the shape. 

I considered stressing about the not-quite-symmetrical door design, then decided it wasn't worth it. Same goes for the scale pattern on the snakes. 

My crowning glory, though, was the tiny Moaning-Myrtle-in-her-toilet headband I made to direct people to the chamber:

Don't ask why I have a tiny pink plastic toilet readily available in my house. 

Elaine was a great sport and let me slap a printout of the blood-painted warning wall on her dress, so that we could go together like we did at the first symphony, where we were McGonagall and her silver cat Patronus.

I'm hoping to get my act together post-birth and make a Snape-boggart costume for the third movie/symphony...we'll see how that goes.

Shortly after the symphony was the second Silicon Valley Comic Con; I wanted to dress up as something, but with AP exams coming up I had no time to make the pregnant Princess Serenity or pregnant Zoe Washburne costumes I originally envisioned. When my sister Emily told me she was going as Imperator Furiosa, though, I knew I could pull off a quick pregnant Splendid Angharad costume. Can you even call it a costume if you're just wrapping white fabric around yourself and throwing cinnamon and coffee grounds at it to dirty it up? At any rate, it was a very comfortable costume to wear and certainly easier for toddler-chasing than my original ideas. Just FYI, if you bring a two year old to a convention and you're pregnant, it's very helpful to also have the best aunts along to help chase and wrangle.

The orange convention wristband kind of ruins the whole look though. 

Right after we took this picture, SHB squirmed out of my arms and took off across the exhibit hall to point at a Batman display. I guess I was asking for it by dressing him in his caped Batman shirt. 

I was really excited for the Wonder Woman movie coming out, but sad that there was no way I was going to make either of my two preferred costumes from the film: the wool suit, which is actually quite historically accurate for a superhero movie, and the blue dress with the sword down her back, which is just awesome. I still want to make both, but they'll have to wait. In the meantime, I'm still pretty pleased that I managed to spray-paint my own maternity Wonder Woman top and make a quick craft foam tiara. Emily went as Doctor Poison, who, although a villain, still has a tiny piece of my heart as a female chemist.

Yes, I succumbed and bought the toy sword. 

So that's what I've been up to this spring! I still have to blog SHB#2's quilts and then I'll be all caught up. Minus those Antigone costumes, of course.

A Year of Fashion Illustration Classes

For the last school year, I've been taking fashion illustration classes at Canada College in Redwood City. This is the same community college where I took Pants Drafting & Construction, Bustier, Copying RTW, Intro to Theater Costuming, and Textiles. In fact, the professor for this class is the same as the textiles class, and she is basically everything I would've wanted to be in a different life: an illustrator, knowledgeable about the chemistry of textiles, and a teacher! And what a teacher -- I haven't taken a serious art class in more than fifteen years, when I took an introductory drawing class my senior year in high school because I dropped out of second semester AP Physics. That was all about shading and stippling techniques and I think I drew a pretty awesome pine cone, but that's about all I remember. And before that class, the last time I picked up my paintbrush to do a serious painting was in eighth grade. Even then, I was pretty lost because my teacher's instructions basically consisted of "get your paintbrush wet and then paint until it looks good."

The one painting from that era that I don't cringe at was copied from a calendar when I was in a horse phase. I don't have any real pictures of it, but I found it in the background of this picture from Thanksgiving four years ago. My parents still have it hanging in their dining room, bless them. 

With that background, it was like an epiphany when our prof actually gave concrete instructions on how to proportion figures, illustrate different fabric types, and use various media effectively. As I told her on my last day of class, I feel like a whole new world has been unlocked for me (you know, because I needed more types of hobbies that involve a cabinet of supplies). No more staring enviously at other artists' illustrations and wondering how they knew how to do that; now I can do it too! Er, kind of.

Last fall, after several weeks of drawing stick figures, blocked figures, various body parts, and types of fabric, our first assignment was to put all of it together to do a black and white drawing. I drew a 1920s-inspired figure wearing a beaded flapper-ish dress and holding a fox-fur stole. It's funny, I was so pleased with it when I drew it, but looking back at it now I see so many mistakes!

Her right shoulder is too high and her pose looks a little awkward. 

The next assignment was to do a figure in sepia and/or monochromatic pastels, i.e. not a lot of color, but shading and texture as a focus. I went for a 1930s look, with a drapey bias-cut satin dress and huge fur coat. In contrast to my first assignment, I still love everything about this piece.

In the category of draw what you know, most of my figures read as Asian. 

The third assignment was an illustration using colored pencils, so we were supposed to choose nubbly and textured fabrics to render. I illustrated what was meant to be a boucle wool coat with tweedy trousers. This was my least favorite piece from first semester, which at the time I attributed to the medium, but it's funny because I ended up using color pencil a lot during second semester. I think I just didn't know what I was doing yet. Also I went overboard on the background. Or maybe I just didn't like it because it wasn't a vintage look?

I realized that the white hair made her look a lot like Ororo Munroe, so in a late night, last minute decision I added in the background, then hated it. I've gotten too used to being able to Ctrl+Z everything!

Our final project was a watercolor illustration, and I went with an Erte-inspired Art Nouveau figure. Despite a mistake on the shading of the draped folds on her dress, I still love how this one turned out, mostly because of the cheetah. This was the illustration that made me fall in love with watercolor as a medium; I realized I could actually control the moisture in order to get the color to do what I wanted, instead of letting the moisture control me. It's amazing what a good teacher can help you achieve!

I debated whether or not to take Advanced Fashion Illustration during second semester, because I knew I was going to be super busy with prepping my AP students for exams, plus the inevitable exhaustion of pregnancy and the continued demands of caring for a toddler. I'm so glad I did it, though, because I was able to build on my momentum from first semester, and who knows when I'll be able to take another class? It took two years for me to carve out time for myself to take these classes after having SHB, and he's a fairly easy kid, so I figured I should do what I can while I still can.

We started the semester by drawing more "extreme" poses (read: more attitude) and working on profile and back views. This was my attempt at a Poiret-inspired cocoon coat (something I definitely want to make one day, if/when I find the perfect velvet fabric) from the back, using pastels and color pencils:

Backgrounds: not my strong suit. That tree is just sad. 

Then we experimented with timed drawings, where we used brush pens to quickly capture a figure's style and movement. Unlike my previous pieces, these poses were based on fashion magazine photos since the limited time didn't allow for coming up with and perfecting my own figure poses.

Working on more stylized drawings in fashion illustration class tonight. #nomorethanfiveminutes #nomorethanfifteenlines #sohardtoletgoofmyperfectionistside #letitgoooo #tryingtochannelmyinnerelsa 🤷🏻‍♀️❄️🌬

A post shared by Cation Designs (@cationdesigns) on Feb 9, 2017 at 9:27pm PST

We also spent a class period playing around with acrylic paints in the Stipelman technique, where, according to our prof, you just smoosh paint around until it looks good. I somehow ended up painting a pink wedding dress. I don't even like pink.

The first official assignment was to render four different types of fabric. I did a floral jacquard, an iridescent silk dupioni, a gold-flecked acrylic sweater knit, and a lovely ombre organza that had little colorful crinkles in it.

My silk dupioni rendering looks too dark because of how the light hit the fabric sample. Doing the jacquard was lots of fun though!

I seriously love this fabric; it's hard to appreciate the gold flecks until you see it in person and the light hits it right. I'm really pleased with how I captured the fuzzy boucle-ish texture though. This outfit is based on the actual costume I created for our high school's production of post-apocalyptic Antigone. One day I'll get around to blogging those costumes...

My inspiration for this figure/outfit was a combination of Zac Posen's 2016 Met gala gown for Claire Danes and the announcement of Noma Dumezweni's casting as Hermione in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I had this lovely iridescent organza with periwinkle in it and I imagined what Hermione's head-turning Yule Ball gown could've been. 

The next assignment was a fashion illustration portrait, where we were supposed to focus in on the face, which we hadn't really done before, while still illustrating at least part of an outfit up close. I chose to illustrate Anna May Wong, whom I've blogged about before, in her iconic Travis Banton sequined dragon dress.

I based the pose on this photo. I love how the sequined dragon turned out, but got carried away when doing the fabric at the bust area and it makes the dress look much less fitted than it actually should be. Also her face got too slim and doesn't look so much like Anna May Wong as it does my mom...

Then we spent several weeks working on an advertisement using a fashion figure; I really didn't want to spend that much time working on a random fashion line, nor did I have a business I really wanted to promote, so I ended up making a propaganda piece instead, for International Women's Day! I figured that I might as well advertise for something I actually care about, i.e. women's rights, and not a perfume or handbag.

I really wanted to capture the feel of teens-era women's suffrage posters, with the Art Nouveau-inspired font style and the vaguely military/heraldic imagery. I used an actual slogan from the women's suffrage movement on the banner.  

Our final project was to put together a presentation board with the technical flats, specs (measurements), photographs, and illustration of an actual garment, as if we were trying to sell/manufacture it for RTW. I chose my Roaring Twenties dress, as I figured that it would involve relatively few measurements, and since I came up with the pattern on my own, I could say it was really MY garment that I was showing off.

Even though taking these classes made for a hectic year (hello, late night drawing, rushing home from work to drive across the bridge in time for class, and extended screen time for SHB while Mommy finishes up last minute cutting and mounting on the days assignments are due!), it was so worth it to be able to make beautiful art again. I remember being in college and having an Elfwood account (anyone remember that site?) and marveling at their artists of the day and being so blown away by the art of Stephanie Law and Anke Eissmann especially, and wondering if I would ever be able to draw anything that beautiful. I've still got a long way to go, but art like that feels achievable instead of impossible now.

The Geekiest Baby: Underwater Themed Art

I originally meant to have this post done in the beginning of August, but then we ended up moving into our new house. So I told myself I would finish it when we were done unpacking and decorating, because then I could show off the art in its proper place, but then the school year started. So then I decided to wait until I went on maternity leave, but wouldn't you know it, my last day of school was a Thursday and SHB arrived the following Monday...

Anyway, once we had decided on a nautical/marine theme for SHB, I decided I should acquire some appropriate wall decor. We went to Babies-R-Us and came across this gem:

$19.98?!?

Yeah, no. One look at this questionably overpriced mass-produced piece (that was nautical colors but not actually all nautical objects) and I realized it would be more economical (financially, but not time-investment-wise) and meaningful to make my own. I started with making little pen and color pencil drawings to fill up these IKEA frames that I'd had sitting around for six years:

I was honestly really afraid my baby wouldn't be cute, but thankfully this has proven to be true. 

This is a statement that I need to remind myself of (and attempt to live out) everyday around 6 pm when I still have one more hour to go before Mr. Cation gets home from work and SHB is being exceptionally fussy).

It felt so good to finally find a use for those frames, I got on a roll and pulled out three canvases that I'd been carting around from apartment to apartment for *gasp* thirteen years (and as many moves!). I had originally bought them at the UCSD bookstore my freshmen year of college, for the purpose of making dorm-room decor, and now that I've finally used them, I feel justified in hoarding craft supplies because they might get used one day no longer feel guilty about them hanging out in various closets, taking up space. Even better, I used acrylic paints that I've had for ten years to paint them.

I love a good whale pun. 

Let's count the marine animals!

A classic alphabet painting, from anemone to zooplankton.

Some close-ups of the alphabet and number pieces:

Everyone's who's come by has tried to guess what each of the letters stand for. While some, like J is for jellyfish, are pretty obvious, others, like B, C, and I have been stumpers. 

Q is also commonly missed. My favorite animal is the narwhal. 

I am especially proud of how my five nudibranchs turned out!

I must confess, I borrowed heavily from these art pieces in making mine, which is why I don't feel comfortable selling prints, although people have asked. But I feel totally comfortable using stolen ideas to decorate SHB's room! I had so much fun painting these, even though they took dozens of hours. Thankfully, I painted them in the summer, when I had plenty of time. It was admittedly a bit of a challenge, though, working around my belly at the time (it made it difficult to bend over the canvas, and I don't have an easel). But worth the trouble, because look how nice they look hanging over the diaper changing station!

The garland is made by stitching together paint chips. Also props to IKEA for making a non-pink cat changing pad cover!

Two days before SHB arrived, during the one weekend of baby-free maternity leave I had, I was seized with another fit of craft supply purging, and made some faux taxidermy pieces to go with a couple of wood plaques that I'd been saving for eleven years (goodness, these numbers are just embarrassing). I started with a narwhal:

It was so ridiculously cute that I had to go for the other end of the spectrum and make everyone's favorite hideous creature, the much-maligned blobfish:

Both were made from fleece scraps and stuffed with polyfil, then hot-glued onto painted wooden plaques. They made a nice addition to the drawings and a painting that my sister made for SHB:

The last craft-bust was this door hanger:

So there you have it -- the geekiest baby series, marine edition, is now (finally) complete! However, the nice thing about waiting this long to blog these pieces is that I can actually report on how SHB feels about it. At first, the paintings above his changing table were more entertainment for me as I waited for SHB to do his business (he's a fan of waiting until I change him before pooping into the fresh diaper, so I've taken to standing around the changing table fanning his butt with the old diaper in hopes of not "wasting" another diaper...oh, the ridiculous things parents are quickly reduced to doing!). Lately, though, his vision and attention span have been getting better and he is absolutely enamored with (I imagine) the bright colors and interesting shapes above him, and he stares at the paintings for long (for a baby) periods of time.

Look at that face of intense concentration! Also, note that somebody at the bib factory got bored and never finished embroidering the second N in dinner on his bib. 

Some of you have asked how Walnut has been doing with SHB. Generally he pretends that SHB doesn't exist, but occasionally he will surprise us by being interested, usually during the most inopportune moments, like in the middle of dealing with a diaper change or spit up of epic proportions. He also likes sitting on me when I feed SHB in the middle of the night, which is simultaneously sweet and slightly annoying.  

The paintings, then, are an unequivocal success. As for the taxidermy, they're currently located behind his swing, so he can't see them. Perhaps that's for the best, though, since Mr. Cation contends that the blobfish would give anybody nightmares.

IT'S WATCHING YOU.