Failed glazed images

Dear fans,

Failure is the mother of success. In this post, you’ll have a chance to watch me fail and try again at making glazed graphic jewelry using Diamond Glaze.

1) On to my merry way with Diamond Glaze I got this little bottle from a bead store a long time ago. After seeing that my new local bead store sells the metal charm that can hold graphics, I excitedly purchased a couple hoping to make some graphic jewelry with high gloss. Note that on the bottle it says the glaze is water-based.

metal pendant, chain and diamond glaze

2) Making the graphics since color markers are my favorite medium right now, I quickly made a drawing out of water-based color markers and water-based ink pen.

a water based graphic

3) Adding collage from a magazine to make the image more interesting, I cut out some words from the inner pages of a magazine, which is just paper. So far so good, no big deal.

adding collage from a magazine

 4) Applying the diamond glaze Here comes the real deal. Without affixing each element together first, I happily squeezed ample amount of diamond glaze onto each pendant, hoping that the glaze itself will hold everything together. And then bubbles started to form.

bubbles forming in the pendant

5) Bleeding and bubbling in a little while, the aforementioned water-based drawing started to bleed into the water-based glaze. Moreover, since I didn’t stick the graphics together and to the bottom, more and more bubbles pop up from underneath.

bleeding and bubbling

6) The final “blow” yes, no pun intended, but losing patience, I decided to blow dry my jewelry so the glaze can set faster. Hot air made the existing bubbles bigger and bigger. The movement of the bubbles and glaze in the pendant made the bleeding worse.

blow drying the glaze is a very bad idea

7) Look at the grand mess voila! One thing I did right though, was to carve out the mess, cleaned up the pendants so that I can try it all over again.

messed up graphics

TRYING IT AGAIN

Don’t we all, sometimes, wish that we can start all over again? Well, in this case, you can!

1) Background graphic learning from my failure, I know that everything that goes underneath the glaze can NOT be water-based. Since I’ve been collecting the foil wrapping paper of Lindor chocolate balls (don’t be jealous, I’m skinny and I eat a lot of them, ok), I decided to use it as the background graphic.

Lindor chocolate balls wrappings

2) Sticking the background graphic using the glaze as an adhesive, I made sure the background image is securely stuck to the bottom of the pendant.

sticking the background layer

3)  Affixing the foreground graphic this time, I cut out the graphic, not from the inner paper pages but from the cover of the magazine, which is coated in a thin plastic protective layer. Again, securely stuck it on top of the background.

finding the graphic from the cover of the magazine

sticking the graphic to the background

4) Adding some bling to add a little more shininess to it, I bust out my glittery nail polish that will sure add some sparks to it, plus help sealing the graphics.

My pa glittery nail polish

glitterific

5) Applying the glaze one more time I applied the glaze. This time, I used a small water color brush to scoop out any bubbles that formed. And of course, LEAVE IT ALONE TO DRY. It took overnight.

applying the glaze

6) Done! The pendant is done after the glaze dried and it dries clear.  I then put on the chain and other hardware. Shown in the image is the other pendant that I made using the same method.

putting the pendants on chains

successful glazed jewelry

Thanks and I hope you enjoyed this Watch Me Fail report and learned something about applying diamond glaze. Do you have any experience using glaze material or making graphical jewelry? I’d love to hear from you!

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Book of Junk Thoughts

Dear fans,

I’m betting that while you’re reading this, there are at least about 20 other things running at the back of your mind. If you don’t think so, well, that’s because you’re not aware of it. Or, maybe you’ve achieved enlightenment, then, congratulations! What are you doing here!?

About a year ago I read this book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron on how to move pass creative blocks. I must admit, I’ve never really had any sort of creative blocks. In fact, I’m always drawn to do too many ideas that what I need is focus. However I still find some exercises in this book very interesting and helpful, one of which is the writing three pages excercise.

The idea is to write three pages in your notebook everyday. Three pages of what? Of anything in your head. Absolutely ANYTHING. The laundry you need to do, the burp that smells like last night’s dinner, the hottie you want to fuck, the check that has not arrived in your mail box. ANYTHING. Dump it all out.

After you dump three pages, close your notebook and go on with your day. Do the same thing the next day.

But there’s one rule about this exercise and it is that NOBODY READS IT. Not even yourself. Nope, you don’t go back and see what you were thinking two days ago, or correct any grammar. What’s written is written and is only fit for the shredder, the recycling bin, or the fireplace.

It feels absolutely refreshing after writing the three pages. Currently I’m not writing dutifully everyday, but whenever I feel very stressed I’d bust out what I call my Book of Junk Thoughts and start dumping my junk thoughts onto it.

When it’s full, this book will be actually dumped into a dumpster and just like any other junk that I dump into it, I’ll never see it again.

And then, hehhhhhhh. What a beautiful day and I’m ready to create all sorts of wonderful things!

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The Marker Mural

Dear Fans,

Happy 2012! I hope you all had a wonderful time and are just so ready to kick ass in this new year. This new year that could be the last year of all of us. “Shit, does she believe in that 2012 crap?” Nope, I don’t, really. But I do believe that you, yes you, and I, could die any time and today may be the last day of your life.

Have you any regrets? Has it been good? You should be able to answer these questions…and enjoy the day!

I’ve been trying to take the marker drawings out of the small pieces of paper and stretch them into a bigger something in my life. Hence the 4′ x 7′ Marker Mural that I recently installed in my bedroom. Work in progress.

All I Can Do sketch

Another thing that I’ve been experimenting is to combine the line drawings that make up a bulk of Unobtainable Sceneries with the marker drawings. Again, work in progress.

I think it will all come out great, really looking forward to it!

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Das Wilderbeasts

Dear fans,

Das Wilderbeasts is a two-color, 5″ by 7″ linoleum block print on paper.

“In the landscape of your mind, there are beasts. Beasts without names or shapes. Beasts you cannot control. You watch them. The only thing you can do is watch them. They eat flowers you planted. They run around in the woods of your beliefs and the canopies that once shaded the raw soil come crashing down. You need this. Believe it or not, you do. Sit back. It’s like watching the Discovery channel, where you learn about nature. Your nature.”

For creative inspirations, I subscribe to a couple of different blogs and websites. One of the sites that I love a lot is grain edit, which features classic and modern design works. Many of the designs they showcase, vintage or not, have a variety of very charming textures, like this one done by Telegramme Studio.

These posts also reminded me of some German expressionists’ prints that I was introduced to when in college. Suddenly, instead of colorful, flat, sleek screen prints, I wanted to make limited-colored block prints with some rough texture. That’s also why the text of the print, instead of “The Wild Beasts,” is called “Das Wilderbeasts” some kind of pseudo German ;p

The Prophet--wood block print by Emil Nolde, 1912

1) Idea sketch Sketching out the idea first on paper.

sketching out the idea

2) Transfer the image to the block I forgot to purchase copying paper, so I just covered my original paper with graphite, than draw on the back of it with the block at the bottom. Notice that you have to transfer the image onto the block backwards right now, otherwise your print will end up being backwards.

transfering the image to the block

3) Mark the cutting area The graphite lines were a bit faint, so I tried to mark the lines with sumi ink, but it didn’t stay!

sumi ink doesn't work on linoleum block

Luckily the sharpie marker worked! Note that the image is backwards.

marking the lines with sharpie

4) Carving time to bust out the knives and do some damage. I have accumulated many sets of cutting knives of various brands throughout the years. For linoleum, which is quite soft, it doesn’t really matter which brand I use.

my carving knives

Carving Progress

For some really fine areas, I used an box cutter to cut. There’s no rules saying what tool you need to use, as long as you get the job done and it looks right to you.

using box cutter for cutting small areas

Close up of the beasts

5) Printing the background layer since I threw out a lot of my block printing equipment during the house fire last year, I needed to purchase some new stuff. Here’s a sheet of mylar, basically a thick piece of plastic, on which I’m going to squeeze and roll out my ink.

plastic sheet

The painting knife is for handling the ink once it is squeeze out of the tube. The Barren is for hand printing block prints, applying pressure on the back of the paper.

ink, painting knife, blocks, barren and paper

And don’t forget, the ink roller!

block printing ink roller

I must insert an educational moment here. Please do NOT put your roller with the rubber side down on any surface! It hurts the surface of the roller, causing it to become uneven and will not be able to distribute ink nicely onto your block! Plus, on a hot summer day, your roller may become soft and melt and stick on your work surface!

don't put the roller side down on your work surface

Here, I squeeze out a blob of ink, “stir-fried” it a bit to make it softer, and draw out a ribbon for the roller to roll out.

squeezing out the ink

rolling out the ink

Inking the background layer.

inking the first layer

Using the barren to apply pressure on the paper to pick up the ink. This was tiring and aggravating to my sore wrists (which I have only myself to blame). If you have a printmaking press, you wouldn’t have to do this.

barren action

first layer

 6) Printing the 2nd layer rolling out the blue color first.

rolling out the blue color

rolling the ink onto the block

close up of the inked block

And of course, nothing good ever get made without there first being tons of mistakes. The major challenges here are aligning the second layer with the background, and also not over ink and put too much pressure on the paper while printing.

mistakes and proofs

too much ink and pressure causing double image

it takes more time to print blocks than silkscreens

And…drum roll please! Here’s the texture!

the block printing texture

printing an edition of 15

Das Wilderbeasts

Voila! Here it is, Das Wilderbeasts! I hope you have learned something from this post or at least been entertained somehow. Isn’t printmaking entertaining? I think so. As always, I dedicate this print to Larry, who taught me how to print.

And, as always plus, if you’d like to own this, just let me know! XOXO

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Fuck Them All

Dear fans,

Today I happened to be sorting through some old sketch books and found this gem hidden in one of my first sketch books when I began college. It was summer 2003 when I was taking summer courses between my freshman and sophomore year. During that year I experimented with a variety of different diets and at the time of the above “drawing” my diet consisted largely of bananas, honey, sprouts and nuts.

I had stomach aches a lot at that time. It was probably done when I was having a stomach ache. Now I think about it, the stomach aches perhaps were not from the bananas, most likely they were from stress.

Fast forward 8 years to this past couple of months. Something similar came up.

Bonstr Drawing 10/21/11

Yes, I’ve been experimenting with mental diet. Swami, meditation, the Tao, the Secret, the Hero’s Journey, After the Honey Moon, the Mother Fucker’s Deep End, what have you. At some point, we need to put down the books, shove away the masters and teachers, cover the mouths of friends and families and just trust ourselves.

“I feel so bad because I can’t trust myself. That’s why I need the books, the audio tapes, the workshops, the healing sessions.” At one point that’s how I felt. But I slowly realized that nobody knows any shit about what life is about. They particularly don’t know what MY life is about. That is for ME to figure out.

But I can’t figure it out and I’m just as confused as when I was born. There is no answer to any of life’s big questions and there will only be more and more of them. It’s like swimming laps in a pool while there are more and more beach balls being thrown at you in your aisle.  Some hit you in the head and make you choke, some just floating on the side.

“Why are they throwing these beach balls at me?” “Why do they look this color and this shape?” “Why do I have this many and that guy doesn’t have quite as many?” No matter what, it is important to wade through all the balls. Push them aside, keep swimming forward. It’s okay not to know why and how the beach balls get in your face. Although sometimes I really want to just drown, just fall down to the bottom. But for some reason, I have a built-in floatation device, perhaps my mother gave me, or dare I say, God, that helps me float when I’m drowning.

That’s right, that’s where I’m at now. I’m floating by the built-in floatation device. It feels so effortless yet so dangerous. Can I really not swim so hard and be okay? I don’t need to learn new techniques to get rid of the beach balls in my aisle. I would just float forward and when the balls hit me, my head will be like a ice breaker ship that would part a way for me to float through.

It must be this way.

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"For Them" Silk Screened Holiday Cards

Dear fans,

“For Them” is a set of silk screened holiday greeting cards which I made for friends and families, featuring two designs and six cards in a set. Each design has three layers using contact paper as stencils and printed on American Master Natural color paper.

The idea behind this set of cards is that, instead of me giving my friends one greeting card that I write, since I have the ability to reproduce images, why don’t I give them the cards so that they would be able to pass on the greetings to other friends? Sounds more romantic. Yes, anything more romantic I’ll do! I started working on these holiday cards early so that my friends will have plenty of time to send them out.

Originally I was to give away 20 sets, which means a total of 120 prints, 60 in one design and 60 the other. However, I mistakenly printed the first design on all 150 cards (extra 30 for error margins), therefore I had to get another 150 cards for the other design. For some reason, I cut myself 60 of those wrapping straps while in fact I only needed 20. In total I ended up producing around 50 sets that took 3 weekends. All I have to say is, kids, stay in school and learn your math good!

1) Design brain storm Knowing the volume that I was going to produce, I tried to simplify the ideas down to just some simple shapes that are iconic for the holiday season.

design brain storm1

design brain storm2

design brain storm3

First of all, the two designs should utilize the common holiday graphic elements and be able to relate to each other in terms of shapes and color schemes. The X’mas tree decorations came to mind. What does the holiday season mean to me? Since I’m not so  religious, it mainly means love, warmth, friendship, something from the heart, and…eating! I tried to combine the heart and stomach, but they just didn’t go very well and the visual was too complicated, so I scratched stomach. Another major icon for the holiday is the star. What does the star mean for me? At this stage of my life I see the star as some kind of guiding light, kind of like a north star. Therefore I put a compass in the middle of the star.

2) Refining the design I created the design and mockups in Illustrator. Tested some fonts for “For Them” text and see how it’ll look like. Again, I will have to manually cut out from contact paper, therefore choosing something that will work with that was an interesting challenge.

Designing in illustrator

Testing the font for "For Them"

Adjust tracking for the text

A mockup for how it should look like

3) Making the stencils Printing out all the shapes in black makes it way easier to cut stencils out of contact paper.

shapes for cutting stencils

Stencil for the text

the star and the heart

 4) Printing the first layer for the X’mas ball design It was pretty straight forward, a ball!

printing the x'mas ball

 5) Printing the hanging string on the X’mas ball Again, quite straight forward, printing that layer. For simplicity’s sake, I did not layer or put any element adjacent to one another, therefore making it very easy. Well, I’ve told one of my friends that my house is currently full of flies, as illustrated below. They like lights, you see.

my house is full of flies

Closer look at the X'mas balls

An interesting phenomenon occurred while printing these small shapes. The ink was sticky enough and the paper is light enough that every time I pulled the print, the paper itself would be stuck on the screen. If not separated carefully, the wet print could be ruined.

a stuck print

 6) Printing the heart Since the heart is the focal point in this design, I made sure to print a whole bunch of proofs.

printing proofs of the heart

first design complete!

 7) Printing the star of the star design Illustrated here is the slight tear at the sharp ends of the star. Sometimes you just can’t cut that precisely. In these tiny tears ink would leak out and the beautiful angle would be ruined. Foreseeing this based on experience, I cut out extra stencils to cover up the torn area, however small they were.

Mending the stencil

proofs, proofs, proofs

all the stars

8) Printing the hanging string By this time you can see, it’s in the evening already.

printing the string for the star

9) Printing the compass in the star Because of the “doughnut hole” problem, I needed to put the middle stencil back into the doughnut hole. Since the area was so small, the ink leaked out some, the position moved some which only required more proofs and readjustment.

the compass stencil

ink leakage

proofs!!

completing the star design

close up of the star design

10) Printing the wrapping strip I made a little registration marks to make sure the text printed in the middle.

registration for the wrapping strip

it's all for them!!

close up look for the strip

11) Packaging I got 300 envelopes in total from Staples, and used up all of them. Still had a lot of plastic sleeves from my previously failed craft business that was never quite a business. Some double sided tape to help hold the text strip. I’m so happy they are all going somewhere outside of my bedroom!

300 envelopes

packaging station

12) Voila! Merry X’mas and Happy New Year!

"For Them" Silk Screened Holiday Cards

Thank you for being here. Again, with all my prints, these are dedicated to Larry, who taught me how to print. If only he can write from the grave, I’d give him a set. Every set has a name on it and they are all flying out of my house in no time. Yes!

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From Afar silk screen print on paper

Dear fans,

Back! With another print! “From Afar” is a six color silk screen print on paper using contact paper as stencils.

This is a print that talks about seeing something from a distance, and thinking how beautiful it is without having a clear idea what it really is. It is precisely this ignorance of the reality of it that makes this thing you can’t quite see or obtain so beautiful. So, would you pursue it, hold it in your hand in close examination, risking your appreciation of it, or would you just admire From Afar? Your choice :)

There is not really a central focus in the composition, rather it is a collage of bubbles with different patterns and colors. Yes, just like seeing the street lights at night without your glasses on. So, you ask, what’s the inspiration for those particular patterns and colors? Well, they each represent something but if I tell you, I’ll have to kill you. Or, you’ll have to kill me, unearth one of my hidden sketchbooks and maybe you’d know. Heeeeee…

Here’s how it was put together:

1) The original sketch I got the idea from one of my marker drawings that I do daily. The color combination had some kind of Bob Marley flavor to it. Hmm.

From Afar marker drawing

2) Designing it Illustrator I redesigned it in Illustrator. The final font chosen was Orator Std Slanted.

Designing the print in Illustrator

3) Making the stencils for each layer I separated out each color and shape, printed it onto a piece of paper from a printer to help cutting the stencils from contact paper.

the stencil print out

Cutting the stencils

Cutting the stencils

Cutting the stencils

 4) Printing the first layer One circle, quite easy!

printing the first layer

5) Printing the second layer I had to tweak the color of the pink a little to match the tint of the yellow circle.

tweaking the pink color

printing the second layer

6) Printing the third layer Because all the circles are pretty small that it didn’t make sense to use up all the contact paper to cover the whole screen. So I just taped some extra paper to cover the rest of the screen up so the ink wouldn’t leak. For this layer I used a fun metallic colored ink.

stencil of the third layer

printing of the third layer

close up of the third layer

 7) Printing the fourth layer I used some left over ink and added a bit of different colored ink here and there to achieve the dark green color. As long as you have basic colors such as black and white, yellow, blue and red, you can mix any color. It may not be as bright or pure as store bought ones but it is often times more interesting.

mixing the dark green

printing the fourth layer

8) Printing the fifth layer or rather…NOT printing it! I experimented with a scrap paper and found it too distracting for the whole composition, so this layer was scratched. Again, printmaking is all about the experimentation process.

the layer that never was

9) Printing the fifth and sixth layer yes with the previous layer scratched all that’s left are the highlight dots. They were pretty straight forward and I took the colors right out of the can. For the yellow color, I had to change it to more of an orange for it to show on top of the yellow circle better.

testing the colors of the dots

10) Okie Doke sit and look at them from afar. No, from very close!

all the circles

From Afar silk screen print on paper

Yes, that’s it for now. I love you, thank you for stopping by. Again, thank you Larry for teaching me how to print. As with all things in the universe, ask, believe and receive. If you want this, let me know.

Ciao Ciao!

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cross the swamp screen print

Dear fans,

Oh my god, I made another screen print! Cross the Swamp is a screen print on paper with 5 layers of colors using contact paper as stencils.

I’m totally addicted to the process of interacting with ink, paper, stencils, my hands, water, the wind that blows through the curtain in my room, the sun that shines through the window, and my own breathing while laying down the screen. And most importantly, in the end of all this, I get to hand them out to people who I love and care about. What in the world is better than this!? Hmm…sex? But that’s something else entirely :)

So what does “Cross the Swamp” mean? What is this swamp? I recently read the book Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown, who is a love and joy researcher, but before that she was a shame and fear researcher. She said,

In Jungian circles, shame is often referred to as the swampland of the soul. I’m not suggesting that we wade out into the swamp and set up camp. I’ve done that and I can tell you that the swampland of the soul is an important place to visit, but you would not want to live there.

What I’m proposing is that we learn how to wade through it. We need to see that standing on the shore and catastrophisizing about what could happen if we talked honestly about our fears is actually more painful than grabbing the hand of a trusted companion and crossing the swamp. And, most important, we need to learn why constantly trying to maintain our footing on the shifting shore as we gaze across to the other side of the swamp–where our worthiness waits for us–is much harder work than trudging across.

So yes, it’s the swamp of shame! How dark. well, we’ve all got it, you’ve got one too. Have you tried crossing it? Or have you crossed it many times? It fracking sucks!

Here’s how I put it all together.

1) Pencil sketch and creating shapes in Illustrator

pencil sketch and creating shapes in illustrator

2) Designing in Illustrator

The final font selected is Kabel LT Standard. It is such a thin, beautiful and elegant font with a nice contrast with big blocks of color.

designing in illustrator

3) Layers sequence

Since there are multiple colors which will layer on top or overlap each other, it is important to decide which layer to print first. Usually you’d want to print the lighter color first, then finish off with the darkest color to make sure everything shows through nicely.

layers sequence

4) Cutting stencils

I use contact paper to cut out stencils for each layer.

stencil for the swamp

stencil for the flowers

5) Printing the first layer

The first layer is usually the easiest and really no big deal.

printing the first layer

6) Printing the second layer

The second layer was a bit trickier. Since I was using the leftover semi-transparent ink from the last print Twin Heart, I had to tweak the colors and transparency several times to get the right shade. For multiple color layers, registration, which is lining up of each layer, becomes very important and can go wrong a lot of times.

experimenting with colors for the second layer

7) Printing the third layer

The third layer, the flowers, was the easier layer since they pretty much just floats on top and doesn’t matter if they line up with anything.

close up of the third layer

printing the third layer

 8) Printing the 4th layer

This layer was easier too since it only involves the tree trunk and the text that is kind of far away.

printing the 4th/text layer

 9) Printing the swamp

The swamp is decidedly the main element in the whole composition. The dark color and swirly outline anchors down the whole image.

On the top right area of the swamp there are two white reflections. For this kind of “white out” or “donut hole” you need to cut out those particular shapes and stick it back on the screen to block out the ink.

It is also why on my prints, the O, the A, the R and the P of the text layer all have a black out style, because I was too lazy to put the hole back to the donut you know what I mean :)

the white out area in the swamp layer

testing the swamp layer

printing the swamp layer

On registration 

One of the toughest things to get right on a multi-colored or multi-layered print is to line up all layers correctly. Here I’m showing the mistakes that I made before I could get them right. For every good print in your hand a number of prints died because of registration or other mistakes. Even more regular printing paper also died for experimentation. They sacrificed bravely for the collective (collectable) good—the limited edition.

registration mistakes

cross the swamp screen print

Voila, that’s it for now. Thank you for visiting and I hope you found it useful or entertaining either way. Again thanks to Larry who taught me how to print, and the universe who provides all that’s necessary for this to happen.

Talking about the universe, ask and you shall receive! If you’d like a print from this edition, just let me know :)

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The foot

Dear fans,

I kicked someone in the knee with my right foot yesterday during kickboxing class. It hurt some at the time but I quickly regained composure and continued doing whatever I needed to do through the rest of the day. However, just when I was drifting to sleep in bed, about midnight, my right foot started to cramp up like there’s an evil gremlin who’s trying to split my foot in several pieces!

After a night of practically no sleep and crawling around on my knees I’m happy to report that my foot is doing much better and hopefully can handle my regular, quite brutal, activities in a couple of days. It just amazes me every time I get an injury about how our body heals. It is absolutely magical! A couple of musings on the foot:

1) Pisces govern the feet. I’m an quintessential Pisces and do have more feet problems than any other body parts. (that link describes my personality to the T and might as well put my name on it)

2) Do you know that your big toes carry around 40-60 percent of body weight when you walk? Quite fascinating.

3) If you don’t stand right, your knees, your back and eventually your neck and head will all be screwed!

4) When I broke my toe last year, my acting teacher told me that, because of my limited range of motions, I was given a chance to excavate more emotions rather than movement on stage.

5) I know a person who’s one foot got broken into 72 pieces inside that never got fixed. He can still walk around, amazing!

6) “I wanna be where the people are / I wanna see, wanna see them dancin’ / Walking around on those – what do you call ‘em? Oh – feet!“–Ariel the little mermaid

7) “Be steady on your feet / No matter the trouble you meet…I’m learning how to get up off my knees / and all it takes is practice. “–Lion by Lights

What’s your relationship with your feet? Be nice to them!

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