Flip book debut

I finished the Catnip Cupid flip book. Just in time for Valentine's Day, I'd say. I really need to make some sort of calendar to keep up with thematic flip book possibilities. I consider my Mary Jane flip book to be Anti-Valentine's Day, which may end up being a more popular holiday in the long run. Besides that, I have the two Father's Day themed books. I think sticking with cats, robots and cavemen may end up being quite lucrative, as they rarely go out of style.

Next up I should start thinking about Easter, Mother's Day, maybe something more obscure or foreign... suggestions welcome.

In addition to finishing the book, I made a little Flash movie out of it. I'm not sure if I'm done yet, I'll plan to post it nearer to Valentine's Day once I decide whether or not to let Patches make a cameo appearance. I managed to do some motion tweening, but didn't figure out the motion path part yet. A lot of the tutorials I've watched are just sort of floating around in my head: sometimes it's difficult to remember how to do things without any hands-on experience. So here's to more hands-on experience. I just need to devote more time to these things.

catnip cupid flying off the back burner

I've been thinking about something to make. Maybe a new flip book with a Valentine/cat theme? All I've thought of so far is a cat cupid who shoots catnip arrows.

I've been procrastinating a lot lately and not updating this blog (obviously). I don't have a good excuse. Maybe I need some peer pressure to get back to business?

I got a new paper cutter I have yet to take out of the box. I think this week is looking promising to try out the new goods, as I will be doing another flip book side-by-side-Saturday at the Visual Arts Center.

Last month I attended a fabric swap at fleur fabrics and also the crafter's anonymous craft swap. I got rid of a lot of stuff in exchange for some choice goodies.

Time to start putting the choice goodies to use.

New York Recap, Flip book Update, etc.

Last week I took a mini vacation to New York. It was fun, thanks to friends who put me up, put up with me, and showed me around.

I walked around a lot and enjoyed my subway pass and wore a hat and scarf and ear muffs and gloves on occasion.

I went to MoMA's free Target Friday night, where I scrambled to see the following before running out of time:

Rough Cut: Design Takes a Sharp Edge, which included the video installation of Desire Management by Noam Toran.


The Printed Picture which was a very interesting history of printing, with lots of good examples explaining terms I've never actually seen a hard copy example to go along with.


George Lois: The Esquire Covers

Dreamland: Architectural Experiments since the 1970s

Batiste Madalena: Hand-Painted Film Posters for the Eastman Theatre, 1924–1928

After that I made it over to the Helen Hayes Theatre to see Slava's Snow Show, thanks to recommendation and accompaniment by Blight Productions and co. I think this might have been those most audience-interactive show I've ever seen. Great use of paper scraps, fluff, balloons and clowns coming off stage.

I ate Thai, Japanese, pizza, crepes, bagels, pasta, diner brunch, sample caviar on crackers from vodka salesgirls, and who knows what else. I felt like most of my trip revolved around walking and eating. Both of which are things I like to do when traveling.

I didn't buy too much, though I picked up some things like fred flare frozen smiles from Urban Outfitters, a couple things from Japanese stores Uniqlo and Muji, and some from Pearl River. I also went through the Union Square Holiday Market, where everyone was set up with red and white tents and I tried some hot German fruity cidery drink and tea and looked at a lot of stuff.

Sooooooooo. That's my slightly dull recap. The trip was good in a relaxed way. Now I've been back to work all week and running around, it already seems long ago, I probably forgot something. Too much to remember lately: I've sent out about 9 packages since I got home.

Printed 25 copies of the election flipbook the other day (that's 125 pages that have to be cut into 1,250 smaller "pages" so we'll see if that happens). I plan to very leisurely begin to assemble those. I did put one each of the laser jet and the ink jet in my etsy shop and will see how it goes up until inauguration time.



Besides the on and off etsy restocking, I have important stuff to work on that I'm doing in dribs and drabs. I've been watching a bunch of Illustrator tutorial videos hosted by Deke McClelland and I gotta say I just love that guy, very much for the goofiness aspect. I love to see people be goofy in such a skilled way that they can't help but be successful. Unskilled goofy people can't get away with such things. Speaking of unskilled goofy people, what I really need to be doing now is learning more Flash because I want to make the election flipbook into a little Flash movie. I think I can do that with what I know so far, so hopefully showing some basic version of that will be my next post.

Polar bears, sardine can, and good karma

Finally, here's the polar bear bag I made out of a polar bear "tapestry" from 1975. It's put together with a repurposed vintage fake blue fur coat. The lining is a slick/stripey upholstery type fabric. Straps and bottom in canvas. This thing is gigantic, though hopefully useful.



This is a donation for Art 180's very shortly upcoming Art Karma, which will be held on this Friday, THURSDAY! 12/4/08 from 7-10pm at Plant Zero, $10 admission. So, you can go get it, when you go. I can't go because I will be out of town.

Thanks to Suzanne from Silver Tree Art for gathering donations for a Richmond Etsy Street Team collection of items, including a couple of other small things I put in.

And now for the big announcement:

From this day hence, save me your sardine cans.

Yes, in addition to tape roll tubes, I have another random thing to collect in hopes of using it to make something in particular.



This is the sardine can art, which is more or less a variation on my "chunko-scenes" from art*o*mat days. Though now that I did an internet search, I've learned of course I'm not the only one who's thought of using these. In this case I used an empty (clean, clean!) sardine can and set a relief collage inside, then topped with magnifying sheet (still need to find a decent source for these since I've never seen them at the dollar store since 2001). The fun part was turning the can into a "frame" by using a nut and bolt to affix the tab as the hanging mechanism.







So there you have it. This sardine can art, titled They won't find another earth, was also sent off as a donation to Art Karma.

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In flip book news, I took a trip to Kinkos and their laser printing is really pretty nice for the election flip book. However, they couldn't do a bleed so part of Obama's arm kept getting cut off. I am currently reformatting the book to allow for a margin and then hopefully I'll invest in getting the nice prints. Then I'll have to do some calculations and actually sell some to recoup the printing costs, because full color on cardstock is a pretty penny. Once I get back from my mini vacation, I'll have to set about getting that in order, tying up some other loose ends and then tackling some major, though not particularly crafty, projects.

ink management, why you won't see McCain's wrinkles, but hey! floating cats

Well, for those who have been asking... here's the update on my Election 2008 flip book....

It's done. Version one anyway. It actually came out much as imagined and I even added a 4th page so there's actually 37 flipping pages and dimensions of 4.25 inch x 2 inch (whereas my standard flipbook is 24 pages and 2.5 inch x 1.25 inch). Even though it took so long to make, I left the "plot" rather simple. I decided against an elephant and donkey running amok (partly because I didn't feel up to trying to draw and then animate them) and I left out any other side stories.

The problem is that I totally underestimated the printing quality I would get and I did stupid things like spend all this time on little tiny details like sweat beads on McCain's head, or Obama's eyebrow moving slightly. And now it turns out it really doesn't print much of the detail at all. At all. I think it's a combination of my low class printer and paper that's a bit too toothy. Considering the scale I'm working in, I totally should have known better. Nevertheless, I'm planning to go to Kinkos or somewhere to see if I can get better quality. (Any advice on this welcome).

Here's the "real" onscreen version:


And here's a page from the book, which shows about as much detail as there is anyway:


I made 3 of the books and one sample flipper and they are now awaiting the grand opening of Bizarre Market's Holiday edition (starting this Friday, Nov. 28th at Chop Suey Tuey, upstairs).

Perhaps I'll get a super detailed print then it can be the deluxe version. I'll probably make more and put them in my etsy shop one way or another.

Also for Bizarre Market, I finished 20 mini Cats In Space. They are ready to hang and will fit pretty much anywhere you have wall space. Each is one of a kind, $15, so go pick one up when you go to the market, which will be open through to Christmas time.



I think this might be one of my favorites because it looks like a little crazy hyped up lazy cat.



This one wants to be friends with Patches.



This one is drunk on star dust.



This one wants to know if the moon is really made of cheese.

Patches Shows Her Skills

Slightly bigger version here.

Patches shared her flip book expertise with the readers of the etsy storque in this article.

Insect or cat fabric? If you had to pick one to wear...

These fabrics would be horrifically clashing if used to make one item:


bug fabric


cat fabric

But used separately, I think they will be great. Yes, I went to the fabric store yesterday. I had my reasons, but I will not go through the motions of justifying all my purchases at this time.

So the question is: Insect or cat fabric? If you had to pick one to wear...

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In other news, a customer in New Zealand wants to order 36 (thirty-six) of my flip books, so I am hard at work assembling those. The probability of x-acto injury resulting from making 36 flip books in a relatively short period of time seems quite high. So I sought out what up until recently I had not really even been aware of: that is the rotary paper trimmer. Thanks, S., for the idea.

I got one of these little cutting platforms with a rotary cutter built in. So far the cutting is pretty good, very even, but the only thing I didn't expect was the way I have to pull up and click down the bar every time I want to reposition the paper. And I need to reposition the paper a lot, so I need to minimize the number of repositionings, because lifting the bar up and clicking it down wastes a few seconds, and is a little loud.

You also need to push down and slide the rotary blade carriage with some strength behind it, so it's not something I can do for hours at a time (it's tiring to the wrist, though not nearly as bad as equivalent X-acto use would be). I'm interested in getting the scoring blade, then I can expand my envelope-making and box-making capacities. There is also a perforating blade, decorative blades, and who knows what else.

if your father's a robot or a caveman, now's your chance

I'm trying to cater my goods towards holiday shopping hordes and groups who want to buy stuff. I guess that's called marketing?

My newest attempt is to make two (so far) themed flip books for Father's Day gift options.



This one is called Father-Daughter Robot Dance. This is the first time I made a flip book primarily using Illustrator, and the program practically had a heart attack because of all the 3-d effects I was using to make the robot bodies. Luckily it saved without crashing.



And here's Cave Dad and Son, my second cave man themed flip book.





I sliced off a little bit of my finger when I was making this one. I'm having a challenge dealing with the cutting portion of the flip book assembly procedures. It's what slows me down the most. That, and drilling. I use an x-acto knife to cut, and a drill with a really thick needle as the bit, and so far there haven't been any catastrophes, but it's slow going. Considering the first flip books I started out with I poked the binding holes by hand, this is faster and more efficient by leaps and bounds. I guess I just need to refine my techniques and perhaps figure out a quicker and safer way to cut out the sheets. I know die cutting exists but I don't really understand those machines or their templates or if such things are customizable.

So, I'll keep doing what I'm doing until I find a better way.

flippety doo da

Well, my newest obsession is making flip books.  I've made them in the past, but was not as methodical about the process.  Now I've made myself a template and it's really only a matter of finding subject matter.... and time of course.


So, all of the ones I've made so far are available in my 
shop



And I want to make a flip book every day now.  I won't.  But I will make more.



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In other news, azure grackle's  periodic table print project that I participated in is done.  She might make a book or poster or something out of it and that would be awesome.