Ten Pieces of Creative Advice

Hey all!

Just finished a list of what I think are Ten essentials for creative growth and for working towards making your living in a creative way! I though I would share them all here with you first. :)

I've been around a lot of younger people lately who are hungry for learning creative skills and finding their own mode of self-expression and more than a few adults who are thinking of turning some craft or creative idea into a product for on line sales. The world is becoming more open to anyone being able to make a creative living but often I find the hardest thing to teach is not the techniques but the mindset that enables one to follow through with their plan over time.

This is my default list, as of now, of the thingsI would like to impart to every young creator or one who is new to creating at any age.

Hoping you are all well!

XO
nicolas

1. Create EVERY Day.

I am likely, for the rest of my days, to begin any advice list with this one!  I think it's the best advice. The best plan of action. AND I think most people could do it. The usual argument against is that the person has a job/homework/a family/hobbies/a life, and it’s hard to find time for creativity in the middle of all that.

Well, maybe I'm the oddball,  but it’s mind-boggling how many “busy” people I know these days- including people with full-time jobs, families or studies- who still manage to find time to go out, play computer games, go on road trips, play sports and watch hours and hours of movies and tv shows.

 We find time in their days for all of these things. If we dream of creating, shouldn’t we be able to find time for it as well?


2. Don't Put Too Much Into the Idea of Inspiration.

The old idea that there must be an air of “inspiration” or a visit by the "muse"to make anything worthwhile is just silly.  Some ethereal or, more to the heart of procrastination, elusive entity that everyone is waiting to come along and drop the great idea into their heads.

t's not true.

People can be “uninspired” and still create and make beautiful work when they're doing it for an art class or for a deadline like a birthday or a wedding gift. And in the case of that art class, no art instructor would ever accept “But I didn’t feel inspired!” as an excuse for a late project.

So create with or without the visits from the muse or the guiding hand of inspiration. If you really want to create on a given day and you know you’ll only have an hour to do so because of other commitments, then get ready to make something in that one hour.

3. Realize it takes time to build skills or flesh out an idea.

I’ve known a whole mess of people who sculpted, painted, wrote, cooked, drew, danced or took up an instrument for a few weeks or months and then gave up. They wanted to be good right away.

I don’t know why so many people resent the notion of needing to invest “time” to become good with creative endeavors. They look at the artists they admire the most and then imagine they will be right up there in skill and ability in a fraction of the time those folks put in.

Time invested most certainly = ability.

I like to think I’m a good maker-of-things and that some of the skills that go into my work I have been doing them since childhood. But if we look at sculpting, well, I took that up with the medium of polymer clay just ten years ago in my thirties. In between then and now it's been a lot of time and hard work.

It applies to every medium of creativity and then to the art of making a living from your art as well. Time has to be invested and not rushed into showing results.

4. Collect and Jot Down Ideas.

I have forgotten more ideas than I will ever see through to completion and, though I may not remember all of them, I have no doubt I forgot many of my best ones by not taking a moment and  recording them somewhere.

I get ideas from the art of others, songs, dreams, random things heard on the street, books, nature or just something I am imagining in a daydream. This is a kind of free play for the mind, but it’s where most of my creative ideas spring from for me. And by all means, THINK about that when you go out into the world! Don’t be a passive vessel. Actively go in search of them and when the come WRITE THEM DOWN!

5. Realize You Will NOT Like Everything That You Create

There are many things I made, even sold, but was not happy with the results when they were done. I am, of course, seeing every little flaw, every aspect of the piece that I did not pull off quite the way I wanted to.

 That doesn’t mean that when I make something like it again (and I will) that I should shelve them or toss them out. Often these are the ideas that I build on and work towards making better the next time around, which builds my skills. I often hear that people who hire illustrators or comic artists look at the hands (or lack of them)  in the drawings immediately because they are often the hardest thing to get right and, therefor, someone who does them well has obviously put the time in to do so.

Learn to love the imperfections now but strive to overcome them tomorrow. Taking either the view that everything you create has to be perfect and you should destroy everything that’s not, or that you can’t possibly create something if you’re not passionately interested in every aspect of it, is self-destructive and not worth your time.

6. Realize That a Good Portion of Creativity is Purely Mechanical.

Even if you are someone who manages to drill into an endless well of  “inspiration,” there’s going to come a point in the path to seeing it to completion, where that dries up a bit, and you’re left with what may seem like a mess. Yes, that happens. I don't know a single artist who didn't struggle with that "dry spell" at some point along the way.

Don't give up and don't stop working through it. Remember advice #1? Keep at it! Just the act and the exercise of working on your craft is as important as those days of fevered inspiration.

7. Learn to Only Be Concerned With What YOU Can Accomplish

Yeah, simple, but when you know someone who can turn out painting a day or a drawing in an hour, and it takes you on average ten times as long, don't let that bring you down. You are only accountable to you. How someone else goes about their creativity is not your concern.

 I sculpt across the work table from someone who can complete one of their sculpted pieces in an hour or two. I'll take that long to make the assorted pieces of a fairy landscape or to sculpt a statue and then have to put them all together, paint them, add all the tiny details etc etc etc and I cannot charge as much for them as she can for her work because of the niches our work falls into. (that's a story for another rant!)  That is FINE. It's not a competition and if I held myself to someone else's standards in that way I would have given up long ago and most certainly have failed at trying to make  my living from my work!


8. Be Honest About What Distracts You.

Do you really have to go clean up the mess you’ve left sitting in the kitchen after throwing together dinner so you could keep working? Do you really only have an hour left before you have to leave for your walk or to meet a friend? Inventing excuses to keep from creating, waiting for that perfect time, is perfectly normal, but unless you learn to recognize that these are distractions and excuses and put creating above things you value that are mostly distractions from it, then your creative skills and your goals will most likely not grow as fast as they might otherwise when you make them a priority.

9. Develop Goals.

I have an old-school work ethic that pushes me to create for a certain number of hours each day. It gets upset with me if I don’t do as much work as I can and the one thing that gets in the way of me doing just that is not having goals set each day. Yes, sometimes that's not very much fun, going down the list and getting the things done, photo taking, making listings, shipping etc. These are the things that  I know should be done before I get into my remaining time where I can make whatever my heart desires. But there’s no one standing over me with a whip and telling me to create, which means I have to internalize the whip. I never, or at least very rarely, match what that work ethic expects me to achieve, but I do far more than I would if I only dreamed about goals and didn’t set them in writing.

And finally…

10. Love Creating For Itself.

Another obvious one, but one that many people don’t seem to get.

They dream about the day they will be making a living creatively, or at least selling their work as a side hustle or for extra income. Perhaps they dream about being featured in a magazine or on a web site they love, or about how much people will love a certain painting, Zine, handmade jacket, bracelet or ceramic sculpture.

But they don’t love the actual work of it.

That strikes me as the absolute most pitiful lack that someone who wants to be a creator can have. Yes, a lot of it is mechanics and skill development and discipline, but that doesn’t mean that something doesn’t surprise you in the middle of the sculpture or the illustration and make you laugh out loud or even start crying when you finally get it right!

And all of those dreams, as lovely as they are, are nothing to that moment you see the physical item you have been working on or developing finally emerge from YOUR fingers.

Inspirations and Oddities - Second Friday Post - August 10th

Hey everyone!

Welcome to August's Second Friday, Inspirations and Oddities post!

I've got a just one very exciting inspiration to share with you this month, so lets get right to it!

I am a huge fan of Kickstarter, as I've written about here before. Supporting projects that I fall in love with and seeing them come to fruition is so rewarding.

I had someone tell me recently that the part they didn't like about Kickstarter was the lag time between supporting a project and getting your rewards. Because the funding is often needed to produce a product, this can take months from the time the original project funds. There can be delays if printing, shipping or just life go awry.

I get that. . . but what I LOVE about that delay from funding to delivery is when something shows up in the mail that I had, not forgot about, but simply lost track of when it was going to be arriving.

So, when we went to the Post Office yesterday and found these had been delivered, all the way from Queensland Australia, it was the best of surprises!

Hathor and Thoth Enamel Pins from Mamath's "Tiny Pantheon" Kickstarter

Oh, oh, OHHHHH these are amazing! The illustration work, the quality of the Pins and the complete package of the presentation! All flawless!

The card each pin came on, front and back, simply BEAUTIFUL!
And the heart shaped rubber pin backs! (there are two on each pin, I removed one to show you the text of the card back.) 

One of my favorite things about Kickstarter is the possible rewards that are "unlocked" or added on as a bonus when a project passes the basic funding point. Some folks offer material upgrades on the finished products, post cards, bookmarks or stickers of art prints, extra playing pieces if the Kickstarter is for a tabletop game or deluxe covers / embossing for books.

In this case, over 2,200 backers supported the Kickstarter!!! Here again, Mamath went above and beyond. These are the adorable stickers that were added to EVERY supporter's package as the total funding climbed above the initial requested amount.

And a lovely thank you card in the middle of them as well! 

Of course I was drawn to these, given their Egyptian influences, but I could easily spend wayyyyy too much money on Kickstarter that I don't have. lol So I am selective, to say the least.

I'll be sharing more of the Kickstarter rewards I have received over the coming months.I am currently awaiting a few that should be due this fall! These include a wonderful hardbound Unicorn book of illustrations/paintings and a few "Spell Scrolls" from a very imaginative creator. While the scrolls are meant for D&D players, we have the first of them on our wall, framed as pure magical art, and eagerly await the second. :)

Kickstarter is a fantastic way to get your art out there. I LOVE being part of making it come true for others! :)

Mamath is on Etsy

And instagram where you can see images of more these amazing Pins ( I need more I think!)

instagram.com/mamathzilla

And that's all, next month I'll be sharing three new books I've read that have completely captured my imagination!

Have a great weekend everyone! Thank you for dropping by!

nicolas XO

Inspirations and Oddities - Second Friday Post - May 11th

First a Happy Mother's Day to all of you who will be celebrating Sunday!



Well, some months I feel like I barely come across one thing that really sparks my imagination and others, like this past month seemed chock full of more than I can handle but I am going to keep it to just a few. . .  in case next month is a dry one. :)



Little House remembered:

This month's media recommendation has got to be one of the strangest ideas I have come across but it is A-MA-ZING!

It's a podcast called. . . Little House on the Podcast

If you remember the show Little house on the Prairie as fondly I do from childhood, this is a must. If like me you have not watched an episode in a decade or more and you think you can't recall a single episode with much detail,  this podcast is going to change that.

The podcaster takes every episode and gives a comical 15 minute recap from her perspective. It's HILARIOUS.

She's witty, sassy and picks out all of those bad 70's tv tropes that we missed as kids but are hilarious to recall now. She looks at it from the perspective of a mom today and from her childhood as well.

Fair warning! She has favorites among the characters and a few she has never liked and she does not hold back. Like me, she loved Laura, not so much Mary, and wonders why Carrie was even around. :)

Best of all, I don't feel the need to rewatch the episodes again myself because in that 15 minutes, she really hits the best of every episode.

Hmm, I'm not doing a very good job of selling it here but trust me, if you loved Little House, you'll love the podcast. She is currently in the middle of season three but that means there are two-plus, full 22 episode seasons to listen to!

The amazing thing is this. Yes, she makes fun of the show, the characters and the silliness of some stereotypes of tv (like how many characters who are "residents" of Walnut Grove, are in one episode and then never heard from again!)  then BUT she clearly has a reverence for the show too and if you were a fan, this podcast will make you laugh AND cry! I promise.


Inspiration is for, or taken from, the birds

I've been working on creating creatures for my fantasy world but sometimes I come across an animal or bird from our world that inspires something else in the fantasy world. In this case, I give you the Secretary birds from Africa. I think those awesome head feathers will make for a wonderful and regal addition to the formal clothing of an elven orders highest office.

A Secretary Bird with it's fancy feathers!

Flashback! 

Remember enamel pins? In my teens they were most prevalent as the little guitar and comic character pins that kids wore on their jackets. They had the metal pin back and the bright enamel colors on the fronts. If I remember right they were like 3 dollars each at most record shops.

Well, When I joined Kickstarter a year ago, I began to notice an uptick in the number of enamel art-pin projects popping up. And now, a year later? It's off the Hook Ya'll!

Here is the latest one that I sponsored, no surprise it's designs are based on the Egyptian Pantheon.

We purchased Thoth and Hathor, they are the two on the far right!
But all of these these, and the other dozen the creator added since,  are beautifully done!  

There are pins for anime, chibi, mythological beings and original designs and characters of all and any imaginings. Right now I think there are at least two dozen or more enamel pin projects going on Kickstarter.

I love when something old comes back around and gets a twist. They seem to be a wonderful way for new illustrators to get their work out there and on Kickstarter, I'd say 80% of them get funded more than fully.

Well, that's it for this week!

I hope one or more of these made you smile!

See you again in a week!

Nicolas
XO

New Work - July 2nd

Welcome everyone!

Summer is on it's downward swing already, days getting shorter as we're headed to my most favorite season of all, Autumn.

This month, instead of just a string of new work, I wanted to share a few images and thoughts with you about something I think is often misrepresented in the art/craft/maker world.

The creative workspace.

In this internet age of "lifestyle blogs" where people do their best to present their life, their travels, their world, their day to day activities as an unending stream of peaceful moments and perfectly placed home bliss. I'd like to offer the artist/maker-in-waiting, a slightly different viewpoint. . .

THIS is what my work table looked like one day last week, as it does most days.

An average workday of projects old and new, many in process and this is a LIGHT day! Includes paints, files, craft wood, brushes, and two drawers filled with miscellaneous magic. 

Every surface I work upon is speckled with paint, or patina or clay!

A separate work area for sculpting-in-progress and tools. That is the potted Medieval Walled Village in it's beginning stages front and center. You can see the final piece below. 

There is never a day where the tables are clean or neatly arranged. Not totally. An organized chaos is as close as I get.

The point I want to make is this. If you want to be maker of things, a painter, a sculptor, a writer, a woodworker. Whatever it is. It's going to be a life and pursuit filled with messes. Some literal and some figurative. Too many people, I believe, let the fact that they don't have the "right space" or enough space, keep them from moving forward.

There is such a desire in life to present the picture perfect side of ourselves but ART, my dears, in any form, is found mostly in and thru the messes. Not in the perfection.

So set your life up to allow for and accommodate the messes. That "studio" you see in the above pictures takes up what would be the living room/dining room of our place. What would be our "spare" bedroom is the packing and shipping room and is wall to wall packing materials, wash tape, glue dots, paper cutters, metal shelves, boxes, tissue papers, bubble wrap and another shipping work table too.

I know people who have tucked their art away for years because the thought of taking a room in their house to dedicate to it is unthinkable. "Where would guests stay?" "Where would we eat or watch tv?" Well, our guests have to sleep on a fold-out couch (which is crammed between the work space AND a FULL SIZED, 4 heddle, weaving loom!)  and we crammed a tiny pub table in between all the work spaces for ourselves to eat our meals at. We don't have dinner parties and we don't have a bedroom for long term guests. Those are the sacrifices we made. And might I remind you, we do this full time.

In a world where people are more and more given to trying to present their lives, their homes, their  every waking hour as an instagram moment. . .  we offer you the unending reality of creative MESS.

A creative Etsy friend of mine calls herself a "maker-of-messes".  And I like that very much.

Here's to the mess-makers!! The "perfect" ones in my book!

nicolas

And here are a few new work photos including the potted Medieval Walled Village! Enjoy!

The timbering is all done by hand, tiny strip by tiny strip!

I don't make these often but oh I DO love them when done!

A traditional Slavic amulet but a little stylized my own way!

A new addition to Shadow of the Sphinx. My own design, not taken from an ancient example. 

Ram headed ancient Egyptian deity Khnum. Another favorite to create.

This was FUN! A custom request for an Edgar Allan Poe mini tombstone with a raven!

New Work - August 1st

Another month came and went soooooooo quickly!

I wanted to give you all a quick update on the writing of "The Ledgerkeers",  the book of short stories I am creating built around the world of the Bewildering Pine. It is going so well right now and I am currently fleshing out a bout 20 different short tales with another 10 or so to go. The challenge is in trying to create lots of little vignettes about the folk, commerce and daily life while hinting at a darker undertone to the Pine's distant (and future) history that I hope will lead to a full fledged novel later on down the road.

Right now I am still hitting the 750 words a day writing goal, 6 days a week!

I also stumbled upon a delightful writing podcast called "Writing Excuses" which has also been a huge help just to keep the brain thinking and working on all sorts of aspects of the process. I highly recommend it. It's 15 minutes per podcast so it takes just a bit of time each day. and the backlog of shows is well over a hundred episodes so there are topics from worldbuilding to pacing to dialogue to descriptive details . . . and you know I am LOVING the details! Always the fun is in the details.

I just ordered a few books, one called "Dirty Old London" that I used an online excerpt from for a story to help flesh out my bake-house / tart cart scene. It was so detailed and brought the early victorian era to life. I am amused by the thought of an entire book on Victorian London's filth and the ways they tried to keep it in check as well as the underside of what we think of as the romantic aspects of that life. I may only use a half dozen details from a book like that but each of them is a true little gem for bringing a world alive!

And finally. . . setting a larger goal, I just booked my trip home to Pennsylvania in February on the Amtrak train. It's a 2 1/2 day trip and I am looking forward to it because, this year, I got a sleeper car for the longest leg of it from Portland to Chicago and back as well. I intend to spend most of that time finishing the final drafts for the stories for the book. I'll have a tiny room to myself and all my dining car meals paid for and I can just focus on editing, reading and watching scenery. This trip gives me a definite goal to have the first drafts and first revisions done by the time I leave.

I've also decided that, once done, I am going to print and hand-bind the first 25 or so copies here, maybe more, we'll see.  I have the flame-throwing Epson 3880 printer to do heavy duty canvas  paper cover work and page layout so I may end up just doing them by hand all around while I shop it for publication.

Of course, I realize I still have to think about illustration, map printing, cover art etc etc etc  So maybe February is a bit ambitious but we'll see. . .

Now, as for August, here are some new pieces I finished the last few days. I had one of my tiny houses featured in the Home/Living/Terrarium section of the Etsy email a week or so ago and it's been CRAZY!

I decided to begin making even tinier houses as I know a lot of terrariums are too small for some of my regular fairy houses. So these cuties may be just the thing for the very tiny indoor garden fae who need the smallest of dwellings!

The houses on the left and right are just 1 1/2" tall!

And these are meant to evoke some of the Venice, Italy color and style in tiny, tiny scale too!

Little Fairy Garden figures for the wee gardener. :)

That's a Hob above, a Brownie here and a Nisse below

I've been working on transferring some illustration skills to these little figures, just simple lines and forms and not too much unnecessary detail. It's working well I think!

I showed you my first dragon a few months ago and here is the next, her name is Roxo (purple in Portuguese )

And I am getting more elaborate with some of the bases on a few statues in Shadow of the Sphinx.
Anubis looks rather pleased to be perched there. :)

Well, that's the news for now. A busy month ahead again with the start of stocking for the holidays. On the calendar is the making of 20 Fairy Houses on Stars and a range of stand alone towers and houses too.

I can't believe i only posted twice last month. . . I hope to have more consistency this month and I look so forward to seeing your lovely comments and thoughts here, as always!

Thank you!!
XO
nicolas

Here Be Dragons (OK. . . ONE Dragon!)

Hey everyone!

The first dragon. . . oh I feel like a proud maker-parent here, I have to say!

I have wanted to make my own dragons for some time now and you may recall I posted the little "Dragon tower" not too long ago but this is the first stand alone creature I have finished. Again, a culmination of ideas, experiments and developing techniques. I loved the form and expression on my tower dragon so I kept that as my look and just expanded in size and detail with this little one.

All the little things like how to add scales to an entire body when you have to hold the piece somewhere to get into all the little places and legs and such without smashing the scales you already imprinted! Finding the right wings, the right coloring techniques and on and on. . . and then there was the oft-forgotten but quite important consideration of planning them so they can be shipped. . . not something I tended to think about in the early days. . . but something I now do regularly. :)

To say it has been a few years of process and trial and error would not be wrong!

I am considering whether or not dragons have a role in my stories/book. If they do, I know that it won't be as fire-breathing destroyers or creatures that instill fear or dread. Nope, it is more likely to be that they are quite docile and, in fact, rather meek.

And mostly, that is because I really have trouble making "creatures" that aren't sweet. :)

So let me introduce you to Aramara

She is 5.75" ear tip to back claw/toe (the longest dimensions) and 2.75" deep. Her head is just about 3" high.

Her eyes are made with faceted Swarovski aurora Borealis elliptical beads and her wings are beautiful, large wing charms painted with gold pigment acrylics.

She is an awesome shelf companion and rather loves to look over my shoulder while I type. . . like right now. . . like, always. lol

I am looking forward to making friends for her to keep her company. Hoping to have a few of them to offer in the shop this summer as well. Once I have enough that is. . .

I hope you enjoyed seeing Aramara and, as always, thank you for dropping in!

XO
nicolas

New Work - February 2016

February already? My, my. . .

Well, January went pretty much to plan. More time spent on new items and ideas and less worrying about "best sellers" and custom work. That feels reallllllly good!

So, here are a few new pieces for you to see today. Some are already listed and some await their stories before listing. GOTTA have stories!!!

First, the Little Caravan I showed in it's initial stages a few weeks ago. All done and ready for listing: "Theia Straedoors Tart Cart"!

How does Theia make all those delicious tarts in such a small space? Fairy magic of course!

Loving the poofy moss and the tiny tart table piled with Joonberry tarts!!

Next is another new idea and new way or working with creating small figures.

I have been trying to develop a style of animal figurines that will allow me to use colored polymer as opposed to painting with acrylics.

Now, in my world, this presents itself as an issue for several reasons.

One, I am not in any way shape of form, neat enough to keep colored polymer clay pristine as I work with it. There are always mossy bits and flowery bits about the table no matter how hard I try to keep it clean. This leads to having to rework soft faces, hands etc and, in the end, ruining them before I can complete them.  With the fox figure below, I took a completely different approach. Making the face from flesh toned super sculpey and then, after baking, layering the thinnest layers of colored clay over top of that already baked, flash-toned face.  It went better than I could anticipate.

For a first try, I think it worked amazingly well! I was able to blend, texture and work around the face without worrying abut smashing the face's form as I often seem to do trying to get the perfect details. I used the same technique with the body/clothing too. Making a flesh toned body-form and then layering the clothing on top of it. Only the feet and hands were made in colored clay without a base clay beneathe them.

For a first go with this new technique, I think Brother Severon is a wonderful lil' fellow!

His white birch staff and lantern are also polymer clay, but they are painted.

And then, a few random pieces. . .

A Lunar Hare. . . just because. :)

A little gold crescent on her back. . . she still requires a short story before listing!

 A little Tudor Style, timbered inn. Usually I make the timbers from thin strips of polymer applied at the time i make the building and paint them but, for this new "Enchanted Woods Inn", I wanted to make the timbers from scale lumber so they would be perfect and consistent. Very tedious but worth the results!

"The Enchanted Woods" Tudor style Inn.

And a completed group of 5 Fairy Shoppes/Inn/Crooked Tower upon Stars for one of our dear, regular customers!

Anyhoo, that's a look at some of what has been coming out of the studio these days. February promises a whole other bevy of new items and ideas so I hope you'll check back over the month and visit with me in my little world. . .

Have a lovely February wherever you may be. . .

nicolas

New Year, New Directions

So, as some of you know, I have had difficulty maintaining a blog with any regularity! That's not really an issue for me for the most part since I do not really keep up or participate on any social media. No Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram etc etc. I've always thought that, as a creative maker of things, the best course of action/promotion is to just make more things. Explore new ideas. Better my skills. Try new techniques.

But, I DO love to write and to share what I am creating. . . so I am going to make a more concerted effort to tie my blog into my shops for the first time so that customers/visitors in all of my Etsy and online shops, as well as the wonderful blog friends I have already, can keep up with what is new and what I am creating going forward. I felt this was especially important since I am taking some definite turns of direction for the year ahead in 2016.

Up until now, for the 6 years I have been creating and making my living thru Bewilder and Pine, Shadow of the Sphinx and My Antarctica, I have just allowed myself to drift from idea to idea all the while building a world within those shoppes that, at this point, I feel is now ready to move in very definite directions. But, when creating 7 days a week to meet demand for fairy houses, Kemetic statues and amulets and custom pieces of all sorts, I have often let the larger picture go due to those demands or just going wherever my heart takes me without much direction. (And I have a lot to say about that in the coming year!) This, inevitably, leads to the larger, more involved projects being started and then left to sit while the day to day creative work goes on.

What I feel I need to do now is to begin to build the world of "The Bewildering Pine" in more complete stories and finally accessing areas I have yet to explore too. I've been wanting, for a few years now, to move towards complete storytelling and world building in "the Pine" and away from just creating individual pieces solely for the shoppes. After another wonderful holiday season that saw my shops pretty much depleted, I decided the New Year would be the best time to start anew.

So I have a very "big picture" idea for Bewilder and Pine. And for Shadow of the Sphinx,  I think it means just less undirected exploration and more focus on really refining the style I've created without allowing that shoppe to take away too much time doing projects that require a lot of planning or learning new techniques right now. And for My Antarctica? Well, I have not created any new digital art for four years but I DO have an idea for a series of very abstract future-scapes, rather sci-fi-ish, involving some of my miniature work and the watery-coloured backgrounds I love to combine digitally so much.

I'm planning to write at least two blog posts a month, one on the first of every month with new ideas, progress on the larger project of world building and sneak peeks at what's new and what's to come. One perhaps on the mid-month as well to just talk about what I am doing and where things are in a larger sense as well as telling more internal stories about how I got here..

I am changing the whole way I go about creating and listing for the shops, doing it in batches instead of a piece a day or so and this will also give people a chance to see ahead of release what is coming.

And I do, truly, want to talk a lot about the lifelong paracosm of my world. Why I created it, where it comes from, and why I strive so hard to keep as much of the "adult world" around us at bay and keep my inner world so simple and undisturbed by that outer and, in my opinion, equally illusionary world.

Here's one little story to leave you with:

My mother who is in her 80's just recently had her bathroom floor redone. With the exception of replacing the base carpet, this had not been done in over 50 years. When the workers were done installing the tile, she asked the one worker if the floor extended all the way under the heater (she is a real worrier about anything causing a fire!) and when he ran his hand under the baseboard heater to show her it had plenty of clearance, he knocked something over. . . and he pulled it out. . . and it was a tiny little model train figure. It must have been mine when I was a child and, likely, during one of my many world building endeavors around the house, I put it there at some point and never took it out again.

It has, essentially, been "standing guard" there for probably 35 years or so.

She had to call me right away to tell me and I was glad she did. That little piece of myself is something I strive to find in everything I make. And those earliest days of world-building are what I constantly wish to reclaim in my world, and in my daily life, with each new opportunity.

Now as I look around the studio, I see that it is filled with new pieces that stand guard just as that little figure has for all these years back home.

And, inside, all the memories and nostalgia of that time remain undisturbed.
Always on watch.
Always near.

So this year, in short, I plan to do more world building and less order fulfilling. :)

Tomorrow I will post the first monthly update and start redirecting people here from the shops. That post will be focused on the first of my ideas I am trying to finish and formulate for the year ahead. A little remote set of islands in the world I create called Kitsurada and the Legend of the Foxgoyles who protect and defend it's citizens.

I hope that it will provide a glimpse into the larger world I create and an inspiring poke into the possibility of the worlds, perhaps yet unbuilt, around and inside of YOU!

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year and a creative year ahead!
xo
nicolas

PS: As for custom work. . . in case one might get the impression that I do not enjoy it, here is something I made for a client this holiday season that I absolutely loved every moment of!

Enjoy and . . . BELIEVE!

Scaling it Down

Continuing to explore the world of tiny, N scale miniature work. . . .and given the futility of trying to hide anything from the fairy spirits around here, it was probably just a matter of time before the very wee-est of fae in the studio decided they needed their own Mossy Lane Fairy Houses to dwell within. 

I am desperately trying to keep up with their demands around here. . . seems every fae in town wants one of these tiny little abodes now! Even those too big to fit comfortably!!

The new occupants are asking for a little street / lane to go along with these now as well. . .sometimes I wonder who exactly is the boss around here!

These fit just about anywhere and are just 2" tall!

I can't wait to work on more N scale designs. . . mostly because I can fit more of them on the work table at once as well as in little nooks around the house!

The two sizes I offer: HO (this one still needs it's bad-hair-day mossy top) and N scales side by side.

More to come in the weeks to follow. . . hope you are all finding the magic of the fairy realm within everything that you see!

xo
nicolas

Rue de La Minuscule

It's not like I don't already have enough on the creative fire to keep me busy. . . but, truth be told, the more "have to's" that are beckoning. . . custom orders, replacing favorites and requests. . .. the more I want to do something completely new or different and get lost in another direction!

The benefit of this is that it almost always leads me to new things that end up being staples in my shops. So, this past week, with all the "have to's" circling and bearing down, I went off on yet another creative tangent.

Tiny

When I began working with polymer clay 5 years ago I had in mind the notion that smaller would be easier. That if I made things tiny, they would be less likely to show the learning curve as I grew into working with the clay. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Larger was easier and, out of that, I grew into making houses, statues etc etc but every once in awhile, I come back to "tiny". . .

It's been awhile this time but I thought I would go ahead and try something in a very small scale again and see where it took me.

The results were very satisfying and I wanted to share them here before they make it to my shoppe.

I originally decided to try one little French/European style shop. But it turned out so well I kept going and, well, as you can see below, my tiny idea became so much more!

 A trio of buildings and street, in N scale (1:148) that I am so happy with! I am going to create more and have little touches on the way, bicyclists, villagers etc etc to fill out the scenes. This took awhile, as one might imagine, and I do not expect they will move quickly but I LOVE creating on this scale!

So enjoy a little stroll down the Rue de La Minuscule

My ideal city apartment. . . .between a cheese shoppe and a wine seller! :)

Note to self. . . fix crooked flower pot!

Rue de la minuscule is just 4.5 inches long!

Very picturesque street I'd say!

More like this are already in process. A Venetian set of Burano houses with gondola and canal and a few one offs of my favorite Medieval town settings. . . those little corner buildings with a winding cobblestone path that wrap around and frame the house in those interesting and odd triangular plot shapes!  Who knows what else!

I expect to only complete a few of these a year but I have to say, working tiny is such a fun and satisfying thing to do!

Thanks for looking!

nicolas

Idea in Process - Amulet Magic!

I adore amulets.  .  . In my Shadow of the Sphinx shop , half of my sales are of my little mini altar and wearable amulets.

In my paracosm of childhood, amulets had such power. Luckily, my mother was a lover of costume jewelry so I had oodles of fun things to create stories around and that she did not mind me "borrowing" for my imagination's sake.

So lately I have been realllllllly wanting to create amulets that will hail from the "Bewildering Pine" world to offer in Bewilder and Pine as well. Of course, the fun is in the making and creating of the "ancient" stories to go along with them.

Now, for the finished product, I envision setting up a very dark, apothecary shoppe look and feel for the photography where I would display the amulets in their magic boxes and with their scrolls of authenticity etc etc.

But the amulets are where I am beginning and below is the first iteration of one of them. A simple polymer piece with an iron rust patina. aged and mysterious. This one, I believe, would ward off
nightmares and keep the wearer safe from dark ogres and malevolent shapeshifters.

I love the aged patina look and the mysterious golden symbols inscribed. It feels magical to me even at this early stage.

Sort of a nightmare capture device. The box shape and the hole in the middle to lure the nightmares within. Woven with repellent spells to ward of all of those other nighttime creatures too.  Could have used this as a child! :)

Anyway, that is the beginning of it and I wanted to post it because, in my world, too many ideas get lost in the shuffle of maintaining the shops and all the custom work.

I have to remember, sometimes, that what inspires me most is making what I truly want and love, and that only those things really inspire me and refresh my soul. : )

Thanks, as always, for believing!

nicolas

PS, I've been inspired this week by a book about Stonehenge that I have been wanting to read for awhile. It goes into detail about the larger community of sacred circles around the Stonehenge site and how the key to unlocking so much of the mystery seems to have come thru the ancient belief that stone circles and monuments were for the dead while wooden/timber circles and monuments were for the living. 


For years it was believed that Stonehenge was an anomaly, an enormous monument sitting all alone on the Salisbury plain but, in the last 15 years,  research and new digs have shown that to be anything but true. This is very inspiring to me. . . time keeps revealing the secrets of the dead and the idea of certain materials being linked to the living or to ancestral dead is so remarkably simple to me. 


I was fortunate enough to visit Stonehenge in the late 80's and remember it as if it were yesterday. A cold, rainy Spring day with only two other people around the entire time I was there. Those stones in that setting, even with the modern highway that runs beside it. . . only the Badlands of South Dakota have ever given me the same feel. Ancient, magical. . . eternally alive with unending stories to tell.

Feeding the Soul

Even with the holiday coming far too quickly and custom requests piling up, I always make sure to take time and set it aside to create and finish pieces that are simply what my heart desires. Feeding the soul this way is the most important thing to avoiding any sort of burnout or the burden of overwhelming to-do lists and custom work. Nothing inspires me more than those precious hours. . .

The first piece is one I showed in progress awhile back but it sat here just waiting for the finishing inspiration. Those finishing touches came in the form of the two bluebirds and the treasure of "gold coins" and "jewels" in the tree hollow.

Dreamweaver Series #1

The bluebirds are made completely from polymer clay and no painting! A first fo me but I enjoyed the process

Little gold mica coins and Swarovski "jewels" really completed the piece for me.

Also I undertook a redesign of my Onegai (Wish Granting) Jizo statues.  I recently went back and looked at the evolution of these little statues over the last four years. Yikes! The first ones were really cute but so "rough" by comparison. I love the tiny, rotund bodies on these and the fact that the little bells on the hat actually tinkle! :)  Definitely a Wish Granting form if ever I saw one! :)

Anyway, that's all for today but in the next few days I am excited to show you the first version of my hand-bound fairy journal! Includes foldout maps on the end pages, pressed flowers and lots of wonderful elf illustrations! All in a very magical  2" x 2.75" size:)

nicolas