Since I finished working on my Triassic accordion book, I’ve been wasting time making 3-d objects. I should be focused on making more books, but instead, I feel like making toys.
I love toys…or rather, I used to love toys. I feel like, when I was young, I had stronger feelings about stuff. For instance the things I love now, I don’t love as much as I did “Carebears” when I was younger. Because I’m older, there’s nothing I haven’t seen before, so it seems as though my reactions are less strong than they used to be. But I’m getting side traced. In principle, I like toys because they’re interactive works of art. With most art works, you can look but not touch, but toys are meant to be touched, which is part of the appeal.
Part of my motivation for making toys is that I have a lot of art and craft supplies that has just been lingering in my apartment for years. I don’t remember why I bought a box of Super Scupley years ago, but I have to use it up somehow. I finally had an idea of what to do with it after looking at snow globes in a gift shop. I bought an empty snow globe, and got to work sculpting an octopus and s small reef. There was a lot of trial and error with that project, and it didn’t turn out the way I envisioned it: completely filling the globe with water is a lot harder than I thought it would be.
I also had a lot of yarn left over from my more active knitting days. I discovered amigurumi, and learned how to crochet. I regret not learning crochet earlier, because it’s a lot simpler and faster than knitting. The problem with crocheting and knitting, is that it makes me lose track of time. I can waste a whole day crocheting. I’ve been following patterns to learn the art of making amigurumi, but recently I’ve attempted to crochet my own creations with mixed results. I’ve made amigurumi with Super Sculpey because, like I said, I’ve got a whole box of the stuff just lying around.
I’ve also been making dioramas, because I wanted to do more music boxes. I’ve got the diorama illustrations done, all that’s left is to buy the sound modules and assemble everything. So that’s been my “creative direction” these past couple of months. Hopefully, I’ll snap out of it soon, and resume making books.