I wish I'd gotten to posting this earlier, but... my sister has a grand plan for decorating the free-arching rafter beam in our cabin for holidays. This past Christmas she was able to realize much of the plan, including making a large fake gingerbread house.
We made it of salt dough, glue and acrylic paint, polymer clay, beads, and the thing that really makes it work is spackle, piped through a frosting tip.
Detail on the piped spackle on the eaves.
We also made men and a cookie tree.
Merry Christmas, holy Lent!
Saturday, February 10, 2018
I wanted to do a more cleaned-up, fancy sketch, so here is a character from my upcoming webcomic, Paper Doll Veronika, who won't show up for a very long time.
Are women oppressed in this country? The feminist movement tells us we are. If so, of what does this oppression consist?
We are told that as
late as 100 years ago, women were considered property. But history
shows this is not true. If a woman were property that would mean her
owner would be allowed to sell her, or dispose of her completely, that
is, kill her. This has not been the case in Western Civilization since
the end of the Pagan Roman Empire. It was certainly not the case 100
years ago. The only difference between the legal rights of women in the
19th century and now is that, since the 1830s-60s, married women may own
property without giving their husbands rights over it, and since 1920,
they may vote. So women are equal to men before the law. Are they
otherwise oppressed?
The third artist I contribute to on Patreon is Gloria Copetillo, who does illustrations of elegant girls.
The reason I chose to contribute in this case was not so much the art itself -- which is pretty, ornately detailed, and colored with the smoothest gradations of color -- or the patron rewards, which are cute and quite lavish on the higher levels-- but because Miss Copetillo is living a dream that particularly resonates with me. Many folks my age grew fascinated with Japan in our teenage years, as anime and manga boomed in popularity in the twenty-aughts. One particular facet of Japanese culture enchanted me most of all: Elegant Gothic Lolita fashion.
I've mentioned this in passing; it's a style that began in Japan in the eighties, based on Western women's clothing styles of the 18th-19th centuries, with goth, punk, and fantasy influence. Don't be scandalized by the name; while the name did, ultimately, derive from Nabokov, it was in a very convoluted manner and there's nothing perverse about the fashion itself. The aesthetic inspired my fancomic Batman: Decadence and it's one I try to follow myself, having acquired a few dresses, planning to sew more, and endeavoring to live a ladylike life.
Miss Copetillo is not only an artist, but a lolita who sews all her own dresses and moved from Mexico to Japan to pursue a career as an illustrator. It was the following video of her sewing handiwork that really made me want to support her:
