Let's Get This Blog Started

So, what's with the name of this blog?  Madfoamingcat has been my online handle for a long time now.  When I give people my email they laugh a little, give me a weird look, or just politely ignore the odd name.  I'm sure a lot of people wonder why I chose that name.  Well I'm going to kill the bizarre mystery and tell you how I came up with that name.  I was trying to set of my new email.  I typed in many different user names I wanted to have, none of them worked.  I was getting frustrated and starting typing in random things.  Madfoamingcat was the one that stuck and I've been using it since.  And, knock on wood, any time I sign up on anything new online no one else has this name.  It really doesn't make any sense but it fits me nonetheless.  I mean I do like cats and I like to draw crazy cats as you'll see in some of my high school work.  Anyway....

I chose the rest of this blog name due to what I'll be talking about in my blog, which is stuff I create.  I chose fumbled creations because I usually fumble through whatever I'm making.  I have a lot of happy accidents but I also have some frustrating I want to tear my hair out accidents.  I mostly stick to patterns but I like to adjust them somewhat.

I create by sewing, crocheting, using Photoshop, drawing, painting, wood buring, cake decorating, and I think that's it so far.  Mostly I just sew and crochet.  There are many things I would like to do but my time is restricted like so many others.  I'm taking some classes in quilting because that's something I'd like to try.  I'm also interesting in felting like http://www.feltalive.com/ .  Working with chainmail is also something I'm interested in.

I'm doing this blog to help me keep track of what I'm doing as well as get feedback from other people.  Feel free to give constructive criticism of my work.   I'm here to learn, maybe you'll learn something from me.  To start I'll show some past work:

Art

These are some prints I did in college.  I put the sketch I used next to the print.  The prints were made by using some chemical to etch into a metal sheet( unfortunately I don't remember how it worked) then inking the metal sheet, placing it on a piece of paper, and putting it through a press/roller.






 

These are some sketches I did in high school.  I was really into anime.  I still like it but I'm not as crazy.  These are all originals.

This is a painting titled "Eat Your Heart Out."  I had some really cool art teachers in high school that let me do just about anything I wanted.

Another example of high school art.  Just a pencil drawing.

This is a picture I made by using one of those papers where you scratch off the top layer, see this is why I say fumbled because I don't remember names of things or what I'm doing!  Etch paper maybe?

I also had some really cool art instructors in college.  This is colored pencil on cardboard and this picture has a story behind it.  First off let me say that I wasn't the greatest kid.  Here's the story:

My sisters and I were in our yard playing baseball, I was maybe around 9(I don't really remember).  Well there was this girl who was a little younger and lived next door to us.  She comes over and asks if she can play.  We told her no that we were going to have to go in soon.  Well she won't leave us alone.  One of us says, "You better do home or the boogeyman will get you!"  She says, "No he won't the boogeyman only comes out at night."  We say, "Well there is a daytime boogeyman and he lives in our treehouse!"  (We had a clubhouse we called a treehouse because our dad built it up on a stand)  This little girl doesn't believe us so we tell her to go look and see for herself.  I sneak off and get a gorilla mask from our house and climb up the back of the treehouse.  She climbs up the front and goes in.  I jump out at her and she runs off screaming back to her house.  My sisters and I run and hide on our back porch.  A little while later her dad comes out with her and he says, "See there's no boogeyman, he only comes out at night."  And she says, "But this was a daytime boogeyman!"

This is another college piece.  It's colored pencil on some kind of thick soft paper,  it was a big pain in the ass to work with always flaking off.  Anyway this represents me and my love for Stephen King.  I went to a Catholic grade school, when I started reading King and hence the uniform.  Me walking down the school hall carrying my gigantic Stephen King book with my favorites story; Langoliers, The Shining, Carrie, It, Pet Cemetery, and Dreamcatcher. 

This post has gotten way too long so I'll post some more past projects another time.  It will have my cakes I've made, crochet projects, and things I got to make at GenCon 2011.  Thanks for reading!