I'm happy to announce my graduation from Missouri State University with a dual degree in Graphic Design and Illustration, a minor in Art History, and a Summa Cum Laude through the Honors College.

December design graduates! We decorated our motarboards with our initials on the Adobe Creative Cloud icons

College was a wild and weird adventure; I struggled, grew, and learned more than can be summarized in a few pithy lines in a blog post. At many points, I had far too much on my plate; hence I rarely shared what I was up to on this blog. It has been a blast, though, and I've been up to a lot!


The last few semesters were rough in several ways, and although all through college I was blessed with a loving family, wonderful friends, awesome classmates, some support at school, and fairly good health, I am currently extremely relieved to be finished with school. I pushed hard to graduate a semester early, and am taking a "summer off in winter" to recoup and work on personal and freelance projects before moving.

This is one of my favorite photos with some of my close friends, from a different program, who graduated before me

I can't emphasize how wonderful it is to sit and read a good challenging book by the light of a Christmas tree, with no homework and no stress. And, on warmer days, to take my sketchbook and a thermos of tea out on a hike.

Just a phone photo of the gorgeous landscape I can escape to everyday at the moment :)

Now that the holiday travels are over, I'm getting started on some of those exciting projects.
If you are interested, keep an eye on:

Instagram  |  @shealynnsfaerie (For sneak peeks, pretty pictures, and weird Stories of my adventures)

Etsy  |   @shealynnsfaerie (Handcrafted fairytale jewelry shop, and shop for other artistic curiosities I might be selling)

Website  |   www.shaylynnann.com (I just finished a new design!)

Youtube  |   @shealynnsfaerie (For all video work)

Behance  |   @shaylynnann (This is the backend for my portfolio, and contains some professional projects that are not in my more curated website portfolio)

Society6   |  Shealynns Faerie (A shop for purchasing prints and merchandise with my original designs on it--there's not much up yet, but that will change!)

There is also Pinterest (for fun and research), Twitter (if you want an auto-feed for updates; I don't really tweet), and, of course, this blog (with a new and more navigable design)!



As well, I will be spending most of my work hours on freelance projects which can't be shared at this stage. Stay tuned :)

As you can see, I have a lot of plans. Plans for this blog include actually blogging.

As an art student, I generated a ton of work while in school.

These are just the sketchbooks, nevermind the boxes full of loose drawings and portfolio cases of finished work and all the digital projects and prints. There are tubs of this stuff, people, and terrabytes of files. Also I'm missing at least one sketchbook in this pile. That is mildly concerning. There is another box somewhere out there to unpack...

Many artists don't like to share old work and will actively purge their websites and social media of any outdated work. I understand this urge to let people see only your best work-- but considering that I haven't gone back and deleted all the posts on this blog that I wrote as a 13 year old, I think it's clear that I'm not terribly fussed about embarrassing myself in public.

A couple of years ago, I wrote some blog posts sharing pieces from freshman and sophmore year. It's so strange to go back to those posts; I was in many ways a completely different person then. I've grown so much as an artist and as a person since those foundation courses, but it's interesting to see the development in hindsight.

Over the next several weeks, I'll be doing some similar art dumps here on the blog, sharing pieces from my later college years. They will continue to be filed under the "college art class" tag. Maybe someday in the future I will go through and delete these posts, but for now I'd like to share some of the process (and struggle, and occasional piece I am still proud of). My portfolio website can be the space for ruthless curation; this blog is the place for messy creation.

So keep an eye out for new posts and new projects in the coming weeks. For now, though, I'm bundling up for a hike and then a comfortable evening of homemade food and board games with my family.

Sometimes, when I have an overwhelming amount of things to do-- or merely an overwhelming amount of things planned for the future-- I suddenly do not ever want to actually sit down and do it.

This is the case with blogging! What with yet another crazy semester, running a business, and wanting to spend time with friends and family, I have a backlog of a year's worth of pictures to blog about. Literally thousands of pictures sitting on my harddrive, waiting to be shared with the world. A couple dozen custom orders that no one but the client and myself have seen. Footage for six vlogs. Artwork and personal craft projects galore. And five sketchbook pages full of a "To Blog About in the Future" list.

And, now that it is truly summer vacation, I want to do nothing else with my time but to actually make jewelry and art, to go hiking and biking, to play board games with my family, and to spend time with friends.

Today I uploaded twenty new items to my Etsy shop and had my little sister help me with my inventory. She's been wanting to "apprentice," and we've discovered that in addition to having a knack for the technical aspects of jewelry making, she's also got a talent for organizing and helping to manage inventory!


Just in time for summer! This is a fun experiment-- I have a special clay epoxy resin that I am able to color by hand with Gilder's Paste. I use tiny-nosed tweezers to set all of these loose rhinestones into seashells!


Yay pretty seashells!


I simply can't wait for later this summer. I will be seeing an ocean for the first time since I first saw an ocean at age twelve. :)


I've always loved the awesomeness (and cheesiness) of Once Upon a Time the TV show. Awhile back, I made a bright gold glitter necklace with a glass heart-shaped bottle inspired by a scene with Snow White and Prince Charming, and it's been selling well.

So I took that as an excellent excuse for making glitter vial necklaces in other colors. :) Above is a dark gold; below is the deep purple.



I have a lot of Evenstar necklaces and earrings that I never photographed as I mostly was selling them in person. However, since they've been sitting in a box unloved for the entire school year, it was high time to get them online.


I CAN'T FIND ANY MORE OF THESE MONTANA BLUE CZECH GLASS LEAF BEADS!

It's a calamity!

So, a few years ago, when I first started making Evenstars, I bought my Czech beads through Brightlings Beads. This gorgeous reversible iridescent blue was one that I always stocked up on. It's a color that has been pretty popular, and I loved it so much that I used these beads to make some personal jewelry for myself.


I used up my batch of the midnight blue beads a year ago and didn't think much of it. After all, I could just purchase more when I needed to, right?

WRONG.

Everyone-- and I mean everyone, even the very expensive bead suppliers-- seems to no longer carry them. My best guess is that the manufacturer discontinued this color. :(


Just soak in those beautiful deep blues and teals. This may very well be my last Evenstar jewelry set in this color (it's a miracle I found it, in the bottom of a box of beads and not in my offline inventory box). It's up on Etsy, and once it's sold, it's gone. Probably forever. And that makes me veddy sad.


At least there are other gorgeous colors! This is actually the backside of the Pixie Pink Evenstar set, but I love the way that the beads catch pastel blues, purples, greens, and yellows.

It's so fairylike.

It helps that I am listening to the Cinderella movie soundtrack while working on this blog post, and that I am drinking tea with fresh mint from our garden. Small beautiful things that that make everything start to feel like a fairytale.


I even have a Goth black Evenstar... which I really like, even though I can't imagine my inspiration, Arwen from The Lord of the Rings, wearing this particular set.


This purple one is kind of steampunky. :)



There are three more G.K. Chesterton stamped and etched metal book necklaces available. My goodness do these book necklaces take a lot of work. Yet they are my favorite ever. :)


Yay for fairy glitter sparkles; I'm really playing up the fairytale aspect of the jewelry today, aren't I?


Another time and skill intensive piece, the Celtic Puzzle Ring, has been on my workbench lately. Or, rather, my soldering block. Four more of these beauties are ready to find a home!


SEASHELLS! SUMMER! RUNNING ELECTRICITY THROUGH ACID BATHS TO MAKE COOL JEWELRY!


...I just really like summer and dangerous power tools.

This seashell was electroformed (coated with copper), oxidized and sanded (to darken the ridges) and sealed before being strung on a bronze chain.


Well, I can't seem to get the "Mermaid Seashell" rhinestone pictures into this blog post, but here's the one with a glitter ombre.


Oh, hey, another seashell picture finally uploaded! My favorite small one, with blue-ombre with pink, teal, and green rhinestones!


Another item that I've been making was inspired by a college friend who made something similar... miniature rosary bracelets!

Most rosary bracelets are single-decade, meaning that they have only ten beads, or they are wrap-around bracelets.

These are actual full five-decade miniature rosaries that are worn like bead bracelets! I've been using my dad's drill press to add extra holes to the crucifixes to make this possible.


The only downside is that the length isn't adjustable. This one is bigger-- 8 full inches-- but the smaller beads make small bracelets.




Toodles,

1. This "Quick Takes" isn't so quick because there is so much going on!

2. CHRISTMAS!

Christmas break was fantastic. Nothing beats a family as amazing as mine, and I spent the month playing games, having late discussions, making and eating good food, playing with my little siblings, and basically just relaxing.

I did not sleep on an actual bed for eight nights of my break due to traveling and having guests over. It was so incredibly worth it!

One of the best parts?



50 people + 1 house + 1/2 week + board game marathons, good food, talent shows, charades, improv, engineering discussions, baby showers, fire juggling, late nights, dance parties, art lessons, robot wars, and more = MY AMAZING FAMILY!

3. Studio time-- also, I GOT A TORCH!

This Christmas break I had an entire week to spend in my little studio and made a lot of jewelry which will be appearing on my Etsy as soon as I get time to photograph the pieces here in my dorm.

But the best part?

I HAVE A TORCH.

Like, a propane and oxygen torch which gets to a couple thousand degrees and will let me solder, fuse, and melt metal.


I have been having so much fun experimenting and learning. This summer, when I have access to my torch again, I hope to come out with a new line of fine jewelry!





My first big project was developing a puzzle ring! These rings are SO fascinating to me. Expect more on this blog soon. :)


This ring's bezel is too big, but I'm soooo close to getting the hang of this.

I also made my own etchant with muriatic acid which makes life so much easier for my metalwork. This is a quote booklet I designed! It took forever but I love it. :)

4. Calligraphy

For Christmas, my grandparents gave me a dip pen for calligraphy. I'll be needing it for my illustration classes in the future, but I'm so glad that I got it early because I am experimenting with calligraphy!



I think that pointed pen calligraphy is going to be my new favorite thing. This is the first piece I made with that technique (from my instagram).


Pointed pen allows me to get the varying line widths and the cursive-style writing. I just need to practice more!

Also, nerdiness is important, even in calligraphy. This is a piece that I calligraphic with a broad nib. It's in Quenya, Tolkien's Elvish language, written in the Elvish script Tengwar:

5. Visiting a jeweler's.

My grandmother's wedding band was badly damaged recently, and they took it to a jeweler's for repair. This jeweler's isn't your ordinary retail place; they actually design high-end jewelry pieces.

AND I GOT A TOUR!

The family that owns the business was so welcoming and showed me around the entire studio, even letting me watch their mill, laser solderer, and 3D printer in action! And the main jeweler showed me the tiniest little torch head I've seen in my life. The flame is so small that you can only see it under a magnifying glass. I also got to see the inclusions in a real emerald with the magnifying glass!


They sent me home with some sample molds. This is SO AWESOME guys. Went I took at Metals class at my school, it was all with hand tools-- even for the advanced students. For lost-wax casting, students had to use a flex shaft to carve the one-use wax mold by hand.

This studio creates molds in a CAD software (3D modeling) to the customer's specifications. They then either mill a mold and inject it with wax (the left blue ring) or print it with resin in a 3D printer (the red one-- which was a setting for a ginormous stone and I got to try on the real ring!). The molds are then placed in dentist plaster, the wax/resin is melted, and the molten silver, gold, or other metal is poured in.

IT'S AWESOME. And look at how tiny and detailed everything is!


I had this puzzle box that my brother printed in my purse, since I was showing it to my grandpa during that trip. The jewelers were fascinated by it and it led to a really cool discussion about the different kinds of new technologies out there.

Since I love jewelry so much, and love it even more that I've seen a real designer's studio, I started looking around for jobs at jewelers' for the summer since I can't find any graphic design internships. I really hope my leads turn out. Working at a jeweler's would be an amazing experience.

6. 2014 in Books

Farewell, 2014. This is my year in books. It is one of my shortest booklists ever, with giant blocks of audiobooks (and podcasts) representing long drives and homework hours for my art and design classes. 

I'm a little bit hard of hearing, and I've never been good at understanding people during phone calls. 

Last year, during my Drawing I class, we were allowed to listen to our headphones. I started listening to the Harry Potter audiobooks. I started off listening to books I've read already, and over 2014 I worked up to listening to new books. I still have a hard time hearing and retaining all of the information, but I can proudly say that I've listened to The Great Gatsby without having read it first and I followed along just fine! Listening to books is a very different experience, but I enjoy having something entertaining/intellectual to do while drawing, and my listening skills have been improving dramatically. I can now follow along with conversations in our noisy dining hall without getting headaches!

It's so interesting to go back and revisit these titles and the real-life stories I experienced over this last year. My hope is that over this next year I will have the energy to savor some classics I've always wanted to read. Which of these books have you read and do you have any recommendations for 2015?

7. LOGOS

 My painting from my first freshman art class, Fresh Aire, is on the front cover of my university's journal of undergraduate research! The painting was intended as a technical exercise for class, but I took the opportunity to explore the theme of synesthesia.

7.  It is January and school has begun!

Last semester was a rough one. Despite having amazing friends and great activities every which way, by the end of the semester I lived each day simply to see it done and mark off items on my "to-do" list. It was a variety of things: having 27 hours of classes a week (plus homework), getting behind on work for my Shoppe, and (most predominately) some very bad experiences with a certain professor.

On the face of the matter, I did well. I'm maintaining a good GPA. I took calculus for the sake of learning calculus and expected to barely pass the class, but thanks to help from my professor and a math-teacher-in-training-friend, I got an A! (Plus it's really fascinating, sooooo...) I was active at my campus ministry, found some time to hang out with friends, and even stayed on track with laundry. In Color Theory, I painted pieces that I am fairly proud of, and in my Literature gen-ed called Heroic Quest I finally had a chance to study and discuss some deep philosophical pieces.

Outward appearances aren't everything, though, and I was restless, overwhelmed, and disillusioned. Praying, thinking, tinkering, reading, writing, and drawing-random-things-in-my-sketchbook took a backseat. Several of my classes were unfulfilling and in many ways a colossal waste of time and money. (My parents ruined me for school by teaching me to love learning; I would much rather get a B in a class that I learned a lot from than a perfect grade because I wasn't challenged). I even became irritated at good friends because I have a hard time saying no and felt a lot of pressure to always be doing things. Put me in a group setting and I will talk to everyone-- but the biggest thing that I learned from last semester is that I need alone time to refocus. (Also I need more than five hours of sleep to keep from panicking).

My biggest goal for this semester is to allow myself to unapologetically take time for myself. It is the times that I feel I should be doing everything that I need to step back. I'm usually not the kind of person to spend five hours on Netflix when I am overwhelmed; I am the kind of person who will just do more things. Jack of all trades, master of none, and a very discontent Jack at that. There are a lot of very good things in my life right now, far outweighing my legitimately stressful problems. Isn't it possible to make the most of every opportunity and also stop to smell the flowers?

This is WOYWW #270 (and the third time I've participated) and if you want to see the workdesks of other artists and crafters, check out the linky here!


My workdesk this week is once again the dining room table. Last week, I was making new graphics for my blog and editing photos. I've still been doing that, but a couple days ago I had some beautiful free-time to spend painting.

The picture above shows the very start of a drawing that I inked and watercolored. I'm still working on getting a blog post up about it, but for the meantime, here's a progress picture from my Instagram:


Tomorrow is my last full day to spend in the studio before I leave for school.
I really enjoyed making this necklace-- I just kicked back and listened to Goose Girl by Shannon Hale (fantastic YA fantasy novel to listen to, it was interesting and didn't require much concentration) and played with beads and wire for a couple hours.

So... This has been a peek into what I've been working on since last Workdesk Wednesday. I'm looking forward to glancing at everyone else's blog and seeing their workspaces later this week!