Back to our regular schedule then

Apparently LJ isn't happy about inserting blank spaces today, so I'll have to fill this in to avoid the clutter of images ;)

I could tell you about the weird dreams I had last night, but most of them are unrecountable for various reasons, they just don't make much sense. They were pretty cool nonetheless.


Click to zoom in

Size: total length 5cm; width: 3,5 cm. Brass and silver.

I AM EDITING THIS ENTRY after doing some research on the web:

Been browsing a little. It looks like there is no way I will ever get my page back. I really don't know what to do now. I refuse to give my real name and location anywhere on the web, I know it is probably still easy to track me but I try not to leave too much information permanently. And anyway most people have no idea who I am if I am under my real name.
This is stupid if you know people through forums you rarely know their real names and you can't rememebr who is who...

I really want to keep in touch with people but I have no idea how. Even if I recreate a page under my name it will take me weeks if not months to "friends" everyone back since you are also not allowed to do that!

This is beyond ridiculous.

Among other things I found, good to know if you are on Facebook :

"If you follow their friendly suggestions, such as poke a friend, invite them to join your Mafia Mob, or respond to a “Friend Suggestion” that FACEBOOK sent you (based on your private activity and associations)…. They will terminate you with no recourse and/or explanation. Facebook shuts down accounts of users who are exhibiting ANY behavior it finds remotely suspicious. As paradoxical as it sounds, "suspicious" often means just using the site too much! Sometimes they warn people and give them the chance to change their behavior, and sometimes the account termination is sudden and permanent.. "

"I recently had my facebook account disabled and while I admit i was sending friend requests it was to people I have actually met over a number of years working in the entertainment industry."

"13 Reasons Your FaceBook Account Will Be Disabled By Thor Muller http://getsatisfaction.com/facebook/topics/13_reasons_your_facebook_account_will_be_disabled **Editors Note** (Make sure you visit the link above to read the full explanations and visitor commentary)"

1. You didn't use your real name
2. You joined too many groups
3. You posted too many messages on a wall or in a group
4. You posted in too many groups, too many user's walls
5. You friended too many people
6. Your school/organization affiliation is doubtful
7. You're poking too many people
8. For advertising your app on wall posts
9. Using duplicate text in multiple messages
10. You are a cow, dog, or library
11. You are under eighteen years old
12. You wrote offensive content
13. You scraped information off Facebook


http://www.blackwebportal.com/wire/DA.cfm?ArticleID=4223

If you have a minute, please take the time to answer the question I pose at the end of this post. Many thanks in advance.

I am still pissed about Facebook. While I usually accept a site's rules, I don't want to abide stupid rules, I have my reasons why I don't use my real name online and it shouldn't be a condition for joining a site. But I really need the networking.
Sure it is fun, and makes it easy to keep in touch with everyone. But I also need it for work. I've met many people there who could one day be interested in my services, I've met lots of fellow illustrators who gave me good feedback on my work. Etc...

And most of all I am pretty sure that this was the best place to promote my jewelery. I mean I have no idea how many people read this blog since LJ has no stat function. I look at my own behaviour and notice that while I browse all my friends post I don't have the time to read them all in detail.
On Facebook, I always read everyone's status updates daily and every other day I looked at their photos and links. It doesn't take long and I like to know who's doing what.

So the question is: I have this feeling that while people do read this blog, my facebook page was a better way to show my pieces? Also I have this feeling that those of you who bought something from me rather saw the pieces on facebook, more than here?

I mean I won't stop blogging, I love it and I also do it for myself, but no one can always read all of the journal entries. If the issue that led FB to disable my page was really that I didn't give my real name (that's just a wild guess since they never gave me a reason) I may have to create a private page and a "fan page" or commercial page as they call it too. Everyone who knows me from forums or deviantArt knows me under the nickname of Dragonlady (CH, stands for Switzerland) it would be silly to use my real name also for this reason.

But it could also have been a hacker. Now that would be annoying since I should then change my password on a lot of other accounts, I was using a pass that I use elsewhere too. :(

Anyway I'd be curious to have your feedback on this, if you can spare a minute. Cheers!

OK, this one is really the last TJ review this year. No more reviews until er... next month when I see Alice Cooper again ;)

Funny how I had the same room as last year when I went to see Jools Holland, must be my lucky room (number 18). It's really just your basic room : a bed and no windows, but the point is not to stay in, so I headed to the venue at the time when doors were opening. I'd rather wait inside the venue anyway. This is a strange little festival, very exclusive and "posh". It is sponsored by a guy who makes cigars... can you imagine who must have been really happy about that? (Tom loves cigars) Not me in any case, cigar smoke can make me very sick, and I was a bit worried when half of the audience strode in sporting all kinds of cigars :(

Opening band was Tower of Power, but as the director of the festival said, this isn't really an opening act, this is a legendary band, they are just as big as Tom. They even worked together on occasions. I think they were a bit disspointed at first, for half of their set the audience was sitting. The singer asked us to get up and dance, but it took two attempts to get people to stand! I was motioning that I'd love to but certainly not if I was the only one! Thankfully by the end of the set there was a line of us dancing in the front. You know me I love to dance, I wasn't going to be told twice.

That was a nice "warm up", more like fiery hot, and apparently Tom liked that. The festival president introduced Tom by saying that he (Tom) had been watching us and couldn't wait to perform for such a motivated audience. According to the president, Tom even commented that it reminded him of Vegas! See? That's just what I thought too last year. It is similar in the set up. There are tables everywhere and it's a small venue (about 1'500- 2'000 at the most), at the front there is a zone of perhaps 5 meters where people can (and usually do) mass up at the begining of the concert, to dance.

And indeed, Tom had just done the first two songs and the photographers had gone and you had people getting up and walking to the stage already. I don't know how I could be that lucky but I walked right up to Tom and stood myself literally at his feet. I'm not always that cheeky, but this was such a big dream of mine! What an incredible feeling to be so close and watching him sing "Thunderball"! You are literally blown away by the sheer power!

 

( The rest of the review and photos behind the cut )

Maybe I should post some art in between reviews or you'll think I am not working at all ;) I am but on projects I cannot yet show.

So here's a doodle:



Usually I post doodles and sketches on my facebook page so I don't clutter the blog too much. But someone thought it might be fun to "disable" my page out of the blue :(  I doubt that is very legal but what can I do. Until they deign to answer my emails I am stuck with more "antique" means of networking :(

Tomorrow I am going to.... er I know it's getting boring. But I am going to see Tom Jones again! Hey it had been 14 years since I last saw him live! I don't even know how I could wait that long (well yes I do he never comes to Switzerland and I can't always follow everyone). It's going to be bitter sweet knowing it is the last time in a long time again. But I will have so many great memories to add to all the others!

Here is my review of last Tuesday in Zurich. I had to come down the cloud a little and edit this properly, before posting it on the web.

On Tuesday my mum and I, set off for Zurich in the afternoon, it's approximatively 2 hours by train. Nice ride especially at this season when all the trees are on fire with golden and red colours. On my way there I already had "Sugar Daddy" – the opening song of the current set list – playing in my head. Apparently my mind was already there!

We were maybe among the 15 first people to arrive in the hall, after all why not wait inside and already get a feeling of the place? We had a nice chat, and Nathalie and I gave my mum a few hints of what was to come. I am happy to say that my mum seems to have enjoyed herself, she is not a regular concert goer and the sounds are often too loud for her, but I lent her a pair of the special earplugs I always wear and she discovered a new world. We told her to look out for Tom in the back as the band played the intro to "Sugar Daddy".

The first songs were, as it does, warming the crowd up and getting the moods up, and then a first climax with "Delilah". Certainly not the same kind of response this got in Cardiff, but I doubt that such a thing would happen anywhere else. When the whole hall stood up and danced! Even so, some people were standing, some just waving. I tried not to fly away already. Not only do I love the song, but it was my grandmother's big, big favourite, I remember the immense joy she had when she got to see this live with me, and I think of her very much while the song plays, I have to make up for her absence then. She's been gone for three years now.

After "Delilah", Tom started the usual chat but then ad-libbed into something that had me howling with laughter. He mentioned how this song was a big hit and how it had also been done by Peter Alexander, "in German!" (if you are a fan, you can just hear Tom's voice saying this, can't you?). I am a HUGE Peter Alexander fan. All of my childhood I drove my parents nuts wanting to watch his movies (they are very cheesy musicals, but I adore that!). It was too funny to heat Tom reminisce of the "competition". Then he concluded saying that while Peter is now retired, Tom is far from doing that! Mind you Peter is quite a bit older.

After "I'm Never Gonna Fall In Love Again" Tom sometimes mentions he first sang this at 26, then goes on to say it's quite different to sing it at 46, etc? He went up to 66.... and concluded "Well I am 69 now that's an easy number for me to remember..." and after a pause "...that was a joke in case you didn't get it".
Oh boy, my ribs are still hurting from that one. It's really the way he delivers these, priceless. Naughty Tom!

I must say that Tom was in super vocal shape last night! He floored us more than once with perfect notes. Had to pick my jaw up on the floor a few times. We had good seats, near the middle on the 8th row, and the sound was crystal clear there. At times Tom's voice just lifted you up and made magic.

There were a few cock ups here and there. Like Tom "arriving" too soon on the vocals on "Burning Down The House". They have changed things around and it's now Janet who sings this song with Tom, it works even better like that, there is a nice chemistry between them.
 
There were other occasions where Tom was laughing so hard he could not sing some words, I wonder what the inside joke was there? Also when dancing back and forth during "Pussycat" Pete kind of pretends to be in the way – "you shall not pass"* – and there is a funny little "collision" Tom seemed to find this very funny too.

During "She's a Lady", as it often happens, some people started to stand up and dance in the aisles and move up to the stage. I looked at Natou on my right and my mum on my left, but none was too keen. You know me, I simply couldn't resist and ran up to the barrier. I had about the same spot as in Cardiff, on the left hand side of the stage. And lots of space to dance. The last part of the set list is irresistible, and many joined the party, once again all generations mingled, what a wonderful thing this is!

The joint reverence at the end didn't seem to end, everyone seemed keen to stay on more, but they had to go. Then Gary looked around to throw his drumsticks in the crowd and flung one my way, that was neat! I usually only get "goodies" at Alice Cooper concerts, ha, ha!

Wow, I wonder if this feeling of happiness will last until Sunday, I am more than over the moon, I am all the way up on Jupiter! All ready for the last concert, then I am in for a major withdrawal time.

 

* sorry, a little "Lord of the Rings" reference

Hope you all had fun celebrating. I meant to post yesterday, then got a bit busy. And on the afternoon I went, to celebrate with crazylouiiiise  and supertantine  was fun.

We had pumpkin soup with ham, and a bright green vanilla custard, yummmy! I brought some cookies and truffles:






Today, I tried to catch up on work, been sawing and filing brass again, and skteching stuff for a book project.

I've been making some more of the Steampunk pieces. And also working on the flyers and the website to present these: http://dragonladych.designbinder.com/

It's really cool that deviantArt now offers a tool to make these little websites. It's so easy to use and looks really good.

But I had some troubles. My computer crashed midway through my designing work. And I seem to have mislaid (probably thrown away by mistake?) the original handwritten pieces for Myron's journal :(
Never mind, I've improvised with what I had and I think it looks ok.

I love how the reflection of "Nb 2" in the sun look like it has some kind of magical purpose, this is perfect for my little concept.





( Other things I've been working on )

Next week (in exactly a week in fact) I will go to Zurich to see Tom Jones again! But you know it's all about work in the end... yeah right... I discovered there is a big supplies shop in Zurich that sells PMC and lots of material I need. I have a big shopping list for the day after the concert!

Look I finally made a new avatar! I would like to catch all of Hadès' expressions, that would make a great mood theme. But this will have to do for now.

I also made this for Hadès' owner, my friend crazylouiiiise



Hope you like it! Of course you can also use the one that I used for this post!

Didn't do much today. That is I couldn't stay inside with the nice sunny day we had. 13°C just perfect for a long walk. I saw all sorts of birds. And took this (blurry) photo of a wren:

I've been trying to recall a dream I had last night.

Some sort of God's war, with one lesser God wanting to discredit another higher one by imposing a  test on him. And it was obvious from the beginning that the first God would do all he could to sabotage the contest.
The higher God (the one who had to do the contest) had to do a kind of marathon, by travelling through the 4th dimension, reaching various destinations in a given time. If that wouldn't be my usual state of mind I'd have worried if I was running a fever, it was very odd even for me. A feeling of flying through matter and in space (literally, there was some bouncing off planets too). Seing the world as a mesh, like you get in 3D drawing programs, while travelling. It all looked very technical
A sort of pirate tribe had been hired by the lesser God to help the "sabotage", but of course once offered a better reward by the higher God they turned coat.

Later I also dreamt I was visiting crazylouiiiise but she was living in a cabin in the forest (I bet she'd love that?)

No wonder I overslept, I think my brain needed that. But it was hard to concentrate on anything trivial today, like shopping. I still managed to buy two new pairs of trousers, which was urgent since I lost all that weight. And I bought some supplies to pack my jewelery when I have to ship it throught the post.

There you go. Finished it yesterday evening.

Funny how when I draw cute little mousies, everyone goes awww. ... And I get tons of feedback. But when I do something more personal, even not as dark as that... not one comment so far. Not really that surprising.

Maybe it's too scary? I wanted to do something for this month's theme on john-howe.com. But the "classical" take on "Angels and Demons" didn't inspire me much. So I went for something more unorthodox. Thinking about it I should have taken a reference for the face, just another "cooperish" thing will bore people maybe. But when I do that sort of illustration I don't stop much to think so I went with whatever my mind had... well in mind ;)



Edited to add my logo. Sorry but stuff tends to navigate on it's own accord sometimes ;)

Oh and if you right click and choose "show image" you'll see a bigger version of it!

Not really. But I was a "bit" angry yesterday evening. Just angry at myself for not going ahead as I wanted and accepting to help out at work for the week end when I have tons of work to catch up with.

So I took my pen to paper in the most litteral way, the paper barely survived, and I emptied about two Bics. I have to re work a part of the drawing but I think I like it. I still have ink spots on my hands despite a thorough scrubbing, that was really a battle!

Here's a small detail to show the deep grooves, that paper is very good. It felt a bit like etching or something.



Off to work then. And tonight I might be able to finish that drawing.

Finally! I have no idea why I never did this before! I saw Tom Jones in Cardiff! My voice is all hoarse now from all the cheering and the hours of chatting with friends, I am not used to talking that much!

To me, Wales is a special place for many reasons. I often say that Switzerland is the land of my roots, and they are deeply set. But England is my second home, Scotland is the land of my dreams (as in, I wouldn't live there but I love to dream about it) and Wales is where my heart lies.

So when Tom said “It's good to be home!", and the crowd roared in answer I teared up because I feel the same when I go back to Wales. And when he talked about his Dragon ring I cheered too. Paraphrasing he said “I am wearing my Dragon Ring tonight. I wear it most of the time but I sometimes change the rings I wear. But I had to make sure I was wearing the Dragon tonight"


Can you see the ring there?

And I had to do the same, I took my silver Dragon brooch, that I made a couple of years ago. I would love to give it to Tom one day but meanwhile I got very attached to the little bugger, I am not sure I would give him away now. Anyway it's not for nothing people call me Dragonlady. Dragons are my life, and Wales has got more Dragon legends to the kilometer than most countries. Their flag is based on the myth of Merlin, it doesn't get any better.

Seeing Tom Jones at home was something I meant to do for years. And it was well worth the long trip. I am sure that “Y Ddraig Goch"  the Red Dragon was curled up there under the hall, to listen to our Tiger Tom belt out his powerful notes as he only can, and the Dragon was beaming with pride

Enough about Dragons. I will post the rest behind a cut as it is very long, so click on the “read more" link if you want to know all the details! And see more photos. As usual there are more photos on my Flickr gallery.

( Read more... )

Well I am off to Paris tomorrow morning and on Friday I will fly to Cardiff with a friend to see Tom Jones! Wheee!
It's kind of a fan gathering at the same time I will be meeting lots of people I've been chatting with for years but never actually met!

So expect a long review next Tuesday or so...

I totally forgot to post this, spotted near the big artshop I go to once or twice year.



Hm.....

A similar design but with PMC. Used a different font as I am not sure if I will make more.



Brass wire and silver

Well I wasn't completely idle today. I guess that yesterday's visit inspired me after all.

I tested some new ideas:





What do you think? It's brass wire with Fimo polymer clay and cold enamel.

I need a magnifying glass for these, my eyes are really not as good as they used to be. And of course these are bad photos since I just took them under the light of a desktop light...

I also have one in the making with the same kind of idea and with PMC. It will be dry enough tomorrow so I can polish it.

I am still alive, don't worry! A bit tired as I usually am when the season changes.

I've felt a bit stuck lately, not sure what to do next about my various projects, resulting in some procrastination and frustration. Last night I had a very funny dream, and my mum just said "see that's your sub conscious telling you to react".
It was a kind of children playground with an electric motorbike turning in circles at the end of a pole. Riding the bike was not a child but a sheep! It was such a funny sight!

I am reassured my sub conscious still has the same wicked sense of humour as ever. OK, reading about Wallace and Gromit the other day probably helped!

So, no real news about art or jewellery. But I went to see the wonderful "art of the Celts" exhibition in Bern yesterday. It's breathtaking! They have all the artefacts reunited in one exhibition! Some I had seen already like the Gundestrup cauldron or the fac similé of the Book of Kells (always an exciting moment) AND the Lindisfarne Gospel!
Now I need to turn all this into some good old inspiration and I can get on.

In a week I shall be packing my bags for Cardiff again, after two years of dreaming of it, I shall finally see Tom Jones there! Hope my energy will be back by then I shall need it ^___^ Last time I saw Tom live was in May 95!!

From Lynn Flewelling's journal otterdance .

Her series might be tunrned into a movie or series soon. That's great news for her, but as usual I am wary of such things.
This series is one of the best things I've read recently and I don't really want to see actors trying to take the place in my mind where these wonderful characters live. I don't think that any other series had gripped me as much since Robin Hobb's "Tawny Man" series. It's not very often that I am sucked in that deep into a plot and feel like I have really visited these places. I can't wait for the next book to come out. Maybe I shall pass on the movie or whatever this will be.

For those of you who like fantasy this is highly recommended but be aware that it's not finished and it is set to last for a very long time still ;) .

Hey ursulav had swine flu! Not that big news but it's just that I expect some more fabulously weird drawings from her once she feels better (already on the mend it seems)

It's also been a year since my dear Alambic died with me and my mum at his side. I dreamt of a strange black cat called Jack last night and he reminded me of Alambic, then I remembered that it was that day.

In other news it seems to be official now that POTC4 will be based on Tim Powers' book "On Stranger Tides" (so much so it will have the same title). Not really a big surprise since it was pretty obvious after the end of the third movie that if they carried on they'd have to "reveal" their source of inspiration?
As you know I am a big fan of the movies because I could always see all the references to Tim's work and it made me happy. Also, it was while my brain was in "overload" mode thinking about all the cool props one could come up with for that movie, that I came up with my idea of the "Myron S Drake Chronicles" and the jewelery I've been showing you lately.
I remember spending a sleepless night or two jotting down ideas madly.

I finished my latest fan art (one that I plan to use for charity as usual). For once I am sending you to my deviantArt page, I don't want this to be all over the net in various galleries.

http://dragonladych.deviantart.com/art/The-Eyes-Of-Alice-Cooper-136802499#

( Read more... )