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Playing with the Silhouette

I’ve taken a little break from painting and working on my Hex sign projects, for a couple of reasons. First of all, my “day job” is picking up. This is part of the usual ebb and flow of working as a contract developer, so it’s good, but it also means I have less “free” time. Secondly, I’ve been playing about with some other crafts lately. Specifically, “cut crafts” using my Silhouette Cameo and Heat Transfer Vinyl from Heat Transfer Source. (Not sponsored, these guys just have a superior product and great sales.)

Of course, me being me, the idea of downloading a full design and cutting it isn’t gonna fly. I have to make my own art. To make it sustainable, I’m going to sell some of my SVG designs on the shop. Others will be free. It depends on how much time I put into it, if I got paid, who it’s for, etc.

I’ve also been struggling with some depression. *Shocker*, even registered introverts get sick of pandemic quarantine after a year! So I wanted to decorate a notebook to use as a journal to work though some of this. Most of the time, I have no idea what’s wrong, so…”What the (actual) Fuck?” seemed apt. Had fun playing with fonts and adding some stars. This is adhesive Vinyl on a Dollar Tree notebook. The design is available as a freebie for personal use.

My lovely wifelet works with kids all over the country. Many people would describe her job as “nanny” but I think it would be more accurate to call her a “hands-on life coach for minors”. She is great with neuro-divergent and gender nonconforming youth, and helps them through the struggles they face, with their parents’ express consent. She gives them a grown up ear that isn’t a parent, so sometimes she has long support chat sessions with teens. During one of these sessions, she told a stressed out transgender teen who felt “broken” that a disco ball is made of broken glass, but it reflects the light and is beautiful. His response was, “I identify as a disco ball, yes I do.” She thought this was so empowering that she asked me to make him a tee-shirt. So I did.

I found the original “disco ball” in a free svg resource, but it wasn’t going to work for a cut file as it was, so I had to spend some time cleaning it up and making adjustments. Then I went through the always enjoyable task of finding just the right font. I cut the font out in white HTV and the ball in “Silver Dot” soft metallic HTV. Weeding this was a breeze, because I was using the negative space from the design. This design is available as a freebie for personal use.

Of course she was impressed by my magical powers of tee shirt creation, so my wife asked me to design another shirt for her friend Andy, who is the sound tech for Jameson’s Folly, the modern face of Wenches a’Wailing. This Irish band is the big-sister act of my Kara’s band, Fiendish, so sometimes Andy is doing her sound as well.

She suggested something about the sound guy making the band sound good, and I went from there. I found photos of monitor headphones and an amp to use as source material to illustrate, picked fonts and made this little design. Since this was pretty specific to a celtic style of music, I also mocked up rock and country versions.  These designs are available as a bundle in the shop!

I’m sure I’ll return to painting soon, especially since I’m working on rearranging the art on our home’s facade. I’ll have a post about that in a few days!

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