I've been wanting to make more tiny felted things, and today I finally had a chance. This is only my second felting project, and it's my first felted robot. He is 100% wool. (Although i did poke my index finger a few times with the felting needle, so he might also share a tiny bit of my DNA.)
I love the idea of using simple natural materials to make a high-tech little dude. I have a feeling I'll make him some friends.
I made this while rewatching Short Circuit tonight on Netflix. (It's one of the movies you can watch online on demand.) The last time I saw this movie was in the theater in 1996, and I'm happy to say it still holds up, even if it's a tiny bit corny. I kind of hope the remake never happens.
It's stormy in NYC right now. Maybe somewhere out there, a friendly robot is about to come alive.
New robot painting: I don't have an unfriend button.
I don't have an unfriend button, so once you add me, you are STUCK.
This is a little robot painting about the suckiness of social networking, and more specifically about the jerk who just deleted a friend of mine. I think it's really sad that our society developed a way to end friendships with a click. If someone matters enough to befriend, don't they matter enough to keep around for a while? To maybe talk to? To let them know what's bothering you?
p.s. I think it's funny that the robot turned out a little creepy looking. That was unintentional. But I like to think that even creepy-looking pink-haired robots deserve to meet people (robots?) who won't unfriend them on a whim.
A new little robot painting, for days when it seems like everything worth having is just out of reach. (He's optimistic, even if he has no reason to be.)
May your holidays be full of snowflakes and robots and love. :)
I made this year's sparkly, roboty cards with two block prints on 100% recycled paper (yay!) -- one had the snowflakes and one had the robots. They turned out kind of messy, but I like them anyway.
New robot painting: Instead of a brain, I have teddy bears.
My friend's son had a nightmare recently about a scary purple robot. So I made a little painting to show him that in reality, purple robots are no threat.
Purple robots don't want to hurt you. They wouldn't even know HOW to hurt you. Instead of brains, their heads are squished full of teddy bears, so basically all they know how to do is look cute. And hug. And hold your balloon.
I painted the little robot that was used for the Compatomatic Lovebot 3000, The N's new compatibility tester game. The people who built the game made him animate, and I think it's so cool to see one of my robots in motion! I'm also glad that he and I turned out to be compatible -- it would've been sad if he secretly hated me.
My artist friend Kelly Newcomer just asked me for a scan of this painting that we made together several years ago, and I realized I'd never scanned it or posted it here.
So here it is:
The one in the pretty green jumpsuit is supposed to be me. I know it looks dangerous that we're standing up in a moving rocket, and you're probably like, "Ladies, please sit down and put some seat belts on!" But remember -- we're in a parade, so that ship is probably moving VERY slowly. And I like to think it's hovering about a foot above the ground, so that if we started to lose our balance, we could just jump out and be fine.
Springtime robot painting: I think it's too warm for this jacket.
If I had a little robot, I would knit him a zip-up sweater with bear ears. Even if he never got cold, the squashy sweater would make his square-shaped metal body a lot more huggable. (This painting was a gift for a friend. I hope someday, she will have a baby, and I will knit that baby a sweater with bear ears. Note to self: learn how to knit bear-eared baby sweaters.)
Newish robot painting: My only purpose is to hug you.
He looks kind of stressed out, but it's only because he's trying SO HARD to hug that little kitty, and his stretchy arms don't quite reach far enough. (He was a gift for a cat-hugging friend/coworker.)
New robot painting: He's better at Scrabble than I am.
Here's a robot painting I made for a friend/coworker who is crazy-good at Scrabble. I am a tiny bit jealous, because his first name is a legitimate Scrabble word and mine is not.
New robot painting: When you are not around, I video chat myself
I made this one for a friend/coworker who once video chatted me while briefly experimenting with ichat's roller coaster background.
I think the robot is hanging out in a 1970's basement (with wood paneling and squashy green carpet), which I know doesn't make a lot of sense in the context of video chat. But whatevs. That's where he is.
New robot painting: When I hide behind the chicken pile, nobody can tell that I'm sad.
I'm not sure exactly why, but earlier tonight, I realized I wanted to make a painting of a robot peeking out from behind a pile of chicken.
It's on a 3" by 3.25" piece of a cardboard Fresh Direct box, even though I have plenty of actual painting surfaces I could've used. I guess I wasn't sure if I would like it. I do.
p.s. I've promised a bunch of people robot paintings, and I completely intend to make all of those paintings in the very near future. I don't know why I keep painting random stuff instead of working on the ones I owe people.
Another robot painting. It's about how the world feels sometimes, especially around the holidays.
This one is 8x10, so I made it clickable.
The scan looks sort of blurry, even when I view it at full size in Photoshop. I think my scanner is dying a very slow death. It's probably almost 10 years old, and it's incompatible with Windows Vista. I sometimes have to restart the computer more than once to get it to scan. Maybe if I end up trying to sell a few paintings at some point, that could pay for a new scanner... but my paintings are so personal. I'm not sure how I'd feel about a little bit of Lisa-sadness hanging on some stranger's wall.
Another robot painting. This one's on a little 3" piece of a Fresh Direct box, and at actual size it was too hard to see, so this is an enlargement.
Argh. Maybe it's still too hard to see. But I guess that's sort of appropriate.
I haven't painted on random pieces of cardboard in a long time, but I realized the other day that my tiny robot blender (at the bottom of this page) is still one of my favorite paintings ever.
This is the birthday card I made for my friend Lisa. I made it earlier today, before I went to the bowling alley, but I think it's a relatively accurate representation of what happened once I got there.
I'm starting to notice that anytime I draw things freehand, they end up looking kind of wonky. This little painting isn't quite as crooked as the blob in a mobile home, though. Maybe I just see life from a weird angle?
Another robot painting. This one is a bit bigger than usual (12"x12"), and it's hard to see on this page, so I made it clickable. One thing I really appreciate about tiny paintings is that they always fit on my scanner. This one didn't. I scanned it in chunks and pieced them together, so the large version has visible seams.
This isn't quite the whole thing, but it's most of it. (I think the bottom inch or so is missing.)
I made a new robot painting. I think if a robot (or a person) had invisible bat wings, it would probably feel really neat to hug that robot (or person), because during the hug, the robot/person's wings would wrap all the way around you. I bet that would feel really warm and safe.
I made this painting for a coworker. It was inspired by this news article from last month about a guy who disguised himself as a tree to rob a bank. The robot does not rob banks, I don't think. He's just trying to connect with nature, or be invisible for a while.
This little painting was a gift for a robot-appreciative coworker. I think he sort of looks like a Jazzercise instructor (the robot, not the coworker).
I made a little painting for a friend who's been having some romantic troubles:
It's kind of hard to see, so here's a close up of a piece:
And another piece:
Basically, the idea behind it is that love is a really complicated thing, but sometimes along the way, you find other stuff that's lots of fun (like random boys, or roller skates, or a vintage dress, or a mix CD).
I don't love how it looks in the scan, but I keep telling myself that it's cuter in real life.
Look, I posted! Here's a scan of one of my only recent creative projects. My friend's sister wanted a painting, and she likes white blobby art, so I made her a painting of a white blob who lives in a mobile home. (I think maybe things got muddy and the whole trailer park is slowly sliding down a hill.)
I recently found a little note to myself that says "Make a tiny voodoo cell phone (knitted) for Kait." I think I wrote the note sometime last year, but I don't have even the vaguest recollection of why I wanted to do such a thing.
Normally, I'm into happy, unthreatening technology (like cute robots), but I thought the idea of a voodoo cell phone was funny, so I figured I'd make one, send it to her as a surprise, and see if she could offer an explanation.
Here's how it turned out:
And here's the back of the tag, because of course a voodoo phone has to come with little pins:
It's only a few inches tall, which I guess you can tell by looking at the height of the pins. I made the blue screen and the buttons with the leftover yarn from the sparkly fringe on my scarf.
The sad ending to this story is that Kait got the voodoo cell phone in the mail today. She seemed to think it was funny, but she had no idea why I had wanted to make her one. I guess from now on, I'll try to include more detail in my notes.
Here's a robot merry-go-round I painted for a little project I'm working on:
My favorite part is that green blobby animal in the back. I also like the blue moose. Since the robots aren't very roboty, they're the least interesting part. The painting is probably bigger on your screen than it is in reality, so that's why there's not much detail.
