Category: Modern Miniature Succulents

Treasure Map, Yucca Kit

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Maddie drew a treasure map. The iconography is bold and challenging on many levels, not the least of which is her rendering of the letter “R”. Type designers, bow down, maybe even despair a little bit, that you might ever envision an “R” this way. I’ve not yet heard her telling of the map story, only that the thing that looks like a Crusader shield is an “X marks the spot”.

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I’ve listed the first yucca tree kit over at MMS+S. It includes both an armature kit and a leafy clusters kit, with a choice of three base colors: white, manila or green. I plan on making kits of just the leafy clusters available, for those who want to make their own armatures, and eventually just supply packs of leafy clusters sans instructions, for those who get it and want to build more yucca plants. Every build needs at least one good yucca :)

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So many possibilities! There’s one more versatile yucca houseplant kit in the queue, and after that, it’s on to making specimens. I’ve drawn a different leaf cluster, longer and finer, and am working with a smaller gauge armature, just for the finished trees and plants.

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Here is Maddie, studying the most recent Eric Carle book, and Ruby, being what contented two-month old humans are. Kind of my world right now :)

Rousseau 1:12 Mural First Cuts

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palm01_cut

I sketched out and constructed a palm plant motif in Illustrator, then reversed a copy of it to make the most of the painted papers.

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Here are my first cuts of the pattern from two of the painted papers, flung onto the wall. I was working against the losing of the light (because hey, Game of Thrones). They will work splendidly as a middle background layer, when arranged.

Still undecided how I will stick them down.

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It took me a couple of cuts to get it right, but here is what a (partial) painted paper looks like after four passes of cutting. Still plenty of material for hand cutting parts available.

 

Rousseau, Painted Paper, Collage

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A few weeks ago I came across this spread in the April 2017 issue of House Beautiful. It’s a wall mural inspired by the imaginary jungle paintings of Henri Rousseau. Designed by Laurel Canyon homeowner Molly Luetkemyer, it was painted by LA artist Jeff Robinson.

I was instantly smitten, and thought a miniature version could be the perfect third wall for the MMS+S set. Since I am currently very keen on repurposing and/or drawing from my considerable hoard stockpile of materials and supplies, I grabbed a peaked MDF wall from — um, actually I no longer remember what build it was from.

Years ago, I dabbled in some cut painted paper collage paintings, inspired by Eric Carle. I love this method of illustration. For this 1:12 wall, I plan on using hand- and machine-cut painted papers augmented with markers.

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Here is the wall (MDF, 12 x 17 inches) with the preliminary foundation background painted in acrylics. I’ve been studying Rousseau’s jungle paintings, and making note of elements I want to include: light to dark background gradations; sky, moon/sun, jungle; exaggerated plant details; simple two-tone object shading. In Luetkemyer’s inspiration mural, she says the plants are based on California’s landscape, and I plan to do the same. What an awesome opportunity to draw all my favorite plants and flowers: yucca, ficus, succulents, sansevieria; gorgeous orange and red mystery fruit; outrageous florid orange and yellow flowers.

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Using 14 x 11-inch medium-weight drawing paper and acrylic paint, I’ve begun making my papers, starting with the greens.

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And then some warms:

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It’s getting late, and I’ve run out of room on my drying rack, so my helper cat and I are calling it a night.

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Nancyland’s August (or Fogust, as we say here in the Bay Area) home page splash image is made from two of the above painted papers, layered using the magical “Lighten” blending mode in Photoshop.
The lyric snippet is from Grouplove’s “Colours”, a song Maddie and I both enjoy singing along to when it comes on the radio :)
Lyric snippet update: The National’s “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness”. Listening to on repeat.

 

Armatures, S-Town, Cricut

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I’m working on a yucca-and-others armature kit. It involves hand-tearing a lot of brown paper into narrow strips. One of my best-practice recommendations will be to watch a movie (that does not require eyes glued to the screen) or better yet, listen to podcasts. As of this writing, I’m listening to S-Town, again.

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My husband’s employer was hosting a TSA Pre certification opportunity, so after we enrolled, he cut work early. After a pleasant luncheon in the Presidio, we took a stroll through the Legion of Honor Museum, where this very antique clock caught my eye — hence the S-Town reference. If you’ve not listened to this brilliant piece of true life storytelling yet, I encourage you to do so. I promise it will simultaneously break and uplift whatever is left of your tender, jaded heart.

Here’s one of my latest exchanges with the wonderful customer support worker bees at Cricut:

Nancy Enge: Any progress with the SVG import capability?
Nancy Enge: My experience says no.
*** Deepak joined the chat ***
Deepak: Hello Nancy

Deepak: We are still working on it.
Nancy Enge: Hello Deepak
Deepak: Let me try from my laptop.
Nancy Enge: Try what?
Deepak: Uploading that image
Nancy Enge: Deepak, don’t waste your time
Deepak: Yay!!!
Deepak: It is uploading on my laptop
Nancy Enge: Yay what?
Nancy Enge: That is just normal technology

Nancy Enge: As you can see: a mess
Nancy Enge: All of the score line lines are thrown hither and thither
Deepak: We are continuously working to provide better user experience.
Nancy Enge: Of course you are
Nancy Enge: I did not mean to imply that any of you are slacking
Nancy Enge: Especially you customer support staff
Deepak: :)
Nancy Enge: I was just checking in on this most troublesome problem we have encountered
Nancy Enge: for the last few weeks
Deepak: You know today I got an user who is not able to upload an SVG image, I tried it on my laptop.
(04:12:36 AM) Deepak: It didn’t work.
Deepak: However I tried your image, it worked.
Nancy Enge: Welcome to my world
Deepak: So I was so happy.
Nancy Enge: Hehehehe
Deepak: :)
Nancy Enge: Simple SVGs work
Nancy Enge: It’s those with lines meant to be score lines that are problematic
Deepak: Yeah, you are right.
Nancy Enge: Why this is the case, I have no idea
Nancy Enge: I am a designer, not a software engineer
Nancy Enge: Dammit :)
Deepak: I am not sure with whom you you talked. I have your image and photo, I will show it to our product specialist
Deepak: Next 2 days is my week off.
Deepak: I will update you by Monday.
Nancy Enge: Thank you, Deepak. I have talked with three of your brethren to date
Deepak: I have already saved details.
Deepak: I will drop an email on Monday after checking with him,.
Nancy Enge: I know those of us who upload our own designs are Cricut’s minority users, outliers…
Deepak: For us everyone is important.
Nancy Enge: We would all like to believe that :)

Deepak: There are some technical bugs; we are actively working on it. We are not in the business of selling machines. However, we are in the business of winning hearts.

Deepak: I will surely get back to you on Monday.

Nancy Enge: *cough*
Nancy Enge: Sorry, I’m laughing so hard I almost spilled my drink
Deepak: :)
Nancy Enge: I appreciate your efforts on our behalf, Deepak.
Deepak: Thank you so much! :)
Nancy Enge: So, I’ll keep trying
Deepak: For your inconvenience I am adding $10 Store credit to your account.
Deepak: Using that you can purchase digital cartridges.
Nancy Enge: Ugh
Deepak: It will reflect on your account within 48 hours..
Nancy Enge: Thank you, though
Deepak: You are welcome
Deepak: Is there anything else I can assist you with today?
Nancy Enge: No.
Deepak: Have a great night
Nancy Enge: You, as well.
*** Deepak left the chat ***

 

Boo Cricut and Provo Craft & Novelty

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Nancy Enge: Please refer to cases 213040 and 222318
*** Akash joined the chat ***
Akash: Hi Nancy!
Nancy Enge: Hello Akash!
Akash: May I know if you’re trying to upload svg images ?
Nancy Enge: Yes. I can upload them, but new ones are appearing scrambled in Design Space
Nancy Enge: May I know what your escalation protocol is, please?
Akash: Yes I understand it. As of now we have some issue in Design Space with the svg images and we are aware of it and the development is working on it to fix the issue.
Nancy Enge: I am not happy with how this issue is being dealt with.
Akash: Till then please use any .jpg images.
As of now there is no troubleshooting for svg images, as this is a technical issue in Design Space software.
Nancy Enge: JPEG images do not support score lines, that I am aware of
Nancy Enge: I’m sure this must be difficult for you as well :)
Akash: I am sorry but as of now svg image has some issues.
Nancy Enge: I am sorry, too.
Nancy Enge: When may we expect a fix?
Akash: It will be in couple of days as they are working on High priority on this but we do not have the exact date.
Nancy Enge: How will you let your customers know of the fix?
Akash: I am sorry, they are not releasing any information in website, I suggest you to please try after somedays and if that doesn’t work then please contact us again so that we will give you the update.
Nancy Enge: I see. I appreciate your help, here, Akash.
Akash: You’re Welcome. Is there anything else I can assist you with today?
Nancy Enge: It’s bad manners for Cricut to release new software with such a crippling bug.
Nancy Enge: No, thank you.
Akash: I really understand your frustration and I will share this feedback to the concerned team.
Nancy Enge: Thank you, Akash.
Akash: You can visit our YouTube Channel to view over a hundred helpful and inspiring videos.
https://www.youtube.com/user/OfficialCricut

Please click on “Options > End this chat” to close this chat,
and feel free to chat with us again if you need further assistance.
Have a great day!
Nancy Enge: Likewise.
Akash: Thank you!

Albie, Yucca, Frustration

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This is Albie, absorbing the morning sun through the studio sliding doors. Our large middle cat, he is a handsome warm inky black, and very difficult to photograph. This one has zero interest in destroying miniatures.

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Re-working the Modern Miniature Succulents + Sundries set a bit. I built a corner planter for specimens, and glued in one yucca tree with the new, narrower leaves. For the rest, I want to keep the plantings fluid and easy to change out, so I devised a kind of armature on the stalks of rolled brown paper for elevation. They are planted to the floor with tacky wax.

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Here’s how it looks planted out, and with other plants massed around, like a typical nursery.

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Still experimenting with colorways on the different stocks. This is the original shape leaf cluster in medium green, with leaf and pine markers. After the glue is set, the leaves are separated and arrayed.

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Here is a similar leaf cluster, scored down the middle with the back of an Xacto knife. it makes it into a whole other plant.

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Here they are side-by-side. So much potential!

And now for the frustration rant: Cricut has released a new version of their Design Space app that has inexplicably broken my SVG files — the format for my drawings used to cut all these shapes. I have been in close contact with their support staff for the last two weeks, but no answers, fixes or workarounds yet. I even abandoned Firefox for Google Chrome. It is all very tedious, time wasting and — frustrating.

Body Chan

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My long-awaited Body Chan figure from Bandai finally arrived. She’s meant to be an artist’s model, or as the packaging proclaims “Pursuing Character Expression through Humanoid Action.” I had hoped to use her as a modern miniatures set figure, alongside Stormy and Zilly, or maybe to even replace them. She’s incredibly posable with like 30  points of articulation (some incomprehensible), several sets of hands, and essential modern accessories: smartphone, tablet, flip phone?, laptop, gun, katana. I so wanted to love her.

But. For my purposes, she’s too distracting: very naked (although she is sculpted with underpants on), and too slight (and anorexic) — in some areas — with thighs narrower than her lower legs, and five inches tall. Too anime. (Although this is Bandai’s express intention: “By design that commitment pulled, and reproduce the optimal head and body balance in anime characters.”)

Still. Very expressive and well-made. There is a male figure available, as well — I hope assume he has his underpants on, too. Both come in two colors: pale orange (pictured) and gray, which I thought looked like the sad shadow of death.

I know I tried to use this model outside its intended purpose, and really, it’s beautifully made, and I got it on sale at half-price, and she’ll be fun to pose in unexpected locations, so I’m not totally disappointed. Maybe tomorrow, there could be a Bandai meetup with the aforementioned characters… unless it’s just too dissonant to post.

Armature, Proto, Beloveds

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I have arrived at a satisfactory method for building yucca armatures, from wire to planting.

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As usual, it was a process of experimentation. I walked around the neighborhood (hilly!), and I looked at a lot of pictures on Google, trying to synthesize what it is that makes a yucca trunk a *quintessential* yucca trunk.

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This is the current result. Braxton Payne pot, torn paper over wire armature, medium green starting leaf clusters.

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Outlined in Khaki, tipped in Sunflower, center stripe in Leaf Green (left). Medium green stock start, right. Very subtle.

I’m feeling good about my progress. Kits and specimens imminent!

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Meanwhile, I’m going back down to Santa Cruz tomorrow, to spend time with all my baby girls. Ruby is now one month old. Maddie is four, and wakes up first thing every morning to cuddle with her sister. This is the life.

Pots, Yucca, Color

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My order of kiln-fired terracotta pots arrived from Braxton Payne. Look at this goodness!

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He even included a wee “vintage” hand-finished pot. It is perfect. 

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I’ve potted the first armature yucca proto, and am waiting for the glue to dry thoroughly before arranging the leaves. It stands 5.5 inches (14 cm) in a one-inch cylinder pot.

comparison

Oh, and here’s a color comparison on the four stocks I’m considering (with the tiny pot again, because it’s so dear). Nothing terribly surprising, but a handy reference. I think the yellow stock would be good for Sansevieria, or for yuccas with yellow edges — it’s difficult to outline this shape with markers. I’m excited to carry on experimenting!

Yucca: Armatures, Protos, Colors

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It’s end of day, for now. Made some progress with the yucca exploration.

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I began with tearing brown paper into thin strips.

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And wrapping multiple layers over florist wire to build up a convincing yucca stalk-and-stem armature.

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Yucca species are varied in color, though not as much as succulents, perhaps. In miniatures, I ascribe less to slavish reproduction and more to evocation of spirit :) Starting with white cardstock for this one, each leaf end gets tipped with Winsor & Newton Promarker Sunflower and Amber, both sides.

color02

Broad strokes of Pear Green color each leaf.

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Both sides colored. The inks blend as they build up and mellow as they dry.

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Thin cross-leaf striping, in Moss.

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More cross-striping on the ends with Amber, and surprise leaf tipping in Poppy.

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I snipped through the lower edge, applied a thin line of glue, and began rolling the leaves up into a cluster.

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Adding a generous dab of glue to the rolled end to ensure a well-bonded base.

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Inverted in a cup of fine gravel, I let the leaf clusters dry completely. This makes arranging and styling easier — and more robust — later on.

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Clipping the end of each armature branch with pliers creates a flat surface on which to glue a leaf cluster. Holding until set ensures uprightyness :)

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Watching glue dry. Again.

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I added two more trunks, wrapping everything together at the base.

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To improve the transition from leaves to trunk, I cut sections of 7 or 8 leaves and applied glue.

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I wrapped these just below the base of the leaf/trunk join.

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All trunks wrapped with leaves, and drying. I’m awaiting a larger cylinder pot to plant this particular specimen in, before unfurling and styling the leaves — the really satisfying part.

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I’m fairly happy with the appearance and versatility of this plant concept thus far. They work well on an armature, date pit stem, or just as foliage — and any combination thereof. I even think this pattern and method could work for Sansevieria, with the right colors and a little bit of shaping.

green_stock

The next step is to explore and evaluate color stock choices, which brings us back to the first photo in this post. Above is medium green cardstock (cut with a dulling blade, resulting in torn, dragged edges and general scuzz. This particular design cut really seems to blunt a blade fast :(

This green leaf set is colored with Holly swashes and edging, and a subtle Leaf Green vertical stripe. Very different than coloring on white. Each stock seems to absorb the inks differently, as well. I’ll show some side-by-side color comparisons next time.