DIY - resonanteye

online selling, etsy, ethics.

25th of April 2012

In artwork, clients, complaints, deep thoughts, DIY, dos and donts, ethics, how-to, interview with the artist, pictures, politics, posts with links in them, tech, true stories, wtc 9/11 einstruzende neubauten artistic poetic terrori, you,

Update: people are beginning to migrate from the (myspace )I mean – etsy. Here is a page attempting to list their new shops and venues. And other are protesting it all.

The place has always had resellers; people breaking the rules to pass off mass-produced stuff as handmade.
There’s a lot of money to be had from people who want to NOT support corporations, who want to buy local, handmade stuff. A lot of people don’t like buying things that were made for pennies by slave labor. Lots of companies know that, and will lie about how their stuff was made, to get that dollar.

The people who produce things with slave labor want that dollar, too.

“Former eBay and PayPal executive Stephanie Tilenius has joined the Board of Directors of Etsy, joining Etsy founder Rob Kalin, FlickR’s Caterina Fake, Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson, and Accel Partners’ Jim Breyer (also on Walmart.com.’s board) on the board. Tilenius left eBay last year and now heads Google’s commerce division.”

So they invaded etsy (and a few other places) and have been trying for a while now to find ways to successfully sell to people who don’t want to buy from them. Recently, an attempt to pass off furniture built in Bali as “handmade in CA” was busted. The thing is- etsy isn’t supposed to be a place to buy factory-made goods being resold. Its own mission statement says that buying direct from people who are making things by hand, not in factories, is the point.

I signed up there because of that but now…well, the fact that when confronted with a (GIANT SHITPILE OF) evidence, including an email from the man who actually makes the furniture, that the stuff is not produced in CA, and that the original seller is a fraud, etsy chose not to apologize, not to admit fault and remove the seller—but to close discussions about it and deny. (note- the fraudulent seller? is not only still open, but still in their list of “featured sellers”)
So, I’m in the process of migrating. (check out my home page– new links to my stuff for now! All my rocks, sticks, logs, and moss will stay on etsy- but anything I made, art, paintings and stuff- originals- has been moved. still debating whether to keep my prints there or not, my “production work”)

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basic lettering for tattoos, script

13th of January 2012

In art, DIY, female tattoo artist, geek, how-to, learning, pictures, questions, step by step, tattooing, tech,

I do not know enough about lettering to call myself any kind of expert.

seriously. (check out some of my art with lettering in it for verification of that)

I am sometimes shaky, I am often confused by fonts, and although I have done thousands of tattoos with text in them, I still struggle with the forms and shapes. I owe the little I DO know about lettering to B.J. Betts, who is well-known in tattooing as a real expert on this stuff- he has some books out, if you are a professional tattoo artist you should keep your eyes peeled for them and buy them. (but if you work in a shop or have been around a while you already own all his stuff…)

I learned to do lettering before I ever heard of his work- the way I learned was through calligraphy, and through sign painting. A combination of those things and Betts’s work has formed my meager abilities.

Here’s a walk through on drawing this stuff. If you’re a tattooer you will naturally make the proper adjustments to the text as you go in order to make it applicable to skin, so I won’t be explaining the precise tech needed for that. If you just want to add a tattoo to a painting, a drawing, if you are not a tattoo artist you can use this how-to to make script lettering … or if you are doodling reference for your tattoo artist to build you a tattoo from, you can do this to give them an idea of what you’re after.

This is a step-by-step for script, cursive lettering in a slanted style in which the letters are connected.

I will post a separate one for block or stylized lettering next.

My tools:

Liquid acrylic ink,

fountain pen

(with round nib- just what I prefer)

colored pencil

(for beginning sketch/marking symmetry)

standard black #2 pencil

tracing paper, paper that is easy for ink lines

(I am using a scrap of srches hotpress here)

The rest of the steps, after the jump.

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on learning to tattoo.

6th of January 2012

In apprenticeships, deep thoughts, DIY, dos and donts, ethics, female tattoo artist, health and safety, how-to, learning, questions, step by step, tat zap wizard, Tattoo, tattooing, tech, you,

I get a lot of people asking me how to get started, wanting to show their art and find out if they should try to be tattoo artists.

They will ask about apprenticeships, teaching, equipment, schools, kits, “practicing at home”, “teaching themselves”, and all kinds of other stuff. I took the time a while ago to write up an article explaining how to get into tattooing the right way, how to learn without fucking people up, and how to find a decent place to learn from.

I hope this helps someone decide to go the right path to tattooing, and helps others decide it’s just not worth that much to them.

If you really are dedicated and persistent, if you really, really mean it, then you will eventually get there.

Unless you take shortcuts. Don’t take those. Do it the right way, even though it’s harder at the start.

I don’t review portfolios or teach anyone; but if you have more questions after reading this article, feel free to email me.

“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.”
– Leo Tolstoy

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