Tag Archive for 'ecosphere'

day 9 - ecosphere

Today’s piece should be filed under Awesomosity!


Earlier today I saw this image in my flickr favorites and I instantly wanted to carve a stamp I could use repeatedly in one piece. I also had a lunch date with printer extraordinaire, pejnolan, so printing was a necessity.

I spied my ecosphere and got the idea to do a piece based on that.

Above you can see the progression of the stamp, from the blank block, to the original sketch, line drawing on the block and then the actual cut out stamp.

I love, love, love this piece and am so inspired to do more using handcarved stamps.

Thank you Bumblesea

Have you seen the breathtaking jewelry of Bumblesea? I know I’ve spent time gazing longingly at Jennifer’s work, dreaming of rewarding myself (for who knows what) by purchasing one of her lovely pieces.

Then, can you imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered the other day that she featured my work on her own personal blog. I was absolutely thrilled. I think she must be a kindred spirit as she said she has wanted a room with fake plastic grass (rather than carpeting) since she was a child, and she apparently hates Metallica (according to her bio blurb). Well, Jennifer, I’ve never had a fake grass carpeted room, but I incorporated the stuff into almost every art class I took in college. And as for Metallica, well, I went to a music festival once where they headlined and I made sure to exit well before they came on because I loathe them sooooo much.

Not only did she feature me, but then the next day she used one of my paintings to illustrate her post. I feel loved.

Thank you so much Jennifer, you made my day!

And since she asked about my ecosphere. It’s still going well. I think most of the tiny water flea-like things have perished, but the snails, and the brine shrimp-like creatures are thriving. I don’t know if it is just me, but the plant’s roots seem to have grown deeper as well.

The thing that is so cool about the ecosphere is that, although it is just a jar, each and every time I sit down and begin gazing long enough I discover new life. For example, just now I discovered an almost microscopic, white creature, with what looked like it had a shell, but was swimming around freely. How cool, huh?

Homemade Ecosphere

Today’s inspiration came to me from a gift guide I saw before Christmas. It featured an ecosphere from brookstones and I’ve been thinking how I want to get one. In high school my siblings and I bought one for my dad (a science enthusiast) from Natural Wonders (remember those stores they used to have at all the malls?). Anyway, today I was just thinking again about how I want one of those biospheres again and then the idea occurred to me just to make one. After a bit of research I found these cool sites and videos on making your own.

Here is a cool video by the awesome Bre Pettis (love the guy) from make and etsy.

And a couple articles that have more images and videos on making your own ecosphere here and here.

Only problem now is the foot of snow on the ground. I won’t be finding any brine shrimp, snails or algae anytime soon. I’ll have to add it to my list of things to do in 2009.