Splendid Colors

Stop SOPA and PIPA

K Hedges — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:15:03 +0000

This blog is on strike today (Wednesday, January 18, 2012) in support of Internet freedom.

For more info about this issue (and what you can do about it), see http://www.craigslist.org/about/SOPA

Thanks, Kathryn

P.S. If you see this message after that date, please e-mail me and remind me I forgot to re-open my blog!

Steampunk gear accessories, in time for the Edwardian Ball

K Hedges — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:47:31 +0000

I just posted my new prototypes on Etsy for custom hair accessories, tiaras, and hat decorations.

In response to the most common query about my gears, yes, I do have movable gears now!

SF Bay Area Locals are welcome to place custom orders online for local pickup. I’m at TechShop San Jose most days, and will be in San Francisco on Thursday, 1/19/2012 as well as Friday and Saturday before the events. I may (cross our fingers) be attending the Alt.Dance event on 1/19/12 at DanzHaus, 1275 Connecticut St., SF.

Steampunk Images

K Hedges — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 04:41:49 +0000

Here’s an album of my steampunk photos submitted to the HSU Annual Portrait Show in 2009. How time flies!Click to view slideshow.

Gears on a tree! See it at TechShop SJ

K Hedges — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 17:30:04 +0000

Last night I showed my gear ornaments at TechShop SJ for First Friday, at their open house for all their Makers. You can see my entire inventory on the tree or strewn around it. On the left, you can see a red aluminum water bottle laser-engraved with kraken tentacles by Ilana of The Golden Gear. On the right, you can see a photo of a Segway replicated by a TechShop member. In the middle, you can see way too much bling on one tree!

Steampunk Ornaments at TechShop SJ

After TechShop quieted down, I dashed around the few galleries that stay open past 9:00. It was good to catch up with my art friends! I got back to TechShop just in time to pack everything but the tree but wasn’t ready to call it a night: work awaits. So I went to my late-night coworking space, aka Denny’s, to make some new stock for Bazaar Bizarre and catch up on packing orders.

Preview of new gear designs

K Hedges — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 10:54:12 +0000

I have some new gear designs, some of which I’ll be doing in multiple sizes. They’re not painted yet. The snowflake gear got compliments at TechShop…

It’s already a week after I made the ornaments in the third photo at Two Buck Tuesday. How time flies!

Ainsley House decorations

K Hedges — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 10:42:02 +0000

Here is a photo of the completed tree at the Ainsley House and a few closeups.

Steampunk Christmas Tree at the Ainsley House in Campbell, CA

Closeup of laser-cut ornaments

Closeup of Steampunk gear ornament on a wall sconce

Full-length photo of wall sconce with greenery and gears

Steampunk Holiday Ornaments, or I CAN HAZ LASER CUTTER

K Hedges — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 06:24:04 +0000

The Ainsley House Museum in Campbell, CA decided to do something different for their holiday decorations this year: Steampunk! And to make a long story short, the Geek Club and the Steam-Federation had two weeks to plan and execute this ambitious project. Besides recruiting the local Steampunk community to lend artifacts and costumes, we needed to make lots of ornaments that would look good from arm’s length quickly and cheaply.

One of our ideas took advantage of my laser cutter class and TechShop membership: gears drawn in Adobe Illustrator and cut from discarded IKEA boxes on the laser cutter. Since I designed five different gears and had four shades of metallic paint, it was easy to create unique assemblages with different layouts of varying sizes of gears, sprockets, and an elegant escapement.

The first batch decorated the Christmas tree, sconces, and other areas of the suite. The second batch I brought to Two Buck Tuesday at Kaleid Gallery and assembled an ornate star tree topper, a simpler topper, and a prototype simple ornament for my Etsy shop (also called SplendidColors). After assembling ornaments from the rest, I joined them into a gear-train-like garland with copper wire.

I also photographed the gears for my Etsy shop. However, I still need to work out some technical glitches with the laser cutter. It turns out that, thanks to the inverse-square law, the laser beam doesn’t cut as well the farther it gets from the plotter origin. I need to program the laser cutter so it uses different settings on different areas of the cardboard sheet so all the gears will be cut through cleanly.

Artists and crafters see many creative possibilities for these intricate yet lightweight and inexpensive faux gears.

Graphic Design Portfolio

K Hedges — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 15:51:05 +0000

Here’s my graphic design portfolio, all in one post!
The captions include the names of the art director and client.
Click to view slideshow.

Tidepool nostalgia

K Hedges — Wed, 11 May 2011 03:29:33 +0000

Here are some photos from a few years ago in the tidepools of Northern California, Patrick’s Point State Park and Redwood National Park. I took these macro shots with a Nikon ~~5000~~P5400 in a soft underwater case.Click to view slideshow.

Non-profit graphics

K Hedges — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 00:13:47 +0000

I’m doing a graphics internship at the Silicon Valley Independent Living Center. Unlike many internships, I’m not just filing or doing data entry; after a few smaller projects, Jody had me design the graphics for this year’s Disability Pride Parade and Festival.

Edited to add: ~~Unfortunately, we have trademark issues for one of the elements we used in the collage, so I need to take the image down.~~ We changed it to use an open access element that I like better anyhow.

Logo for 2nd Annual West Coast Disability Pride Parade & Festival