We’re hitting another first this week, guys! First art trade post, that is.
I recently had the pleasure of doing an art trade with Alexis from Hooves and Horns Shop. We decided it would be fun to work around a galaxy theme for our trade. I of course made a dragon, eager for another opportunity to try out a galaxy effect with pearl ex and acrylic paint (I’ll post a photo tutorial on that soon).
Alexis is wonderful creator with yarn, and as someone who also crochets, I’m constantly amazed by the beautiful and awesome things she makes! I mean, have you seen her zombie goat??
She mentioned she had been wanting to try a new type of amigurumi (the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small stuffed yarn creatures—Wikipedia) and that she thought a jackalope would be fun to try. Since she asked if I could make her a galaxy dragon, we turned to the possibility of a galaxy jackalope. And the galaxy art trade was born!
Hooves and Horns Shop
Alexis created this ADORABLE galaxy jackalope. Just look at all the details! I especially love the needle felted bits; they’re so bright and perfect! He stands at about 7″ tall.
These photos couldn’t do this beauty justice by any means. You can view some others from Alexis’ Instagram here and here.
Here’s what Alexis had to say about her glorious creation:
“I had never done a galaxy effect on crochet and wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to do it. My first idea was to make the jackalope purple, color on the finished doll with Sharpies in galaxy colors, and then drop alcohol on the places where I used a Sharpie to make the colors bleed and blend together. Well it was a good thing I tried that technique on a scrap piece first because it did not work as planned!
My next idea was to use wool and a process called needle felting to get those nice colorful nebulas, and thankfully it worked! I then used acyrlic paint for all of the stars. I am so happy with how it all turned out! I like to think of my amigurumi as sculptures, so I love to incpororate different mediums to create something really unique.”
Please be sure to check out Alexis’ work on Instagram and Etsy.
JSThreads
For my side of the trade, I created a standing galaxy dragon guarding a crystal.
First of all, standing sculpts make me SO NERVOUS. I can probably count on my hand how many times I’ve made a standing dragon, so while I was anxious to see how things would go, I welcomed the chance to once again practice this pose.
Alexis didn’t have a specific color of crystal in mind, so I thought it’d be neat to create a sort of pink tourmaline opal crystal to mesh her birthstones. The pink color baked up a little lighter than I anticipated, but I think it ended up contrasting nicely with the dark dragon!
I absolutely love the way the galaxy effect turns out. It’s a perfect example of the difference glaze can make with the way the color appears too. I’ll be sure to post up a photo tutorial at some point (next week, fingers crossed) so you can see how this look was achieved!
What colors do you think of when you think of a galaxy? I gravitate toward purple, blue, and pink, with hints of white!