Funky Friday: Black and White, Plus Snake Jacket Art Part II

Happy Friday, my friends! We have a long weekend in Canada (and my US friends also), and I'm champing at the bit for it to start. 

In this post, we have my Friday work outfit, which I put together specifically for Nancy and Shelbee's (blog links 'cause I love!) "Good Buy - Good Bye Book" link up for September. The theme is "Black and White" and it will be going  live in another week, so if you are visiting from the future, welcome! Feel free to poke around my blog - I post a LOT, heh heh. 

And lastly, I'm sharing another update on my latest art project, my Snake Jacket. I had to buy new pens/markers, and have been working at it here and there when I have time. 

Let's get 'er started - this is my Black and White work outfit. 

I have about six black and white dresses, but I wanted to push myself into wearing black and white separately. However, you know me, I couldn't resist adding a wee pop of red! 

• Top - Scotch & Soda, Maison Scotch, thrifted; first seen here in January with a match-matchy outfit
• Skirt - Dries Van Noten, Fall 2005, thrifted; last worn here in June 2020 (Flashback there also)
• Shoes - Zoomies Ishshoes, Fluevog; last seen here in July for Canada Day (in yellow, white and red)
• Jacket (below) - 2014 Stella McCartney for Adidas, consignment, Vancouver; last worn here in July

I've been wanting to wear my "pirate" skirt for a while - it's been sitting paired with a different top waiting to be worn, so I pulled it out and looked for something black and/or white to wear with it. 

As you know, "Always Be Upgrading" is one of my shopping mottos - I do not own a plain black pencil skirt. What I DO have is this skirt, which is:

• Designer - Dries Van Noten is $$$, very high-end,
• Natural fibre fabric - it's silk and cotton, so great quality, feels expensive and chi-chi, and
• Detailed - it has a stiched-on sash that wraps around and ties at the hip, plus a fold-over waistband, a bubble hem and various tucks and pleats to give it an interesting shape.

Why on earth would I have a boring ol' basic black skirt when I could own this? And I bought it in a thrift store for $29.95! You can revisit all the ways I've worn it here - this is now my 8th wearing of it.

I recently did some digging in Vogue.com's files while researching my "circus" skirt, also by Dries Van Noten (Flashback here) and I think I have found the season/collection that this skirt is from! 

It's the Fall 2005 Ready-to-Wear collection (link here 'cause I love), featured on the runway in a lovely burnt orange, taupe, hot pink and black.

Link to the above outfit in the slideshow here - the black version is here, but I find that outfit less joyful. I should try doing a bow on the hip like that! How exciting to find my skirt! 

Moving on...the top is cream/black stripes on the sleeves, plus the pattern of the body is little floral puffs in cream, grey and red.

Masked up for the office, drug store and grocery store after work. 

I also did a vibrant red lipstick. 

I am a big fan of MAC make-up - this lippy is called "Dubonnet" from their Amplified line. It's a dark brick-red that is nice and bold. 

More black and white in my outerwear. 

It was overcast...then sunny...then overcast...the weather's very changeable this time of year. 

The stuff: 

I never thought white shoes would be a useful colour to have, but I now have 3 pairs! I've worn these 12+ times (Flashback here). 

Black and white bling: 

My actual item for my Good Buy/Good Bye entry in this outfit is this stretchy black and white Lucite bracelet. I found it at a vintage fair a couple of years ago for $5.00 and I probably wear it at least a dozen times every spring/summer (I put it away in the fall/winter - I have too much jewelry!). I'm sure it's at pennies per wear. Such a Good Buy! 

• Lucite cuff - vintage fair
• Crystal/Lucite bangle - Alexis Bittar, consignment, Sidney
• Earrings - vintage, vintage fair
• Silver/onyx ring - Toccara, vintage fair
• Klimt ring - consignment

I love vintage fairs for finding distinctive accessories, often for far less money than you might pay for them new. This bangle is probably from the 60s or 70s, as it is actually cut Lucite - meaning, it's not cast in a mold like cheaper plastic jewelry. It's strung on very thick elastic (two rows) and is a snug fit on my small wrists.

Snake Jacket Art Project, Part II

Part I is here, if you missed it. 

With a great deal of terror, fear, trepidation, you name it - ack, what if I f**k it up?? - I started doing some work on the skull, which had only been a very basic outline up till this point.

I filled in the eyes, then took a deep breath and started on the nose and the teeth.

Most skull images have perfect teeth, with big "chiclet" front teeth. My skull...does not. I also gave it slight vampire fangs, as I am a fan of vampires (you might remember this). And no, I didn't get the teeth anatomically correct (there are too many incisors), but screw it and let's call it artistic license! 

For the shading, I did loose hash-marks with some thicker lines, so it has a comic-book feel. These will be cleaned up, thickened and darkened in places, and I'll be adding some grey shading later with markers. 

After I took pictures of the back panel last time, I thought the upper left corner could use a few more leaves to balance the image. 

At this point, my one and only black pen died on me. Argle-bargle.

I went to the best local art supply store (Island Blue shout out and link 'cause I love), where I picked up four more black pens (just basic Staedtler permanent markers, 3 x small and 1 x medium).

I also bought these permanent alcohol-based "paint" markers. I got three different shades of green, a dark red and a bright red, and two shades of grey. 

They are by Tombow and were pricey. 

They run around $8.00 each, but they won't require the spray lacquer over them to keep them from smudging. The less stinky spray I use, the better! 

Once I had my new black markers, I started adding the jagged edges to the leaves, a dark line down the centres of the leaves, and shading under each petal on the roses. I did the same technique on my shoes. 

You can see what a difference the extra black makes. Adding a thicker line allows me to cover up little errors and makes my freehand lines look less messy. 

Oops, missed a leaf in that left cluster! I tend to hop around when I'm doing this, and I turn the jacket as I work to make it easier.

This is a tattoo-inspired style of shading to help the individual components pop. There's a big difference in the plain and fancy leaves.

I worked on the deck until the sun went down, so these pics are a bit dark, sorry. 

All of the bolding/shading has been done on the roses, and I've done extra blackening in the eye sockets. I'm not worrying too much about the wonky jaw or slightly off head shape or the uneven eye sockets - it's not like I can erase it and start over, anyway! I'm just going to take a deep breath and let it go, and when I'm wearing it no one will notice, right?

I'm reminded that this is an exercise in letting go, not seeing errors as mistakes ("there are no mistakes"...unless your cat is head-butting your arm!), and being less of a perfectionist. I do notice that my mental blues are banished when I work on this - I'm less stressed overall.

Next, I started doing some shading on the snake's scales. I'd drawn a line for the middle centre of the snake's back, so that I could make it darker on top and lighter towards the belly, to give it contouring and dimension. 

My snake is not very scary, which I'm good with. I've done a bit of extra black-lining on the side of the skull to help correct the bulge there - this will be less noticeable once the snake is coloured in. 

I'll be doing more work on this over the long weekend, for sure - I'm fired up to get this section done...and move onto the next! 

And now, I will leave y'all to enjoy your own weekend. I'll be back on Monday with tales of adventure - thanks so much for stopping by!