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Saturday, February 14, 2009

numb

Yesterday:

Caught up on the sleep. I haven't really been missing it or sleeping poorly, I was just so very exhausted by the whole week. Felt woozy in the morning but eventually I got all my things together. I finished carving my block and went to print!

I got there as the class was shuffling out so I loitered while some space opened up. Robin and Lacey (different Lacey) were in the center studio as well.

The first roll up indicated just how shallow some of the carving was so I cleaned off the ink and started carving into it. Took out some of the wrong chunks. Oh well. Second roll up and with some pressure got it looking exactly how I wanted to. But, BUT the block was bleeding blue! Some of the ink I had previously used had been absorbed into the block and was coming out of some of the lines. I tried cleaning it off and hopefully the next time I print, it will work out.

Robin gave me a Valentine's Day Card. It was lovely and special.

I went home and spent the rest of the night there. Katie, Gabe and I had a wee bit of wine. The night went long with Spinal Tap and Uno and Oreos so I ended up just crawling into bed and completely forgetting about writing.

Today:

Woke up at 8 and I could not get back to sleep at all. So I watched TV on my computer until the rest of the world woke up.

Mom and Pop sent me a lovely See's Heart for Valentines. Very wonderful and tasty.

Gabe made biscuits (from scratch), gravy (with bacon, also from scratch), and eggs (from the store) for breakfast. It was all piled together in a mound of awesome.

Did my laundry. It finished just in time for me to dash out and see Synecdoche, NY with Jen. I've been wanting to see it but it was definitely different than what I thought it would be. It is a long epic depressive movie. It left me feeling nothing but considering a lot. It has to do with death and being the star of our own tragedy and comedy. And the future. It has to do with a lot of things and the creator said that there are no wrong ideas about what it means. Hmmn.

We went to Powell's and I spent the rest of my gift certificate on Clive James' Cultural Amnesia. It was marked half off already and I only ended up spending $4 out of my pocket. Yeah!

Jen ate lunch at Roxy's. I had a soda. We hugged and parted.

I folded and put away my laundry and folded and putted away some piles of neglected clothes. Listened to music on my Audio Technicas.

I have two party invites for tonight and while I feel I should go to one, that movie sucked all the energy out of me. I'm sure once I show up, I'll have a good time but right now. Uhg. One is for Kurt and Kody, Katie's friend and Karen's friends roommates (but I don't think Karen is going). The other is Thom's (previously misspelled in this blog as Tom) Single Awareness Shindig. They are both on the East side and both are at 9 so it will be a journey either way. Dunno what I'll do.

Update: After lots of false stops and starts, I ended up staying home from it all. I didn't want to bike the 60 blocks to Thoms and at first it seemed like I would have to take the bus with Katie. Then Karen said she was there and she drove so I was like, okay sure and Pattie offered a ride to us there. But then Karen was sick and left early so I decided once and for all to stay out of it.

Karen and Adam stopped by for a little bit and we chatted about comics and Oryx and Crake. Now I'm hungry again so I think I'll make a quick thing of pasta.

Friday, February 13, 2009

oops, thought it was Friday

600th post. Whoo! Course, posting those pieces separately did boost it a little bit.

Anyway, we discussed what odds really mean in math class. Karen and I shared the flask of Billy Tea. No snow today. No one running the light on Burnside.

There was a leadership meeting so I had to hang around at school. No biggie, I had to do important Club Coordinator related things. That was mostly emailing people about club formation and how to reach me and those things. I used the library macs and those things are super glitchy. They barely function as computers. To quote someone else, the library lab is where technology goes to die.

After that, I chilled in the print studio with Robin and Karen. I read from my Mamet book a little.

The leadership meeting was for the appointed people on the council. Karen, Nathan, Diana, Robin, Liz, and myself all received a free lunch with Michael and Rachel and we chatted about the state of things. It was a little above my head but it is cool to see in inner workings. This is where things get created to bring the school together. I'm a part of that! I have power! To create! What have I got myself into?

I carved for the rest of my break. I almost have it done. It is almost ready to print. I sure hope it works out. Tomorrow I aim to do at least 1/3 of it. One color, so that is 8 nice prints.

I loitered around school for a while. I ate a lot of Katie's Oreos so I went to Safeway to replace them. They were half off so I got two things, just to be really nice. Now we have a TON of Oreos. It is weird, I haven't gone food shopping in a while. Gabe keeps us well fed and the pasta and sauce supply is no where near low. It's going good. I need to get apples though.

Just worked on making the refined portraits in class. They look so serious and tough. They also are not the same size...oh well. It will get resolved. I'm still building up the image anyway.

Robin came by to facilitate a roomie agreement between Katie and I. Just a sort of clarification of rules. Robin said our place smelled a little funky.

I aim to clean the place a little. The clutter is really building up.

Karen came by for an episode of House. We are almost done with the season. We will start watching Tudors next. Henry VIII kicking butt. Yeah!!

Weekend! Whoo! This was a long, tiring week.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Mark: Work in Progress


Digital Illustration of David Mitchell's character Mark from the BBC show Peep Show.

Photoshop.

Jez: Work in Progress


Digital Illustration of Robert Webb's character Jez (short for Jeremy) from the BBC show Peep Show.

Photoshop.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Mister Nose Block


Wood block in progress of being carved. Green and black are not carved, light is.

Mister Nose is a character from the comic I am working on for my Graphic Novel Class.

8"x10". Overly soft wood.

what runs but never walks and where it goes, thought follows close behind

I had such a good sleep. There was no comic meeting so I just slept in. It was so nice. Mmm. Didn't have to roll out of bed till 10.

Had some issues locking up my bike but we got to class generally on time. Yoshi gave a quick, somewhat failed demo of solvent transfers and then it was a work day. I'm carving an image of Mr Nose from my comic. There is a stripe patter that repeats. I'm only about half carved. I worked on sharpening the tools that Awesome Dorothy gave me. I got off the rust but they still need some work.

Yoshi played two Art 21 DVDs for us. PBS shows about different current artists. Pretty cool stuff. He also showed us a how-to video about how the Japanese master printers do it. So much work for such beautiful craft. Seriously, it is a lot of work. So many blocks and so perfect. Flawless woodblock printing.

Comic Club was a lot of jamming about a girl named Jane. They were rather crude in the majority but they are quick, fun things. I got some mac and cheese and jo-jos from Safeway and I didn't finish them all so they carried me through the whole long day. Good deal.

I stayed in the printing studio for another hour carving. Devin was around and Patrick and Soh Kun. Carve carve carve.

Then yoga! Intense, painful yoga. I couldn't balance at all and I have no arm strength.

Karen came by for House. I drank a lot of water. The week is almost over. Tomorrow will probably have more carving and some Student Meeting. I seem to have a busy weekend coming up. Have to make time for printing. It takes an hour and a half (about) to do 8 nice prints but that is with the pressure set way too high. For the block now, I can't damage it. Hn...

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

11 hour day, 10 hour sleep to follow

WHAT A LONG DAY! HOLY COW! Math. Printing. Student Council. Talk to Michael. Printing. Digital Illustration. Printing. THEN HOME! I am so tire and worn down.

Math. I got most of the math homework right! We also did a sample space of dice rolls to see what the empirical data is.

It was snowing as I rode to school. It wasn't sticking in the slightest but still, snow! No!!

After that, Karen and I bee-lined it for the print labs. I bought some paper and inked up a roller and got to it. I bought six 24x18 sheets of paper which yielded two 10x12 pieces and two 8x12 pieces each. 24 sheets of paper to print on and it only cost 12 bucks. Thanks Art Media! I did the first flat color in the time it took from class to council (and into council a little bit).

Student Council was uneventful. Now my duties of Club Coordinator are kicking in. Have some people to email about multiple film clubs. After the meeting I say with Michael Hall and chatted about my responsibilities. He gave me some papers to look over. Afterwards, Daniel approached me about starting a sort of ASL Learning Society. Which would be awesome.

Then I got back to printing. Got another color done in time for class. The rack was quickly filling up with bright orange prints. I will have plenty to give out to friends and family and loved ones and people who want to give me money for them.

Digital Illustration was just for working on our projects. I worked on sketches of the two actors so I could practice getting their look down. They both have very distinct faces and I want to capture that.

Diana and Devin were also printing. There were some quibbles about the pressure. I had it really tight and they had it light. The tightness made the ink come off so smooth and solid and I didn't have to wait for it to build up on my block. I ran out of ink in one color before I got to the actual edition so the 12x8 prints with the blue background will not be quite the same as the 12x10 ones. Different blue. After a grotesque amount of sugar and time, I was ready to go home. 9:30am to 8:30pm work work working.

The chili I had when I got home hit the spot. Except now whenever I get up I groan in pain. I'm so sore. I hurt so bad. Uuhhhg. So much work. At least I'm caught up. Well, not really as I don't even know what I'll be printing on the solid backgrounds.

Robert Webb Sketches


Quick digital sketches of Peep Show's Robert Webb for my current Digital Illustration project.

Photoshop.

David Mitchell Sketches


Quick digital sketches of Peep Show's David Mitchell for my current Digital Illustration project. Robert Webb sketches to come.

Photoshop.

Monday, February 9, 2009

anna's back. tell a friend.

I got another care package from home! Another insanely securely wrapped box that is really well padded so my stuff always arrives in perfect shape. I got some Sweethearts, this marshmallow heart, and a really cool egg beater! Thanks mom and dad.

Today was just that Illustration studio. My piece was one of a few that had solid blacks and it stood out in that respect. Still, it could have been better with more detail. Joe advised scanning and bringing images into photoshop for about half of the works. This crew has some insane people in terms of ability to render detail. Kevin and Janessa's stood out to me. Really well composed. Good for them! They rock.

Lunch was Quiznos and hanging with Tom in the library. I would have brought my bagel but sadly it was moldy and I didn't have time to prepare anything else.

The rest of class was spent with the figure. Anna was our model. Wonderful Anna. Courtney and I drew like we were taught by Morgan and Joe asked us why we didn't do contours. We both explained that it had been beaten out of us and most of the focus was on proportion. My drawings were a mix of rough areas that highlighted the forms and values. There were minimal contours. Overall, I was really happy with my progress that day. The poses never exceeded 15 minutes which was painfully short. It was a good day.

Robin came over at around 6 and we finished our math homework. I shared some of my sweets and she shared some of her tea. I had penne with sauce for dinner. No Gabe.

Good enough start to the week.

(I helped but I could also be wrong)

Got my drawing for Illustration done really early. I worked on it a little bit more and know it needs something more but I just couldn't think what. Joe is asking us to work in a style that is quite cool but it isn't really something I'm familiar with. It is a plain and rather empty looking piece. Rather bummed about how it turned out actually. Still, have to keep working and all that. Tomorrow the class will be almost all figure, yay!

Watching Ghostbusters and Stardust while working.

Gabe made a variation of eggs Benedict for breakfast and it was tasty despite being runny and having a lot of yolk. He made a southwest chicken salad for dinner and it was really filling and delicious. The entire spread was very presentable and had a fantastic dressing. The only problem was that the salsa was of medium spicyness and there was no milk. It was hard but I did eat it. The ice cream chaser was perfect.

I helped Jen with her math homework. Imagine that! Me, helping someone with their math!

Andy knocked gently on my door at 8am but I said I wasn't up for breakfast. He did offer to sort of pay but I still just wanted to return to the warm embrace of the heap of blankets. I should be more adventurous.