hi

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Saturday, February 28, 2009

that's nothin'!

Late night. I'll start at the start.

Slept in. After seeing Nell reading The Mysterious Benedict Society I wanted to pick up a copy for myself at Powell's. There was one hardcover remaining and it was used. Score! Carson Ellis did the illustrations. She visited my illustration class last year. After I picked up the volume I went to Tea Zone and had some tea and a sandwich for a late breakfast/early lunch/big big meal. I sat in there for a good hour and a half reading and nibbling. It was nice.

Afterwards I rode down to 8th and Davis and went to Blue Sky Gallery and said hello to Patrick. I took a gander at the photos in the place and we sat and chatted and looked at YouTube for a while. I waved goodbye and confirmed I would indeed be back for drinks at Huber's later in the night.

I read my book for another hour. It has puzzles and orphan children heroes in it! Whoo! I think you would like it mom. Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart. Check it out.

Karen was running late but we all got to school in the end. From there we met up with Patrick and from there we bugged Eva a bit while waiting for the streetcar and from there we took the streetcar to 11th and Alder and from there we walked down to 3rd and from there we went into a nice hotel and found ourselves at Huber's, a nice little place that survived prohibition. I had a mai tai that was huge and delicious and really freaking strong. Patrick had a mint julep and Karen had a long island that wasn't quite. So strong. We ordered some deep fried olives and a Spanish coffee which was prepared and set on fire and was awesome. If all coffee was a show, I might actually drink it. We were there into happy hour so we had some $3 meals and a couple extra drinks. I waited because that mai tai was huge. Before we left I had a sidecar. I was skipping up Davis (or whichever street we were on).

We went back to the Goose, picked up Adam, and went walking to the park up the hill. We wandered and played on the swings and the playground near the zoo. It was well and truly dark but our eyes were well adjusted. It was fun. Patrick crashed on my floor and I sent him out at around 10 this morning. It was a fun night. Sort of a date but not really but sort of. I don't know.

Friday, February 27, 2009

pop still life

Math test! I feel like I got it all except for the expected value and one of the writing portions. I slept in and got there a little late but no biggie. Katie loaned me her calculator.

It was sunny but cold today. It was warmer with the rain.

I got the whole second color printed. The gray makes the skin look really insanely orange. The registration is all over the place. I really need to rest and have a think about it. There are many options and I am really upset by what happened with this color.

I was done by 12:45 so I cleaned and went to the Illustration Drawing Club meeting. August, Daniel, Bryan, Jen, and I (and one other girl whose name I forget) all sat on the loading dock and stuffed our faces with Domino's and discussed where we wanted to draw next. We decided to meet at the library and go from there. Rock on!

Sat in the library for a bit and then went to the computer lab to finished up the thumbnails. I made a mistake and did a few for different words instead of some for one term. Joe had us do a pop quiz 30 minute still life of an apple. Mine was a lot of scratchy line build up while mostly everyone elses had flat colors. We were not sure if he was serious about the pop test. We critiqued our thumbnails. There are some cool concepts. In an hour I got all the figures roughed in and a few of them have line art already. I feel good about it, even though my thumbnails were crummy.

Caught up on Lost and Heroes and House. Don't trust Ben. Tired of the looping Heroes story arcs. Tired of the 13 arc and they went through the Happy House bit way too quick. Argh.

Gabe only made dinner for he and Katie tonight. I had oatmeal. Watching Capote.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

dirty, grubby, oily, and blissed out

Long, hard day at school.

Fessed up that I was behind in the comic. But I have panels written so I have no excuse. I am going to change my format to mini posters versus a bound comic. Going to silk screen them. That way I can draw at a 1:1 scale and not have to worry about going to Kinko's or Lulu.com. Lacey has 1/3 of her comic done. She is doing three short stories and one is compleato. Amazing.

It was a work day in printmaking. My block was carved and mostly ready to go. I took a few more bits out, just to have more white areas. I did a quick run in red to see how I liked the amount of carving and that was that. Patrick and Devin were working on the letterpresses because they knew how to use them. Diana was working on a little owl image.

Comic Club was more silly jams. The pizza went quick even though there was the same number of people. If we see the midnight, Pioneer Place Watchmen showing we will get a slight reimbursement via our funds. Rock on! Have to get my ticket, ya.

Kirie sent me a birthday present. It was an adorable pen and pencil and postcard set from MoMa. I have been using the pens pretty much daily in my little sketchbook. They have an awesome line weight.

It took me an hour to get the ink the right color for printing. A bloody hour. Lots of white and red and yellow to get the right peach orange. I had a large pile of ink when I was done but after three and a half hours of printing it was just enough to cover it all. About on the 12th print, the sharpie started to get absorbed into the ink. No big thing as it will get covered up but still a little irksome. The ink peeled up really nice. It is very solid and smooth. I feel really good about this woodblock. The reductive style took a lot to wrap my head around but it is pretty neat. I only took a few minutes off for Tea Time. Talked to Madeline. Showed her what I was doing.

I finished up at around 5:20. 20 prints. Hope the registration works out. It doesn't quite match on the side for some reason so I'm just focusing on keeping it level with the top and the center mark.

I crashed in the library till 6:10. Talked to Matt a little. Dom came in with some goodies from the French Paper Company lecture that was going on. I dashed out to get some sweet posters from the table before they were all gone. Got myself a camel with a candy necklace poster and a monkey with a cherry for Karen. Got some sample books and some printed notebooks. Just a pile of awesome. Some people took one of each poster which I thought was greedy. Oh well.

Yoga was intense but I did really well. Got my palms on the floor, kept my balance, and even maintained some of the lunges. I didn't hear her switch poses until she pointed it out to me. The class had a little bit of a laugh, but we laugh at one another a lot. It's fine. It's yoga. We are all learning and clumsy.

I went back to the print lab after yoga and carved the skin out of the block. Now I can go straight into printing during my break tomorrow. Get to the halfway point with two weeks to spare.

I didn't get out of the building till 9. Called Mum and chatted. Then rode home and got all wet again. Stupid rain. I can't locate my rain pants either. Thus far I have been lucky getting to school. It isn't so bad if I can change when I get home.

Tea. Chili. Sleep.

sip of water (work in progress)



The sketch, the color layer roughs, and the block for my new print. Who is it? Guess. Drawn from memory and a few reference photos for my room and mason jar.

The block is 8"x10" and there will be two editions, one 10"x12" and the other 8"x12".

five pages!

I've got five pages. I think I'll start thumbnailing. I'm not fond of the writing but I'll work on it as I go. I just need to go go go. I just have all of March to work. Thankfully spring break is in March. Weirdly it is in March.

The student body has lost interest in Student Council. We barely had enough people to get a good vote. We need to generate more interest! Too bad so many people came just for the free food. Comic Club's movie field trip was passed. Movie Club form was turned in and afterwards I helped Daniel with his ASL Club charter. Whoo whoo. I need to email this dude about room stuff for the Modern Dance Club.

I had another of Gabe's murder by sweet cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Uuhhhnn.

Then I bought, cut, and registered my paper for my next print. It will just be 20, 10 of each paper size. And the image will be four colors, five if you include the white. I sure hope to bippy it registers. I helped Robin and Karen a little with their letterpress. I had a late lunch with Karen. Worked on digitizing the layers of my block print so I have a better idea of what comes after the next and which is on top of it.

Somehow I was at school till 6:30. It was pouring down when I rode back and I had not a pair of rain pants in sight. Very soaked on my return. Well not very because my leather jacket kept it off.

Worked on script. Worked on woodblock. Worked worked worked.

I could not have handled Gap Kids and this. No way. How Karen does it, I'll never know.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

serious delicious

Saturday Night:

The streetcar was sort of broken down so I decided to walk to the train station. Suddenly it fixed itself and I ran to catch it. A lovely clear night. I read Coma and the train came in on time.

It was a lovely night and having not had any food, Llyw and I went to the Annex. Well, I ate a late dinner so he had a slice of pizza and I just had a few drinks. You would think that a cozy little place like the Annex would be a little more full at 9pm on a Saturday night but a nice little table was open under one of the heaters. We had a, whatchamacallit, Greyhound to start. Delicious. He had another and I had a amaretto and orange juice. Trying things out from advice and suggestions. So sweet, so tasty. It was a brisk but wonderful night as we meandered up 14th back to the Goose.

Sunday:

Damp! Rainy! Well not so bad. We went to Roxy's for breakfast. I had the breakfast sandwich which consisted of two fried eggs, bacon and cheese stuffed between sourdough slices and hash browns on the side. Mmmm. Llyw had corned beef hash and scrambled eggs and hash browns. Big tasty pile of tasty. The waiter was amazing and balanced so many plates on one of his arms.

I was so stuffed. We just meandered around downtown for a while as it started to mist. Picked up a monochromatic Rubik's cube at Finnegan's for my math class. It has a silver side, a black side, a white side, and three grayscale sides. Very awesome. Waltz With Bashir is playing at Fox Tower. We had some hot chocolaty beverages from Moonstruck Cafe and chatted and people watched. We caught the Max back to relax for a while.

The rain came down right as we were getting in. We decided not to see the movie and spent most of the soggy afternoon indoors. At around 7:30 we got hungry again and went out to West Cafe. Well we stopped by Karen's first and said hello and made plans to go out with her and Adam later on. West Cafe was closed. Dumb Sunday Portland. So we picked up chicken and pasta and sauce from Safeway and Llyw made a tasty feast. He powered his way through Scott Pilgrim (is everyone a faster reader than I am?). It was a lovely meal and we filled up quick.

Adam got in quite late. Too late to go to the Annex and Goose Hollow Inn was closed right as we arrived. We all piled into Karen's car and went across the river to Jolly Rogers on Hawthorne. It was called a mild dive bar or something like that. We grabbed a corner booth and ordered a pitcher of something that was too bitter for my tastes. I didn't have much but Karen ordered me a jello shot and that kind of made up the difference (not that it is a competition). The movie Talladega Nights was playing in the bar and I found it funny, but I was also tipsy so it probably wasn't. There was a mishap with Worcester sauce. Fries were ordered and we stuffed our faces. Adam was the designated driver. It was a lovely time just chilling and having a few with friends and laughing a little too hard at a cougar in a race car.

Whoo for 11am classes.

Monday:

Whoo for llam classes. Almost thought I lost my sketchbook for a little bit. Made a thermos full of Earl Gray and made a sandwich from left over lemon chicken. It was raining but not enough to warrant an umbrella. Still I brought one with me. The walk to school was over too quick and I parted from Llyw and jumped straight into class.

Our assignment is to made a 4"x6" card advertising a novelty new shop of sorts. I chose one of the options he gave and that was a cutlery and lingerie shop. I drew up some thumbnails of a sexy lady with knives. Some of them were more illustrations that didn't appear to sell a thing and others got the point across. I'm really excited for the assignment, I have some ideas that I can't wait to execute.

Robin and I navigated the puddles and rain and went to Laughing Planet for lunch. I brought mine but I still caved and had a slice of apple pie. It was good. Karen and Tabitha showed up for lunch and we sat at a table in the back. Rachel Allen was also there and eventually joined us. Natalie and Kristen walked in and also joined us. It was a large awesome table. I talked to Karen about my thumbnails and we read the "I Saw You..." from the newspaper.

Over all too quick, we trudged through the torrential downpour of rain. Robin and I shared my umbrella (which matches my bag).

We critiqued our sketches and came up with better ideas for one another. Robin is doing a tea and laundromat. Dom is doing a skate rink pub. There were a lot of things that were part pub. Kevin's was a dark room pub. It was fun. It will be fun. Two weeks for this assignment, which is a pretty nice amount of time. It took a while to get started but now it is kicking off. I can't even mention Courtney's.

Joe had to rush to the Bay Area for a meeting with Electronic Arts so we were let off early. Robin and I walked home together. Well we caught the streetcar. It was raining after all.

Gabe made potato bread. And with the bits left over he made cinnamon rolls with maple creme cheese frosting. It gave me such a sugar high and I ended up rolling around on the floor giggling for a few minutes. I invited Robin and Karen over (with Gabe's permission) for a sample and they both at first said no because they had homework but I threw some adjectives out and they did come over and both were thrilled. Gabe's sweets will be the death of me and I can take a lot of sweets.

I don't really have classes tomorrow. It is a test study day and Joe is gone so it is just a work day. Lots of work. Need to catch up. Carve my block a little, do some digital sketches, yeah.