hi

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Saturday, September 19, 2009

sing it


Oof my ears are ringing and I'm still a little bit tipsy. Thank god for spellcheck.

Mum called today and we had a nice chat.

Cleaned my room. And by that I mean, actually cleaned it. I now have an almost clear line along my shelves. Almost no clutter in front of them. Amazing. Vacuumed the floor a little bit as well. There are still some areas of clutter but still, yow! Go me.

Raquel stopped by later and we chatted for about 45 minutes. Gave her a Lucky Luna and a comic. She's really nice.

It was Katie's friend Miranda's 21st birthday. I was invited along. We went to the Ambassador for karaoke. I didn't sing this time. Tom was there. Luke. Another Luke. Casey. Brandon. Phia. And a wide assortment of people I didn't know. I drank a long island iced tea and drew in my sketchbook. People got a kick out of my sketches of them. Katie sung a couple songs. They were good. I danced a little. Had a cranberry vodka later. And some spring rolls. Shared the rolls (just slightly). Katie brought me home. There was an after party but I wasn't feeling up to it. On the way back we rocked out to Britney Spears and some creepy guy in an SUV made eyes at us. Ew.

It was fun. Now the weekend begins and the serious work begins. Argh.

Friday, September 18, 2009

"if you liked it, you should have put a magnet on it"

Got up early and arrived early to buy paper and print my photos.

We talked about our flat photos for a bit and then got to drawing. Our assignment was to redraw an aspect or shape from our walk from last week. We had to draw it on big charcoal paper and be dynamic and think about composition. I chose a lamp that was outside the 511 building. Very simple. First, Danny, Madeline, and I had to walk to Utrecht and buy paper. I picked up a blue and a pale orange, as well as some sketchbooks.

I used the blue. Mine was really simple but getting the shape just right took some work.

I took a short lunch. Ate my bagel and played on the computer a bit. Got back to work around 1:10.

The phase two section of the project was just one on one. Talked to Martin. He complimented the daberlack piece and said that I needed more of the figures resolved for the spitroast. It all comes down to rendering the gestures of the figures. It was a good talk. Martin is very honest. Told Samala (formally Somala) right up that her photos were not proper. The piece she came back with was really nice. She's gifted.

After I finished, I sat and talked movies and math with Beth, Danny, and Chase. The final critique of the day's project went well. Mostly harmless.

Rode home. Got enough Internet to watch my stories, then it shut down for 45 minutes. Took it easy. Ate some pasta. Now I have a lot of art to create and a memoir to edit. It's just a constant cycle. Narrative Image and Illustration take up the most out of class time. History of Laughter and History of Printmaking both have a writing assignment due in a week and a half, but they are not big. Just require some thought (and who was it that said, "if I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter"?). I think I'll do a rough of the Daberlack for the next monotype project. Do a large illustration of it. Yeah. I need to think up imagery for that class.

Oh, this girl named Raquel found me to tell me how much my Luna print brought her joy. It's hanging up in the print section at school right now. Go me!

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

snuff

Well, here I am writing another entry because the net is down. It was going so well!

Barry didn’t bring in any chocolate filled buns, so I ate the croissant. He talked about Romeo and that line about how he was without his “Ro” that is to say his roe or his eggs or his fertility. Meo was a word for a sigh or something. Being in love and all that. In the middle section we watched a video about Coney Island and its history. The old rides were so much more dangerous, but looked oodles more fun. And the sheer amount of power to run all the lights! Yow. Then they had the clip of Topsy the elephant being electrocuted because she killed some people. It was a brutal elephant snuff video. Rachel turned her head away during it. We got out first writing response. And that was that.

Diana missed that class but she showed up for History of Printmaking. I tooted my train flute and wished her happy birthday and gave her a card laced with glitter. Heheh. The first hour and a half of class was occupied with looking at a printmaking book and covering the history. Baudelaire and all that. There was an engraving of Japanese girls being ferried on a boat being towed by human swimmers. The mid 1800’s writing that went with the engravings was priceless.

Lunch was lean cuisine and an energy drink. When I was microwaving my meal, this lady named Miss Mona (her name was tattooed on her knuckles) and I talked. When I pulled out my food, she said, “girl you need to learn how to cook!” I was a little taken aback by the comment but it’s true.

Looked at books in the library and finished my meal. Checked out a Helen van Meene book. Talked to Terry and BT a little bit. BT is about to make his 100th sale of his homemade moustache wax.

The second half of History of Printmaking was held in the museum. Technically classes were not allowed to meet without prior mention, so we decided to sneak in and have a, “oh my, what is everyone else doing here?” moment instead. It worked! The print exhibit, which is the main reason to check out the museum, was lovely. They had their Durer’s out, some Goya, Jasper Johns, R.B. Kitaj, Kathe Kollwitz, Lichtenstein, Oldenburg, Piranesi, Rauschenberg, Max Beckmann, Daumier, Redon, Warhol, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Mucha to name a few. A really beautiful collection though some of the layout I felt was a bit weird. A lot of inspiration. One print had something about, “think of me as Rembrant, a little light and filled with darkness.” The Escher exhibit was down. It was a fun class. If we had a question, he would answer it. Told us a great story about Gordon Gilkey. He should be the patron saint of printmaking. Saved a lot of artists during the war (like Max Beckmann).

No Internet. Katie and I decided to take our mind off frustrations and go grab a 3$ burger from the Leaky Roof. Their happy hour is sweet, though I just had a root beer. The burger was delicious and filling. Liz came over a little bit later and we walked to the Goose Hollow Inn. They shared a pitcher and I had some hard cider. We gabbed as girls do and listened to the old men talking. The obvious regulars and the zany stuff they say. While Liz and Katie hung out, I worked on my Illustration homework. Tomorrow I will decided between Daberlack and Spitroast. Have reference pictures and sketches but I still don’t know. If I do Daberlack, it would be silk screened.

11:50pm update: the Internet is back! I got my sketches with some early color and I feel good about tomorrow. Whee!

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

ramachandran bang bang

Monotype! We had a demo that further confirmed how to paint with the inks and stuff. After than we took another lengthy walk since the weather was good. Erin wanted to show us a dead bird that she was curious about printing. After that we walked up to 22nd and Raleigh to check out this framing shop that the print tech Chris works at. The school is on 13th and Johnson and all the street names are alphabetical. So yeah, we walked far. At 12:15 we broke for lunch. There was a fish and chips man next to the framing place so I indulged myself. The place was called the Frying Scotsman and was a little camper turned cookery. I ordered the cod and chips. The chef was indeed from Scotland. I neglected to ask where he was from.

It took the entire, 35 minute walk back to PNCA to finish my lunch. Well, it wasn't a big portion, it just takes a lot to walk and eat at the same time. It was scrumptious. It's hard to find fish and chips outside of a bar in Portland. I'll have to pilgrimage by bike and visit him again.

Sat with Katie for the rest of lunch.

The rest of the studio time was occupied by doing at least one reductive and one additive print. Reductive is rolling a Plexiglas plate up with ink and using a cloth and mineral spirits to pull the highlights out. Additive is just using the ink and mineral spirits to paint with. My reductive was a portrait of a lady in a hat and a collar with a thick black cloak. I applied the black a little too think and it oozed out a little but it ended up okay. Then I did an additive portrait of myself in a yoga pose. I wasn't so thrilled by it but I did enjoy some of the textures. Finally I did another, smaller additive self portrait. It got great reviews by Tom and he showed it off to everyone deliberately. Go me! Darya did a beautiful and large Bjork portrait. It ended up fabulous but she wasn't so thrilled. The bird did get printed. The claws were cool but it seemed a lot of fuss just to print roadkill. I cleaned the ink station and scooted out of the school right at time.

Katie said she was going to the V.S. Ramachandran lecture at Lewis & Clark college and I was welcome to join her. It was a hurried drive over to the campus. It took a while to find the correct parking spot and there was a great deal of hurried walking to get there not too late. The place where the talk was held wasn't closed to late people, so that was awesome. We got a spot on the floor. Ramachandran is a neuroscientist. He talked about synesthesia, phantom limbs, and how people who want limbs willingly amputated always feel better after they get it removed in Mexico (because US doctors won't perform elective limb removal). It was fascinating and even though it wasn't a subject I was at all familiar with, he still explained everything in a very accessible way. Katie got her book signed after. She was thrilled. A lot of his studies have inspired her work.

Got back late. Ate the bagel I neglected at lunch time. Fun classes tomorrow!

I don't speak Italian!!

Got up pretty fine, even though I was up till 3am finishing things up. After going through my outline, all the things I wanted to write about barely took up six pages. Oops, oh well it is just a rough draft. I had some problems printing because of the two computers that I picked to print from, both of them were not hooked up to the printers. I did find one. Bryan, Robin(different Robin, not Milliken), and I grouped together and discussed some sections from our memoirs.

Mary Slo-something gave us a lesson in punctuation and grammar and copy editing. I'm glad I don't really seriously edit my blog. If I did, I would be up all night pondering about commas.

Kristen and I went to Quizno's for lunch and sat in the library and gabbed. Robin stopped by. We broke away early because I had to scan and Kristen had to call Kris. Rest of class was a review of our thumbnails. Some people worked harder than others on theirs (Danny is awesome). The class moved pretty good for a studio. Next week the final is due with the illustrations. Yay for long weekend. I spent the rest of the time reading the Lyn Ward assignment, which was pretty easy to do because it was just a serious of woodcuts with no words. Course a picture is worth a thousand words but whatever, still didn't take that long.

I've been working at a nice pace getting through the Jokes and the Unconscious reading. Every now and again it gives a joke in it's native French, German, or Italian, and doesn't explain what the joke is about for another two pages. It really kills the fun of jokes with its analysis. And it is going in one ear and out the other. One of the jokes was something along the line of, "well you may have a famous person's name but you are not as awesome as they are." Ha ha ha.

Had a delicious pasta dinner. The three cheese Trader Joe's sauce is fantastic. Mmm. Welp, gotta get to bed. Catch up on the sleep. Monotype tomorrow.

Monday, September 14, 2009

two paragraph blog post

Forgot to mention that I replaced my brake pads yesterday. Only on the back but now my bike can stop on a dime! It was more of a slow stop before. Who needs a man when you have Allen wrenches.

Slept in. Got a late start on my memoir. Payed the electric bill (it is finally going down now that Gabe isn't always simmering something or making bread). Don't want to write too much because I'm still a little ways away from being finished with the rough draft.