hi

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Saturday, November 14, 2009

blah

Uuuhhhgg. A more do nothing day than regular Fridays.

Katie is out of the apartment for most of the weekend due to a wedding. Not her wedding, of course. A friend's.

So no Friday Burger. Maybe I should have still gone on my own, but eh. Lazy.

Banana, apple, and toast breakfast. Mmmm.

Pasta and alfredo sauce lunch/dinner. Mmmm.

Candy cane Trader Joe's JoeJoes. Mmmm.

Bought the second batch of train tickets. The next two weekends, I'll be out of town. Need to get ontop of all that I need to finish. Can't silk screen if I am in Washington.

Due next week: flash fiction final piece + flash fiction writing. Illustration stage two. Some History of Laughter reading. Not much, but that just means I have time to get a jump on things. Need to draw out my printmaking portfolio piece.

I'm excited about Dad's woodcraft for Christmas. I won't give it away but I'm sure it will be cool. I'm sad I'll just miss his return this weekend. But I'll see my pop pop in a week after that. Then I'll get steak and bacon and Basil and all those things.

Fire alarm went off again. This time, when they turned it off the firemen forbid us from reentering, so we had to stand in the cold for another 10 minutes. This nice couple with two cats offered me their old cat carrier! Their cats were named Theo and...well I forget the other cat's name. After the alarm, they stopped by my place and gave the the carrier. No more suitcase for Luna! Thanks Joe & Belinda.

Friday, November 13, 2009

food! and art!

Ahh a nice end to a relaxing week. Calm before the flurry of finals. They loom, yes they do.

The first stage critique was amazing! Everyone had a lot of ideas and well developed concepts. I think because we were not hindered by only being at a certain stage, we felt free to go further. It was refreshing. Lots of work to look at and talk about.

For lunch I chilled in the illustration room with Madeline and Danny. Brought a peanut butter sandwich with me. Mmm.

When class resumed, it was an open work period to develop our images. I worked on taking my two main concept sketches and planning them out and refining them in photoshop. It took all class, plus an extra 20 minutes. I'm trying to think how to take them out of the computer and into silkscreen land. Do I take the photoshop layers and print each one out as a black transfer? But that would require further refining and not use the organic ink work that I am fond of. I'll probably redraw them and just hand draw the layers, utilizing a light box.

Right now, the weather goes from day to night with almost no warning. I can be in the computer lab and turn around and suddenly the sky is like ink.

After class, I went to Trader Joe's The candy cane Joe-Joes are back! Joe-Joes are the imitation Oreos that they sell, but now the seasonal kind are back! And they have Advent calendars, which I didn't get because I couldn't avoid eating them for a month. Picked up bananas and cereal bars and pasta and apples and peppered salami and this spiced apple bread mix. Lots of stuff. Stocked up so that I won't be consistently hungry. Oh and bread and bagels. Mmm.

I'm not surprised all the tappers are gone on So You Think You Can Dance. Nigel is rough on the audience, but he does have some truth. The people are not stepping it up like they should. Katie has wedding stuff to attend, so the regular burger is out of the question. Boo. Maybe I should still go, and just sit at the bar and talk to Shelley.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

rain : two


Quick photoshop layout for a silkscreen image.
For the Illustration assignment "Natural Phenomena"
photoshop

rain : one


Quick photoshop layout for a silkscreen image.
For the Illustration assignment "Natural Phenomena"
photoshop

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

dreams of hot tubs

We finished watching Fitzcarraldo. Very good movie. Rest of class was more discussion about comedy = village = raw and tragedy = city = cooked. Or something. And how bad TV is. It's a lot of rehashing of the same subjects. Over and over and over. Oh well. Free pastries.

History of Print had a long discussion about costumes and characters and plans for the rest of the semester. Then we finally got down to learning. We got into Piranesi and Tiepolo Jr and Sr. I remember the last one because their name is Tie and Polo combined. They inspired a lot of etchers, like Goya.

I just wandered around school for lunch. Ate a sandwich. Talked to mom. Can't wait to go home and get in that hot tub! Oh, and see Ma and Pa and Rubie and Basil. Maybe Nate.

We spent half an hour talking bike safety. It's a very heated subject. The main reason for bad Portland bikers and bad Portland drivers is the lack of consistency. No one knows what to do, so it all comes to a standstill. It's odd that the less signals there are, the better traffic is. Then we got back into print discussion. It was good.

Rainbow gave me a Norfolk Pine. Hopefully it won't die, it needs more water than my jade. I had my meeting with Pearl. All I need is Illustration and my senior stuff. No worry there. It was a quick meeting, I barely had to sit down.

Yoga was canceled. Boo!

I missed a huge downpour by minutes. I got in and took of my jacket and then the clouds spewed their heavy guts.

Caught up on So You Think You Can Dance. They are supposed to be the most talented people, but a lot of the numbers are falling flat to me. The ones I remember are the racer & mechanic hip hop number and the Bollywood one. Hard to forget Bollywood. Some of the sequences are just not hitting it as hard as I would like, and the lifts seem sloppy to me. A pause and then a move, it doesn't feel fluid. Yeah.

Got all my work for tomorrow done early on, so I can get a nice long night's sleep.

Oh, Glee was good. I enjoyed the furthering of Kurt's story line and some explanation of Artie.

white sunrise

In monotype, we talked about our own prints, instead of having Tom hold them up. Then we took another walk! A chance to gather supplies for further stencil printing. Walked up to 23rd, walked around a Synagogue, then we went back. I crossed paths with Liz and Katie heading to the studies, so I chilled with them for the rest of lunch. Liz and I went to Safeway for munchins. Watched Katie set up her installation. Her studio is all black and she put in a ceiling. The rest of the studios seem really lack luster. Not lived in at all. Oh well.

Got back to class a little late. We did a communal print where we all put in colored shapes to form a print. I cut a leaf in the shape of a hand.

I mostly played with graphic figure shapes. First I did an image of a girl with an umbrella, a sort of early imagining for my illustration project. Then a girl in a striped sweater on a colored background which bled to the edges. I like bleed prints that lack borders. Then I did one of a woman in a coat reading a book and walking. I cut the image out of paper and arranged it on a colored plate so that it would stand out against the bright blues and oranges. Then I arranged more shapes on that plate, once I removed the paper of the woman. It was a lot of fun and it inspired me much.

This week has been really relaxing. Not much is due, but the time to think about finals is upon me. Time to get to work work work on that that that. After class I talked to Natalie. Helped her with her print.

Watched John Doe on Hulu and did my laundry and ate toast. Mmm.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Laurie/Roth Monday Night Double Feature

Despite minimal sleep, I have kept high energy through the day. Go me.

Got to school early and registered for the classes I spoke of yesterday. It will be intense, and I have more 8am classes. Joy.

The sketch assessment went quick. We were given time to edit our flash fictions before lunch. I talked with Natalie in a way of assisting her with her silk screen woes. Tried to explain reductive image making. It's hard to explain. Yeah.

Bought joe joes and mac and cheese for lunch from Safeway. It is cold and drippy and I needed something warm. Mmm. And picked up some supplies for home. Soap and the like.

Checked out a book on mug shots from the library. Did you know they were invented in France in 1881 by a man named Alphonse Bertillon? Well the exact system of criminal mug shots and the recording of information was, at least. That is the something new that I learned today.

We read all the stories to one another. The majority of people started off their readings with apologies. Why do people feel so ashamed of their work? What is the disconnect between a rough sketch and a rough piece of writing? It is annoying to listen to people bash their work and I called someone out on it, but they kept doing it a minute later. Argh. Oh well. It was sort of an open work time till 4:30. I gave Mel one of the three color Lynch posters (on newsprint), because she is such a big Lynch fan.

Next up on the narrative image slate is poetry. We have a big poetry packet to read and react to by next class. Fun.

I loitered till yoga. We did much of the usual with a few shoulder twists that I am sure to feel tomorrow.

It wasn't raining for my trip home. Very good. Watched House. Decent episode, I was expecting more but a good return after the two week break. No more baseball, yay! Then Bored to Death, then Lie to Me. Now it is time for bed. Have to get up in eight and a half hours.

Monday, November 9, 2009

work and classes (or trillian is getting in way over her head)

Got up slightly before noon. Folded my new clothes.

Did homework. Touched up painting. Did a sketch that isn't to par with what I normally provide. Oh well. Yeah. I worked and read. Not much to say. Mad Men season finale was spectacular, as expected.

Tomorrow morning I will go into the registration office and try to sign up for: Intermediate Screen, The Figure, Illustration Studio II: Cultural Marketplace, Phenomenology & Existentialism, and Theory and Practice: Homeland. Dumbed down respectively it is: fun studio to advance my skills, technical class to advance my drawing skills, core class for major, probably way out of my league lecture class, and something with Duford to improve my thinking skills. Actually it is looking to be a pretty intense line up, if I follow through with it. And three 8am classes, two of which are immediately followed by a studio. But it would be three day weekend again.

Dad: No matter how good a seal I get with the bike pump, it will not show me the proper pressure.

Mom: When is a good time for me to be picked up in Tacoma? Should I come up Thursday night the 19th or Friday morning the 20th?

Sunday, November 8, 2009

semi naked ladies

Slept in. MMm. It's nice.

It rained and it poured all day.

My back tire seems to be constantly a little flat. The bike pump I was given doesn't accurately measure pressure and it doesn't get a good seal when I inflate my tires. I need to get a gauge. Or a better pump.

Another day where I loafed around. Ate couscous. At around 5, I started to go through my closet. Cherish was having a Naked Ladies party. That is, a shindig where you get together and swap clothes you don't want anymore. I found that I had more things to get rid of than I thought, but not much in the shirt department. I want to hold onto some teeshirts, mostly because I want to get one of those "101 things to do with a shirt" sewing books, and remake them into a tote or something. Anyway, I had three bags full and they fit into my side baskets perfectly. It was a potluck but I didn't bring anything.

It was miserable riding there, but I warmed up and dried off right quick. I got trapped in the stairwell for a minute though. The elevator only went up to the fourth floor for no reason, so I took the stairs, but the doors in the stairs were only open from the outside. Thankfully I had my cell. I'm not use to such a secure building. But Cherish was there and let me in. There were mini pizzas and hot cider to consume. Cherish is a great hostess. Laura and Cheyenne, her friends, were there. The boys left so that we could swap and try on clothes in peace. I went mental for clothes. Well not mental, but I grabbed a lot. Whatever fit and no one wanted more than me.

Rainbow and Heather showed up later on, as well as some other friends of Cherish. It was a good group. We gabbed. I had more energy to try on clothes than the rest. Rainbow had two beautiful dresses that I picked up in case of a nice occasion. One was a lovely green, the other a darker black with red print. The latter not so sleek and saucy, but respectable. I got some great finds. I hope I didn't come off as too greedy...

Heather and I stayed the longest, chatted about family and really got to know one another. It was a really nice night. I left with the same bags full of new clothes. Have some great tops, some nice more formal things. I just need a reason for them. I'll find one. And Thanksgiving is coming up.