fabric and ricfaab

I was up and ready to go for Fabric Depot at 10am. Then Karen never called or picked up. I was on the Red Max line headed to 122nd street when Karen called and told me how her phone had died, etc. She said she would meet me at the place and give me a ride back and that she was sorry.

Shouldn't have bought the all day pass.

Turns out the Blue Line takes me from three blocks from my apartment to within three blocks of Fabric Depot! How exciting, I can pick up quality fabric with ease now. Whee!

Fabric Depot is epic! Huge! Hugely epic! Bolts of fabric as far as the eye can see and it doesn't skimp. It's got fabric worthy of mermaid costumes. Just so much...fabric. And it was all 20% off! I just wanted enough to make a skirt, shirt, and a couple berets. In the jersey section I got a cute white fuity print, in the other section I got a dark gingham print for a tulip skirt, and in the fleece section I got some green stuff to make a beret out of! I also got some scissors especially for fabric cutting. The lady who cut our fabric studied calligraphy. As we were checking out I saw some Violet Crumble. Best candy ever! I literally stopped right in the middle of what I was saying and bounded over to get some. Mmm!!

Fabric Depot was everything it lived up to be Grandma, and more!

After there, we went to Ikea for lunch. Meatballs ahoy! So delicious. Then I picked up some smaller bowls and an alarm clock. Not for me, it was a gift for Karen who has often had issues with relying on her phone. Then we were homeward bound.

A box of fabric was waiting for me. Auntie Joyce sent me some stuff, and it was a jam packed box of stuff. It is mostly quilty fabric so I don't know what I am going to do with it...yet.

Then I made a hat! I used this pattern making thing that came with one of the books I ordered, it has a program and you put in your measurements and it generates the pattern for you to print out, and I transcribed it, but something must have happened where I redrew it too small...anyway the hat ended up being a bit small. It's cute but not really my style...I wanted a beret. I have enough fabric to make a second one. Still, it is nice to become more confident with my machine. And I used interfacing for the first time!

Ate pasta. Watched QI. Made a to do list, not as much to do as I thought, just a lot of stuff to get done by Wednesday.

the other vinyl culture

I have this twinge in my back and I have no clue where it came from.

Anyway, slow morning with again no eggs or bacon. Still got to school in good time. Ink day isn't as fun as I thought it would be. It is a lot of awkward sitting and horrible paper and not good drawings. It got a little better near the end, but it was still tough. Probably because of my back.

For the first chunk of class Ryan Bubnis came in to talk. He graduate from PNCA in 2006 when the illustration program was about 5 people strong. He does a lot of toy design and readily accessible graphics for use on things like cellphones and what not. He gave a talk about other illustrators who do such a thing and how they are rolling in cash. He passed around some of the things he has designed. Toys and a $50 Kid Robot tee shirt. I could design fancy shirts.

Then it was work time. The assignment for the day was one part artists statement, two parts working on the final project due next week and four parts work on product development using our art. I whipped up a couple shirt designs. I wasn't really thinking about it as I wasn't fully aware it was assigned in the first place. I was relatively productive through the whole class. Even stayed till about 6pm working on things. Not yet sure where I want to take the Fanny final image. Bold and graphic? Most likely...

I ate a burrito in the library by myself. Sort of. Wayne Bund and Heather Zinger were also in the couch area. Chatted a little. It was a good burrito.

It was nicely drizzling but I said "screw you, I have rain pants" to the sky and rode off into the night in my bright yellow pants.

Finished the burrito for dinner. And ate bacon and eggs. Ate some celery and peanut butter and raisins. Watched Nip/Tuck. Generally relaxed. My back is seizing up.

You know where I'm going tomorrow morning? Fabric Depot.

Fanny Drazier - work in progress

Digital work in progress image of Fanny Drazier. 11x17" in its full version.

Photoshop.

tees

some ideas for tshirts

labor day labor day hey everyone its labor day

My back feels all twisted like...uhg.

Had a nice sleep in. Got up early. Made myself a big bacon and eggs breakfast. Read what was remaining of the reading. It is nice to take a longer morning, but when 6:30 rolls around tomorrow, like hell I'm leaving bed till 7.

In Homeland, Hannah presented on the Sublime. Well a couple sublime artists. One of them did this field of metal poles, it was called Lightning Field. Another slide show from Duford followed. More Thomas Cole and other Hudson River School painters.

During lunch I had a meeting of sorts. It was a focus group of Goose Hollow students and we were giving some feedback about what we liked and didn't like about student housing, and what we would like to see. The purpose of the meeting was to generate a starting point for a potential residence facility near school and exclusively for PNCA. We all strongly vouched for keeping kitchens in each room and having an open studio space. The school also fed us tons of pizza and free soda. Robin, Jaymee, and I all had the special limited edition apple lemon soda. SO GOOD!!

In Homeland once again, we listed to a chunk of an episode of This American Life. It was about these people, Alex Melamid and Vitaly Komar, who polled people. First they used the data from several countries and painted pictures based on what concepts were most favored by everyone. In every polled country, except for Holland, landscapes were preferred. The second poll was about music and they composed a song based on what people liked (it was 3 minutes long) and a song featuring what people hated (20 minutes long). The Most Unwanted Songs song featured operatic rapping about cowboys. Seriously. The episode the segment was a part of can be found here: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1277

After that we watched Touching the Void, a documentary about Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, who are two British climbers who scaled the face of Siula Grande in Peru. No one had done it before, and no one has done it since. The movie was narrated by the pair of them, so you know you make it from the start, but watching it and knowing that Joe survives breaking his leg, falling into a crevice, being left for dead by Simon (who cut the cord thus plummeting Joe to his most probable death, but if he hadn't cut the rope they most likely would have both died), scaling down further into the crevice, crawling along the bottom towards a break in the ceiling, scaling up towards the opening, and crawling down the glacier and through the rocks. He survived about 4 days of severe dehydration by himself, with the broken leg and no food. He crawled all the way to about twenty feet from the base camp (which was still a ways from the bottom of the mountain). AMAZING!

Then for an hour and a half we talked about the sublime and how mountain climbing is such a "privileged" thing to do (I disagreed) and other stuff.

It was misting rain on the way back home, nothing worth wearing rain pants for though.

I put on the new episodes of Lost (oh my god so GOOD) and then White Collar and then about three episodes of Weeds. Ate udon and egg, a cucumber, some ants on a log, and then I churned out some sketches for Martin. Used reference like a mad woman.

deep fry it! makes everything better

I woke up at 2:30am in a delirium in knocked on the bathroom door and demanded Katie emerge so I can shower and get ready for school. I then came to my sense. Two hours later, I awoke again convinced it was time to go to school.

Needless to say, getting started and getting going today was rough. No breakfast. I did manage to make a limp sandwich and grab a granola bar.

Another technical drawing day. We talked about the puppets we plan to make for the puppet fashion show. Lots of figure studies. Lots of proportion. It is slowly coming back to me.

In screenprinting we had an hour and a half demo from JP on using the printers to make things like stencils and transfers. Then lunch. Yoga got approved! Chilled with Karen, BT, Jay, Urusla, and Bryan out on the loading dock. Made some zine sales. Whoo!

The rest of class was a work day. I finished my image for printing, but because it was a toner wash on duralar I had to burn a step test onto the emulsion to see what it would look like with different amounts of exposure. I don't feel like explaining any of the technical stuff in that last sentence. It has to do with light and whatever. Anyway, first I expose it for 30 units, then another 30, then 60, then 120, then 240, then 480, and finally 960. Each unit is roughly a second, so add all that up and it is a long time to sit around. Thankfully I brought my assigned reading with me, so I knocked that out while waiting. The step test worked perfectly, but getting to that point took all damn class.

Chilled with Karen while she got a late lunch. Went home. Read more.

Katie, Karen, BT, and I met at Fire on the Mountain for delicious wings and beer. I ordered six Vietnam barbecue flavor and six honey BBQ. The Vietnam was far spicier than the sample I had. My mouth went numb eventually and I finished it all off. Leah K. also joined us for delicious munchies. MMM. BT ordered us two deep friend twinkies and deep fried oreos for dessert. The frying process makes the oreos entirely soft and all delicious. I was supremely gorged.

I went home with Karen and BT, they now live together, and chilled there for an hour. BT informed me that Hercule Poirot's mustache is fake. Karen worked on putting together an Ikea desk. On Saturday they are having a "come as your high school self" party. Should be fun.

BT drove me home and now I am going to sit and read for a few hours. Whhooo!

brunettes all around

Amazing morning. I was washed and dressed and had bacon and eggs on a plate...and all of that was done by 7:30! Gobbled it down, got all my stuff together, and left right on time. I was so productive I thought I must have been an hour late.

But I wasn't.

Class was another brain killer power hour. Talked about the tain of windows, and how it is something we can only perceive when it reflects and what we perceive isn't a tangible thing, only a reflection. I was first to speak when he asked us our general thoughts. I brought up the idea of how we are meant to both perceive ourselves as a small part of the world AND how the entire world is our perception of it. Go me.

After class I loaned Samala a few comics for her class. Then I picked up some 1920's reference material for my illustration project. Making a character based in that time so I have to get good reference for it.

It was misting rain, still I departed. Got some miracle grow for my jade. No dirt. Trader Joe's for a weeks worth of apples and celery and eggs. Key Bank to deposit the money I earned from the holiday art sale.

Then I went back home and sat and drew for hours and read some Homeland reading. Watched all of the second season of Weeds. It is fun to just draw costumes and not worry about composition or anything. Ate a cheese steak. Ate some salad. Ate some ants on a log.

Katie dyed her hair.

read a page, relax a little

Today was a long effort of getting through some required reading. My system is I'll read a page or half a page, depending how the books are broken up, and then relax a little on the Internet, then I'll read some more. It is really easy to put off blocks of time devoted to reading, but not so hard to read a small chunk knowing there will be a break soon. Took a while to get through, but I had a good time doing it.

Didn't understand a word of it though. I have Skynet written in the margins and a couple things underlined but by and large, existentialist phenomenology is hard and way over my head.

Got through some of my homeland readings as well. Flipped over the calendar and realized I have to present Gardens in a week and a half.

Speaking of gardens, my lucky jade's stem broke! I stuck the surviving stalk in the dirt and watered it. I think I'm going to try and track down some quality potting soil and some nutritious plant growing stuff tomorrow. Pearl Hardware probably has something. I don't want my plant to die! It just doesn't seem to be taking root in the dirt it has.

I've really taken to watching Weeds this weekend. It is a fun show with some good casting. Helps the majority of it is on Netflix instant watch.

Hung out at a little R.A. glitter party thing.

Oh, I made myself a real breakfast this morning. I almost never do this. Fried up two slices of bacon and using that grease I made scrambled eggs. Finished with toast. Delicious way to start the day.

Now time to try to hit the hay early. School starts at 8am on Monday now.

a fridge is a terrible thing to waste

Did more shopping today. I need to break out of my pasta + sauce habit. Bought meat and veggies (not just apples, I got lettuce and celery and cucumbers). Bought some cheese and hoagie rolls. Bought lots of tasty things that are not pasta and sauce.

When I got home and prepared to put away my haul, I observed that the refrigerator was in an awful shape. It had a lot of little things in plastic bag and I noticed some expired things in tupperware. Also the meat drawer was a sticky mess. So I unloaded every piece of food from it and set about cleaning! I filled the tub with hot soapy water and soaked all the drawers in it. I scrubbed them and set them aside to dry. Then I wiped down and cleaned up the interior of the fridge. Lysol and soap and all that. There was a big pool of something red and sticky that had been there for a long long time. It was gross. I tossed quite a few things but now the fridge is neat and in order and looking clean as can be. Real proud of all that work.

Bit by bit, the apartment comes together. A little bit cleaner every day.

After all that labor, I celebrated with ants on a log! Celery, peanut butter, and raisins oh my! Fast on track to becoming a new favorite snack. MMMmmm.

Then I made myself a cheesesteak sandwich. Had to make sure I had not forgotten how. It came out allright. I should have used more onion and tried to slice the meat a little thinner. Still, it was tasty and filling. Followed that up with a meager salad. Mmm.

Watched a Bill Plympton DVD and followed that up with Magnolia. That was long and dramatic and...long. Great performances across the board no doubt.

It feels good to get major cleaning done. It is the type of accomplishment that you can really see the difference for a long time with.