returning and finishing

Friday:

Party!! Karen arrived at around 2pm. We went to school and cleaned out my locker and drawer. She swung by my place so I could grab a belt, and then we drove to the end of year party at the park up on 24th & Raleigh or whatever.

Hot dogs! Beer! No open bottle laws so Daniel was sharing his own stuff! But I paced myself really well.

Did a lot of sitting on the ground. Ate a hot dog and a half. Drag some soda. Talked to people. Ran around pretending to be an airplane. Fell down a couple times.

There was a bouncy castle! Twice as big as last years bouncy castle. And because of the liability the school would have, the little children in the park were not allowed to jump. They just had to watch while drunk adults had lots of fun. I went in a couple times. It was awesome.

I drew a little bit as well.

Sat at the ukulele circle. Chatted with Heather.

Stood with the design majors.

Ran around more.

There are not many great stories, I just really hung out and talked and drank and ate food and had an overall good time.

Karen got "sleepy" and went to her car for a "light nap". So I didn't go home with her.

Continued along with the design majors. Chris, Drew, Taylor and I swung by Panda Express first. Then Low Brow Lounge, where I sobered up. It was a design major's birthday so we cheered him on. Catherine, Jim's girl, was there. But no Jim. Jim did show later on, with his two former roommates. A bunch of us migrated to Ground Kontrol, the local barcade. You got arcade games on the first floor and pinball on the second, and all of them have cup holders. Taylor bought me a drink and gave me some quarters. We played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles together. Then I played Batman Forever pinball. Then played House of the Dead with one of Jim's roommates. Fun!

Eventually it was time to call it a night. Taylor gave me a lift back, like a good designated driver. Fell asleep really good.

Saturday:

Only hung over for a few hours. Got into a slow gear and tidied the apartment. Wanted things clean and sort of put away before I packed. Two loads of dishes. Karen returned my art.

Packed relatively light. There is some room in my bag.

I brought Jade Pinkett-Smith, my jade plant cutting, home with me. I didn't want the water to run out and the root to dehydrate while I was gone. The last chunk of the plant is doing really well, I don't want to risk it. It was a lot of hassle to bring the plant with me, but it is my luck and I want my luck with me. I caught the max perfectly, and only had to wait a few minutes for the downtown transfer. I got to the station about an hour early. Checked bag and waited.

The train was about half full, and no one sat next to me, so I stretched out, read, ate a hot dog, and relaxed. Mmm.

Nathan was at the station to pick me up. Played Wii at his place while mom and pop came from Seabeck to pick me up. Wii! Rubie offered me buckets of food.

Wii is fun. I did some Wii fitness and some Wii fencing.

Then back to Seabeck before it got dark. Dad microwaved me a delicious cheese steak. We looked at stuff on Internet, and then it was bed time.

My bed here is so big. Mmm.

AWESOME!

I had an awesome day and an awesome night. Now I need to go fall asleep and pack in the morning. More details tomorrow.

"what was that again?" "a mobius strip!"

AHhhh oh my god my Junior year is DONE! I'M GOING TO BE A SENIOR! THESIS! DIPLOMA! REAL LIFE! AAhHH!!

For some stupid reason, I decided to bike my puppet to school instead of getting up 20 minutes earlier and walking. I had a death grip on the opening in the top and my handlebar, and even then the nose skinned some paint. Dang. Still, I arrived, and people dug it.

Nigel's puppet was one of my favorites. He attached a marionette to his guitar and sang and played for us and went in a circle and made the puppet dance as well. It was amazing. Leah dressed herself up as one of those inflatable tube people. There were a lot of puppets dancing to music. Music provided by Justin on the ukulele, Andrea on the bass, Kevin on the drums, and Nigel on the guitar. Robin volunteered me, and I just danced with my head flopping about. It didn't stay secure all that well. The rigging was terrible. But it was fun. I also played Kevin's drums a bit with the big head. It was a fun final all together. I don't have any documentation of it sadly.

Beautiful day. We had to have our pieces on the wall at 11am, but the meetings were one on one and I had mine scheduled at 3 so I could get stuff done. Unfortunately I got it done all too well and had to kill a few hours. But the weather was prime for time killing. Just lazy and sunny. Mmm.

My meeting with Martin went really well. He had high compliments for the Ravenous posters. He seemed thrilled that I was still stepping out of my comfort zone and trying new things that were still me. He said for the summer to think about concepts, to sketch sketch sketch, and play with typography.

I was having trouble getting a hold of Karen, who was supposed to help me take my flat file and locker home, but her phone was off or something. Through Lacey and many room changes, I caught up with her in the print lab. Tomorrow she will help me move out my stuff.

I ended up hanging out with BT, Daniel, and Heather in the print lab for an hour. Justin and Phil stopped by as well. Just a lot of chat and joking. Karen and Lacey returned from their test and we went out for ice cream! Ice cream crew: BT, Karen, Lacey, Heather, Daniel, Phil, Tabitha, Sarah (I think)... whoo! I had a root beer float. We all sat at Jameson Square Park and looked like a real cool bunch. We played with the wig I made for my puppet, Daniel found his way into my bag because I turned around and he was wearing my scarf and put on my helmet and sunglasses. Hahah. It is a good scarf.

We parted ways into a couple groups. BT, Lacey, Heather, Karen and I went to Low Brow Lounge and got various forms of fried potatoes and fish. I just had a sprite. Mmm. The night was really nice.

Walked Karen to a Max stop and rode home. Took a shower because I was really warm and I was wearing dark constricting pants. Tomorrow I break out the pale legs and shorts! Day after tomorrow I go to Seabeck!

ONE MORE DAY

Oh man, I can see the light! It is almost there. Freedom!

So mom and pop, how about Saturday for my return to Portland? Call me!

Homeland. One final day. One all day critique. I got up early and assembled my slide show and got to school in perfect time.

Daniel was not there in perfect time. Oh well. He brought pastries.

Heather went first with her tart and brownie and community recipe zine.

Hanna brought out a catalog of beet growth.

Joey had a mini installation about the American backyard.

Travis documented four posters tacked to wood that he left places.

Phil stabbed a plant with a circuit and measured the output.

Tabitha pasted paper to different sites and documented its disintegration.

Kristen...I forget what Kristen did.

Sandra grew out her lawn and suffered allergies to document its growth.

Bryan planted a public space and documented it along with a similar space that he didn't plant.

Kirsten made a window box of clippings from her building's lawn.

Matt did an audio of an outdoor space and combined it with a scent and some clippings.

Maddi documented different walks she went on, in a really beautifully composed video.

I think that is it.

My critique went well.

Nap time!

Last day of yoga for months time. More leg work.

Then it was finish my puppet time. This time thankfully does not take too long. It's done. It seems pretty darn done. Finally.

So Saturday?

energy crystal fading

Last night I decided that sleep would be better than pushing myself awake. I was crashing at 10pm. I couldn't even get the energy to make myself some tea.

In the morning I woke up at 9:35. I have class at 8am. I let out a series of swears, took quick shower, stuffed on some clothes, and rode to school with all my might. I think they were doing a single long pose, so I only got the last 40 minutes of it. Oh well. So I missed the majority of one class. I still arrived. Turned in my documentation disc and a couple pieces.

Then it was silk screen final critique! Well, had to pick up some cheese. We were having a burrito potluck. I got a small brick of cheddar and mozzarella. I brought my shredder so my cheese was different from Tom's packaged shredded stuff. A lot bigger chunks of cheese with mine.

The potluck came at lunch, so there were some critiques to get out of the way. Mine went first (for the bandana and final zine). And it was a pretty smooth critique. People liked the zine a lot. I talked about making work to share and having enthusiasm for your work. There was a craftsmanship question on the sewing of the bandana (there were some threads) and I agreed that yeah, it was a little bit of laziness on my part to not clean it up. It was a good critique.

Casey followed. She screen printed edible art. Seriously. First she made peanut butter cookies, then she put dollops of white chocolate on them, and put wax paper of that to make it flat, and then she put the screen over them and put cinnamon on the screen, and rubbed it through the screen and onto the cookie. And it turned out really well. She also went through massive trial and error. Peanut butter, liquid chocolate, just about everything sort of viscous went through the screen. Awesome!

Then it was potluck time. We combined our stuff with the Tom's class, so it was an epic spread. Cheese, meat, biscuits, veggies, beans, rice, vegan gluten free something, enchiladas, flan, lemon squares, soda, and other vegetable medleys. It was an awesome feast. I got well stuffed.

Junko made these beautiful little silkscreen monotypes.

Robin made a third house at night silk screen. Even more complex than her previous one. Breath taking. Gorgeous. Each one improves on the last vastly. She is so great!

Chelsey did these combination monotypes.

Patsy did this nearly life size California Condor. It was mixed media. Cut foam board body with combination printed head and legs. It was supposed to go up on the wall in the commons, but it fell down. It was really striking. I want a Patsy bird tattoo. Maybe a heron.

Ali followed with two beautiful drawings of an abandoned school reclaimed. Really nice line art. It totally fits with the car aesthetic from her last critique. Rad.

deAnn did a little mini installation. She had a metaphor figure with lots of symbols, and behind it was a hanging printed scroll, and there were some propped organic shapes. It was pretty neat.

Tabitha's 90's nostalgia work had a lot of nice variety. I told her she got too good at CMYK because she didn't have the unplanned errors that appeared in the Weird Al piece that made it so striking.

Finally came Diana. She whipped out an awesome couple pieces that really spoke about her and her aesthetic. It was a supreme combination of all the different types of work she has been doing. Beautiful drawings, nice text, experimentation in layers. And just masterfully done. Beautiful!

Then class was out! I had to print my illustration posters, so I dashed to Utrecht and got three sheets of arches paper (to allow for potential errors in printing) and a new three pack of sketchbooks and some pens. All I need for summer sketching!

With JP's help, we put both of the posters on one sheet to print as large as possible. The Carlyle one looks great, but the printer decided to have a fit just an inch into the Pearce poster. I've written Pearce so much that it doesn't look right anymore. So now I have a full sheet of paper and a couple scraps. The posters look great! I'm really pleased with the printing. They are also a slightly new technique for me. The posters improved once I gave up on my original composition, that wasn't working at all.

After printing, I swung by Yur's for a little drink with BT, Craig, Jay, and others. The design kids came in right after me, but they occupied their own nook. I had my usual and then ordered a grilled cheese. They left, and Jim and Mel came over to replace them. Catherine joined us after Mel left. It was a lot of trading of people. We drew and chatted and had general fun.

I went home with the intention of unwinding with Glee, then I started feeling really nauseous and sick and couldn't keep upright. So I allowed myself to sleep with the intention of absolutely getting up two hours early to work on stuff. And so far, so good.

Ravenous Posters

Finished posters for the film Ravenous.

Robert Carlyle and Guy Pearce.

Acrylic paint with digitally composed text, that was originally hand drawn.

Ravenous Paintings

Paintings to go with a poster design for the film Ravenous.

Guy Pearce and Robert Carlyle.

Acrylic on paper.

8 1/2"x11".

web cam, I dub thee Vroomfondel

Didn't say a word in class. Just sort of sat there and tried to follow what the teacher was saying, but I was totally lost all together. I've been lost for a while.

Helped deAnn chop some copper.

Ate soup and bread for a late breakfast/early lunch. Finished Vampire Loves. Talked to Dom and Heather. Wandered over to Office Max and picked up some burnable CDs for documentation and spent some of my juried show money on a web cam. I want to do a vlog about my senior thesis process. I think it would be fun and would take this whole chronicling thing I've been doing for the past few years to another level. The web cam was also on sale, whooo!

I ended up not taking a nap at all. Had to do a lot of documentation (most of my work for The Figure) and playing around with Ravenous (finally got the text to a place I like) and getting all my files sorted out (lots of scattered documentation on my school computer).

Yoga break! I was really warm all through yoga, but it was good to decompress.

Then back to documentation and burning of discs to turn into teachers.

Swung by Trader Joe's on the way home. Salami! Bread! Apples! Bananas! Pasta! I really needed food.

Then I played around with my web cam for way too long. It is late, but my semester sum up essay for Intermediate Screen is almost finished. Tomorrow I'll sleep in.

the end is in sight, but finals are still in the foreground

I woke up at 6:47 and was convinced I had slept 15 hours. Thankfully, it was just the am and I went back to bed.

I actually ticked off my to do list! I'm behind a couple small illustrations, but I got these new Ravenous poster paintings that I am really excited about.

Finished the hair wig cap thingie, and it is about half covered with fleece right now. It is really shaping up. I couldn't have done it without my trusty Brother sewing machine (thanks Grandma!).

I'm almost out of food. I couldn't decide if my Raisin Bran was moldy or sugary, so I threw it out.

Yeah, just sat about and alternating drawing with painting and sewing. Now I need to write. Busy three days ahead of me, and then FREEDOM!

nice weather is here!

Totally sluggish start to the day. Alarm went off at 9:20, and I kept hitting the 10 minute snooze. Eventually I got up and texted Karen telling her no hurry.

Fabric Depot trip!! BT tagged a long.

I just needed some brown polar fleece for the hair. Fleece would have enough body and would hold up to being shredded without unravelling or leaving lots of little threads. Plus you wouldn't get the under color. I found a great color for 8.99 a yard at 20% off, and bought a Crunchie and Curly Wurly to go along with it. BT bought some buttons and interfacing. Karen found some cloth as well. Whoo!

Then we got lunch at a Mexican restaurant on 82nd. I had a chimichanga. It was quite delicious. I treated Karen in exchange for the car ride (better than pitching in for gas or whatever).

After lunch we headed to Scrap, a place where people donate left over supplies, out dated this and that, or overstock. It is resold on the super cheap. It is a pretty cool place, I haven't been since the pre-college program I attended in 2006. Has practical stuff like fabric and yarn, and then it has piles of thank you stickers with people's names on them, miscellaneous crayon buckets, and things you pay for by the handful. I got four clothing patterns for 1$! I got two shirt patterns, a jumper pattern, and a romper pattern. Some summer projects. They had collected patterns you could get for a buck, but I bet a lot of them were not very good at all. Whoo!

Today was sunny and lovely and so we went for ice cream. Sat out side and chomped on delicious Ben & Jerry's. Finally the weather is behaving like May. It was March for too long. April never happened.

I was driven back and then it was work time.

Got to painting my puppet head. Had to give it a face. Took about two hours and I still have more to do. Also started work on the wig cap. Instead of gluing the fabric to the head, I decided to make a cap that fits the head and sew the fabric onto that. Then I can rig the wig to the head and not have to worry about chunks getting ripped off or falling off due to poor gluing. Got about a third of the cap pinned into place. A lot of work, but it is quite fun to sit and listen to This American Life and put the pieces together.

Also did a drawing of my jade plant. Still behind on work. Have a big essay to write tomorrow. Some Ravenous sketches to sort out. More little illustration stuff to assemble...ehh yeah.