family mementos

Family Mementos from Trillian Spencer on Vimeo.

making some plans

Uhm today. Yeah. Another lazy day. Went to school for yoga but found it cancelled. Boo! Oh well.

Took a walk to Fred Meyer. Half way through The Strain now. Got some hot dogs and bacon and eggs and other stuff. It was a brisk walk, but refreshing.

Loafed about a lot.

God I'm really bad at productivity.

This whole "no assignments this week, just think about stuff okay?" thing...no good.

Maybe I'll get off my duff tomorrow and go down to school and animate. Would give me an excuse to listen to more audiobook. That would be swell. Need to think of how to make my animation assignment a self portrait. OHHH! I could highlight and animate my trademark jewelry. The symbols of the connections to my family. The watch from dad, the ring from auntie, ring from great grandma, ring from cousin. Yeah! Hmmm. Ideas are good.

Tomorrow night is Matt G's birthday. That might be something to do.

Looking forward to bacon and eggs for breakfast tomorrow. Eat that! Go animate! Feel good about stuff. Yeah.

Also need to document my teeshirt.

kitsap grrlz

Mom is in Hawaii! I want to go to Hawaii! Not fair.

Anyway. Thursday. Designated recovery day. Slept in. Ate some gnocchi and Gorgonzola from Trader Joe's. Caught up on Fringe. Season 3 is awesome! All odd numbered episodes take place in the alternate universe where Olivia from our universe is brainwashed to think she is that Olivia. Even numbered episodes have the evil Olivia infiltrating in our world. It is awesome. The episodes have the standard fringe science arc but the added mystery of the two Olivias. It is great.

Community was excellent. Hilarious. The actor who plays Troy has fantastic timing.

Kristen is getting almost better. She washed dishes and I dried. I tied up my room a smidge.

Didn't do much but I have a good idea for what I want to do for my animation. I should get on that in the next couple days, just so I don't rush it and get all stressed.

Oh yeah yoga tomorrow! Gotta remember that. I had to forsake yoga on Tuesday for animation. There was no way to do both and have reasonable time left.

Amazing how I was all "yeah join a gym!" two weeks ago. Where did that enthusiasm go?

I want to go somewhere warm. There is a gap in my window that lets in a perma draft.

survival!

Don't know why I'm still up but okay, here goes.

Got up. Got to school. Had to scan and print. Realized I forgot what I had to print at home. Dang.

Anouck gave a lecture and we watched some Frank Mouris films. Our next assignment is a found object self portrait. Don't quite know what I'll do for it, but I'll figure something out.

Got my picture from home and scanned it and grabbed some Chipotle. It was delicious. Kelly and I had a good conversation about eating a burrito with a fork to protect the integrity of the tortilla and how just shoving it in your mouth destroys the form. Yeah. Back in class we broke to critique. After sleeping on it, my mermaid animation turned out well. The stress was messing with my mind I guess. Yeah. After critique was break. TJ and I chatted about food preparation. Back in class we looked at the first half of Hedgehog in the Fog using our scene breaks downs to analyze it. Even pouring over the film shot by shot, it was still amazing to watch. After that we did a group reading of sorts. Like, we all read the same paragraphs and then talked in groups and then presented the core ideas. It was one of those heavy worded things. Then the writer got on some tangent about how good public transit makes poor people even poorer. It was an interview so it had a lot of ideas, but was light on details.

With class over, I gathered up my package design and headed to the computer lab to work on my portfolio. It actually got thrown together pretty well. I'm forming a good base to start from. Karen and I giggled and joked while waiting for class to start. In class we glanced at our projects. Not really a formal critique again (which I like, because at this point it is sort of too late). They liked my shirt. Kristen gave us a lecture on how to face problems when we get stuck in art making, and then gave us an InDesign demo and then it was work time. And I got some good progress! Have some stuff to do by next week, including getting the better print resolution files into the file.

I chilled with Karen in the studios afterward and then at 10pm we went to Yur's for a quick drink and girl talk. The design cronies were there, as were some print people. Jim joined us later on. I just had one drink, kept it casual. At 12:30 I biked home. Whoo weekend! Need to do better about getting a jump on things. But first I think I need to tidy apartment. My room looks like a disaster area.

the stony silence that stops hearts

24 hours! Homestretch!

I lagged in the morning but I ended up just having the perfect amount of time to get everything done and not be rushed. Got to school at 11:45am ish with thermos, pop tart, and apple in hand. Scanned stuff. Photoshopped stuff for about an hour. Listened to The Strain. Gave Dom some feedback on his album sleeve. Got seven photoshops for my "thesis mood display" thing. Not like...composition...just images that give a feeling of the thesis. And stuff. Yeah. Went to Utrecht. Bought a sheet of chipboard. Cut it down. Got to my studio and realized I should have bought two sheets of chipboard. Didn't have time to get another sheet, so I just cut up the back of a used sketchpad. Perfect! Glued my boards together so they made a nice little display set. Wrote out my thesis statement on the back of one of them. And got to class.

All through class hung the air of tension and terror. When Martin is serious, you can feel it. The joking stops, and things get serious and silent. Iskra and Martin are quite the pair. Both are very adept at shoving the blade right into your heart through the ribs. They don't waste time making veal; locking us in cages and feeding us milk while we grow fat and weak and tasty. One person didn't do the board correct (it was really far off from correct) and Martin just told him he was unprepared and should take it down. Naturally I volunteered to go first. I got a pretty good review I felt. The main question was cohesiveness of style.

What also came up:

-playing to my strengths (they were not keen on the ink wash images)

-being as considerate of type as I was of people (Iskra called some of my text "embryonic")

-"I can say that because I know she can draw really well" (Martin in regards to a gasp uttered when he was not in favor of some of my drawings)

-being really conscious of how lines and things depict emotions and stuff

-more comments about my handwriting placement not being up to stuff

After class I asked Iskra for some advice on how to improve the emotional quality of large blocks of text. Normally when I do letting I spend hours doing 6 letters. Doing paragraphs is something else entirely. Tips were to consider negative space and what goes on beyond just the shapes, to study comic artists who do hand lettering, to write with a tool I love, to think of it as texture when it comes to image composition, and other stuff. It was good feedback. Just need to develop my message a bit. This week nothing is due. But I want to practice lettering and read some self help. Need to nail this fish to the wall while it is still flopping, if you get what I mean.

Beth did well. Nice rough sketches. She is responding to dance movements and stuff.

Nicole's idea has changed to some cool mirror stuff.

Kevin's idea isn't about faith anymore. It is about masculine art, but doesn't look at all like my definition of masculine art (but it did have a gun in one of the paintings).

Sivonna had some nice pattern and stuff. She is working on a story that ties into a product line. Quite cool.

Jennifer is making some paper dolls about the female figure and stuff.

Jon's civil war monster survival journal "mood" images were insanely awesome and emotive. Loved them.

Dom's stuff was good. He is doing a guide to urban explorers. Like a how to guide to making books and brewing beer and just hands on stuff he has learned over his life time. Cool stuff.

Leo's images were brilliant. Not much could be said. He was quite clear and knew his direction. Iskra made a point about how saying "like" makes you sound really noncommittal it brings down your whole presentation.

Madeline had some lovely concept work for her children's story. I think that will be beautiful. She is a Corel Painter master.

Jeff had some awesome poster stuff.

I think that is everyone...yeah. It was a good critique day. Very direct, very quiet. We did stick up for one another a bit. Interjecting a "well do you mean this and not this, because the wording is..." and so on.

After that I went to animate. It looks alright. The movement is really jerky. I think I went too small with the paper puppet. Oh well.

Stopped by Safeway to get Kristen some cold medicine. Poor girly is really sick.

Watched Raising Hope. Worked on homework and watched Glee. Great episode! Worked on more homework. Going to finish up homework and drink sleepy time.

thesis mood images - 2

Quick photoshopped "mood" images for my thesis. Rough, informal concepts that give a feeling.

thesis mood images - 1

Quick photoshopped "mood" images for my thesis. Rough, informal concepts that give a feeling.

people I love

Slept in a bit longer than planned, well...I stayed in bed for a while. I was awake, just day dreaming and thinking.

Then I had some tea. Waited a while for Kristen to be done in the shower. Got cleaned up. Grabbed a bag of salad, some raisins, and some ranch dressing in Tupperware and headed to the studio. Ate half the bag of salad, then I got to drawing. I just whipped out the nib and ink and looked through photos and drew friends and wrote out little notes and mantras. Took a while. Did some really thoughtful thinking with no pencil sketches. I was amazed at how good the stuff actually turned out. Not as shakey as could be expected. So did that for a few hours. Ate more salad. Got a rice crispie treat out of the vending machine because my body cannot digest solid vegetable matter. Did some drawings of my mermaid for my animation. I'm cutting the time table close on this. Eek.

Worked on some ink wash drawings for a few more hours as well. Got home at 10:45pmish. Then I got to sewing up my product packaging. It isn't as streamlined as I would like, but it is something. Too bad you'll have to wreck the packaging to get to the shirt. But that is the point.

Now 2:30am has creeped up on me. Have work to do before class. Will it take an hour? Will it take four? Who knows. But I should allow for four. Looks like I'll be listening to lots of The Strain on audiobook. It's a pretty good vampire romp thus far, though the divorced father who is trying to win the affection his son is SOOOOOO Stephen King. Seriously, single father characters going through trials get tiresome.

Anyway. Sleepy time. Then OHMYGODREALLYBUSY48 HOURS. Then it is the weekend again. Yay! I need to adjust my time management skills. Twice I've been in time crunch pickles, and it isn't midterm yet.

do you think it looks like me?

Had a slow going morning...I mean afternoon. I knew printing itself wouldn't take so long so I took my stupid time with eating and errands. Went to Paper Source and got some over sized stickers to print on. Went to Utrecht and got some glassine paper. Not totally transparent. I'm going to print a sort of frame on one side, sew it together like a pouch, put a folded shirt in it so you can see the design, fold the top, and seal it with two large stickers with printed designs which match the shirt design. Not quite what I had in mind, but it should be presentable.

Got to school. Emulsified one screen. Photocopied. Did water emulsion drawing fluid on another screen. Turned the photocopies into transparencies by soaking them with baby oil. The drawing on the shirt is 400% the size of how I drew it. I also inverted the drawing, so that the space printed would be the white and the color of the shirt would fill in the black. So it is all cool and stuff. I haven't done this type of shirt printing. Sure I designed that print, but that wasn't like a shirt...logo. I also bought white ink for the project, because the school's white ink is dodgey and might not be good for fabric. But yeah. Printing went fast and very smooth. I got a little bit of white ink here and there on the shirts just in handling, but the design came through in a very nice quality fashion. I'm very pleased. I also printed a little "shirt by trillian 2010" speech bubble in the lower right hand corner of the front.

Hurrah! I should do more shirt designs.

If only it didn't take so long to heat press them. Blimey. A lot of ironing and I'm not sure how well it worked...won't know till it washes. Probably should be washed inside out for good measure. My ink stained clothes still retain the ink after many washes.

Went home. Ate some pasta. Heat set. Crossed off my check list. Tomorrow looks like "I'm going to sequester myself in the studio from noon till dark" day. Which is for the best. I just can't motivate myself in the apartment. Gotta do drawing and get stuff set up for animation. Animation assignment will be done in a crunch but I think I have a good direction to go in. I should just get to bed at a reasonable time. And considering how the one day I do have to follow an alarm clock is coming up, I need to get my body moving before 11.

packaging

Made a list of what I need to get done. It was alarmingly sizable. But now that I have it, I can get started.

Today was prep. I went to William Temple House and bought some shirts for my illustration project. Got an XL (there was only one in a solid dark color, and it is green) and several small and mediums in black or near black. Also got some Levi 505s for my Halloween costume. It was rainy and crummy.

I stopped by Paper Source to see what sort of packaging solutions would be there for a shirt. I think I might design a print, print it over paper, print on something adhesive like a label sticker and use that to bind it together. If I had see through paper, or cellophane, that might be cool. I'm limited on the time I have to get supplies, and I don't want to spend too much just doing one project. Need to be inventive.

After that, I went to Beau Thai and got some chicken pad thai to go, because I was craving it. The meal fed me for the rest of the day. It was good. Not fabulous but still good.

I went through my backup discs looking for good quality portfolio images to put into my portfolio. I feel like I should have more work than I do. Like...pieces. I'm missing documentation chunks, or I just wasn't enthused about a lot of the things I have done. But yeah, that task is done. All the images in good quality are in one folder. Now I just need to start piecing them together in InDesign or something. Doesn't need to be finished quality, just a start.

So tomorrow is printing/package solution day. Then I'll do a bunch of drawing in the afternoon for professional practices. And some writing. Monday will be animation day. And maybe some more drawing. Animation and professional practice drawing, once I finish printing those are the major things. Yup.

Oh Sherlock is this really good modernization of Sherlock Holmes on the BBC. Madeline introduced me to it. Martin Freeman plays Watson. Very good.