options breed impulse

Trying to check my bank balance online. Dumb site won't fully load. LAAME.

Anyway, another restful night of sleep. Sort of a slow start to the day. Oatmeal and tea. The usual. Today's plans were to go to Fred Meyers for toiletries and other things that Trader Joe's does not typically offer. The pros of TJ's is that the selection remains about the same and realizing "oh I don't have that, I should get it" doesn't happen all that often. You get what you come for, you spend less than you were expecting, and all is good. The cons are it doesn't have variety or price competition. Things like bacon cost more, and they only have one type of conditioner, and if you want a good conditioner or skin care than isn't 50% patchouli, then you have to go to a larger store. Then you wind up at Fred Meyer's and you get your hair stuff and your skin stuff and your makeup remover because it is time to stop mooching your roommates and your bacon and your eggs and your incense and so on. Fred Meyers really gets you with that "and so on". Oh well. Now I have good conditioner. Going to make my hair soft and luscious. I got a special deep moisturizing kind. See how it goes. Just gotta avoid "a little shopping trip" there for a while.

Dang, I really wish Kitsap Credit Union would let me in to see my statement!

Started listening to The Girl Who Played with Fire. Good listen thus far. When I walked to Freddie's I way undershot it. It is on 20th, not 16th. Oops. But it was a nice walk. Had the last bit of macaroni and cheese for late lunch, and a salad, and powdered propel.

Then I worked on rewriting my proposal. It is better than editing because rewriting helps solidify statements in my mind. What I write that comes naturally is superior because I am not copying. It also allows me to rethink order, to group things better (the format discussion is streamlined, as opposed to being all over the place). And to get rid of more vague areas.

Tomorrow Samala and I are going to meet up and practice. I need to work on my process art work. Also need to redocument my comic. I just realized I have no idea where my comics are! In a portfolio I assume, but which one?

I might be going in on some bulk shirts, so I can print up some of my Pride and Prejudice/my face shirts for holiday art sale/gift giving.

Now the time to be productive starts. Hurrah! So yeah, go to school. Scan. Practice. Edit. Animation stuff. Go home, stay up late watching my stories and feeling good about being productive. Monday: more proposal practice. More animation stuff? Slide show editing. That is all it is now. Slide show slide show slide show. Oh also there is a life skills for adults workshop at school on Monday. Skills like needle felting, how to make mozzarella cheese, and more! So that will be fun.

Look pa: it is before 10pm and I have written my days post! Ha!

Right now I don't quite know how to add some of the concepts Martin is asking us about. I need to think about them a little more. Such as cultural context of our work, why it is important for us to do it, broader concepts...stuff like that.

pride & prejudice & portraits

My gel eye liner has dried up, but an online tutorial says that if you soak the contained in hot water, it revives the condition of the gel. So I tried it out and it works again! I tried out this makeup tutorial for a dramatic eye, which you can see in the video I posted below. Quite dramatic indeed, but fun. It's smeared a little bit but that is nothing a q-tip can't fix.

Slept in again. Had some toast and tea. Revived my eyeliner. Put on a little bit.

Yoga had some good stretches. Though my knee is acting up. I just can't do the full frog pose. Hurts too much. It's odd how slow breathing yin type yoga moves a lot faster than the more active Thursday class.

Went home. Had some mac and cheese (left overs, one box makes three servings!). I did the full eyeliner look. Lotsa fun. Kristen and Mark came back with some new fish for the tank! There was four when I moved in, then three died, now four more have been added. Hurrah!

Karen picked me up at 7:20ish for her regular Get Stuff Done night. Evan and BT were working on mustache stuff. They were watching Pride and Prejudice. The six part Colin Firth kind. Haven't seen it in aaaages. I drew Evan and BT and then on the back of one of BT's reject "Measure Twice Cut Once" prints, I drew characters from Pride and Prejudice. Drew Darcy and Elizabeth and Lydia and Jane and Mr. Collins and that Billingsly girl. Whatever her name is. The picture of her turned out excellent and I think I'm going to turn it into a teeshirt. Best Pride and Prejudice shirt EVER. It was good portrait practice though. Drawing from moving, inconsistent reference. BT also drew Mr. Collins and his soppy floppy hair. We also watched an episode of Mighty Boosh. Dom came over a little before 10. It was a nice little time. Can't wait to scan the drawings. Karen drove me home. She said she would buy the paper if I made a print of one of my Pride and Prejudice drawings.

I think I'll do a 365 project next year. 365 Portraits. I should start making lists now of people. Theme months. "British Month" "Action Star Month" etc. Just so that I don't get to August and go "crap, now what?" The only problem is that I don't have a scanner readily available. And my computer doesn't have any technology on it that could edit scanned images and make them nice. But if I scanned in batches, just so long as I kept enough drawings that there wouldn't be huge gaps on a blog. You can also preprogram blog posts. So that I could input 10 days worth of posts and have it set up to post one of those 10 a day. So that if I kept a queue, then the scanner problems might not be so bad.

Anyway, semi productive day. Tomorrow I shall write up some stuff about things. Need to tweak my animation a bit more. Also come up with a proposal for final project. Advanced Illustration...shoot what is due in that again? Hmmmn.

vlog - proposal practice

thesis proposal (abbreviated) from Trillian Spencer on Vimeo.

achoo

These are some Wolf Suschitzky photos that I dig. Some filler content.

Now that it is getting cold, staying in a warm bed is such the better option.

Low food stock. Went to Trader Joe's. Got seaweed snacks, Mac n Cheese, milk, salad, apples, bread, juice, candy cane joe joe's....I love them seaweed snacks. I should try wrapping it around rice.

Oh, speaking of Trader Joe's: news just broke that it is coming to Silverdale! It will occupy the old Circuit City. It doesn't have the construction permit yet. That will be excellent! No more Fred Meyers or Ralph's Red Apple. Cheaper, better, slightly Communist(because they pretty much only have their brand, so if you want four cheese sauce, you either get it or you don't) groceries for all! So great.

The new season of Misfits started. Excellent first episode. Glad that the character Nathan, who ended up being immortal, got hauled out of the coffin he was accidentally put in when they thought he died in the last season. Hehehh. Community was funny. Fringe was okay. It is building to something great though.

Had some mac and cheese. And salad. And tea. My teeth are feeling better.

Not the most active day. Tomorrow I'll do some stuff. I don't like drawing portraits straight from photographs. Yoga. Return some books. Or renew them. Yeah probably renew.

Put up my Christmas list on the right side of this here blog. Sweaters and socks and a camera with more than three megapixels.

I have the snuffles. Boo. Need to stay warm. Think I'll get into bed and read.

vanity, it ain't so bad

Ohh I've had so much sodium and carbohydrates today. Totally going to gnaw on vegetables tomorrow. And fruit.

Got up at 9, like some sort of miracle. And had a nice relaxing start. Except I rushed my makeup and the eyeshadow slid off in like an hour. It always comes off one eye. I think I need a primer or something. What's the point of going to the effort, if it just comes off? I wonder if it is connected to my occasionally watery eye that happens when I ride to school. It's annoying. I don't know what irks it. But yeah, establishing a base to show off my efforts. I went from nice bronze shadowed eyes to a minimal look during lunch (simple fix, just rubbed the eyeshadow off). But I had my lipstick in my bag, so I threw that on. Makeup is fun, when it works.

Anyway, enough about makeup.

Animation had a lecture about modern animation that utilizes loops and spot animation instead of animating whole chunks. We studied some Astro Boy and Ren & Stimpy. I had no idea that Ren and Stimpy were supposed to be a cat and a chihuahua. Heh. Helped Dom with his crossword. Had a corn dog and some potato wedges and sprite for lunch (didn't feel like my usual burrito). After lunch we did some more in AfterEffects. We learned how to animate a bouncing ball and to change the frame rate in motion paths and the scale and flex of certain things. Slipped on a pool of water in the commons during break. Just landed lightly on my knee. Bleh. We looked at our lip syncs. Mine looked really small compared, but I think it was the only one that was rendered to proper scale. That is: mine was two megabytes in file size and everyone elses was about 150. For 3-6 seconds of animation. Yeah.

Our final assignment is an animation of our choosing. Naturally we are to use the techniques we have learned in class. I'll probably do something hand drawn with the peg bar. I was thinking maybe doing a mock makeup tutorial or something. I think it would be fun and humorous. One half my advice, one half my failure (a few weeks ago I jabbed my eye with a makeup brush). Needs some more thinking about, but basically the parameters are "fun". Maybe make a little looping track in garage band.

We got out early. I wandered around. Got some Pellegrino and Smart Puffs and sunflower seeds. Went on the internet. In Advanced Illustration it was portfolio review and "look up inspiration for mailers" time. For Print Only (http://www.underconsideration.com/fpo/) is a really cool site that showcases some spectacular print design. I think I'll work with folding some more...hmmn.

Oh, also during lunch I picked up a small wire bound sketchbook and a new (not yet exploded) .01 micron pen. I intend to fill it up entirely with portraits (it's only 24 pages). And once it is full, I'll turn it into a poster. Amazingly, from the first drawing at 6pm, to the last at around 11 pm in Yur's, I amassed ten portraits! And good ones too. I mean, they should be good...I'm doing my thesis on them. I did Beth, Cotey, Madeline, Karen, Dom, Jon, Mel, James J., Diana, and Kristen. I'm really happy with Kristen and Jon's. Dom also drew me in my sketchbook. Pretty cool stuff.

So yeah, we went to Yur's. As usual. I had one beer. Dom, Jon, Karen, Kristen, Mel, Jim, James J. Leo, and Danny were all there. Some stayed longer or were in other booths. Kristen accidentally dropped her umbrella behind the booth, and when Dom was helping fish it out, he found a plastic bag full of beauty samples! There were little toner samples, moisturizer, cleanser, and so much more. Karen thought it as gross, but since they are still sealed and no sign of tamper is evident, we kept them (we meaning Kristen and I, and Mel grabbed a handful as well). Score! I pitched in on some fries, James got some tots. A nice lady came over to see my drawings and said how good I was and when I said I was working on a portrait project, she said "good you should do this for your work!". It was nice encouragement and also that she talked to me out of a table of about six artists. I also pointed out what everyone else was doing. James and Dom were collaborating, as was Karen and Kristen.

Walked home with Kristen. Now I'm just chilling out. Literally. It is cold. It isn't supposed to go above 55 for a while. Have my heavier blanket though, and everything is snug. I'll just finish watching Terriers and then tuck in to bed. I'm cutting down on some of my regular internet haunts, and it has opened up a lot of free time. And by free time I mean "reasonable sleeping hours". I need to be more proactive in getting up and getting on with things.

booyah

My new alarm works. It works really well. Had a slow start, but the morning was very successful. Had scrambled eggs with the last of my onion and some hash browns and tea. Delicious. Then I got to filling out the rest of my writing. I went down to the basement storage and hauled out my sweaters and coats and long johns and an extra blanket. Didn't really intensely go through my clothes, I'll do that over the next five days. Showered, dressed, and went to school to scan. I put on my white heeled pointy boots. My power boots. For confidence. Scanning and dropping the images into my slide show didn't take all that long. Chatted to Jon and Mel and Dom a bit.

In class I volunteered to go first. My reading directly from an essay presentation ran about eight minutes. My main critique was that I went too fast. I need to get on that poster that gives a feeling of the thesis, because right now I don't have any solid images that give the feeling of the poster. The sketches for the project part are not how I want to do it all. But Martin said my flow and articulation was good. I need to figure out my slide pacing a little bit. I think the process explanation could be improved. But right now I am in an excellent place to be with two weeks to practice. Need to get to note cards. Need to get that poster.

I think I've done more on my animation than was due. And nothing is due in Professional Practices! I think it might be an early night or something. Whaaaat. Who is on top of it? I'M ON TOP OF IT!

Also Karen's Davy Crockett poster looks great.

We were unable to get through everyone's slide shows. Jon's had font issues, but it was good. He is doing a sort of fantasy horror journal from the 19th century. Nicole's ran 20 minutes. Jennifer's was pretty solid last week, it was just more improved this week. Dom has changed his thesis up totally. Which is good, because all he wants to do is draw and he should do that. Jeff is doing propaganda poster design. Chase needs more artwork in his, because he has an amazing portfolio of concept design. Sivonna's is tidying up nicely. She is doing character product design. Think Hello Kitty but with a one eyed owl from space instead. Leo is doing fear of technology. Looks good. I totally hijacked Tyler Stout as a style influence from him. Hhahah. Anyway. Kevin is doing a thesis about a sort of religious perception about what it means to be a man. Something like that.

I also think I need to talk more about mantra. I have a lot of talk about free posters. Not enough about what they are about. I'll do a video practice some time.

But yeah, I feel really good. In a good place. Hopefully this feeling lasts.

Yoga was smaller than usual. Got home, realized that I left my wallet behind. Rode back and it was in my studio. Rode back and on the way home there was a GORGEOUS 57 Chevy Belair. It was a thing of beauty. Shiny. Great looking condition. Some day...some day I will have one. It is a good goal to work to. I'll learn manual! (I don't even care if they are good cars to drive).

Back home, I watched Raising Hope and Glee. Well, I watched them on my computer. Kristen was asleep on the couch and Tabitha was doing something on her laptop in the kitchen. So didn't feel like watching the television. Great episode of Glee. And Raising Hope.

I can't believe it is 11:26. I have nothing due that I'm aware of. I probably won't be dead tired, like I usually am, tomorrow!

slide show doodles 3

Sketches for my thesis slide show.

Sharpie and micron.

slide show doodles 2

Sketches for my thesis slide show.

Sharpie and micron.

slide show doodles 1

Sketches for my thesis slide show.

Sharpie and micron.

muffins!

Feeling tired, so I think I might take the "read a chapter of Packing for Mars and go to bed early route" instead of staying up. I was pretty productive last time I woke early on a Tuesday.

Had some oatmeal and tea. Watched Bored to Death. Traded my alarm for one that worked at Ace Hardware. Now it reads time like it ought, and doesn't count forward in five minute intervals. It was cold and went and I was under warmed. Thankfully I have a coat in my studio for such under prepared occasions.

Dropped a DVD off in the library and went to the computer lab to work on my animation. The lip sync actually went pretty well. I think there might have been a way of doing it without having 28 layers of images, but I didn't know it. Then I wasn't sure what was due, so I exported all the frames as images, and traced over the outlines of the key images, and copy and pasted them into the sync of the animation and put that to the bit of Somewhere Over the Rainbow that I had to do. This is easily summed up, but it took a long long time to do for just four seconds worth of animation. But I'm happy with it. I'd like to show you but the video has the song in it, and the song is copywritten...yeah. I'll export a version without the song.

My stomach gurgling for food, I bid adieu to my illustration buddies and went home. Finished my leftovers, gnawed on some salami, ate an apple. Watched House and Lie to Me and worked on drawings to be put into my slide show. Little cartoons and title text. Gotta scan and color those in tomorrow. Also have to work on the proposal writing stuff. Feeling weirdly tired though, so I think sleep is the best option right now.

Oh, Tabitha brought over some great pumpkin chocolate chip muffins that her mother made. They are FANTASTIC! And the perfect thing to consume because my teeth are tender from all the sugar. Once agan.

sytycdaaaannnce

Daylight savings time! Now we get more sunlight. Gets dark at 7 instead of 6. Whoo!

Woke up at 8am for some reason, but I guess that was actually 9pm. Got up. Ate a scramble and drank some tea and watched some stuff. Worked on writing. Showered. I'm cruising through the bullet points pretty good. I don't have the links between themes yet or corresponding slides, but it is coming along. Just gotta get the language and length down. It is at about four minutes right now (the thesis part). It needs to be double that, but I'm not done writing and polishing. I have three weeks to polish. But there is a lot of grime to get through.

Anyway, ma and pa visited Sylvia out in Beaverton and then hopped on the max and streetcar back to my neighborhood. I wrote for a bit more and then got dolled up for the show. We walked down to the max stop at the train station and hopped the green to the hotel. Dropped stuff off, grabbed some good at Burgerville. Yum! I don't eat a lot of burgers.

At 6:30 we walked the couple cold blocks down to Rose Garden Arena. There wasn't a standing line like the last time we saw So You Think You Can Dance. A half minute in a queue and we were in.

Even though we were a bit back, the seats were still good. We were on a more slanted section, so no chance of a blocked view. Also the seats were comfy this time. Speaking of time, it passed quickly and the show started before we knew it!! This tour show had less of the filler chatter and was dance dance dance all the way through! There were some jokes and stuff, but overall it was the routines we love and full of great dancers who were very fit. I hooted and cheered for Kent and Robert. They did my favorite routine (and moms). All in all, a fantastic time! Ma got me some cotton candy and then had to tell me to stop eating it because I was getting hyped up on it. It was a great night that totally took me away from the worries and stress of thesis. And it was nice to see the parents, especially as I might not be able to make it home for Turkey Day.

We walked back to the hotel, I watched a minute of Walking Dead on their cable. I love the show, but it wasn't a good part to turn to. Said our goodbyes, and I grabbed a cab that was waiting outside. Didn't feel like trekking from China Town to Nob Hill on a Sunday night.

Got back. Put on my jammies. Watched Walking Dead. Watched Boardwalk Empire. Have Dexter and Bored to Death waiting to be watched. Sunday is the main night, there isn't much television throughout the week (House, Lie to Me, Glee, Raising Hope, Community, Fringe, Terriers...yeah think that is it). I think I'll have some tea and watch Dexter and tuck in for the night.

Tomorrow I am going to school to work on dubbing in AfterEffects. Oh joy. Should swing by Ace Hardware and exchange my clock on the way there. What else do I have to do? Thesis slide show...animation...have a reading I have to do. I don't think there is anything in Advanced Illustration that is due. But yeah, when I'm done with animation (or when I get too mad to work) I'll come back and slide show it up. I don't feel rushed though. I've made good progress and need to keep fluid about it. Verbal practice and question asking and answering will fill it out as well.