23 years young

Oh boy! It's my birthday!

In the morning a package came from Auntie Celia. Perfect wonderful timing! I got some tights and a Zappos gift card and some nice incense. With the tights, I threw on my nice dress that I wore for Harmony and Peter's wedding, a black sweater, my Chucks and I was ready for a nice day of looking good.

Oh, I also opened the presents in ma and pa's box from home. Got a teavana tea thermos, some fancy blooming tea, a collection of short stories edited by David Sedaris, Chris Ware's sketch book (the one from 95-02)...awesome tacular!

Also Kristen gave me some lovely lipgloss in a fabulous subtle color. Goes great over my Lush lip tint.

I got my stuff together. Had some tea and toast. Got my MP3 player and walked down to school. I scanned my print proof drawings and brought them into Photoshop and arranged them into several different compositions. Printed them out. Unfortunately the print studio was occupied with a class, so I couldn't get the print in just yet.

While wandering around I heard "Hey, Carmen's cousin!". Molly! The girl I went down to Eugene with for the Odd Owl concert! She is going to be an MFA at PNCA! Totally neat.

I met up with Martin in his office. It was a good meeting. Mostly talked about ideas and thoughts and different subjects and planning the semester. Now I just need to do it.

There is a big pile of art in one of the Illustration rooms. I dug through it looking for my art, and the art of my friends. I didn't really find anything of mine, but I found stuff of Dom's, Samalas, Lacey, and Madeline. I took it to my studio, dropped off some stuff, walked back to school.

BT and Karen were at school, waiting to go to Rogue with me! I dropped my proof off, and off we went! Also ran into Dom, Jon, and Sivonna and told them to come to Rogue to. They said they'd come by in a bit. If you are a member of Rogue Nation, which I am, you get a free 32oz beer and a free shirt on your birthday! I ordered my usual oatmeal stout. I could barely hold the mammoth thing with one hand. Everyone else had reasonable sized beers. I also ordered myself some fish and chips. When I was picking out my shirt, Dom, Jon, and Sivonna came. Beth came by near the tail end too. It was a nice little day-of celebration. I wandered back to school with BT and Karen. Printed out Brynne's chili recipe. Walked back home. No biking today. No drinking and biking.

Once home I put up my feet for a bit. Made cupcakes. Watched Fringe. Decorated cup cakes. Talked to Mel. Spent my Zappos gift card on a pair of red, white, and silver Kangaroos. I'm excited! They look comfy. Now I'm pretty tired. Tomorrow I have to go get chili and make it. I don't think I have much else that I have to do. Just sleep, shower, eat, and enjoy being born.

Todays Portrait Is: Madeline Conn.

print portfolio proofs

proofs for print portfolio

pen drawings, digital composition

back in class and back on track

Oi vey, back to alarm clocks and all that business. Got up at 9:30am, like a champ. Showered. Made a massive scramble. Smeared some pretty on my face, and went out the door. Today's class is the second half of Advanced Illustration with Kristin Rogers Brown. It is an 18 person class, the Friday one is only four. Samala, Kevin, Jon and Sivonna will have a good time, I guess.

Kristin went over the gists of the class. We will be making a website, working on self promotion, working on art, and all that good stuff. Her computer crashed so we don't have a syllabus yet. The first assignment was to split into pairs and art direct one another. Madeline and I of course paired up. I art directed her to do a narrative illustration of a historical criminal or con man. She art directed me to design a portrait + text logo that would be used in web, shirt, and mail stuff. Love it! I wasn't hungry so during lunch we watched Portlandia. Literally everyone (but Madeline) has seen it. So painfully true and it hits so close to home.

The rest of class was about the next project, which will be ongoing through the semester. It is to make a blog and to keep it going for the next 16 weeks. I'm just going to make it my Portraitoday blog. It's a good project. I can just take the time to design it better. The rest of class I worked on the blog and sketched stuff. Then I went home.

I had a brainstorm breakthrough for my print project. So for the rest of the day, with a bit of a break, I sat in the bathroom and drew. I drew every object in our beauty cabinet. Every thing of eye shadow, every face goop, every hair band, every little thing. Took me three and a half hours. The idea is "uncurious cabinet". That is, a display of every thing that is in our cabinet. Lots of neat little drawings. Might end up being a minimal little print. I'm not sure how I'll arrange them just yet. Tomorrow I'll sit at the computer and arrange them and then print out a proof and turn in the proof. Took a break to unkink my hunched back and eat dinner and watch Community. A pretty weak episode unfortunately.

Returned to draw the cabinet itself. Now I'll work on my thesis calendar and idea for broader audience and visual language.

Todays Portrait Is: Sandra Scheller.

my tummy, and my esquire subscription, has issues

Uhg. My stomach is at war with me today. Not sure if it is just unhappy in general, or if it isn't fond of the yogurt and flax seed oil. Was going to sleep in my then my stomach told me to get out of bed. Hmmn. My tummy issues persisted through the day. Maybe it is nerves, as tomorrow is my actual first day of school. My vacation is over. Dunzo. Finished.

Walked to Fred Meyer's to get ourselves some toilet paper. I always get the largest kind available because I don't like having to worry about toilet paper. I like knowing that we are set for two months, instead of it having to be something to constantly buy and risk running out. Also got some misc cleaning supplies. I'm really getting into Game of Thrones now. A bunch of stuff suddenly happened and I'm like "daaang". I don't think I'd have the patience to read it, because fantasy stuff is always a bit of a challenge, but listening it is wonderful.

I lounged and read for a bit as well. Enjoyed some tea and toast. It is good to get away from the computer.

I've been enlisted to educate some high school art honors people in learning silk screening. I'll give them a little demo one of these days. How cool is that? It is volunteer, but I don't mind. Something I can lob on my resume "helped spread the good gospel of silk screen".

The print portfolio proof is due Friday. I might back out of the portfolio. I'll see if I can bash my head against the sketch board and come up with something cool tomorrow. It snuck up on me.

I've been feeling tired all day. I think that is what happens when you over dose on sleep. Even though I've been setting my alarm for 9am every morning. I still rest too much. Now lets see if I can get out of bed tomorrow. 11am class. Eep. I think I'll tuck in to bed soon, read read read, and then sleep.

I'm really powering through Bad Marie. Good read. Thanks Nate and Rubie!

Todays Portrait Is: Isaiah Sherman.

livin' upside down

I thought it would be a good idea to turn my alarm clock off at 10am. Big mistake. Anyway. Had my breakfast of scrambled eggs and tea and an apple.

I need to figure out how to cook more things. I'm constantly wondering what to make when I'm hungry. I went to Trader Joe's and got some salad dressing. So now I'm back on the salad wagon, after a week of being off it. Dressing and toppings make such a big difference.

I foresee a lot of early mornings. There are no printing classes before 11am, so I bet I'll be in in the morning printing before classes, more than saving it for the weekend. This is good because if I can get most of my printing done early in the day, I have the rest of the time to draw and work on other stuff. As many no late nights as possible.

I wrote myself a note "its not worth it. spend your time on good pursuits" to rest on my desk. To remind myself to waste less time on the internet and on silly things. I'm already doing better with it looming right there. Once I have the structure of school, I think I'll keep on track a lot better. The pressure isn't on me, but I do feel the heat.

Had just enough quarters to wash my sheets and pillow covers and unmentionables. Yay clean stuff! I actually had one less quarter than I thought, because one of them turned out to be a Franc. I don't know how it got there at all. When was anyone I know recently in France? Maybe it was accidentally categorized with quarters ages ago and dispensed when I traded bucks for quarters. Hmm.

Tabitha promoted Portraitoday on Facebook and now I have people I don't know interested in my work! Yay! So one upcoming portrait might actually go somewhere. Anyway. Yay! I've been doing Portraitoday for a couple weeks and it has six followers. I've been doing Trillobite for three and a half years and it only has 12. Hurrah, popularity.

Watching Zen. Waiting for Lights Out. Going to do some portraiture and think about thesis and stuff.

Oh my teeshirts came! I never got an email saying they were shipped, so it was a nice surprise. I'm such a teeshirt hoarder. I should submit some designs to Threadless. Potential for cash there, if they get printed.

This is great:

Todays Portrait Is: Cherish Prado.

bags and dresses

Another day of morning texts and early afternoon plans. Karen and Phil came by at 12:45ish and picked me up for a trip to the East Side and The Bins. Viva bulk Goodwill! I was mostly in it for the trip out of the house. Anyway, it was a nice bright day in Portland, though still a bit brisk. At the Bins I found a nice bag, perfect for days when I need more than my cloth bag will carry but less than a Trader Joe's bag. Also found two cute dresses and a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit. And a nerf gun. Came up to seven bucks, perfect. Just gotta wash the clothes and I'm good to go. I bought a Snickers as well but then I dropped half of it on the ground. Booo! We then drove looking for stuff to eat. The food cart court was mostly closed for the holiday, so we went to Fire on the Mountain for wings and beer. I had a nice Oatmeal stout. Karen didn't have anything as she was driving.

And that was it for that trip. I've taken up the habit of blogging the first chunk of my day, once my portaitoday uploads, so I don't add extra hits to my site by constantly going there to get links to the images. It is nice. It cuts down on the blogging time, and the early details of the day that I usually skimp on get summed up with more attention.

Went to Trader Joe's. When will my favorite seaweed snacks come back? Booo. I'm going to give yogurt another chance. Oh dang, forgot to buy salad dressing. I'll go there tomorrow. Anyway, got some yogurt. The kind that doesn't have bits in it. Because I have issues with texture, especially chunky gritty things in viscous dairy. Got some sauce and pasta.

Then my Monday night TV line up started. Microwaved myself the butter chicken masala and basmati rice meal I got from Trader Joe's. Made some tea. Put my feet up and watched a good episode of House. Matthew Lillard as the "sick person of the week" was good. Had a yogurt. It was technically a chocolate yogurt parfait...it was good. Then when Lie to Me came on, I pulled out my thesis stuff and started sorting out the next four months of my lifes. Focus Week is the last week of April. So keep that week open if you want to come to Portland and see me defend my work. Anyway, drew out calenders. Made to do lists. Sorted out what needs to be done and when. February is mostly technical and prep and research and decision making. Then near the end of February and straight through to April is drawing and printing and drawing and printing. Basically a poster a week, with a couple weeks here and there as "design" buffer weeks. It is a soft schedule, a draft. Now I have Harry's Law, the new Kathy Bates show on. Thankfully law shows are just chatty, so I can listen to it from my own room while I blog. It's a goofy little show.

School starts tomorrow for everyone who has class on Tuesday. Class starts on Thursday for me.

I'm wearing my new birthday sweater today. Love it. So cute. I really like my new 'do. It is the hair that I want to have. Wavy and stylish.

Todays Portrait Is: Colin Matthew.

green and red, the unappreciated complimentary colors

Was woken up at the rude hour of 9am with a text from Rollyn asking if I wanted to catch the matinee of Green Hornet with him. I agreed and went back to sleep where I had a dream that I missed the matinee of Green Hornet and then I had to explain to Karen that Denmark is a country, not a city. She was wearing her dirndl and was planning to move there. Then I had to escape the bad guys through some docks and Venetian canals and did some parkour type stuff. Yeah. I woke up and then was afraid I would miss the matinee if I slept in any more. So I showered. Ate some breakfast and scooted out of there. Got in the theater right on time.

I really really really enjoyed Green Hornet. It was directed by Michel Gondry (Science of Sleep, Be Kind Rewind, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). It was less all over special cool effects like his movies tend to be, and more consistently well executed practical effects. That is to say, not a lot of computer stuff unless it was needed to amplify a bit here and there. Seth Rogen was great. Maybe not the biggest stretch of his acting, but he carried the super hero role well. Jay Chou seemed to muddle his lines here and there, but he was good. Loved Christoph Waltz as the baddie. It was just really fun all around. Good effects, nice color useage. There were some Gondry moments, but the fact that he was pulled back a bit made his sense of flair have all that much more impact. The 3D wasn't really needed, but it did add a bit more depth to the real stunts. It would be fine in 2D, and it will age better than any of these super computer graphic heavy movies. I just saw it in 3D because it is only showing in 3D.

Parted ways and I rode back to my place. Ate some food. Drank some tea. Then I settled in to watch the Golden Globes and draw some portraits. Whooo! I'm glad Colin Firth won, he deserved it. Natalie gave a great little speech too. No major surprises.

Got three portraits done. I'm ahead of the game. It takes about an hour to do one. I need to get the time spent down. But that will take time. The likenesses are getting better. Now to, I dunno, eat some more stuff and do some more stuff. Might chill with Karen tomorrow. Need to get on my proof for the print portfolio. Need to think about composition and all that.

Todays Portrait Is: Matt Grigsby.