eye see part two

I haven't been mentioning my eye issues because they've been getting better. The swelling is gone and now just some little bumps remain but those have been dwindling in size. And then I woke up with another stye. So I wanted to get my eyes checked out my an optometrist. But I didn't want to pay tons of cash to do so. I decided that after my meeting with Martin, I would call around to find a place to get my eye checked.

Meeting with Martin went well. Chatted about the mid term meeting. We won't be meeting next week, but I will instead email him some of my text ideas once I get around to them. We didn't fill up the whole usual 30 minutes. Good sign I guess.

So I got to calling. When I got a hold of the place Legacy Health Care recommended, they gave me the name of the eye doctors to cross check through my insurance to see if they are covered. I called my insurance and found out that medical eye exams are not covered. I called the eye place to see about an appointment and found out that an appointment would be $375. NO WAY. So I'm going to search around. Got some great advice about places to go. I also went to Safeway to see if there are some OTC sty medications. There are, but they were all sold out. I think tomorrow I'll go on a search for more. My drops are almost out. If I can get a remedy that remedies, I won't find a doctor. None would probably be open on the weekend anyway, none that were not emergency care. Lame lame lame.

Yoga calmed me down. Then I printed out six more images to turn into prints. Counted 55 or so sheets for Mel's poster. Emulsified six screens. Exposed the six stencils I printed out. Printed Mel in a lovely Mel shade of brown. And then printed the black. The second layer always goes faster. Flats of color always take longer. Talked to Karen. Talked to BT. Talked to Nico. I must have lost some time in there, because I got out of yoga at 5 and finished printing at 9. I guess set up took a bit longer because of printing out and exposing and letting the screens dry and stuff. I've had good luck with the studio crowds. Printing late at night helps. Hung with Karen. Gave Karen the $12 I owe her (we always seem to owe each other money or favors, it's easy to lend to one another because we know the other is good for it) Showed her my prints. Went home.

OH. Well, I'll mention that when it goes through the pipes. Don't want to announce it and create a bum rush.

Aside from the eye, a good day. Printing. Yay. Mel, Heather & Daniel, Robin, and Jon make four. Samala and Dom are ready to be printed when I get an extra couple hours. I want to get all the images I have ready to go printed within the week. So I can get the other side on them when I make the other side.

Next two days will be fun. It is all research paper.

Todays Portrait Is: January Jones.

website and getting stuff done

I was screen printing and I thought "it's no biggie staying late and getting things done, I slept in!" and then I remembered that I didn't sleep in and that this is in fact the one day that I am required to get up before noon.

So I did that. Actually I got up at 9! And I got some stuff done! Which was awesome. Got to school on time. It was mostly a work day, a work day that was very much needed. I even worked through lunch, because I had a big breakfast and knew I'd be going home for lunch. Yay for not spending money. In talking to Morgaine and knowing how Jeff's site ended up looking (good) I went with Weebly. Part of the final project for this class is getting a domain name and hosting a site. I've been holding back because a) I didn't know what to pick for a domain name (sorry but, as much as I love being a Spencer, as an artist I just want to be "Trillian") and b) getting a domain and then getting hosting ends up costing moolah. Weebly, you get both hosting and a domain name all for the reasonable $40 a year. It's almost double that on the next cheapest site. Weebly also has tons of templates. It isn't the most individually customizable of sites, but I figured I could make it work. So without further ado, my website:

www.trilliantrillian.com

I'm still working on it, but I'm pleased with the direction it is going. At around 3:30 I went home. Ate some pasta. Watched some TV. Then I went back to school for awesome yoga. Afterwards I printed out some more stencils for my thesis and went to the lab. Set up for printing (that is: printing stencils, applying emulsion, counting paper, setting up table, exposing, washing out screens, and drying) takes about an hour. A little less. Each layer of printing for 55 total prints takes an hour. It's good to know just how much time it all takes. I'm printing 55 because I know I'm likely to fudge up around 5 in a manner that makes them not worth gifting. I left the studio at around 1:30am. School is open till 2am most weekdays. 10pm on Friday and Saturday, which is STUPID. I got the Heather & Daniel side printed and the Jon side. Go me! I want to get all seven halves printed in the next 10. Spring break is coming fast and that is prime work time. I need to get a lot of work lined up. I want to get 10-20 prints done for thesis. 10 is easy, too easy. I'll probably achieve 15. But it would be GRAND to get 20. If I expose screens and count paper sheets at night, I can print straight through in the morning times. 7-11 is open work time because there are no printmaking classes that start before 11. I can get four layers done, if I can just manage to get up at 6am. Which I can do when it calls for it.

I'm half way done with Shades of Gray by Jasper Fford. Great audio book. Just powering through it. Though anything feels like "powering through it" after the epic Song of Fire and Ice series. Those were some long long books. Madeline is now listening to the audio books, so I have someone to chat with about them.

Got home. Put some rice on. Put that rice into sea weed snacks. Popped a beer. Chillaxed. I've earned it. Tomorrow is another mentor meeting. And yoga. And maybe more printing. Probably more printing. I should get as much done during the windows that I can find. I'll print one more half tomorrow, but expose five total screens, so that three are ready to go come another day. Having five screens is AWESOME.

Also my prints look REALLY GOOD. I'm very pleased with them.

Todays Portrait Is: Vincent Kartheiser.

pint hug sketch

Design for an image made with the intention of being applied to a 3D object. A wrap around image of a woman hugging the glass.

Behemoth Label

Behemoth Wine Label Concept.

Pen and digital color.

5 1/2"x8 1/2".

dang oh well

I made a to do list of things to do, and on that list was to make a bigger thesis specific to do list. Just to help me keep on top of things. Though I just marginally was on top of things today. Got my Odd Owl piece done. Did the dishes. Forgot to do laundry. I'll do that tomorrow. The day just sort of slipped away from me. Even though the pressure is on, it's still not...there yet.

Tomorrow I'll get some printing done. Just so I have those ready to go. I really like this Odd Owl piece. It's for their new CD.

I'm a champion day waster. I can't wait to be gainfully employed.

It's just this "I'll get serious...tomorrow..." cycle. But I have a massive working draft of the paper due soon so, I can't delay too much. Read more. Outline more. Uhg.

But my art is really coming together. That is good, yeah.

And my eyes are as good as healed, which is good. And my new debit card arrived. Huzzah.

Todays Portrait Is: Elisabeth Moss.

midterm review

Tonight is one of those nights where I don't want to write a thing. I just want to go to sleep or watch TV and chill. Thesis midterm. It is very stressful!

So I accidentally set my alarm to off instead of on. So I slept in. Still, that didn't hinder me too much. I showered. I ate some food (not a scramble though). Looked at my art books and my history books. Wrote some stuff down. Talked to Kristen. At 6 I went to school and ate some food. They provided a free lunch for us. It looked like Tyler Stout didn't even show, nor Adam Haynes. So all that fuss for nothing. Anyway, at 6:30 the reviews started. Mine didn't come around till 8:30, so I set up my studio for the meeting. Mostly putting things into a corner and moving the table out of the way. Then I scanned in some stuff and reprinted a couple things. Then I chilled for half an hour. My panel was Dan, Damien, and Kate. Some designers mostly.

So the review went pretty well. I got a lot of really helpful criticisms from Damien. Dan and Kate were nice. It was a good balance. Got the positives and the negatives. I got some better ideas for the sides of things. The portrait side is there, the conversation isn't. But I got lots of good ideas for how to bring up that conversation. So it was really helpful. It wasn't a disaster or too easy. So yeah, all that stress. And now I'm in a vaguely better place. I'm going to get on with printing the other side though. Just so I have those ready for when I resolve the other side.

Afterwards I went to Yur's. Damien, from my panel, was there as well as another panel member Nick. I sat with them and Dom (after sitting with some classmates who were drunker than me and I didn't feel like conversing with them at that time). They both had graduated from PNCA years ago, which was neat. We talked. I had a beer or two. People left. I joined the design major clan and hung with them and played their games. At after midnight I returned home.

It was a lot of stress, sure, but it ended up being all right. Now it seems like I won't have to do as much public people drawing. Whoo.

Todays Portrait Is: Jon Hamm.

drawn out and tacoed

I don't like how my alarm doesn't have an independent snooze alarm. So if it gets shut off and I fall back asleep, I get up less early than I wanted. I was still up earlier than normal. Made a to do list. Got to doing it. Did some portraits. Did some showering. Went to public spaces and drew people (park, coffee shop, Powell's). Need to draw more. Need to go places where there is a large flow coming and going. Went to the studios to pick up some stuff. Ended up talking with Dom and Sivonna. Pitched them my idea for a tv show. Basically it would be like the documentary format that The Office and Parks and Recreation are done it, but with artists in a studio space. They were on board. As were Beth and Antonia and Phil and Mel. Maybe the weekend or so after we defend, we'll just film ourselves and make a little pilot. Yeah! Also grabbed some free food. I ate a lot today. Thats good.

Went home. Did dishes. Cleaned room. Went to Trader Joe's and got taco supplies. Made tacos. Rollyn came over. Just for a little bit, as I had work to do. We ate tacos and watched Portlandia and I showed him some of the stuff I've been working on and the print portfolio. He liked my piece before I even said it was mine. Huzzah! Then he left and I did some more portraits. I'm so ahead, it is awesome. Which is good because after Midterms the only thing I'll be working on is the paper. Have to get that done. I'm way behind. And then its back to the art process. Time is running out...it runs so fast.

Right now...I think I'll read my book. Tomorrow I shall get my studio set up and think really hard about my thesis. Like, really hard. I'm in the last slot of the day (which, come to think of it, I can probably set up my studio in the time between the dinner and my meeting, it's really just rearranging and pinning stuff up, I'm not painting). It starts at 6, and my time isn't till 8:30. Still, I'll set my alarm and get up and be productive. I need to make a massive list of things to accomplish because right now I can't focus on all the stuff that I need to do. It hasn't been concreted. OH! That is what I'll do first thing tomorrow: itemize the next two months of my life.

Next week features Mad Men actors! Minus Allison Brie, who I will be drawing when I get to Community actors.

Todays Portrait Is: Giancarlo Esposito.

time to get real

Slept in. Had my toast and tea. Drew some portraits. Went to Trader Joe's. The Girl Scouts were there!! Only bought one box of Thin Mints. Which I will save for after my mid term review. Found out my panel for the review. Tyler Stout will not be on my, he will be on Jon's. BOO! I have some lady from Nordstrom, some dude from Adidas, and some other person on my panel. I don't know if I should be excited or what. I'm not really nervous though I think when it comes to actually preparing myself, I will be.

Went to school. Printed out my print layers. Finished printing the line work on the Robin layer. Exposed a new set of screens. Got 15 test posters done. Talked to Mel. The emulsion is down to the dredges, so I had to apply it using a card and not a trough. The emulsion is also going to crap and doesn't hold up under the pressure. Mel had some of hers wash out where they were not supposed to. Mine almost did, but I stopped with the hose just in time. Laaame. The posters look great though. Really love the look of them. Can't wait to get the panel input. I kind of am really happy with where the design is. Normally I remove the emulsion from my screen so that my screens are always clean, but I left it. So that if I get the go ahead, I can just print the rest and not have to reexpose. All though it isn't really a "go ahead" but I'd like to have it reaffirmed by other people. Though the people I've shown it to dig the way it looks. Can't wait to print more. Though I'm now realizing how much printing that will be. I asked Patsy if I can use some of her screens in her absence (shes in LA), and she said YES! So now I have five screens. I think the first step will be to print a ton of the flat color sides. Just print a whole ton of those suckers. Saves time on applying emulsion and exposing another screen and clean up later on. And if I can enlist some help and expose a couple screens, all the better. Each layer on an edition of 50 is just under an hours worth of work. I want to print 10-20 posters. Each one is 5 layers. So thats 5 hours a poster edition, so thats 50-100 hours worth of printing. I have seven portrait sides designed, and one concept for the anonymous side. So I have to do a lot more drawing as well. It's going to be work work work from here on out. At least I have five screens now! And lots of time thanks to being unemployed and part time. I think I caught enough sleep the first half of this semester.

Got home at around 11pm.

Oh and also I have to do that paper.

Dinner was a nice salad. Watched me some Parks and Recreation and drew stuff. Tomorrow I don't know quite what I'm up to, but I'm sure to be busy. Oh I think I invited Rollyn over for tacos. Hmm. Might have to cancel. But I really want tacos. I'll get up early. Incentive to be productive? Or should I be a grown up. Class before....dudes.

Todays Portrait Is: RJ Mitte.