plenty of pretty posters

Karen joined me for printing, and it was super fun. I used the dredges of one emulsion bucket to coat my screen, which ended up being a huge mistake. The dust got lodged in the emulsion and washed out when I washed out the stencil. This means that I had spots and dots where I didn't want them. So I removed the emulsion. Karen coated another screen using the good emulsion, and that would have worked perfectly if she hadn't put the stencil on the exposure unit backwards. Silly Karen! Coated another screen, which ended up having the detail wash out after I exposed it. Don't know why it was having so much problems, but anyway, we just traded off printing on the one worked screen and it went really fast. And as we both could take breaks, neither of us got overly exhausted and weary. Chatted and had a good ol' time.

Total poster count: 275.

I have some of just the text, and some of just the figure. I'm going to pull some for keeps but the rest I will mail to Carmen tomorrow. I'll miss all my hard work.

Afterwards it was Chipotle time! I covered Karen and she is going to cover me on a meal next week when I help her print. We were able to enjoy about an hour of good day light.

Went back home. Watched Justified. Switched from Firefox (which kept freezing whenever I tried to upload a photo and video was really shaky) to Google Chrome. Now my browser feels as fast as the rest of my computer. Wheee!

It took a long time to sign and edition all my posters. I went through them first just counting 1...2...45...46...89...101..130..157..199..220...234..235...270...275....just to make sure I had the correct amount, and was happy to find I did. So much printing. But they came out really nice.

beat by the squeegee

Ahh so bloomin' exhausted.

I wanted to be out the door at 1, but left at 2. The school didn't close till probably 10pm, so no biggie. Had breakfast, washed my hair. Now that my hair is so long, I don't like washing it. Takes so much time and it dries poofy.

Anyway. I decided to put both images on the screen and try to print two posters in one swoop. It went well until I got to printing. The pulls were not coming up. So instead of struggling, I cleaned off my screens and started fresh with just one single Odd Owl layer on a screen. It took twice as long to print, but it was largely flawless printing. The colors went from turquoise to dark blue to light blue to gray green to rich green back to a gray green, and finally a nice pastel. A really nice color story through that layer. I used up five things of left over ink, ink that would probably be washed down the sink once it goes bad. Counting off the posters, there were 277 of them. I printed about 50 every 25 minutes or so. A lot of work to do by myself, but I had the radio and company. Karen was around, as was Tabitha. Karen said she would help me print tomorrow, and even if she does it for an hour, that will be an hour where I am printing twice as many. It looks good. I'm very happy with it. Sure it sucked having to redo the emulsion, but while that was drying I cut paper and ate lasagna.

My legs hurt so much right now. I took the streetcar home. I was just not up for the ride back. Katie made clam chowder. I took a small bowl of it and used it as dipping material for bread. Mmm. Watched Lost, great episode. I wish there was more Richard in the show in general, I really like his actor (Nestor Carbonell, he plays Batmanuel in the live action version of The Tick). Then I watched Pee Wee's Big Adventure. So fun. Hit the spot so well. I can't quite believe it came out in 1985.

More printing tomorrow. Whoo.

OH! Some dingbat totally left a scoop full of emulsion out. If Tabitha hadn't have caught it, it may have damaged what was a new scoop. People are so all over the place. Have to have some responsibility for messes! Argh.

crippling hand pain or "Go Love Yourself"

My bed is so cozy. Spring break feels good. And this time I don't have food poisoning!

Spent the day drawing insane detail in the lady. It takes a long time to do all the detail. A really. Long. Time. Fun though, just time consuming. I'm happy with the way it turned out though. Can't wait to print tomorrow! Going to eat breakfast, make a sandwich, and go print my heart out.

I could possibly fit two images on one screen, but that might cause more registration problems than it is worth. I also wouldn't have to cut the posters just yet. Something to think about. Hmmn.

Watched the first two episodes of the new HBO miniseries The Pacific, and Six Feet Under. HBO is pretty much awesome.

At 7pm, Deanne, Karen, and Robin may or may not have come over to wheat paste. I may or may not have made a huge batch of glue. We may or may not have piled into her VW Bug and set out into down town. We certainly didn't stop at an abandoned building. We didn't put posters up on walls we shouldn't have. Or place them near max stops. Or cover a newspaper dispenser. We certainly didn't giggle like little girls and hop around in joy at our doings. We certainly didn't learn about how to paste more efficiently. No not at all. And Robin certainly didn't keep an eye out for the po-po.

Roxy is closed on Monday, so we went to Santeria. Got a plate of nachos and chips. Super tasty end of game meal. Went back to the Goose. I washed our materials, we chilled for a bit, then parted ways. Great time was spent certainly not doing anything suspicious.

poster layers

Saturday:

A really do nothing day. Katie was out and about so I was in the apartment alone. Sat on the balcony a bit. Brilliant sunny day. Karen came over a little after six. We had a beer and chatted. Phil came over at around 8 and we all played a few quick rounds of Munchkin. Amazing how the rules came flooding back. Next came Halo. And Star Wars. Katie came home. The night wore long and I just went to bed instead of blogging.

Sunday:

Tidied apartment. Watched a lot of Six Feet Under. At least 7 episodes. Breaking Bad is back and the episode was a great season starter. Exciting, resolved some stuff, brought up promises of a great new season. And I sat and worked on my poster. It is amazing how this:

takes almost four hours to do. Maybe more. I wasn't keeping track. Ages to draw the font to scale within an 11x17 section. A careful hand to outline. An even carefuller hand to fill in the spaces with ink. The L is totally too heavy and I'm not sure about the W. The lines are uneven, but an organically drawn type will look a lot better printed than one I found on the Internet and blown up. But yeah, took a long long time. Compared to this:
Which took about an hour to draw the body and I'm only about an hour into working. The figure will overlap the text in a two color poster print. I think it will have a cool effect. I'll be adding a lot of linework in her dress, legs, and hair, but there will be no flat blacks. Even the lines around the figure are not fully filled in. It is a lot of fun and I can't wait to start printing it. I think I'll start that process on Tuesday. Hopefully print one layer each day.

My drawing set up is a drawing board that sort of rests in the nook between my desk drawer and the top, and balanced against my waist. I reach over the board to get ink, or fiddle with my computer. My chair is not a good height for me. I oh so wish I had space for a proper drawing desk, but I so rarely work big.


myspace.com/oddowl

doomington

I had this intense cinematic dream about anarchists and punks in Montreal. Then I dreamed I was in Homeland and we had a discussion about what we had just witnessed in the dream, and we decided that the character of Tito was definitely a hipster.

Woke up at 1pm.

Showered, went to the Goose Hollow office and got my package from mom. See's chocolates! Special St. Patty's ones. Had to eat breakfast before I allowed myself to consume them. But once I had some oatmeal, mmm good chocolate.

Then I wasted the rest of the day. I was going to go wheat pasting with Karen but she canceled. I cleaned my room. I bought toilet paper, some food, juice, and lasagna fixings.

Made a delicious lasagna.

I think there will be Munchkin tomorrow. Also productivity.

spring breaaak!

SPRING BREAK!!

The class was fairly empty, considering it was fun fun ink day. I quite liked some of what I did. More learning about Luther. Last night I accidentally left my sketchbook in the scanner at school. Thankfully it was right where I left it.

Illustration met at Martin's studio/gallery space. Madeline and I walked there together. Beautiful day. It is all sunny and stuff. Really tidy and perfect looking. He bought us coffee and doughnuts. What a nice guy. Those of us that had work to show, put it up one by one for review. A lot of people were at random stages. Some were still sketching. Morgaine had two beautiful paintings. They dug my Odd Owl work. Can't wait to get to drawing. Once I get some rest first though...

Bought two sketchpads of lightweight paper to print posters on. I'm going to cut them in half so the posters will be 12x18. Since I was near school, I carefully rode to school and plopped them in my flat file. Snagged a couple sheets to take home with me, so I can work to scale.

Went home. Ate food. Relaxed. Some of my classmates were getting a beer after class, but I declined. Gotta save my money. Art supplies and food. That is it. If I refuse 10 invitations to go out, then that will be the same cost as my new hard drive about. So I've refused two now (Karen asked a few days ago). Eight more!

Talked to mom and dad on the phone for a long while. Watched the first half of Beautiful Losers on Netflix instant watch.

Went to school for a Goose Hollow movie and dinner thing, that ended up being only JP, Robin, Jess, Diana and myself. Still, we had a lot of pizza and drinks and we watched Wet Hot American Summer, which was hilarious. Pretty much a modern Airplane! just set at a summer camp. That was cool.

It was a nice ride back home. Hurrah! Now sleep.

four by four

I love sleep.

Put my hair in braids so that when I take them out tomorrow morning, my hair will be super wavy and awesome.

Homeland had two presentations about Place. Travis showed a lot of Internet based artists, who do work with staging things as the Google van goes by, so when you do street view on Google Maps, you go past people sword fighting and all that. Kirsten did hers on street artists like Barry McGee and Margaret Killgallen. Pretty cool. Lunch came fast.

Enlarged my Odd Owl pieces on the photocopier to see how they will turn out. They turned out quite awesome. Not sure if they are the most eye catching from a distance, but they do look good.

We feebly talked about the book, and then got onto a tangent about place and manufacturing and migrant workers and suburbs and communities and lots of things. That was a productive conversation. Heather shared her snacks with our corner. I should bring snacks next time because I mooched a bit much.

Heather did a piece about this cliff in Port Townsend. Really beautiful stitch work, but it had some questions about the artist statement that accompanied it. It is this cliff that people throw things off of. Never heard of the cliff, but it was a cool piece. Another girl, who has a name I can't remember, did a print about the seasons. Each was from the same block which depicted evergreens and it called attention to how in many places the seasons are not like pictures books, and in fact don't change. There were four prints and under each had a different season hand written. Matt recorded audio from his walk and we listened to the trudge of the path he took. Nature is really noisy if you listen right. It was a good recording, and even though it wasn't a planned scenario, there was a great build up through it. Lana overlapped stock footage of Alaska and footage of her body and dubbed it with narration of her last trip to her parents place. It was also neat.

The final project in class is time based. We either have to affect a 4x4 foot place over an extended period of time, or research and report a community. I think I'll go the 4x4 route, as I have ideas already.

I scanned and tweaked and emailed Carmen the Odd Owl posters. Yoga was a lot of stretches. Nothing too harsh. I'll be sad to be without it during spring break.

Home! Took some reference photos of Katie. Not doing a picture of Katie, she is just a good model. Watched Six Feet Under. Sketched. Relaxed. Tomorrow is a short day. Whoo!

Odd Owl - Venue Poster - Hoist 2

Drawn at 5.5"x8.5". To be printed at 11"x17".

myspace.com/oddowl

Micron on bristol paper, with photoshop simplification.

odd Owl - Venue Poster - Hoist 1

Drawn at 5.5"x8.5". To be printed at 11"x17".

myspace.com/oddowl

Micron on bristol paper, with photoshop simplification.

Odd Owl - Venue Poster - Balloons

Drawn at 5.5"x8.5". To be printed at 11"x17".

myspace.com/oddowl

Micron on bristol paper, with photoshop simplification.

hoot air balloon

What a darn sluggish morning. But my computer is working beautifully. Love it.

We had a tiki themed first hour and a half of figure drawing. Morgan brought in props and put on music of the era. He told us to be Gauguin. He told me to be less De Kooning. Then for the second half of class we returned to World Lit Only By Fire and the model tied her hair up with a sash. I really don't like this model. She constantly shifts and only faces the front of the room. It is hard work to hold a pose, but she moves her foot and hand every minute it seems. Even I can do better than that. In the book we are to Martin Luther. Who knew he was so fascinating?

Silk screen had discussion and meeting with Christy. Christy talked about how I was being really productive and we talked about my Odd Owl project and where to get paper for it. It was a favorable review. It's good to be in good favors.

I chilled at student council for the free lunch. Mmm.

I left my sweater in the figure drawing room and during lunch there was a meeting in there, which became a class with what seemed like to break in between. Then another class used the room! But that class was composition and Antonia was in it and she showed up in the print studios and I dashed to get my sweater. In retrospect, I didn't have to dash.

Ran into BT. I got into the Bearfight anthology! I will be all published along other artists and stuff. It will be awesome. Whoo!

I spent silk screen sketching. I didn't have anything lined up to print, but I still loitered because I am far more productive there. And I got some real inspiration for the final Odd Owl poster. Checked out Beasts and Beasts 2 from the library. Very inspirational books. So much great art in them.

Scanned some stuff. Emailed some stuff. Then I escorted Karen to the hair salon. Mostly to hang out and talk. We made a pinky swear: if she starts stuffing her hair into a pony tail again, and thus putting this kink in her hair she can't get out, Karen will cut her hair chin length in a style full of pizazz. She always ties her hair back out of convenience and it destroys the structure of her hair, so it takes a lot of effort to undo that. So if I catch her in a pony tail outside of letter press, she will have to cut her hair in a fabulous way to keep her from that damaging pony tail style. Uhm. Yeah. Anyway.

Went home. Ate a tuna fish sandwich. Drew Odd Owl fliers. Watched Lost, episode of Six Feet Under, and the new FX show Justified with Timothy Olyphant. He plays a Marshall in a cool hat that kicks butt but has questionable morals. Solid enough first episode.

Sleep time!

what I wore - march 15 & 16

What I wore on the days of March 15th and 16th, 2010.

Digital color over micron sketch.

reborn as the Heart of Gold

My computer had the same error this morning, and when it came to logging into Marvin, it froze. So I turned it off and went to school.

Chloe and I paced each other for most of the way to school, but she pulled ahead at the Everett stop light. The class size was about half what it usually was. Guess people didn't have their papers to turn in. Unfortunately, I was unable to get to the reading so I was totally lost in class. The trusty MFA's held up the non-Adam Arolla end of the conversation. Those two are real champs.

Oh, turns out Elizabeth, the lady I was going to help screen print on Friday (but she was too sick and had to cancel), was in my class the whole time. Who knew? Well, obviously I didn't know. But that was cool. Her project idea has changed, so I told her my offer still stands as long as she gives me a week notice.

So yeah, couldn't follow the discussion more than usual. But now I have two weeks to devote to the essay, and it is about art! So yay.

Oh, a few days ago I finally got around to replacing my bike seat. It feels so different...sturdy and stiff. Needs to be broken in. Still, did that all by myself. And the seat was really well secured.

After class, Leo and I planned to have our meeting with Adam. The meetings are just one on ones to determine what we are getting and so he can relate. But he never showed, even though we talked to him right as class ended. But I got to talk to Leo, the only illustration major in my class that I don't know that well. So that was cool. Still, sucked that Adam was a no show.

At 1pm, Karen picked me up outside the school. Today was our afternoon out! She swung by the bank and then it was off the the sprawl by the airport. Best Buy and Ikea meatballs awaited. I went to the computer department, made eye contact with a tech guy and before he could talk down to me I said "I need a serial ATA 2.5 inch hard drive with a preferred 7200 RPm". And he was all, "well they are right over here". I had three options: speed with medium size upgrade, huge size up grade but same speed, medium size upgrade with no speed. I opted for speed. My baby will need all it can get if she is to last for at least two more years. The size is actually equal to that of my failing external hard drive. I don't know why it (my hard drive) suddenly took a dive. Sucks, it should be a solid piece of equipment, not some lump that maybe you can get a file off of. Oh well.

So yeah, new hard drive. 7200RPM, 16mb cache, 320GB of space. Western Digital Black Scorpion. Mmm nice.

Over meatballs and cake, Karen and I had a long and great discussion about what we would do if were were teaching illustration, how important it is to have teachers tell you what is working and what just isn't, how great printmaking is, and just general catching up. We haven't had the most one on one time since school started. It was a really great meal. She bought a plant.

After Ikea, we stopped by Artist's Edge. Karen bought some clayboard for art projects. Then back to school. We chilled in her studio. Talked some more. Then it was the parting of ways for I had yoga and she had whatever she had to do.

It was an exceptionally nice day, so it seemed like some of the yoga attendees had vanished. The normally packed class had only 7 people. Still, it is nice to have a smaller group. A lot of twists and bends. Low lunge count, which makes me happy.

Clear ride home. Backed up the last of my music. Started my laundry and then it was computer go time. Removed the battery. Removed the screws. Pulled out the hard drive. Took out more screws. Put the new hard drive into the old hard drive holding thingie. Screwed that in. Turned computer on. Put in re-installation software. And it was smooth sailing. Vista booted up perfectly fine. Got it back on the Internet with some help from Katie. Actually, Katie's help has been huge. The fact that she loaned me space on her computer for my files and helped me painstakingly transfer them USB by USB. Such a great girl.

The only holes right now are some of the drivers and settings. I'll get that sorted out. Also I am missing the Microsoft Office Suite. So I can't open Word. That needs to get resolved pretty quick.

But all in all, I did it! I got new hardware installed with my own two hands, put everything back in order, and it is so insanely fast. Go me!

My two accounts are now Marvin and Arthur Dent. Arthur is the back up admin, which I shouldn't need for years.

the lesser of two fails

Blogging now so that I have no worries about it later in the night.

Totally failed at getting a jump on the day.

Because my computer failed. It turned on with an error saying there was no hard drive, and so I did the whole boot thing that I had no choice in the matter of doing. I didn't want to restart the computer from an iffy screen just in case something was wrong. It revived itself and everything seemed fine, but I know that my hard drive is obviously on the way out. I am taking preemptive matters and spent the day backing up. I slowly on USB sticks transferred files from my computer to Katie's. Took hours. I'm not even done yet. It sucks. Tomorrow, in between class and yoga, I plan to go to Best Buy and replace the hard drive. Once everything is backed up, I will replace the hard drive and reboot.

Bleh.

But it is working for now. I'm just expecting it to stop working every time I turn it off and on.

Pasta, cookies, oatmeal. Slacking off way too bad on the essay. I'm just not into this line of thinking. And the reading is impossible for me to wrap my brain around. Just not mentally into it. Oh well. Not like I have a choice. Well I have a choice, but that choice is failing. I'll take failing just a little less...

hoot hoot

I hate when I have a good working rhythm and how, as much as I would like to stay up working, I know I should sleep just to try to keep a rhythm.

And now it is daylight savings, so it is actually 4:22am. Dang.

Another day of questing for cookies. The locater said REI and Safeway were stake out places for Girl Scouts, but neither had those little ladies of the thin mint and Samoa. Trader Joe's however had a nice lady and her cute daughter and a while pile of thing mints. I did some shopping first and then it was cookie time! Five boxes should last me a couple months. Just need to forget they are sitting in my freezer all delicious like. Thanks to Chelsey for the tip off that they might be there. Hurrah!

I have three accounts on my computer: two administrator and one guest. I have a backup admin in case something bad happens to the main account that I work off of. It is good to have a second one so that you can work on the other without having to go through any permission popups because the account is low ranking. Anyway, my main account is Trillian and the secondary is Marvin. Trillian had this glitch with the vista anti virus and it refused to open anything in case it was a virus, then it just seized up when an update was installed and refused to even to do desktop. Totally useless. So I went into Marvin, which was thankfully unaffected, and took all the picture, video, word, and other files from Trillian and put them onto this account. I installed Firefox and my instant messenger and lost all my Internet bookmarks in the change, but things are running a lot smoother. There are some last clearing of files I need to do, but soon I will delete Trillian all together. Hopefully removing that diseased limb off my computer will make it run even smoother. My next admin will be Arthur. I really need to reboot all together, unfortunately my external hard drive is also suffering connectivity issues. Bleeeh.

Watched Inglorious Basterds and worked on my Odd Owl posters. I am working on them at one half scale. They will be 11x17 promotional fliers, so I'm drawing at 5 1/2x8 1/2. Just straight micron pen over a sketch. I'll be doing a series, so they will all be rendered the same way. They two I am working on tonight are a match set. Each one has the same band name placement and features an owl holding a band member as it flies away. I am really liking them and look forward to enlarging them to see how they hold up.

Time to sleep. I'll set my alarm so that I don't pass out till 2pm. Reading and essay writing tomorrow. Bwwah.

trilly the moocher

My computer starting having problems. The Vista anti virus seemed to have an issue that I had chosen another anti virus program over it. Now it keeps popping up. I restarted and it refused to let me open the internet because the internet program itself was unstable. I installed some Microsoft update and that is stalled on one of my accounts. I'm using the backup admin acount dubbed Marvin until I can sort this stuff out. Bleh.

Slept way way in. Like, till 1pm. Didn't know I was that tired.

Made myself a massive bacon and eggs breakfast. This diet change is why I'm getting all soft around the edges. I'll have to add some more serious exercise into my routine soon.

Katie and I caught the 4:25 showing of The Crazies. It was one of those gray days that made a horror movie so fitting. It had a really awesome moment where Olyphant's character was stabbed through the hand and he pulled his out of the floor and, knife still through his hand, he grabbed the infected person who was going to kill his wife. It was AWESOME.

The Girl Scouts were not outside Safeway, like the website said they would. I'll be mad if I miss my cookies.

Then we watched at home The Signal. Another horror movie told in three parts, each part had a different director but the same cast and plot extended over all the parts. It was pretty rad.

The movie ran into our getting prepared time. Our getting prepared time for karaoke with Karen and BT and the others. I applied eyeliner and lipstick and gold eyeshadow and put on a different outfit. Set out at 9:15. Caught the blue right on time, the yellow took 15 minutes, and in the end it took us almost an hour to get from The Goose to The Alibi in NorthEast. Still, Karen would be giving us a ride home so all was good. I didn't sing. I don't find it fun. I just ordered a whiskey and had a good time with my friends. Cheered on Karen, BT, and Katie when they sang. Ann Marie say Minnie the Moocher. It was awesome. So yeah, had a good time.

BT drove us home. My computer is still all weird. I'll deal with it tomorrow. Call Nathan or something.

Hidehidehidehi (hidehidehidehi)
hodehodehodeho (hodehodehodeho)

trillian as a bike commuter: 89 portland weather: 1 (snow)

Oops, started to drift off and remembered I never posted.

Horrible slow groggy morning. Wanted to get to school early so I could sort through my figure work to show Morgan. Got to school through the misting rain about 4 minutes early. Not so bad though, as it is ink day. We played with dipping string in ink. In my meeting with Morgan, he told me to play more on ink days and work more on drawing days. Play harder, not play harder. Force the extremes in both directions and I will "get my chops back". So for the remainder of class I slopped ink around and had a good time.

Adam Haynes, a pretty successful illustrator, came into class. His work was brilliant and just...wow. And the turn around on the pieces was just a couple days, of course these were probably 5 days of solid work. Anyway, he was really cool and friendly. Kevin, Dom, Josh, Janessa, Danny and I talked with him into lunch break. Finally too starved to continue, I said goodbye. It is so great to get actual working artists in. Really shows how the process works if you work it.

Just got mac & cheese and jo jos from Safeway and ate with Dom and Michaela in the library.

It rained all day. It is still raining.

Rest of class was open work time. I showed Martin my images first, and I was the last to leave at around 5:20. He really liked my Odd Owl concepts and encouraged me to develop the text and really think about graphic and details. So that is what I did for the rest of class. I asked Mia about making my own alphabet, drew out text, worked on the development book final project for class (it is just a sort of pdf portfolio for class), chatted with Dom, and ate a Kit Kat. I stayed all the way through, even though I could have left at 2pm.

Well I also wanted to get Girl Scout Cookies, but I decided the rain wasn't worth the detour and I would get them at Safeway tomorrow.

Spent the rest of the day inside, watching stuff, emailing people, and unwinding. Katie returned from her Eugene minibreak.

Last week and then SPRING BREAK!! Next week:
-essay and one on one discussion with teacher in Existentialist Phenomenology
-nothing for Homeland besides reading
-nothing for The Figure
-come up with new silk screen idea
-black and white promotional images for Odd Owl

Trillian's Sketchbook - Volume 2 - Portraits

Silk screen on flimsy paper. Images pulled from my sketchbook.

lots of open time

Oh damn the time escaped me again.

I got to school only to find out our mid term meetings were just with the teacher and we wouldn't be doing anything except for waiting. Sometimes they still have us practice drawing or watch a movie while they call us out and give us out fates. My meeting was at 1:10. I could have majorly slept in. Oh well. Had time to eat and mess around on the net.

Sat with Tabitha, Cherish, and Sandra. The latter two are doing this detox thing and can only drink this lemonade mix. Poor ladies.

My meeting with Daniel went pretty well. I'm showing up, doing the work, and talking. That tends to lead to success.

Then it was do nothing time again. Well I sketched for Odd Owl. Then it was off to Museum of Contemporary Craft!

There was a show he wanted us to see and we had a chance to talk to Bill Gilbert, his former teacher. Mostly a talk about having a place in the art world and all that. He seemed pretty cool. We got out of class early because it was required to see Bill Gilbert talk at 6:30 tonight.

I rode my bike to Powell's in search of Wendigo myths. None could be found, and the general Native American myth section was lacking. I did pick up The Children's Hospital by Chris Adrian. I had spied it a year ago (it has a really nice cover) and now it was on sale! Thanks to some directions from the cashier, I made my way downtown in search of Nike Town. Unfortunately I was mistaken. The Girl Scouts will be outside Nike Town tomorrow from 4-6, not today. Damn!

Finished my morning burrito at school. Yoga was only three people, including myself. On Monday it is around 15, and that gets crowded. Anyway, it was nice not having it so full up. The lizard pose really screwed up my knees for a few minutes. I couldn't hold the lunges.

Yoga ran a little bit into the lecture, but I still caught it. Bill Gilbert is rad! He teaches this land art and ecology class at Uni New Mexico. It is part of their sustainability program. He takes students on these long week to three weeks expeditions into the west. They visit Spiral Jetty, Grand Canyon and all these other spots and do art on location. His slide show was so cool. I want to do a road trip really bad right now.

Rode home. Sketched Odd Owl. Watched White Collar (wow really bad explosion effects) and Quantum Leap (and the episode had a young Willie Garson, who plays Mozzie in White Collar).

Tomorrow is going to be a Billy Tea type of morning.

Bear Fight!!

Bear vs Pickle Jar Lid.

6"x7.25"

Ink and micron pen.

Casey is on the Case

I am so tired of waking up at 3am in a state and trying to figure out what to wear because it is a formal day and taking fifteen minutes to figure out it isn't a formal day and then crawling back into bed only to get out of it in four hours. Uhg.

Had an egg and bacon breakfast. Lugged a new sketchpad to school. We are doing long poses while Morgan does midterm art reviews. Hard to believe it is midterm already. I gotta get started on my puppet! Liked a couple of my long poses.

During break, I scanned by Bear Fight submission. Bear Fight is this art collection BT is putting together. It is focused around bears fighting something. My bear is fighting a pickle jar lid. I like the piece very much. Still need to do something for Rainbow's France show.

Silk screen had a wheat pasted slide show and some review of our work.

In the library for lunch I ate my last remains of lasagna. So good. Read an article. Walked to Safeway. Got ear swabs and $20 for Girl Scout Cookie cash. I will find some and I will BUY SOME GOSH DARN THIN MINTS!! Tomorrow they are supposed to be outside Nike Town from 4-6, so in the 5-5:30 break between class and yoga I will have my sweet sweets.

After lunch we talking about subculture, graffiti, posters, "selling out", how Canadian artists live on 13-40k a year on average, and other things. It was a good chat.

Hold on a second, I need to bang my stick against the ceiling. Okay that stopped now. So annoying!

I sorted out some printing stuff and did some school errands. I didn't have anything to print so I helped Anthea pull. Casey was paper feeder, Chelsey was paper-put-on-drying-rack-er. We had issues because the emulsion had begun to crack a bit from the strain of hundreds of prints. Do the BFK edition first, the massive edition second. Some of the pulls were good, some not so much. The registration was decent though. I messed up Caseys name. I called her Cassie. So hard, I don't know why I can't remember which it is.

Robin replaced Chelsey. Anthea leaves Portland on Thursday. I'll miss her.

I stuffed a lot of the art that has long been collecting dust in my locker into a portfolio and rode my bike home with the thing over my shoulder. Tricky thing to maneuver. Really slows a bike girl down. Thankfully it wasn't too windy.

Jon W. had invited me to hang out, but didn't get around to calling me till 9:30, at which point I had already given my night to Karen and BT. They gave over to chill. I made popcorn. We talked about movies mostly and Karen and I were shocked, nay, HORRIFIED at some of BT's opinions. I'm not even going to mention what he thought was more visually appealing than some other movie. It was just...too much.

They left. I'm so excited to sleep in, even just a little bit.

pickle fight

Was unable to cook a breakfast for myself. Had such a restless night sleep.

I was more lost in class today than usual. There were many long pauses after Adam asked questions. The discussion was sort of there but not really. Yeah. Not much else to say.

Check out a Lucian Freud, Alex Katz, Beijing fashion, and bird book. Scanned some stuff. Went home. Ate lasagna. Watched Dead Like Me. Wrote out my week to do list. Figured out when and where the local Girl Scouts will sell their cookies. I need me some thin mints.

Hard to get enthusiasm on Mondays. Went to school for yoga. My nose got super runny. I might have allergies (seeing as how everyone asks if I have them) but I'll just take an antihistamine instead of figuring out what is really wrong. I like yoga when we stretch more than the parts that rely on strength.

Returned. Ate pasta. Watched stuff. Shot some emails back and forth about Odd Owl. I am so excited!

I'm really running out of ways to describe my days.

Odd Owl - early sketches

Some really quick and preliminary sketches for the Odd Owl poster which will be my next illustration project.

www.myspace.com/oddowl

Micron in sketchbook.

Stephen Fry 4 - Technophile

Stephen Fry final for Illustration Fall 09. Stage Four: Technophile.

Black, sepia, and gold ink on paper.

taxed or "I love you more than rainbows"

Set the alarm so my body wouldn't be adjusted to a 1pm wake up.

I was so very slow to start my day. Sort of read Cogito. Sort of sketched. At 4:15 I decided that I was better off leaving the house to work instead of sitting about avoiding it. So I took my sketchbook to Mission Theater and Pub to join the masses in watching the Oscars.

I first looked at spots on the balcony but didn't like it, so I went downstairs. I moved around a bit and eventually joined a nice lady at a table (she was waiting for a few friends). You don't go to an open viewing and not be social. I sketched Odd Owl and some of the stars on the red carpet show. Bought a burger and a pint of Porter.

It was really fun watching the Oscars with a huge group of people. We booed and hissed at the woman who won for Costume. She was so ungracious! There were claps for Waltz winning best supporting actor. No one cared about District 9. Sharlto Copley got so little screen time (about a second). I thought it was funny how Kathryn Bigelow was seated right in front of her ex husband James Cameron. It was made even a little be more funny how her film Hurt Locker won awards that Avatar was nominated for. Every time there was a shot of her happy, there he was in the background. She even won for director and Hurt Locker won best movie. Girl power! I teared up a little at the John Hughes tribute, and wondered why Twilight was in the horror montage (and why they kept THAT SCENE from Misery, you know the one I mean). The sentiment in one speech that practicing the arts isn't a waste of time was wonderful. Sandra Bullock had the best speech overall, and it was really surprising she won. I didn't understand the musical number. Popping and locking does not go with Hurt Locker. I got a few pages of sketches and had some good time to think.

Then back home and time to do my taxes. I filled them out entirely twice in the deluxe version by accident. It is supposed to be free but it kept asking me for $66. I eventually figured out how to get into the free section and finally filed my lovely pitiful taxes.

Now to draw more owls and start another school week.

ants on a log in a bog receding into fog

Just looked at the clock and saw it was 1:49am. Time to blog and sleep!

Pile of bacon, eggs, and plain old buttered toast for breakfast. Big champion hearty no need to eat while working breakfast.

Then I went to school to print! My ideal was two colors at the minimum. I managed to knock down all three in four and a half hours!

I made the green celery layer from a combination of two premade inks that were very viscous. I used some transparent base to make them more usable. That layer went really smooth. I was printing almost the whole size of my screen and had no pressure problems. Guess I am getting stronger.

Carmen was working in the studio, as was Pilar and Lynda Wysong I believe. Christy was printing clear ink on the back of paper to prevent it from curling.

I am doing a three color reductive print, so I used the drawing fluid to draw the peanut butter layer and sat back and read and let it dry, then applied emulsion and let that dry. Then exposed it and washed out the drawing fluid, which blocked the emulsion so it came off where I wanted to print.

The brown for the peanut butter came mixed right off the shelf. Perfect! Another smooth printing run. Did the emulsion steps for the raisins. Put on the mix CD that is always in the CD player.

Carmen asked me for my opinion on her piece and I said it looked like an architectural plan had imploded. She said that was what she was going for.

While waiting for the raisin layer to dry, I computered it up a bit. That layer went just as well. The purple came right off the shelf, but I had to add a little transbase to get it moving. All in all, the Ants on a Log print turned out to my liking. If it is recognizable as being what it is...I will find out.

Home! Six Feet Under! Relaxing!

At 6:40, Katie and I departed for hot wings. Phil met us outside the Goose and we caught the Red Max to the Yellow Transfer. Then took the Yellow to Fire on the Mountain on Interstate. Took a long time getting there, but the wings and company (BT and Karen) were worth it. Tots, fries, and onion rings were also ordered. I didn't get spicy, just BBQ flavor and water for me. Actually, Katie bought my wings because she ate some of my lasagna. How nice.

BT drove us back to Phil's place (who lives a few blocks from us). Karen collected her houseplants. Phil and Andy have a huge apartment. HUGE!

I sort of got us (Katie and I) sidetracked on the way back to our apartment. There is a freeway between Phil's place and the Goose and I went the way that doesn't cross the freeway. Still, it was a good night for walking.

Spent my night cutting out the celery, peanut butter, and raisins. So much cutting...

Tomorrow is Odd Owl drawing day. Hurray!

Stephen Fry 3 - Host

Stephen Fry final for Illustration Fall 09. Stage Three: Host.

Black, sepia, and gold ink on paper.

the metalheads return

Ahh Friday. Sweet, blessed Friday.

You betcha I slept in.
You betcha I ate lasagna.
You betcha I watched Six Feet Under.

I also started sketching out some preliminary ideas for Odd Owl. Just some owls and this lady. Nothing major. Took a bath. Read the Esquire article about Ebert. Got really sad about the article.

At 9ish, Katie and I headed towards Burnside. We knocked on Mel's window. Katie went to The Matador to get a table and I waited with Mel while she got some boots on. A night for a couple drinks with pals. Pals being Katie's high school friend Jeff, Leah, and Leah's Texas friends and metalhead roommates who were at Karen's party. Had some drinks, a lot fewer drinks than the metalheads who were swirling hair about and going "YEEEAHHH". The art students on our end of the table chatted, I don't know what those guys were talking about. I drew on a napkin, Mel joined. Gossiped a little bit. It was fun. Mel and I bounced after Matador though. It was midnight and didn't want to leave all the apartment cleaning to Melissa.

Tomorrow I shall print up a storm! My goal is two colors. Ideal would be three.

blaaah

Had a good ink day in class. We mostly played with scale on the page. The last drawing(s) was/were to draw multiple figures together so they would recede into space and all that. I drew all 16 poses in one composition. Looked pretty awesome.

Critique in illustrated lasted from 11am to about 4pm! Ahh so long. Spent a good amount of time on every piece. Had some great discussion about intent and place in the market and how things work as a portfolio. My critique went decent. Not too bad, not like "oh wow this is amazing". It worked and that was enough. Nothing really failed in class, and there were some dynamic images (Josh and Janessa have great use of color). It was long. Martin bought us milk and cookies. Don't know what else to say. Very draining.

Ate my lasagna for lunch. Sat with JP. There was karaoke in the commons. Wayne Bund killed it as Tina Turner.

Then I talked nerdy with Dominic and Kim and Michaela.

Long long critique.

Next project is Odd Owl for Carmen. I'm really excited for that. That is something that will be more art and composition focus.

Went home. Just sort of crashed for the rest of the day. There was more karaoke at Chopsticks but I didn't feel like biking to 27th and Burnside. I hate crossing on Burnside. Have to do some screenprinting and reading this weekend but that seems about it. Back to sketching for Illustration, a break for Figure assignment (my piece got on the wall and Martin complimented it). Yeah. That will be nice. I love printing so it doesn't feel like homework really.

Today is First Thursday. Can't be bothered.

Stephen Fry 2 - College & Actor

Stephen Fry final for Illustration Fall 09. Stage Two: College and Actor.

Black, sepia, and gold ink on paper.

Stephen Fry 1 - Youth

Stephen Fry final for Illustration Fall 09. Stage One: Youth.

Black, sepia, and gold ink on paper.

miss understanding

Great news! I didn't fall asleep during class!

Sucky news was there was a major misunderstanding based on things I saw and said and what really happened and I admitted my mistake and made amends but it still sort of sucked and put a damper on the day. Don't want to go into details because now is the time to work past it but argh.

Looked at folk/craft art slides. Tabitha talked about some painters and this lady who hauled stumps from the rain forest to call attention to climate destruction and all that (never mind the amount of damage she did removing the stumps and transporting them to London).

Flipped through Sight & Sound during lunch. Apparently Touching the Void, the rock climbing video we watched in class a few weeks ago, is one of their top 30 films of the decade. Cool.

Joey did a piece where he had a cell phone photo of this url he found, a projection of this video of a guy chugging a 40 (that was what the url linked to, it was filmed at the spot where the url was inscribed) and a map quest shot of the area. We had a long discussion about relics and documentation and how watching the five minute video made us sick because he just chugged and coughed...uhhg.

My critique went decent enough. The main complaint was that there were not enough positive cards to assign to the places, and that 8 different opinion cards was not enough. I said that if there were more, people would still be limited to what they had in their hands. We played the rounds and talked about it through the rounds and how while some places get this majority opinion there are still the minor opinions that exist. "Stereotyped" came third for most of the places but never won. Northwest Industrial is for sure destitute, North Portland is naturalistic. Still, not bad for a theory and practice critique. And it was fun because we all sat on the floor and played.

Then we took a break and rescheduled to meet at the Portland Art Museum at 3pm. Hurray for biking within blocks of my apartment, only to head back for yoga!

We had open reign to check out the contemporary art (which has a lot of landscape and western things) and the current "Disquieted" show. Kirsten(not Kristen) and I wandered together and had many discussions about the pieces. She is a good art viewing buddy. Enough opinions to have a discussion, not enough difference to squabble. Just how I like it. Daniel extended our time to 4:30 so we really got a chance to look at the pieces. Disquieted had some good singular pieces, but as a whole it seemed a little all over the place. The artists selected all had the same theme, sure, but just because they have something in common doesn't mean they work as a wandering through it all whole. Saw a Longo and a Murakami and all that. Lovely art.

Then it was zip zoom back to school. Yoga had a lot of stretches, which was nice, and some different toss ups on the familiar poses. It went really fast.

I was starving but I really wanted to make lasagna anyway, so I picked up some cheese and noodles and sauce. Costs a lot to get four pounds of cheese, but when a single lasagna will last probably to Sunday, that is a good deal. It also prevents me from buying lunches which cost 5-7 bucks each time. Damn you over priced pearl!

Zip zoom back home. Simmered that sauce. Boiled those noodles. Mixed the cheeses. Spread the sauce and then noodles and then cheese and then sauce and then noodles and then cheese and then sauce and then noodles and then a final cheese sauce layer. Got some foil from Robin, popped that sucker in for thirty minutes at 375. Removed foil and cooked for another 10. Let cool for 10 more. Cut a piece for Robin in thanks for the foil. Then dished myself a massive serving and it was SO GOOD! So worth the wait. It cooked perfectly. Had another serving but I only consumed half of it.

Great way to end a wonky day.

Trill by Acey

In class illustration of Trillian done by Acey Thompson.

mix and match

The critique on our figure pieces went really well. Kevin and Jenna had some great uses of wash. We just went around and talked, nothing too heavy. It was Camara's birthday so we gave her a group hug and sung her happy birthday. Then we drew Nicole for the rest of class, just one pose.

Silk screen was a combination work/helping Anthea print/slide show. First chunk was open work time. I exposed my Homeland assignment onto my screen. For lunch I rode up to 22nd and Raleigh. I just had a craving for fish & chips and knew the Frying Scotsman would satisfy. I fished out all my dollars and the majority of my change and bought the haddock and chips. Chatted with the chef before scooting the 17 blocks back to school. Soooo good. I need to make the trip more often. Perfectly made. Battered just right. Ah. Worth the trip.

Christy showed us this great slide show about these printmakers in Brazil who do a lot of wheat pasting of posters. They go around the world and work and put things up, they even redid Durer's Rhinoceros print to scale and posted it. Really epic piece.

Then work time! In between printed layers of my Homeland piece, I went to JP and got my illustration stuff all printed out. Like a champ. Go me! My cards look okay. Not perfect. I helped Anthea load paper and pull prints. I messed up a couple, my fingers didn't feel like working properly. I dunno. The book covers look great in their final format. As pieces, not so much. I'm excited to play the card game. I got my screen ready for the first color of my poster. This is the celery piece. I think I have mentioned it. Just worked and worked.

At around 5:15 I went to chill with Karen in the studios. Helped her put up a curtain. Chatted with BT. Anthea was having a beer at Deschutes Brewery so we joined her. Well, we thought she was leaving from school at 7pm but turns out she was there. No biggie. We had a good chat about postering and punks and art thriving with corporations. I had a chicken almond salad. I can't wait to eat the left overs. Karen purchased a pitcher of Black Butter Porter.

Episode of Six Feet Under. Episode of Lost. Another Six Feet Under. Blog. Sleep.

otherwise, things are good

Slept in till 11am. Had some oatmeal, bacon, and tea. Got all dolled up. Rode into school at noonish and parked it at a computer in the library. Worked for three and a half hours, listened to music, and got my digital work done! The pieces came together really easily. I did the face book jacket first and then copy and pasted the text and background into the second one. All I had to do was color the icons in, and that took no time at all. I don't know how I feel about the boxes though, but I'm happy with it right now.

Feels good to be ahead on everything. Yoga was good. Struggled with the lunges. Went home. Watched some QL. Wrote out the rest of my cards. I'll be in bed before 11:30pm tonight. Feels good.

Just have to print the cards and print the illustration stuff. I also have some other illustration book keeping to do, but that can wait till Wednesday. It isn't anything majorly major.

My next illustration is some band for Carmen's band Odd Owl. I am very excited for that.

I was shifting my jade plant around and it broke in half in the glass. I put it in more shallow water but bit by bit I am sure I am loosing it. Not good.

Tristram Shandy Book Layouts

Book jacket designs for The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne.

The space to the left and ride will fold over.

15"x7.25". Photoshop with brush & ink and pen drawings.

four day weekend!

I had a super productive day! Thankfully I didn't find out Existentialwhatever was canceled till late in the day. Had I known I could sleep it, I might not have been as productive. As is I got to a really good place with my piece for the figure. It needs a little something extra, I just don't know what. But I dig it. Sorta. Not really that complex of an image but oh well.

Watched Go on Netflix. I'm really into movies that take place over a single night. It was a little better than good but not all that great. Nothing I'd write home about (even though this blog is technically me writing home about all that I do). Also watched a few more episodes of Quantum Leap on Hulu and Being Human on Megavideo. Loving Quantum Leap so much. Sad Hulu only has about three seasons of it, still plenty of good watching to be had while working on art, which is what I do while watching tons of stuff.

Also got a good chunk of the art done for Homeland. All the place name cards are done, and the borders and back side of the cards. I'm doing a cardgame, didn't I say? I'm going to screenprint the cards to make them all uniform. So all I need to have ready by Tuesday is the designs to put on my screen, and I am halfway done with that. AND the drawing for Figure. So tomorrow will be sleeping in, again, going to school on my own time and working on digital stuff and then yogaing it up, and then coming home and working on homeland. Yay for being totally on top of things!

baby!

At least on days where I dominantly do two things, I don't have to write much when it gets late.

I went to Starbucks (closest coffee shop) at around 2 to focus on reading. I didn't want to get distracted or doze off at home. I was there for about three hours and only got through about 40 pages of Sometimes a Great Notion. I hate being such a slow reader! It is a good book thus far, the words just take forever to get through.

Went home. Ate some food. Started sketching for the Figure piece. I've spent the majority of my time thinking about it, and the minority actually doing it. So now I am doing it. And I am pretty happy with the progress. Relatively simply scene. Just people in a subway. I'm sketching it and filling in the detail with pen as I go. I don't know how I will finish it up.

Watched Quantum Leap on Hulu while working. How come Al was late so much when it was time travel? He doesn't have to be on time when it comes to going back in time.

Thankfully I know exactly what I will do for my Homeland art project. Now I just need to find time to do my illustration piece. Need to have that sucker printed out Wednesday morning, because otherwise I run out of time to do it after that. Lets see.

Tomorrow: finish drawing figure piece. Maybe not color it in, just add pen details. Read more.
Monday: Class. Digital work on illustration piece. Go home. Design piece for Homeland. Yoga!
Tuesday: Turn in figure piece. Screenprint homeland piece/start on poster project. Illustration piece possibly?
Wednesday: Print illustration piece. Homeland critique. Yoga!
Thursday: Turn in illustration piece. Be awesome.

Baby Elliot stopped by with his ma. Here are some photos:

helper

It was raining, but not too heavily. My ride into school wasn't so bad. It was a strictly granola and tea breakfast.

Christy, Robin and myself were the helpers today. It took a lot of setting up and the first color was too light and dried on the screen. My job was to help pull the squeegee and hold the screen upright during prints. It was a lot of back and forth and hoisting using an arm that has no muscle. Still, it was fun work. We had an awesome mix tape and I didn't have to fuss with the registration. A lot of the prints looked good, and some were a tiny bit off, and some were way off or didn't pull right. Still, we got through our pile of a hundred in good time. Robin even pulled a couple with me. I stepped in a glob of red ink but I didn't slip, I just slid. Not fun.

It is a great experience to help an artist in residence print. Something to put on a resume, no matter how short of a time I helped. Type of experience that is good, if I decide to pursue a printing career of sorts.

It was raining more when I departed, thankfully I had my trusty rain pants. Got home. Made myself a big late breakfast. It was awesome.

Loafed away the day. Wasted more than I should have but I had a lot of early mornings. Time to pass out and then be productive for 48 hours.

bowling!

This will be a week pretty much filled up of 8am mornings. IT SUCKS! Ahh oh my god, can't wait for Saturday morning. On the plus side my health seems to have improved. Barely any snuffles and I haven't coughed in ages. Hurray!

We had two models today. I need to get better paper to do ink on. The newsprint just absorbs ink so I don't get to play so easily. Morgan read to us some more from World Lit Only by Fire. I'll so have to finish this book if he isn't able to by the end of the semester. So fascinating all the debauchery the popes and their bastards get up to.

Oh, I cut my bangs again. They look super cute. I am amazed at how fast they grow out, though this time I didn't wait for them to really get into my eyes.

Today was an all day web site demo. We spent an hour and a half looking at sites and figuring out how to represent ourselves. What we want to say, who we are, how to get traffic. And so on.

Lunch was Safeway microwave food. Sat with Michaela, Dominic, Kristen, and Robin in the library. Oh and Tabitha joined us. Got back right on time. Unfortunately at about forty five minutes into my progress in the quick website template he was having us do...my computer froze. So I turned it off and on. And I got and error message saying that I couldn't be logged in because I was logged in on another computer. I kept trying and got the same error. I waited for a while, because I didn't want to miss the guest teacher's lecture about CSS. Then when I had an opportune moment I went to find a system administrator. He tried logging me out remotely, I thanked him and went back. Still didn't work. So I had my meeting with Martin. He liked my concepts and commented that the steps I took between the stages were good. I had resolved the idea nicely with the icon image. Some of the line work needed tweaking, but in general it was a thumbs up. Went back to the Admin fellow. He fiddled with computer stuff and tried all these different methods and it still refused to let me log in. I said that it wasn't totally pressing today and I'll wait and see, and if it doesn't resolve we will take more extreme measures in the next couple days (not extreme, just backing up all my stuff and restarting my account).

So that sucked. I sat around listening to his lecture anyway. Magically at 3, the problem solved itself. I got my website sorted. It still looks like a hideous template though, but I have an idea for how I would want to construct a professional site. Need a domain name though...

I ended up sticking around till about 5:40 chatting. Then I realized I didn't have to be there anymore and went home. Chomped on a cucumber and then I went to join some people for bowling! PSU has a bowling alley and the Goose Hollow people had rented it out for us and got us pizza and stuff. They even shuttled us there. Robin, JP, Jess, Mariah, Sam, and Alice tagged along. It took a while to get started because the only open lane was totally jammed up. A nice guy gave us his lane when he was finished. It took a while to understand the lanes. They were not really sensitive so we often had to hit reset or send extra balls down the lane to get it going. I got about two strikes, and many gutter balls. Ate pizza, cupcakes, and drank soda and had a generally good little night with pals.

Now I am going to sleep. One more early morning and then I am free!! Free to work really hard on stuff that is due. Next week is a big chunk of stuff to turn in: the figure, illustration, and homeland all have things.

Trillian's Sketchbook - Volume 1

Silk screen on flimsy paper. Images pulled from my sketchbook.

I don't know what it is about 3:45pm

Had one of those weird nights where I wake up at 3am totally convinced it is time for me to get up. At 4am I figured out I could spend another three hours in bed and went to sleep.

Helping Anthea and Christy was pretty easy. I mostly counted paper and helped carry things around.

For being 11-5, Homeland actually moves pretty fast. We had a half hour discussion about what we are thinking about doing once school is finished. My answer was "make comics along side a job job, travel the country promoting myself, met nerds and be all "heeey!!". Nothing major. Travel. Printmaking. These things are what I want. Joey gave a little talk about some artists. Then we discussed how massively horrible the readings were. Just in content, not writing. So brutal.

Stapled and cut my new zine during lunch. Bought a burrito. Ate half. Went back to class.

The first critique was for Travis' thing. He played a video from a scene of Walker Texas Ranger and had us haul wood back and forth. All of us. He just told us to disassemble the pile of wood on one side of the room and haul it to the other side and reassemble it, and when it was all collected we were to do it again. From the start of the clip to the end was how long we had to work. At the start we just walked back and forth but when it became apparent that the clip wasn't short, we formed two lines and passed the wood like that, from person to person. This whole performance lasted about 20 minutes. Seriously. There were a couple moments when it seemed like the clip would end, but it didn't (the clip was projected on the wall behind us). Actually, it was pretty well thought out for a performance. It drew up the symbolism of the every day worker versus the media focused hero, and the forming of groups to make the work easier, and how we just kept with it because there wasn't really another option (if someone stopped, they would be the jerk for doing so).

Then Bryan had some photos of zoo scenes without the animals. It was a reference to constructed habitat for creatures that we wanted to look at safely and think we were being good by protecting them in the habitat. The photos were taken in such a way that they really felt like they were missing animals. They were not shot like landscapes. It was a really thoughtful piece.

We talked some more about the reading. Daniel's friend from his college days Rafael came in to present his work. Poetry, collaboration. Barry Sander's class joined us for his presentation. Unfortunately I nodded off in the dark for no good reason and missed a lot of what he explained. I had two cups of green tea prior. No reason I should have suddenly become so massively tired. I have almost never had this problem with class before (with some Friday 8am exceptions). I felt bad about it, but I just couldn't stop myself! Thankfully Madeline nudged me awake.

A clip of Necessary Monsters finished our class. 30 minute power nap and then yoga! It was a small class, and we did lots of hip openers and breathing. It was nice. The lunges are really difficult for me.

Went home. Finished burrito. Started a TV show queue and jammed out my illustration work. I'm really pleased. I didn't expect to do as much as I did. I'll scan and post my cover concepts tomorrow, promise!

NOT anita blake

It is nice when long days don't feel long.

Figure drawing: We moved on to longer poses. A couple ten minutes, then fifteen, then a break, then Morgan read to us more from World Lit Only by Fire. Amazing book. Makes me darn tootin' interested in history. We did a forty five minute pose for the grand finale. Long pose. I felt really good about my drawing, though a lot of it was tweaking the lines when really I should have spent the majority of time nailing the proportions. I need better paper to draw on. Bond is crap and does not work well at all with charcoal.

Anthea Black is a printmaker in residence for the next couple weeks. We are helping her with a poster project in conjunction with the Museum of Contemporary Craft...or Oregon College of Arts and Crafts. One of those. So she showed us a slide show of her work and the work it operates in context with. A lot of poster work and the like. Did I mention she is Canadian? She has a totally adorable accent.

Went to student council. Not much happened. Photocopied my sketchbook. For an hour and a half we talked some more about our projects. We are doing a poster project with the potential of wheatpasting it. I am going to do celery, peanut butter, and raisins. Simply because I like it and would rather make work that adds to the scenery than make some poster that people will more than likely just walk past. Very few posters have really made me emotive about causes, so I'm less inclined to do ones of that nature. Not that there isn't great work in poster form.

Oh, forgot to mention that when I first entered class, Palmarin pointed at me, called me by name, and told Anthea that I did the cat print that she liked so much. Great first impression.

During tea time I photocopied the layouts for my next zine (I had pasted them together during the discussion). I also fetched a cat out of my locker, but Palmarin had one left over aside from the one posted in the office, and we agreed to trade that for a poster. The cat print I wanted to trade was I guess too nice or something...

Rest of class was a work period/help Anthea time. I signed up to help her tomorrow before class and Friday morning. Got my next 'zine exposed on my screen. I decided to stay late and print, cutting into my reading time but getting a jump on my projects. It looks really nice. Printed a lot better. I went with blue and red for the colors. The theme was portraits from my sketchbook. I need to sketch more to have enough material to print a third zine.

Karen swooped in and we chatted. And ended up chatting in the commons for about an hour. Daniel showed up as well. Free food was set out and I ate a bit of it. Mmm free food.

It was raining today, and still was when I went home. Not so bad. Watched Lost. Ate dinner. Read depressing book about the slaughter of Native Americans.

tulip take two

I managed to speak in class today! Twice even. We were talking about experiencing reality based on a preconceived notion of what we are supposed to feel and how only later do we arrive at our real emotions. I think that was what we were talking about anyway.

Went home. Made a skirt. I put the zipper in real good like. I opted for fewer larger pleats as well. It all went real smooth. Learned a lot just in between the two skirts. Same pattern. Got it all done in about three and a half hours. The first skirt took like...six. I just want to sew more! Instead I have to draw and illustrate. All that crap. Boo!

Thursday yoga, which I can't attend anyway, was canceled and moved to Monday 5-6:30. There were a lot of new people and Fawn gave a good gentle class. I highly enjoyed that. Far less stressful than the lunge heavy classes. I put up corrected posters and went back home. Two bike trips in one day. Exercise is good. Ate dinner. Worked on sketching some stuff for Morgan. Wrote up a new proposal for screenprinting. Sleep time! So happy with my skirt.

"this isn't our first rodeo"

Man, I am addicted to Six Feet Under. Best show I have seen in a long long time.

Katie and I went to Grocery Outlet today. It is quite an expedition. We had to bring a suitcase and all our durable Trader Joe's bags. The max came with no waiting. It was a brilliant beautiful day again. And not the type of day where it is really sunny but totally cold. Grocery Outlet has such great discounts. Picked up eggs and bacon and lots of other stuff. Tidbits and snackums. Having one of those wheeling shopping carts would be classier, but a suitcase does just fine. We also filled two bags. It was quite a haul.

Watched more Six Feet Under. Sat on the couch and read a chapter of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. So very depressing. The couch was so soft, I sort of fell asleep. Now I've woken up again and am going to get more reading done.

My tooth hurts. Whenever I floss my teeth just feel numb and brutalized. My teeth are crammed really tightly together, so it takes some effort to get the floss in between them. I should really go to the dentist. Haven't been since I started at PNCA...

live plant LLLIIIIIVEEE

Read a bit of chapter four of Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee. I'm depressed already. Just read and relaxed. Tidied up the apartment a little bit. Watched Six Feet Under. Ate food. Drank tea. Read some more. Three day weekends are totally wasted on me.

My jade plant fell apart. I was about to toss it but some friends suggested I try sprouting it in some water or something... grow roots. So I am trying that. I was fairly devastated that it wasn't working out. So here is hoping... I want my beloved jade to live!

Phil and Katie went to hockey. They came back and we watched The Hangover. We drank wine and stayed up till, well, 2:45am chatting. Now it is time to sleep. Tomorrow is a day for more hard core reading.