highly productive! hurray!

Kate was our model in figure drawing today. Normally I don't like her because of how much she moves, but as we were focusing on the model stand, it didn't really matter what she did. Morgan finished World Lit Only By Fire. Damn good history. We got another lesson about the Pre-Raphaelites. We got to Burne-Jones, my favorite!

We had a thirty minute project proposal quick fire. I was pretty much all "yo, I'm going to print on this fabric and turn it into bandanas and print on these diecut flat boxes and make them all promotional packaging and stuff. It will be awesome, yo." And that was what I did. While the others mingled, and Robin and Junko learned how to mix ink, I printed away.

The fabric was roughly 44"x130", and I printed it all. I made a print by taking imagery and text from my sketchbook and cutting and taping it all together in a really condensed image, one that would blend at the edges hopefully seamlessly. Which it did! I printed once on the table, and put tape around the outline. Then I put the fabric down and felt where the tape was under it, and that was how I lined it all up. I printed and just moved the fabric over, and kept going. It only took about an hour to print it all. I made some mistakes, but it looks great all around. I showed off my bolt of fabric to tons of people. I was quite proud.

Then I ate lunch.

I scanned in a flat box to use as a layout for the print to go on the box. I turned it into a template and dropped that over some scans of my sketch print in photoshop, and with JP's help, I got it printed and all that jazz. Looks great. Right to scale. On the front it says "Bandana by Trillian 2010". My spellcheck keeps saying it is bandanna, but that just looks wrong to me, and the internet seems to indicate both are correct.

So I got that printed on all 20 boxes. Whoo! I was working hard from noon till four. Go me! Went home, and cut up the bolt into 22x22 squares. 12 of them! I heat set them in the oven, I'm sure it worked... While they were heat setting, I watched The Pacific (so sad) and folded up the boxes and put brads in the sides to keep them secured (so fun). Then I sewed up the sides on the bandanas. Not the best sew job, but it works. Then I stuffed them in the boxes. Hurray! Then at 9pm, I could relax. Lost! Glee! Hurray!

$15 or more generous offer. Bandana. Bandanna. Both are acceptable.

Tomorrow I go to Eugene to see Odd Owl perform. Hoot hoot! I will be back late, so I probably won't blog.

five weeks left?

So apparently an email went out that said class was cancelled. I would have liked to have recieved that email before I got up, and went out in the rain (and it was only raining in the morning, it cleared up about an hour later), and got to class. Suuuuck! So I sat around and talked with Deanne for an hour and a half. Then migrated up to the library for nap time!

Met with Martin for our semesterly advising meeting. He liked the progression of my work and was really favorable towards my growth. It was a good meeting. We talked about internship. Basically I should narrow down where I want to go, and then we'll talk about making up a portfolio and all that. I think I'll go for it. Need to focus on something this semester, and making real word connections is a good direction.

Lounged in the library with poor doped up Dominic and Sivonna. Looked at art books. Chatted.

Yoga went really fast for some reason.

The weather maintained so nice. I documented some of the stuff I did last night. A bit of it came off, so I need to put it back up. Will do that this weekend.

Went to Paper Source in their last few minutes of being open. Got 20 die cut flat boxes to print on. They are going to be printed on with some brand design and bandanna's are going to go in them. They look like little mini take outboxes. I got 10 white, 5 yellow, and 5 pink, with 25 red closure thingies and 25 blue ones. I'm really excited! They are the perfect size too, fit my test bandanna just right.

Finished my burrito (tomorrow I will pack a lunch: tuna fish sandwich, whoo whoo!). Watched House. Drank water. I have the bad tendency to under hydrate at school, so I make up for it by being at home. Also those Propel water thingies make it sooo tasty.

Mom: Treme is awesome. Great music, great feeling of setting. We should totally watch some together next time I come home.

Because I have credits out the wazoo, I was able to register today instead of Wednesday like all the other Juniors.

Tuesday: Professional Practices with Martin French. 6:30-9:15 pm.

Wednesday: Beginning Animated Arts with Rose Bond. 11-5:00 am. Advanced Illustration Studio. Teacher TBA. 6:30-9:15 pm.

Night classes, will find out how those are. Class only two days a week, yeah yeaaah. I also get a studio in my senior year, so I can sort of shift my working practice there instead of my apartment. Will also move out at the end of the semester. I WILL MOVE OUT. MAYBE GET JOB AND STOP BEING TOTAL LEECH. YES.

treme or the pacific/mischief managed

For only being out of bed about eleven and a half hours, I got a lot done. Well I got a fair amount done.

Traded comics with Jim at school, I've been holding on to Hard Boiled for a while, and he has had my Invisibles. Then I got to printing! Emulsion applied like a champ, photocopied my stuff on the big new shiny photocopier, and got it exposed and all that good stuff. My next in class silk screen project is going to be a bandanna! I will also print a design on a box for the bandanna to go in, because I will be selling it. I have a nice bolt of tan fabric, that should yield about 10-15. Karen said you can buy little flat boxes at Paper Source for 45 cents, so I'll check that out. This project also buys me time to think about a larger, more complicated final project.

Today I just printed a print for Dom's The Art of Broke Off thingy. A little fundraiser to cover his medical bills that he incurred while skate boarding. It is nice to balance ones artistic life with things not done for school. And it was fairly simple, just text and image. Sort of done in the same tune as the Odd Owl poster (bold text, line work). You can see the print in the post below this one.

Came back from printing. Organized paper into a four by four foot sheet. At first I was going to write the letters on the sheet, then paint on separate paper and cut out and place on, and then pain straight on the sheet. I ended up cutting out the letters in white and just having those to put up. Put up where and how? Well I can't rightfully do that, so I'm pleading the fifth. But it looks really good and I hope it lasts. It is my final Homeland project. The words are: "If you love someone, let them know". So if you see that somewhere in Portland, it wasn't me. Someone ripped me off.

Came back, put packing tape over the ridges on my puppet. I'm using it to bridge the ribs, so that it won't dip. I also only need a small area to be smooth, the rest will be covered in fabric which will be the hair. Also, probably the bottom four inches will be cut off so I can get my head in. It is really taking shape. Steps next to do: papier mache over the tape, do about two-three more layers over that. Cut off the bottom and fit my head and shoulders into it (it will rest on my shoulders, with some supports). Once that is sorted, probably another three layers of papier mache to reinforce those cuts. Then figure out the eye hole, which will be where the mouth is, which will indicate where the nose will go. Construct a nose. More papier mache layers...Figure how to rig it on my head. Once all that is sorted, then I can start painting. I don't want to paint until it is sturdy and stays on my shoulders.

Didn't check off all the things on my weekend check list, but the things I didn't were not as important as the things I did.

Now, I think I'll watch the new HBO show Treme. It is about New Orleans and stars Steve Zahn. I'll tell you how it is mom, I know how much of a far you are of Zahn (and I'm a fan as well).

The Art of Broke Off - Dominic

Print for Dominic's The Art of Broke Off zine and show, all proceeds go to paying off the medical bills he incurred from dislocating and breaking his ankle. Details here:

http://kungfutoast.blogspot.com/2010/04/broke-off-art-off.html

8 1/2"x11".

Silk screen.

me want more massage

Got up early because if I didn't, I knew I would sleep right in till 12:45 and miss my massage.

Toast, water, internet.

The massage was fantastic! Hallie was a very nice lady in what I guess was her 60's and she was working out of Salon Shibumi, which is right across from the Goose Hollow max stop. Super close. She was really nice. I had an hour massage which was, apparently, a combination of Russian and Swedish massage. I just feel so loose and without tension. My arms were the parts that ended up needing a lighter touch. Don't know why they should have hurt so much. Getting all that kneading and rubbing and human contact. Ahh, so wonderful. Now I want more! But I'll wait, I guess. She also does cupping I believe, that might be an experience...

I did two more full layers of paper mache. Well, two and a half. Or was it one and a half...either way, it is coming along and each layer goes faster and faster. It is getting quite sturdy now. Now I've got to drape the paper over the ribs to smooth it out. Do a couple layers of that. It needs to be really solid before I cut a head and shoulders hole, and an eye hole. Well, sturdy enough, because once I do that, I will probably do some more layers, just to smooth it out. I might have to get more flour soon.

Worked on that, read some comics, had a good Saturday all around. Lots of work tomorrow though. Typical Sunday.

its got layers

I woke up at 9:30 as per body rhythms, and decided to go back to sleep. When I woke up a second time and looked at the clock, it was 2:20. Hopped right out of bed, ate leftovers, drank tea, watched stuff. It was a sunny day, which kills all forms of productivity for me.

Once the sun went down, BAM I was on it. Whipped up some wheat paste glue, tore up some newspaper, and got right to some papier mache! My paper lantern, which is acting as a base for my puppet head, is rigged up between two chairs. A string runs through the metal thingie on the top, and doubles back keeping it in place. It keeps the lantern suspended and in its shape, so I can keep it fairly spherical and work from all angles easily. I got three fourths of it done before I ran out of glue, so I let it dry. Last time I did papier mache, it just was soppy and got moldy. I did too many layers too fast I think. Anyway, this time it dried like a champ! It clings to the bamboo holding up the lantern a bit, but that will be smoothed out when I apply more layers of paper. I did another layer and put on an episode of This American Life to listen to. Went through two more batches of glue. I'm getting better at making it.

Recipe:
-Put two and a half cups* of water in a medium sized sauce pan, set it to boil
-In a separate bowl, put in three tablespoons* of flour. Add enough water to make it a consistency between pancake batter and very liquidy. Add three* more tablespoons of flour. It shouldn't be clumpy or really viscous. A little more fluid than pancake batter is ideal. Add water as necessary. Whisk that sucker till you can't see clumps
-When the water in the sauce pan is boiling, slowly pour the flour mixture into the pot. Stir it in as you pour, so that it doesn't sit at the bottom and not combine.

-Turn off the stove

-Stir stir stir, making sure it doesn't clump

-Pour into bowl, this bowl you will dip the paper strips into so make sure it is wide brimmed

-Wait for it to cool a bit

-Use!!

*you can easily double, halve, or quadruple this recipe. Just keep a 1(ish, a little more is better) cup:3 tablespoons water ratio.

sleeeeeep

Oops, it got late and I haven't summed up the day.

Same wacky male model. Not wacky really, but interesting poses. I was out of it, but did some work. Morgan gave us a little mini art history lesson on the Pre-Raphaelites. Amazing bunch.

Illustration, Rose Bond came in and talked for an hour about animation and the more artistic applications of it. She is starting a moving image arts BFA and also wanted to pitch that.

Registration for next semester is opening up soon. I only have to take two classes, but three costs the same as two so I might take a third, just to not waste a penny. Plus I can probably manage a third with my thesis work pretty easily, as I've taken three years of five classes, and have a 3.82 GPA. So maybe take the beginning moving image arts class, just to get more technique under my belt (the more technique and programs I know, the better, as it enables me to apply to more places and boast a wider range of skills). I'll have to look at the full class schedule when they print it. If I take the animation course, it is before my illustration night class, which means I'll only be on campus Tuesday and Wednesday. Whooo!!

We broke for early lunch. I grabbed a soda and some mac n cheese from Safeway, then came back and geeked out with Madeline (who got a totally cute short do, it is way way cute and they did a really good job on it).

Martin gave us a run down of the plan, which was sketches and internship discussion. He said the sketches would take 30 minutes, and it ended up being about 2 hours. But I sat and chatted with Samala, Leo, Danny, and Dom. Speaking of Dom, he dislocated and broke his ankle while skateboarding. He is working on constructing a benefit show to pay for his hospital bills, so I think I'm going to crank out a 8 1/2x11 sized print for him to sell. Blow up some sketchbook drawing, really easy printing. I did the sketch while talking to him after class, so that is done.

My chat with Martin went well. After that he chatted about internships and how many of us are serious about it. I need to think about where I want to go and what I can get done, there is some potential for it. I think I'd like to go to a silkscreen studio, possibly poster design with an illustrative quality. Hmmm.

Hung around drawing and chatting with Dom. Went home. Watched stuff. Drank water. Went out with BT and Karen for some wings. Mmm delicious wings.

Now to finish Project Runway and finally sleep in.

Oh and I got an appointment for a massage on Saturday. I'm excited! She also does cupping therapy...

I can haz sleep?

Totally restless night sleep. Kept waking up. But I stayed awake all through the day. No dozing!

We watched Grizzly Man first, which was good because I was totally awake for that. Normally when a movie comes on after lunch, I just pass out. Grizzly Man is a Herzog movie about Timothy Treadwell, this guy who spent 13 summers camping with grizzlies in Alaska. Totally mental fellow. No knowledge of bear behavior. Just thought that if you behave and be strong, they won't harm you. Which they didn't. Until he came up when it was some of the unfamiliar bears and one of them chomped his head and attacked his girlfriend. They got the audio recorded, but didn't play it in the movie. Herzog narrated, and with his thick German accent and the way he filmed some of his narrators, it was a really odd film in general.

Fiddled around on the computer. Phil helped me put my piece up. Mine was the only non bear piece, but there were only three pieces. Kristen did a painting, we suggested sticking with her medium and pushing that. Sandra did a scratchboard. Really tiny piece, made even tinier by being across by my three foot by probably nine foot piece. That sucker was huge. They agreed it conveyed some of the feeling, but the craftsmanship was poor (I agree, it was). Tried something new. Oh well.

Then we had a long, good discussion about wildlife and bears and the feeling of folklore. The class goes so much smoother when we are able to get to our readings! Even got out a little early.

Yoga was a lot of leg work and some shoulder openers.

Karen chilled out with me afterwards back at my place. Watched some of Sherlock Holmes. Ate toast. Drew. Chatted. It was nice. Hopefully I can get a solid few hours of sleep tonight.

rookie mistake

I've been wasting so much time with StumbleUpon. It pretty much gives you sites based on preferences you enter and it gives such a great variety of things. Like:


More model stand today. Morgan had a piece of plexiglass and was tracing the stand and holding it up to people's drawings. When he came to mine, he held it up, and said "that looks okay" and started to walk off. I said "that's it?" so he came back and gave me a little more advice. Booyah for getting the stand right! Today we learned about Magellan. Good stuff.

Screenprinting was critique. Long long critique. I went second. Robin put out another beautiful house at night print, this time it was monotype. Chelsey had some brush word. Diana put up some monotypes with some lovely flowers that I very much appreciated. Casey had a kitty. DeAnn had printed in reverse on plexiglass. Impressive! Junko had layered pieces over each other and had this three dimensional quality, but the material quality itself was low. Ali had a poster for social change.

9 people takes forever. 11-4ish. But we spend a lot of time talking. Paul something from the print something sat in on our critique and gave us good feedback from a fresh perspective. After that, I set about constructing a pattern to print on various materials, like wrapping paper and posters and fabric. Whoo! Accidentally exposed it at 60 units on low power, instead of 60 at high, so my whole screen started to wash out. Ooops.

Went home. Ate the rest of my lunch burrito (damn you Laughing Planet, you know I can't resist your Mr. Green Jeans burrito!). Then got to work on Homeland. My piece is 3 feet by about 8 feet, and is a cutout with the rest being charcoal. I need to vacuum and hope it comes up. It should. I don't know how I feel about it. It is HUGE, and will probably look different when I put it on the wall. Tack that sucker up. Mmm.

Katie and Miranda went out, I stayed in and worked. So tired. 8 hours of sleep tonight!

week starts

Wowie zowie, anti histamines are great but it doesn't do a busy person good to be knocked out.

We got into Heidegger, unfortunately I am currently behind in the Existentialist Phenomenology readings. Apparently one way to irk a biologist is to ask them to define life. It was a class spent talking about defining Is and how the definition of Is Is isn't a good one because it needs a definition to define the word so you can't use the word because there is no definition. Also we talked about how no one field is better than another, the only difference is exactness, and so people in more exact fields like math may think themselves higher up than artists. Or whatever.

Then I went into the library and dozed on and off for about two and a half hours. Every time I woke up, I shifted so I was facing the other way, and nodded off again.

Then I finished BOTH of my Homeland readings. Both were about bears. And I finished Far Arden. Good comic, though it took a different turn than what I was expecting.

Yoga took place at 5:30 today. Not retaining as much of the tension in my back as I did a few days ago, and the pain in my leg went away.

Hovered around Lacey when she was working on her thesis. Went home. Colored eggs. Made a list of my final projects for the semester. Can't believe it is final projects list time already! AHhhhh!! Drew out something for Homeland. Tomorrow I'll see if I can get it printed. There will be a lot of coloring in tomorrow. Bye bye all my charcoal.

sunday

Longest week ever comes to a close.

Finally got a chance to sleep in. It was nice. Got to school at 2, forgot my watercolors at home so I just played with ink on my screen and printed 18 monoprints. They are okay, I guess. Cut them out in the library while waiting for the rain to stop.

Got home. Tidied up a little. Ate food. Watched The Pacific and Breaking Bad.

There really isn't much more to say.

Need to write out all I need to get finished in the next three weeks. It is a lot.

blue green blue

Woke up with a pain in my right leg. But no sniffles.

Mum had been awake for a few hours when I finally rolled out of bed. She seemed to have tidied up a little. Apartment looks so bad. I'll get on that if I ever get some not busy time.

I did my laundry, we read our books, and then off to Ikea!

We caught the blue and traded over to the red. Someone managed to poo under one of the benches at the Max stop.

Ikea was crowded as it was Saturday, but wasn't totally bad. We walked through the show room, gathering ideas. Mom mentioned needing some proper frames for the beds upstairs. When I eventually move out, I will need to get a bed, a desk, chairs, a table, and a couch. Picked up a new bath mat (our current one is mildew city) and two shower curtains. They will be layered and colorful. Also finally got funnels. A new towel. A base for my puppet final for Morgan. Whoo.

Then meatballs! Delicious after shopping meal. Mmm.

It takes an hour almost exactly to go either to or from Ikea, with or without transfer.

We got home and put up the shower curtain and relaxed for a few, then headed out early. I had to swing by Utrecht and pick up paper for my printmaking project. Got mom to the station at 5:45 and hugged goodbye. It was a short but sweet visit.

I brought my bike with me, so I rode to school, talked to Diana and JP, cut paper, and touched up my screen with emulsion.

Elizabeth showed up right on time, so we got right to it. The library was closed, so we took a chance and oiled up her print outs. It wasn't a big chance, it worked perfectly. The screen got emulsified perfectly. We had some trouble with the ink on the first layer, but we got it printed in a really nice fashion. And the second layer printed beautifully and much easier. She just wanted some text and detail on a little handout promoting her music and thesis stuff. Turned out quite nice. She seemed to have fun and was psyched about silk screen. Whoo!

My payment was cookies.

There was a break in the rain when I came back.

Watched the new Doctor Who with the new Doctor. Such a great episode, totally perfect start to Matt Smith's part. They even showed all the previous doctors. Really brilliant way to introduce the new one. Then watched Project Runway. Sort of lack luster results for a big challenge.

Some good television. Now to rest. Tomorrow I print.

release the mother!

Thursday:

Ink day! We had a male model for once. He was pretty good. Did a lot of poses with his butt in the air though... We are almost done with World Lit Only By Fire. We are to Magellan and Elizabeth now. Did some good work.

Illustration's critique was short form. Martin had good words for most of the work, sometimes I didn't agree with him though. Some people (Dominic and Madeline) put out a lot of work for this assignment, and some seemed to not try as hard. But there is consistent pushing forward and upward towards being awesome and much, much better. Pow pow pow Martin went through the pieces and revealed how awesome they were. My Odd Owl got a good review and high praises. Felt good. Carmen said that if I didn't get an A, she would have a word with him.

Had Quizno's for lunch. It was a nice day, but I remained inside with some of the girls. My nose started running for no good reason, now it is totally chewed up and sore from cheap tissues.

After the critique, Martin announced that we were being given a show in his gallery. All of us, well all of us in the class. We voted down including other classes. It was also a benefit show, with proceeds going to one of three causes: homeless youth, the poor PDX Metro school system, or sex slavery. We voted on the schools. It took a lot of discussion and argument to get there. The sizes of the pieces will be around 11x17 to 30xsomething, but that will change when we find out about cheap frames. Martin also has the right to void any piece he deems unworthy. A lot of pressure, and the theme of the art has to tie in with the charity. I'm not too worried. I'll probably do a reductive screen print portrait of one of the students or something.

Then class time was opened up. Whoo!

Went home. Tidied. Blogger wasn't working so I was unable to blog.

Friday:

Mom is visiting for one night, and one night only. It was raining when I went to meet her at the train station, and the rain came and went all day. We met her friend Sylvia at Andina on 13th and Glisan. Lovely place. Peruvian food. I just had a soda and mooched, as I wasn't starving.

I departed from them early though, as I had to meet Bekka at Tea Zone for one last goodbye. She leaves for Denmark on Tuesday. I'll see her again though, I have no fear our paths will meet. We had a nice little conversation about art and trying hard and working hard and moving about and travel. She got a haircut and it looks good. We walked to Powell's together, met up with mom, and I hugged my dear friend goodbye.

Mum and I walked to my apartment in the sun. Karen stopped by to pick up some stuff she left behind. Mom and I went shopping because I'm low on food and miscellaneous stuff. Pasta dinner with chips and dip starter.

Then we went to see Clash of the Titans! It was opening day, but I guess everyone was seeing it in 3D because the audience wasn't all that full. It was fun. The effects were not up to snuff I felt, but there were a good moments.

No rain, but be took the Max back anyway. Early night. Zzzzz.

Odd Owl - Lady Layer Lineart

Lineart and detail for the Odd Owl poster.

11"x17"

Micron pen

Odd Owl - Venue Poster - Spectacles

Drawn at 5.5"x8.5". To be printed at 11"x17".
myspace.com/oddowl
Micron on bristol paper, with photoshop simplification.

the other, better, Joe Simpson

Another day, another dollar. Except I didn't make any dollars...but I will once Carmen sends me a check for my percentage of the posters sales. Booyah!

Got up early, had a slow morning. Stepped on a piece of glass. Heel didn't hurt too bad when I wore my Romeos though. Still, ouch.

Daniel is pretty miffed that our conversations in class are often lacking. He said he didn't have the energy today to prod us. For the first hour, this bio psychologist talked to us. He incorporates nature into his practices. He was Irish and very very much a ginger. Cool guy. Lana gave a little presentation.

Ate with Karen at lunch.

Gabby gave another presentation. Then we critiqued Kirsten and Phil's pieces. Kirsten had this illustration sort of representing the connection in people's minds. Phil constructed this sort of diorama with all these stand up trees based after air fresheners. Really neat, and we all got trees after!

We watched about an hours worth of video. I was awake during the Joseph Campbell thing, but passed out during the other one. I just couldn't keep my head up. Oh well. Afterwards, we had a nice talk about the readings. Next week is Wilderness! My head is just not in it to make a piece, but I'll figure something out.

Yoga was just me, so I got one on one help! We did some meditation first, and then back work because my back is hella paining. Afterwards I hung out with Karen and BT in the studios. Then I returned!

I'm doing Joe Simpson, the mountaineer, for my next Illustraton project. If you don't know anything about him, just know he is a badass. Broke his leg and still climbed down one of the most difficult faces in the world. Crawled within 20 feet of basecamp even. Took him days.

my arm is sore for no reason

The rain persisted. Bleh.

We returned to drawing the platform in The Figure. It is really hard trying to get four lines to match up to how they are in reality. And if one is off, they all are. And trying to fight the brain and draw what you see and not what you believe you see. I think one of the new lessons was "think like a fish, paint like Cezanne".

Then screenprinting! For the first hour and a half, Christy and Diana talked about Southern Graphics Conference, which is this really rad print expo that happens every year. This year it was in Philadelphia. Cool beans. Apparently there are five art colleges in that city.

Went to Student Council for the free food. Went back to class. I was pretty scatter brained for the day. Got two screens emulsified. I'm doing a monoprint using the lineart from my Odd Owl poster. Don't have paper, just have the screens ready. I'll be printing this weekend. Yay.

After class, I documented my posters. Scanned about 17 of them. Took forever to figure out why the scanner was cropping the image. I had the thumbnail box checked. Argh.

I managed to catch a break in the rain on my way home. Whoo! Robin and Diana invited me over for stir fry. Junko stopped by as well. We gabbed and girl talked. It was a nice evening. Now to sort of what I have to do tomorrow. Mmm.

back to it

I hard a hard time sleeping because my nose was totally clogged. Couldn't breathe through it at all.

But got up and got out the door all right. It was pouring rain. Heinous rain. Thankfully I have my rain pants!

Prof. Adam took forever to get to the reading. He did a lot of summing up and explaining. We really only chatted about the reading, and the last three paragraphs of it at that, for about forty five minutes. After class, Leo and I had meeting with him. I went first. I got an A- on my essay! He said that it was very coherent and most of the questions were about the content and not my lack of writing ability. Some of the papers were barely over a page, double spaced. Insane!

It was still pouring down rain, so I relaxed in the library. Scanned some stuff. Interneted. Got some food. Read Swamp Thing for class. Napped hard for two hours. Read more. There was a thesis class in the library doing a video chat with some other people. Pretty rad.

Yoga! I did pretty well, considering it has been a while. Held the lunges and my body didn't feel so bad.

Tried to scan some stuff but the scanner wasn't writing the stuff to the stuff and argh stuff.

Wasn't raining so hard on my way back.

Hung out at Diana and Robin's for the rest of the night. Just have reading to do. Nothing too major.

you won't take me alive Mary Kay! okay maybe a little...

Looking at my over a thousand blog posts still amazes me.

I set my alarm for 9:30. I hit the snooze a couple times but still ended up sleeping in till noon. Darn.

Helped clean apartment. Sanitized and wiped down the kitchen counter and kitchen and bathroom floors. Need to borrow the vacuum again. Rolled the borrowed lounge furniture back into the lounge.

Harmony was having a little Mary Kay shindig and I remembered it just in time. Brought her a housewarming poster. She lives on the 22nd floor in this building on Harrison. Beautiful view.

It was fun. I have never had a proper facial before, so testing all the products and getting a really good scrub on my face. It was nice. One of the exfoliants was beyond amazing. We tested it on the back of our hands and man on man did it make that sucker soft. So many beautiful products. I did get a 3 in 1 cleanser though, because the stuff I've been using doesn't seem to do anything to my skin. I still break out and my pores are still clogged. And in the little demonstration, you only need a little bit of the stuff to work, so it should last. I want great skin and to age wonderfully. If I'm going to spend my youth pasty, I'm going to spend my thirties flawless.

Couldn't stay long as I had to homework it up. Read more of the essay. Well, trudged through it.

Then Katie and I watched Breaking Bad. And I watched The Pacific. Late night television double feature.

I just realized I have another Homeland piece due in two and a half weeks. Shoot. I thought it was later in the month. Oh well. Need to think about wilderness I guess. Think tomorrow I'll loiter at school during the 11-5 break and read. And nap. As it is 1am and I have to get up in six hours.

something something

Sat in Starbucks for an hour and a half struggling to read Eye and Mind. I got through about 3/4's of it, but had to stop when it just seemed to be going in circles. It is about painting, but it is written in I think the 1950's, so a lot of what he is talking about in terms of art has changed a lot. Still, fascinating.

Katie and Cody were filming some stuff for Katie's thesis at our apartment. She is doing a mock 90's infomercial about her fake company Trypanon. Phil and her friend Ali were playing the Asian couple in her video. It was about 20 minutes of Phil saying the same line and Ali and he staged a fake fight. I kept to my room mostly as the lighting equipment took up what space remained in the living room.

Our apartment looks well trashed right now. So much shifting about and the kitchen isn't looking too proper. Tomorrow will probably be a day of cleaning.

Watching Schindler's List. Only about 2/3 of the way through it. Last day of Spring Break. I did so little. I should have been brought along to Hawaii.

what a spectacle!

I drew another Odd Owl promo flier today. This one featured a spectacled owl wearing spectacles and smoking a pipe. A lot of detail in the feathers and branch. Took about two and a half hours.

I've been pretty consistently getting up at 11:57 or so. Before Noon.

Need to write up an invoice for Carmen. She agreed to cover my cost of materials and whatnot. Pretty awesome as we never discussed that possibility when I started (which needs to be something I need to get into the habit of asking for).

Friday is gone. Now I just have Saturday and Sunday. Wrote out my next week to dos. Mostly just reading stuff. Need to get on that.

Mom and Pop and Nate and Rubie are enjoying Hawaii right now.

post office blues

Got the posters sorted out. Picked 8 to go to Luckey's in Eugene and 16 for my own private collection. The first trip to the Post Office contained buying a box to put the large posters in, and mailing the tube. I got booted out of the line on the first pass because I didn't have the tube taped and since the box wasn't big enough, I had to find stuffing for it. On the second pass I got the tube mailed and box paid for. Then, in the pouring rain, I returned home to use the left over packing peanuts and wadded paper to secure the posters. The box got soggy on the trip, but the posters were fine. It took forever to find the packing tape. The ride back to the Post Office was clear.

On the first pass, it turned out I wrote the TO and FROM on the top in the wrong places and was booted to rewrite them on a piece of paper that the lady taped on. She was really nice about all my mistakes though. Now I know better. Some 250 posters are on their way to San Fransisco right now. Hurrah!

Spent the rest of the day doing nothing. Figures the sucky weather comes when I don't have to work. Now Thursday is gone. Friday..then Saturday...then Sunday. Then my Spring Break is over. Dang.

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!