hi

hi

Saturday, November 8, 2008

sleep has come back to me for the time being

Actually slept through the night. Thanks peppermint flavoured melatonin!

Had an apartment check with Robin. Things checked out.

Had a complete breakfast with two slices of buttered black sour rye, an apple, some emergen-c, and oatmeal. Delicious and filling! I love granny smith apples.

My comic is all thumbnailed and laid out, all it needs is the pencils and inks and colors. It shouldn't be that difficult as the panels are small and I ink fast.

Did some more papier mache with the recipes given to me by mom and Michal. How come it takes so bloody long to dry? I want to build these parts quicker, but this is for a final so there isn't the greatest rush. I am just doing the heads now so I can test how the plaster lays on the papier mache. I want it to be smooth and I am going to decoupage white tissue over it to get a veiled effect. Only the eyes will be painted. I'm going to do the same for the hands. It will be a marionette.

Watched Atonement. DEPRESSING!! It was also really unevenly balanced. I didn't feel the regret so much. It needed about another half an hour. I also didn't have the subtitles so I didn't know what she said to the soldier with part of his brain exposed. Err yeah.

never a winner

I want to win at Munchkiiiiin! Everyone used up their items on me, twice! And it made other people win really easily. Namely Diana and Phil. We were...spirited tonight. Maybe a little mean.

Half of lit was devoted to talking about current politics and what they mean. Blah blah blah, I hear that stuff enough. I want to talk about scifi!

In Illustration our two class piece is a design for a fountain. We have to do a drawing for a proposal of something that represents Portland. Not really that much of an Illustration assignment. I'm not happy with it. And our final was voted on and we are going to do a design for a float in the Rose Parade! I wanted something, again, that is an actual Illustration assignment. I felt that we haven't done enough in this class. He doesn't assign a workload that is particularly challenging (like this four weeks to do the Snowman comic thing, whatever!). We should do both the Rose Parade thing AND the two page magazine spread for the final. Make it harder for us.

I went to Trader Joe's to do some grocery shopping and lunch getting. Stocked up on multivitamins and some chewable melatonin supplement, to help me with my restless sleeping. I got bananas and apples and chocolate milk and cheese puffs and peanut butter minis. Delicious! Then I went to Ace Hardware to get some Plaster of Paris to start making my puppet.

Had a good lunch, Robin had a bite of my apple, showed the girls the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain videos on youtube.
I'm mostly done with my fountain, I just need to round off the shading.

Started with some of the plaster work on my puppet (when I got home , of course). I filled a glove with plaster to try and make the hand and then carve into it. I will cut it free from the glove tomorrow and see. Then I did a papier mache layer on a balloon but I think I did it wrong...how long does a single layer take to dry? Its just flour and water right? Uhhh. Then I played Munchkin and lost.

Friday, November 7, 2008

the difference between rococo and a whammy bar

What's this? I'm caught up on reading and it is barely Midnight? It must be a blue moon! No? Wooow! Go me. Well Handmaid's Tale has a great pace going, I can scarcely put it down to watch Rome instead.

We had the great model in figure drawing. She can hold 2 minute gestures and long poses like no ons business! My charcoal has lost some of what I liked about my mark making early on but it could be me just forcing it too much. But my general skills have improved. There was a vigorous discussion about ukulele's as well. A great line was said in class, it went something along the lines of, "If there is one thing that Rococo isn't, it's badass".

During the break I went to the library and they had a magnificent book about the sweeter side of R. Crumb. He is an amazing draftsmen, even Diana who isn't keen on his work admires him for that. It is a lovely volume, though rather thin (but considering the amount of Crumbs "safe" work, the size isn't surprising).

Our new assignment has to do with pirates. I know what I am going to do, I just need to write it all down and get started.

I ate some of Yo's curry for lunch and took a nap.

There was a lecture from one of the artists who has a show in the Feldman gallery. He name is Baochi Zhang and he goes in between sculpture and painting. His sculptures were really simple with a great singular idea. He has a pretty diverse portfolio, if only he knew how to stand closer to the microphone so we could hear what he is talking about.

Painting was another costume model with two poses. I didn't like the portrait so much. She had a plaid coat that was really hard for me to draw but others seemed to get it fairly easily. It was a wonderful variety of styles exhibited today. Lee had a great piece. My final result was cool. Something different I guess.

Went home, skipped out on First Thursday because the weather is horrid, read and responded.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

in class costume model paintings



Two classes worth of costume models.

10"x14". Watercolor.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

ninety seven

I haven't been sleeping well. I keep waking up at random times and start getting ready in a delirium, completely unaware of what time it really is. 11pm I get up. 1am I get up. 5am I get up. It isn't good.

I had another markdown shift this morning. It was only me and Mariane. I had to do the sale racks and I screwed up one of them. I repriced some of the ones that had been slashed as quick sales without knowing. Raised some of the things to sell at 3.97 to 6.97. I should have asked. It also ate up a lot of my time pricing all the .97 things. Anything that is a .97 is as low as it is going to go. I only got through the kids sale rounds and the walls in my three hour shift. Mariane let me choose the music and I went with the jazz station we always listen to in painting class. Today was a celebration of the saxophone.

After work I grabbed a late breakfast (I only had poptarts to get me going). Arby's is fantastic, they have a 5 for 5.95 deal. 5 pepperjack melts! 5 full sandwiches! Awesome! I ate two and three fourths of a third while sitting about in lounge dining area in the Lloyd and save the others for later. I ate them through the rest of the day. I love fast food that lasts you longer than one meal.

I'm making a super good pace through Handmaid's Tale. I'm almost at the halfway point and I have time to spare. And the response to it is the only thing I have due Friday. It is a nice break, ya.

I promptly fell asleep once I got home and enjoyed a lengthy rest. It felt so good. I need to employ more naps.

With my yoga pants at home, I had to do it in jeans. It worked fairly well except for one move that required an extended leg behind me, a bent leg in front of me, and my elbows on the floor. Kody B. joined us in the bending. There was a drop in numbers but it should pick up again. People just need to get into it.

I wish I had done more today but really, I just needed rest and relaxation.

check out those Gs!

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

the change in my pockets

My cruddy zombie drawing made it onto the wall for the class. I got a chuckle from the class but I'm not fully behind it. Oh well. Morgan taught us about how all of our forms are a series of convex shapes, and even what appears to be concave is actually made up of convex shapes. Very important lesson. We had a model who was previously a student at school, but we are professionals and so it wasn't awkward. She also has a healthy body and was a good poser.

Robert taught the first hour of History of Design (all the MFA's have to teach a class as part of their lesson). Learned a lot about Bauhaus but then she quizzed us and then berated us a little for not learning as much as she had assumed we did. I didn't feel so bad about drifting off during her rambling lecture in the second part of class. She also said something about all Illustrators hating each other.

They whacked open a pinata during lunch, in it were misfortune cookies reading things like "Where is my post college bailout?" and "Your mountain of debt will be difficult to climb". It also had fake money and a couple bouncy balls. We need more pinatas at school.

I couldn't be bothered to go to student council so I grabbed a steak beef dip sandwich and holed up in the library for the last chunk of lunch.

We had a costume model in painting. My paintings were rather small but I liked the way they turned out. I did a light watercolor sketch and then filled in the whole area of the form in the skin tone and then painted into that. I'm going to add the next classes paintings onto the same page as I have plenty of room. I like the attitude of that class, we have a lot of fun chatting and working. We are all so different and we combine together nicely.

It was very cold today. Numbing almost. I was toasty when I got done with my bike ride and now I'm comfortably warm. I am looking forward to going to bed soon. Early shift, early to bed.

Mum called and we chatted. I confirmed that she is indeed getting a discount (just FYI: all your comments get emailed to me so I do read them, even if you post on old entries), we marveled over our love of Sedaris, and I proposed again the idea of some of YOU PEOPLE coming down to Portland for Thanksgiving.

Oh yeah, and Obama won the Presidency. I figured that if he did, it would be by a gigantic landslide.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Gap Kids Radio Sucks Socks

WORK! Oh wow! Overwhelming! Busy! On my feet! Doing a lot! Holy cow!

I was assigned to help customers and do all the cash register stuff. Returns are fairly easy. The major challenge was the person calling and asking for an item to be sent to another store (she really wanted the puffy pink polka dot vest in a size 10). I had a hard time finding some of the discount and I kept hitting cash without totaling the amount of tender I needed to give back to them. No one got too frustrated with me and half the time I rang up the purchases with no help needed. Go me! The first hour was dead so I helped hang up some of the new baby clothes that came in. Casey showed me how to fold with the board. Someone even opened a Gap Credit Card with me! Hooray! I was pretty busy and near the end I was helping put things back on the racks and running about and making sure to ask everyone if they needed help. Most of the time I had no clue and directed them to a higher up. It went quick and I was joyful to be off my feet. Only had one lady be grumpy about the prices (I remarked that they are good quality clothes and last).

I bought some Gap jeans a few days ago and they fit perfectly. Denim fact: it stretches when you wear it so buy a size or two smaller than the ones you are trying on. It should be tight in the dressing room because it will stretch in the next few days of wear. Now all my new jeans fit perfectly. Also it helps to buy jeans in the proper leg length, I have short legs and thus wear the shorter length. They are sewn differently so fit even better (my regular length jeans are good but not great). Just a tip, so anyone want a gift certificate? I've sent a couple out already.

The stuff with clocking in was sorted out. My next shift is another three hour markdown shift. Getting up at 5am is a real joy but I'll get home before noon and be ready to work on whatever needs getting doing that day.

My zombie anatomical drawing looks like crap. I didn't do it right at all. It isn't anatomical, it isn't interesting, it isn't rendered with a good sense of anatomy, it isn't zombies, it doesn't look like who I want it to look like. It's a big piece of DOESN'T!! Arggghhh!! Well, I did it anyway.

And I did my bibliography/thesis for my Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas essay. Thanks go to Karen for picking up some books on Duchamp for me. She is a real pal.

Lindsay stopped by for a little chat. She is doing some play time thing with kids at the Goose Hollow Inn so she swung by here early to visit. I showed her my picture compilation books and we talked about art and Daniel's Morgan costume. I put on an episode of The IT Crowd for her to watch while I painted her. It's an okay portrait, it needs some more. She looks a little...not gaunt in it. But I think it looks like her. I've missed her, I need to visit Ibanez. See if he has lost the weight he gained under my care.

internet issues

My Internet is being a nitwit. The connection is horrid so it doesn't go through most of the time. I can stand slow loading but when the page doesn't go through at all it is most infuriating. And then it stopped loading all together. Didn't get it to work again till just now, sorry about that! If I don't post for a while, assume that my Internet has gone down.

I woke up early today and didn’t feel like making myself go back to sleep so I watched some Rome and tidied up. I think I did more with my day but I do tend to let these things slip away. Started getting back into Handmaid’s Tale, it is very good but it’s a little confusing when it comes to explaining everything.

Did some laundry. The machine read my card wrong so I had to do it again and it double deducted! Five dollars for two loads of laundry! Outrageous!

Went in for cashier training today. It was made up of going through an automated instruction guide and going step by step through the procedures. I’m not sure how much information I retained but once I get started I am sure to learn more that way. The standing at the cash register was tiring but I have to get used to it I guess. The weirdness about my key number was sorted out and I was able to clock in. I’m getting good hours and soon I shall be paid! They gave me a gift certificate booklet so if any of you guys want a 30% off coupon for the Gap/Old Navy/Banana Republic, drop me a line with your address and I will send you one.

I was leaving the mall and some people were yelling stuff and running and it startled me. They were not running at me but rather a car in my vicinity. It was their ride. Still, I was spooked and I didn’t feel the greatest about being the only one at the Max stop. Still, Portland is safe. And then when I was going to the Goose a little dog popped out of nowhere in the corner of my eye and startled me! It's owner soon followed and we had a good laugh.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

slow dancing

I got out of bed at 2pm. It was really nice. No work, no nothing. I gave myself a day to chill way way out. Started watching Rome, the HBO show about Rome and all that other stuff. Pretty good thus far.

Phil and I went to see RockNRolla, the new Guy Ritchie movie. I heard that it is part of a potential trilogy, which would be pretty dandy. It took a while to get started but it had many great moments and a few awesome scenes. Stringer Bell from The Wire is British? Mark Strong looks so different out of his Stardust garb. It isn't as good as his old movies but if he films the trilogy, well who knows?

It was raining and we ran into Karen on the Max ride back. The rest of the night was low key, just me kicking back. Soon I'm going to go back to bed and read Handmaid's Tale.

Grandma and Grandpa Spencer mailed me my Halloween candy. It really made me so happy to receive it, thank you so much!