I passed with astronautical colors

Ohh man, I did SO FREAKING WELL! I got through my defense with good timing. Sure some nerves, but I knew what I was talking about. I knew the subject matter. I knew how to navigate the conversation. And I answered the questions honestly and with insight and damn I did so well.

Got up at 6:50am. Showered, did my hair, did my makeup, all that. Time ran out quick though. Got to Trader Joe's. Bought some orange juice and cookies. Got to my room. Ma and Pa arrived shortly after. Got things all set up. Lindsay arrived. Madeline arrived. I printed out my abstract. I ran through my writing real quick one more time, but found that I knew it. People trickled in. Daniel and Heather. Terry and Colin. Jenn Hayes. Auntie Celia came, but a bit late. Karen, Lacey...around 25 people. A good number.

And so it started. Martin introduced my and away I went. I went through my outline. Talked fluidly. I might have swayed a little. I did go back to my notes but found I knew what I was talking about. I gave the defense as it was yesterday. Didn't add anything about the influences. And the panel asked questions about my influences so I was able to articulate the inspiration that came from David Hockney fluently. I addressed how the folded reduces the formality. And some of the reactions. I also used a David Lynch quote, which I should put in my thesis paper, AND AND AND I managed to get illustraquacious into my defense as well. Boo to the ya. And so in a bit under an hour, it was done.

Everything I've worked towards. The culmination of my learning. My ode to my friends. My senior year. This final project. It is done. Except for the paper.

I waited for about 10, 15 minutes with my family and Lindsay, waiting to get called in by my panel (everyone leaves, the panel talks and then they bring you in and talk to you). They talked to me more about some suggested artists to look up. Asked about the text side a little more. It was the sort of discussion that doesn't happen during defenses (which is just the panel and audience asking questions of your project). So yeah, I passed.

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! HOOOOO!!!

YEAAH!

Yeah. Just gotta do that damn paper and then I'm holding my Bachelor's of Fine Arts degree from Pacific Northwest College of Art. And now every question I get is "so what is next?" STOP ASKING ME. I DON'T KNOW.

Anyway. Afterwards, Ma, Pa, Celia and I went to Laughing Planet and got lunch. I got the Governator quesedilla, which is mashed potato, broccoli, and cheese. YUM! Then we returned to school, I showed them the print studio set up. Ran into Yoshi and Christy who both congratulated me (the latter even gave me a hug!). And then we took down my show. Folded it up. Hauled it all back to the studio and then back to my apartment. There we all laid down and took a nap. It was very nice.

Celia left to return to Washington (she did a round trip in one day! insane! love her!)

Ma and Pa and I went to school to see Jon's defense. He did WONDERFULLY. Once he got into the discussion of the journey that his pieces represented, he got into his Jon mannerisms and it was wonderful. Packed house. Mom got some good laughs and Dad remarked how his piece really captured the Louisiana swamps. I like having parents who actually get what I'm doing and the world I'm in.

After that we got some pizza. Yum! Then we went to the Art Spiegelman lecture at PNCA. He is a Pulitzer prize winning graphic novelist. He was interview by Joe Sacco. The commons were full of people. I keep forgetting the vulgarity of some of Art's work. But it was a good conversation. I parted ways with Ma and Pa. Loitered in the print lab. Then when it stopped raining I rode my bike out into the night and spent the rest of the day with Rollyn. A perfect day.

Now to finish up this part of my life and then think about the next one. JUST STOP ASKING ME WHAT I'M GOING TO DO, OKAY?

There is no portrait today.

tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow

OKAY. LET'S DO THIS! Oh wait, blog about today.

Got up nice and early. Showered, got to Robin's defense. A packed crowd for the front of the Stevens Annex. All the printers were there. Robin's defense was eloquent, well spoken, concise, and beautiful. She really brought out the time and depth she spent on her works. She did this photo graveure prints based on these graphite drawings of contemplative moments in her parents house. She was so well researched and thought so in depth about it. Ahhh so good. I helped her take it down after. Whipped out my power tool to undo the screws.

Then I headed over to Samala's defense. Her short animation was lovely. She did a wordless (well dialog less) animation about going to nature after the loss of technology. All hand drawn stop motion beauty. She did so good and her parents asked good questions. Not typical parent questions that normally just indicate their lack of knowledge in their offsprings choices. There is a certain decorum and dialog expected at Focus Week.

After that I wolfed down two sandwiches and went to see if my room (815c) was available. Will was in there talking to his panel, so I went and got tacks and supplies to put my show up with. He was still in there so I loitered and talked to Karen. When I packed up my posters in a box and went back to the room, he had gone. Will's work was still up but it only blocked a small part of my set up. I strung a string from one side of the wall to the other and made sure it was level. Much easier than leveling each piece. Then I started tacking the posters up. I organized them in a manner so that the one straight forward facial position piece (Madeline) was in the middle. And the pieces that gradually looked left went to the left, and the ones that went right to the right. It looks really good. I couldn't have been more pleased. I was half way through tacking them up when I realized that I should use a regular thumb tack (not a flat headed one) to start the hole. My thumbs were so happy when I clued into that. And the posters went up much faster. I hauled my studio table down and piled my distribution posters onto it. Looks so good. Simple, not fussy. Just like my work.

I practiced my speech and worked on making the notes for my actual defense (no reading straight from pages allowed). Martin came in straight from James' defense and so I told him to chill for a moment. I got him a single serve ice cream from Safeway and some cups and napkins for snack time tomorrow. Got him the ice cream in thanks for being such an awesome mentor, and also he is at thesis all day everyday. He deserves a treat. We talked a little and then I got into my defense practice. He was pleased with the progression and order of it and how far I've come since last meeting.

I finished committing my words to notes. OH and Will came and took down his piece as well. In talking to people about potential questions that might come up, I've found I've been able to construct good responses.

I practiced from my notes with Samala and Morgaine and noticed there were places where I wasn't clear what my notes were. So I'm going to go through it one more time tonight and get that all sorted for tomorrow. I'm up EARLY! Food! Hair! Clothes! Makeup! Trader Joe's! Practice! Defend!

After years and years, my thesis defense is here.

It doesn't feel real, but it is.

Todays Portrait Is: Colin Firth.

FINISHED!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today I finished printing all 17 posters for my Senior Thesis at Pacific Northwest College of Art.

Y'all know how much labor this is. I wish I knew what my final project would be at the start, so that I could have had, say, 30 finished posters. Just show something really really epic. Just art and color and posters EVERYWHERE. But this amount is pretty damn awesome. I love it. I'm not tired of my thesis at all. In fact, I just want to do more art. But nope, have to do my speech. Have to do my paper. So that will be what consumes the next days and weeks of my life: paper and defense. But honestly, I'm not too panicked about my speech. As Martin says, I have all the stuff there. I just need to organize it.

Anyway. I got a slower start than I wanted. Woke up with my hands hurting. I need to be in better shape to get through all this printing. Got the portrait done. Had a little breakfast. Got the text done. Went to school, scanned and edited the text. Went to the studio and emulsified my screens. Went to the library and printed my text. Exposed my screens. While the screens dried, I went to Chipotle and got a burrito. Ate half that burrito. Then I got to printing! Listened to That Mitchell and Webb Sound, a very funny radio comedy sketch series. After I finished the four color layers, I ate more of the burrito and talked to Robin. Then it was back to printing! I did the drawing fluid for the second print layer and then the emulsion. This guy I didn't know spilled tons of emulsion while emulsifying his screen and then left. A big freaking puddle! I was really pissed. Why leave that on the ground? It doesn't exactly dry fast and no one wants to step accidentally in emulsion. Also, generally you shouldn't emulsify a screen if you don't plan to expose it the same day. But it was obvious by the guys screen emulsifying technique that he didn't know jack diddly about the method. I cleaned up his mess for him. Grrr boo. And it only took a minute to wipe down and wipe away the spilled emulsion.

Anyway. Continued printing and it all went really well. Switched to listening to Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz (I finished Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest yesterday, the third in the Millennium Trilogy, the book made the least interesting of the three movies but as a book it was phenomenal, I think because the content plays out better in writing, where as with the first two it is told better visually, and also when it comes to the third movie they edited out some great moments from the book). But now I won't be listening to so many audio books. I won't be printing anymore.

I got out of the studio at 1:20am. Pinned up my posters. Now I am home and waiting for Game of Thrones to download. I don't care that it is 3am. I'M WATCHING IT.

Todays Portrait Is: Christian Bale.

the ache begins

Uhhhgnnn. My arm hurts. Too much over use. But now I am generating muscles!

Got up at 11. Showered. Ate a huge sustaining scramble. At 1pm I headed over to Lacey's to draw her. First we went for a walk and got a free cone at Ben & Jerry's Free Cone Day. Yum! We talked thesis paper. Lacey is already out of the school system, so she is a good one to talk to about the process of it all. She put on Twin Peaks and I drew her. Didn't have to draw oodles of her before I became satisfied with one of the images. We took another walk to Zupan's and she treated me to a dandelion and burdock root soda that was FANTASTIC. So delicious.

I rode home and drew and relaxed a bit. Went to school for yoga. Did yoga. Went to the studio and counted another reem of paper into 10 sheet stacks and also drew out some more text. Scanned and printed out the text. I didn't get to printing till 10ish. I got a layer on Morgan done. Got a layer on the text for Eva and Karen, though a lot of the text ended up blowing out. Don't know how those editions will look...I think I need to slow down a bit. Don't want to sacrifice quality for quantity. And need to use less opaque inks because opaque SUCKS.

Started listening to Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

Got three layers ready to print tomorrow. I can only print in the evening Monday-Wednesday. Thursday is an open silk screen studio day. Booyah. I'll knock out a lot then.

Tomorrow I'll work on all the other stuff though.

Todays Portrait Is: Rob Brydon.

new record?

Got up a bit earlier. Ate a scramble. Did a portrait using just watercolor with no pencil presketch. Went to school for this special lecture on speaking skills. It was informative, I guess. Helped Mel take some photos for her thesis. Drew Asha while she printed. At 6:30 I had a meeting with Joan about my paper. It needs so much revision, but I felt that would be the case. I agreed to have another draft in to her in a week, so that will be a good deadline to get that locked down.

After that meeting I grabbed some doughnuts and a drink and parked in the illustration lab and worked on some of the thesis poster sides and text. Kristen was working on a poster that I offered to print in collaboration for their thesis. As long as she got both layers done, I would print them Monday night (tonight). I wanted them done by 9pm, but she got them printed by 10:45. Got six screens emulsified, exposed the two We Buy Diamonds posters and four thesis portrait sides (DeAnn and Morgan). Kristen helped catch paper so in three hard printing hours we got 100+ (about 107...) two color posters printed. The colors started at pink and blue and went to purple and then blue and then green and then pink. Really freaking cool. Had some trouble with the black layer. I should have printed with process black. I just really wanted the rich opaque quality. Oh well. Some of them are really freaking cool. And got them DONE in the magic allotted time. We left right as the night guard was telling us the school was closed.

Now back to thesis! Tomorrow I am drawing Lacey. I could potentially be sitting on 17 thesis posters. Waiting to be finished are Eva, Diana, and Karen. On screens are Morgan and DeAnn. Designed is Asha. Scheduled to be drawn are Lacey and Tippi. If I get these done, that would be something damn amazing. I'll just be at school as many nights as possible in the next two weeks. I really want to show an EPIC AMOUNT of posters.

Todays Portrait Is: Sean Lock.

time tables

6:00am: First alarm goes off.

7:05am: Get out of bed.

7:25am: get dressed after shower.

7:45am: enjoy a scramble

8:20am: head to school

8:45-10:40am: print the final two layers of my spirit animal print. Unfortunately all of the pink layers were misregistered so my whole print is off. All in all, I'm not totally satisfied with the result. It isn't my best piece of printmaking. If I had another week, I would redo it. But I don't have another week. Oh well.

11:00am: CLASS! We went through our websites. The websites are looking good. Lots of different looking sites. We are doing another art director assignment. I was the odd one out, so Kristin Rogers Brown art directed me. I am to illustrate a word or term in three different ways. Color. Detail. No faces.

12:30pm: lunch! I got a sandwich and accidentally ate the whole thing instead of saving half for later.

1:30pm: back to class. Worked on stuff. I folded and editioned my prints. Finally finished up my text sides.

3:05pm: scanned the text. edited the text. printed out the text.

3:somethingpm: went to the print lab. Emulsified screens. Laid out supplies. Exposed three screens. Chatted with people. Printed the color text layer on Leah and Robin's prints. Did the reductive drawing fluid to get them ready for the next layer.

6:30pm: yoga! Leg work! Lots of great fitness stuff. Felt good to work out all the kinks that are forming. Lots and lots of kinks.

8:00pm: gave away posters to people after yoga.

8:15pm: back to printing. Emulsion. Exposure. Wash out. Drawing fluid. Printing printing printing. Folding. Washing out. Lots of Sherlock Holmes.

9:30pm: walked with Daniel to Safeway to get a snack. Chips, Perrier, sweets.

10:00pm: back to printing.

1:00am: finish printing the final poster of the day. Fold it.

1:45am: leave the print studios with three complete posters, which brings my thesis total up to 9 posters.
2:14am: leave the Stevens Studios after talking with Jon for a bit.

2:49am: finish blogging. Very tired.

Todays Portrait Is: Joely Richardson.

mmmmmcqueen

Let myself sleep in without the alarm clock. Which was a bad idea because I slept way way in. Need the alarm to check myself.

Worked a bit on stuff. Mostly took a long time to get warmed up to doing anything.

Yoga was just Fawn, Ruth, and myself. Lots of back bending, which is good.

Went to the east side for a get stuff done night. Whooo! There were a lot more people over this time. Robin, Diana, Lacey, this dude John, this dude Michael, Evan was there for a bit, and of course Phil, BT, and Karen. We watched The Great Escape. That hunk Steve McQueen. And that guy with the big forehead that I know mom likes. David McCallum. I worked on my text side. I have seven names done, about four nice words and a couple blurbs. Need to get more done. I stayed for another movie, though Karen took most of the people home. Karen made tacos. They were good. I left at around 2am. Got some work done, should be further along. I'll need to get to school by at least 3pm tomorrow. Seven hours to scan, print, emulsify, expose, and print five layers. The printing should go super fast. The more screens I have prepped, the faster I get through each layer. I think I did three layers in two hours last session. So yeah. Long day. I'll have to get up at an actual hour and finish five of the compliment sides.

I also have another print exchange to do, but that will only occupy one screen. I'll work on that drawing tomorrow night, because the school closes at 10.

Work work work. Listen to audio book listen to audio book listen to audio book .

Todays Portrait Is: Joelle Carter.

rain returns

Set my alarm, so I can at least pretend to have sleep rhythms. If I'm constantly whacking a snooze, I won't go deep into uncontrolled sleep. That is the plan anyway.

Ended up not going food shopping. Will very much have to do that tomorrow. I'm all out of my prescription eye drops now. Just gotta use the stye remedy. But the eyes seem to be healing well, which is good. Not puffy anymore. Certainly don't hurt.

At 5:30 I scooted down to Rogue to celebrate Heather's birthday. I got myself some tots and a pint of John John. Tasty beer. Daniel was there and Darshon arrived at the same time. Heather's friend Dana came and Tara and her husband and Jim and this other dude. It was a nice little time. Heather has been going to Rogue for her free birthday beer since her 22nd birthday. She is 27 now. I didn't have a present for her. Just a hug.

At 7:45 I rode over to Beth's place and we spent the next three hours watching Friends season 2 episodes and drawing. I drew her and her precious cats Mateo and Salama..Sama..something. Mateo was a massive white kitty and I showed Beth how to do the racehorse with him. She loved it and even tried it out herself. It was a nice night. Got some good drawing done. Now I just need to draw more.

Now to watch some stuff and draw some more stuff. I'm really tired for some reason. Hmm.

Tomorrow is class but also a hard core printing day. Okay maybe not hard core, but I aim to get another four layers printed. Two, maybe three, before yoga. And another afterwards. I have all the layers on my screens, I just need to count the paper and print them. Booyah. That would put my halves up to six, which would mean my thesis is one fifth or one sixth printed! Okay that is counting my eggs before they hatch but it is getting made. I'm so excited. Just need to draw draw draw more more more.

Oh and it is rainy again in Portland. Bleh.

Todays Portrait Is: Charlie Hunnam.

drawn out and tacoed

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

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

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

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

Todays Portrait Is: Giancarlo Esposito.

time to get real

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

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

Got home at around 11pm.

Oh and also I have to do that paper.

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

Todays Portrait Is: RJ Mitte.

a day to print and teach

Oof my knees. The joyous pain of productivity in print.

So I got up at 10ish and showered and stuffed some toast in my mouth. I forgot my thermos of tea at home though. Booo. Got to school at around 11:30. Claimed the back six tables for my one off class. So cool that I was asked to teach over all the other qualified people. Why me? I know I've taught a couple people here and there. And I have a joy of sharing art and practices. And I think I'm generally personable if you aren't a total knob. Either way, hurray! It was only a class of five: Tom (who I called Dom the whole day, other people called him Tommy but I think he introduced himself as Dom and I repeated Dom and was never corrected) Carla? Sarah? Dominique and Emily. A nice little group of four seniors and one graduate. Heather and Mel graciously loaned me a screen for my class. So I started with emulsion. I didn't give a live demo, I just had each of them apply it to a screen in turn. And they all did super! Applying emulsion should not be rushed. Then I found out that through a miscommunication they didn't bring images to print, only paper to print on (and also not a lot of paper, but I had brought down a reem of my Mohawk thesis paper (I have 2000 sheets and at most will use 1200 of them, and that is a high estimate)) so I told them to either draw something, pick something from a sketchbook, or print something I provided. Three drew something, one picked from a sketchbook, and one printed a drawing I did on Mel (using Mel's screen). I also exposed a two color images just to show them how to do two color registration. While waiting for the screens to dry, BT was in attendance and I asked him to give a little talk on at home printing. And off the cuff he did a really great job of explaining and tips and times and stuff. I only know in studio printing, so it was great to have someone supplement it.

Explaining takes so much longer to get through all the steps, but we got through it. Screen by exposed screen, we got all set up to print. And we had a hoot of a time! The double color demo went over well and I gave them all a print from that. Having the reem of paper to print on really made the experience fun, because they were able to play instead of running out of paper. They printed a ton, though it didn't make much of a dent in the paper. And they used up lots of left over ink(always a bonus) and did split fountains. And it was enough printing that I was able to help a few of them trouble shoot different problems. At around four I said that it was time to clean up because more people will inevitably be coming in to print. I showed them one by one how to remove the emulsion. And we separated the piles of prints. I also photocopied a bunch of my little guides to printing, just so they could take home most everything I said and it wouldn't all be memory. It's good to have a record of technique to fall back on. Also told them to email me with any questions. We had some good goodbyes and when they left I did a little jig. Thought I did quite well.

Then I plopped down exhausted in my studio and talked to Jon and drank a soda. Went home. Ate a peanut butter and honey sandwich and drank some tea and watched part of a TED talk from the artist JR. Then I realized the library closed soon so I rushed back to school. Printed out the two Robin print layers. Applied emulsion to two screens. Set up my space. Oiled up my transfer. Counted out 65 sheets of paper (50 for the actual edition, 15 for the midterm panel concept one). The color layer is fantastic. It is a soft brown that fluctuates in golden tones. Very lovely. I only got about half way through the black line layer. The school closes at the STUPID time of 10pm on Saturday. I printed both layers on the fridge. They didn't come close to lining up, but now they are there until the fridge is replaced (the last fridge with my Lucky Luna on it is gone, this is a new fridge in dire need of art). I just put the screen against the fridge and pulled a print. Mel's pizza print is also there looking awesome. Robin is the perfect figure for a print fridge. Hehe. I got out of school right on time. It was raining and a couple of the prints got droplets on them, but no major biggie. The prints look good. My fingers might have smudged a couple. I'll have a good spy at the edition tomorrow or something. It looks like each layer needs an hour time to print, not including time to expose screens. It would take a little less if I had someone catching paper, but I can't plan to have that all the time. It's off to good start. I've missed the printing studio.

Now I'm back home, tired. Once I revive I'll draw some more portraits. Gotta get back ahead of it all. They come easier to me, which is nice.

Todays Portrait Is: Betsy Brandt.

making my friends like me even more

Hurray! I woke up and my eye was significantly less swollen. And it didn't hurt. Yay! There is still a sty and the inside is red and there was white stuff, but it didn't hurt. Getting up was hard. I was tired. Showered. Got my tea and tiger's milk bar. Scanned and threw some color into my Behemoth label. Really liked how it turned out. Had a nice little critique. Our next assignment is to design something to go on something 3D. But if we have done shirts, we can't do a shirt. So I'll design a glass. We are also trying to make some contact with a local artist. Some sort of networking assignment. Hmmm.

For lunch I got a sandwich from Quizno's. Back in class Martin gave us a run down of how the upcoming midterm meeting will go and what to expect. Well not how it will GO but how it will unfold. We will be getting a panel of people in to give us a fresh perspective. We will talk about our work for 15 minutes and then there will be a talk. He rattled off some names of people they are trying to get in for the panels and he said Tyler Stout. TYLER STOUT!! Gahhh I don't know what I'll do if he not only shows up but is ON MY FREAKING PANEL. That would be awesome.

For the rest of class, it was open time. I'm really behind on my website. I don't even have a domain name bought. My art only looks good on the internet about twenty percent of the time. I don't put the effort into documentation. But I gotta do this for class. Hrrmmmn.

I worked on my thesis pieces. Filling in color and the like. At 3:30 I went to print them out. I chatted to Karen in the print studio a bit. Then I met with Martin....

...and it went really well! He really liked some of the drawings and the way they fit as a set. It felt good to place seven concepts down and really look at them. It will take no time at all to print that side. I just have to resolve what the hell I'm doing with the other side. I just need to draw and design more. I should set a goal to get the half of the posters that I have ready to print printed within the next two weeks. Just get them ready to go, so once I have the other sides finished, I just print and distribute that sucker. Just over SIX WEEKS till focus week. Holy CRAP. Ahhg.

Anyway, with that done I went to the studios and hung out with Karen and BT and Robin and made some comments that were taken in a way that I didn't think they would be. Normally about how when we hang out with people we get influenced by their personality. I called Arvey paper and my paper is IN!! Karen will be taking me to Arvey tomorrow at noon. I can't wait to get my case. At around 6, we parted ways. I chatted to the boys in the studio. Then yoga! It was a lot of lunges and the like. Not my favorite.

Back home I took out the recycling and had some udon and egg. Watched some stuff. Chilled out.

I grossed out a bunch of people with my eye. Mainly because the sty was draining, so there was tons of gross white goop in my eye. Totally nasty, but it didn't hurt at all and the puffyness was receding. Having an illness is such a novelty to me. Once I stop hurting. It has healed so much in the past 24 hours. I can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring. Now I shall put some more drops in and go to bed. Paper! Printing! Yoga! Drawing! Powells!

Todays Portrait Is: Anna Gunn.

don't touch your eyes trillian!

The Internet has been coming and going, and I have just been able to get into blogger to update now. And I'm tired. Blaaah. And I've spent the last hour and a half redrawing my Behemoth wine label. I screwed up the first one with sloppy inking. I need to put brush and ink away for a while. So I started over at half the scale and used a pen. Tomorrow I'll get up early and go to school and scan it and throw in some digital color and stuff. Yup. I'll be tired tomorrow.

Today I went to the hospital. At about 1 in the afternoon I ventured out. I walked to Legacy something something Hospital. I asked at the front desk where to go to see about my eye, and the lady was all "oh my! that would be the emergency center" so I went there and checked in. I got seated in the little blood pressure checking station. They checked my blood pressure and my temperature. I gave the nice nurse a run down of my symptoms and how long my eyes have been screwed up. Then I was moved to another room. Another nurse came and gave me an eye exam. My vision in my right eye, the one with the sty on the bottom that won't heal, is considerably more blurry. Left eye is perfect. Then the doctor came and checked out my eyes. Lots of opinions on my eyes. She managed to flip my other eyelid and confirmed that it was indeed a sty in there as well. Everyone was pretty decidedly "yup your eye is pretty darn iffy looking". But thankfully no one gave the inkling that it was more than stys. And the doctor showed me some neat excerpts from a medical text. I liked her. She gave me a prescription for some drops to help along with the healing, as well as a contact for an optotholomotompetrist or whatever, in case my eyes didn't improve. So it was a nice visit. An expensive one. But I was in pain and not getting any better. I got my prescription filled. Grabbed a burrito. And got to nursing my eye back to health. I went to Fred Meyer's for soap and sponges and hair conditioner and other stuff. Went to school and scanned my sketches. Worked on filling in the sketches for poster layouts. Did that till the surprising hour of 10pm. Went home. Worked on Behemoth. Watched tellie. Put in drops.

Love these drops. Hate the way I look with a puffy eye. Can't wait to get better. Tomorrow is busy and all over the place and I'm not looking forward to it, but it will come.

Todays Portrait Is: Aaron Paul.

ILLUSTRAQUACIOUS

Woke up with my eye same as yesterday. Spent the hour in bed, waiting till the "must get up" time, holding a wet cloth to my eye to encourage the swelling to go down. It was actually kind of soothing. The video I was helping Abbie with was delayed till a 2pm meeting, so that was nice. Then I remembered I hadn't done todays portrait so I bolted from bed and got that done. Gotta get them up before 3pm! Showered, ate finished that up and got it online with time to spare. My role in the video was a spirit or something. I just had to dress in flowy clothes. I put on tights and a nice black top and put my silk skirt in a bag. Packed some snacks. Rode my bike to the Goose Hollow max stop. Caught the max to Washington Park stop. And there I waited. Listened to my audio book for a bit. Abbie was delayed because something got in her eye. And then that thing stuck and she had to cancel. Also the weather sucked. So I went back home. Changed. Rode my bike down to school and found Samala in the print lab and tailed her for two hours. Drew her. Hung with her, Dom, and Jon. Going to school and finding someone to hang with seems a bit easier than having to schedule stuff. Even two hours gets a lot of drawing in.

Returned home. Made myself some mac and cheese. Popped open a beer. Set my laptop in front of the TV and watched the Oscars. And drew. I'm a multitasker like that. Oscars were pretty good, a little rushed near the end as usual. I was surprised that Kings Speech won picture AND director. I thought Fincher or Aronofsky would get director. There were so many good films too. I ended up redrawing one portrait THREE TIMES before I was satisfied. I'm still not actually satisfied with it. But I guess it looks more like the person now...yeah. And I'm now done with all the friend portraits. March brings the start of a trend of actors and stuff. People who will be easier to get references for.

Me and the pals came up with a new word: Illustraquacious. Basically it refers to the quality of possessing a visage that is easy to represent through art. Some people are very difficult to draw, and some people are really easy to represent. Some people just have easy to caricaturization features. Samala is one of these people. Morgaine is not. We came up with the word because we liked the suffix -quacious, and combined that with chopping off the front bit of illustration. Technically the suffix that indicates being full of something is -acious, but whatever.

Now I'm really tired. And tomorrow I'm meeting with Joan to learn the, what I assume to be, hard truth about my thesis paper.

WHY IS THE NEW TOP GEAR SERIES OVER ALREADY? THIS IS CRAP!

Todays Portrait Is: Jackie Barg.

first a sty, then a splinter, now another sty

ARGGHHH. The combination of below freezing weather and wet eyes and make up and biking seems to have resulted in another goddamn sty in my eye. This time it's on my bottom lid. My eye was getting puffy last night. And now this morning with a cold compress, I can see the sty. Bleeeh. Why are my eyes giving me so much trouble! Just need to wait this out. Again. I wish my eyes wouldn't water when I ride my bike. I should get goggles to protect my eyes.

Anyway. Spent a large portion of the day trying to track down people to draw. And twitchy my eye. Uhg. It's so swollen and irritating and twitchy and not at all attractive. At least it isn't weeping...anyway. Went to Trader Joe's and got some food. And got Heather and Daniel locked in for some drawing. Met them at Ram's Head at around 6:30 ish. They treated me to a pint. We chatted, I drew. We went to Daniel's place and they watched some comedy stand up things and I drew and they drew a bit. Lots of talk. It was a lot of fun and I got a lot of drawings. One usable, but the fact is that I did a TON. Volume is good. I shouldn't have to settle for a composition out of a few mediocre images. My eye had been depuffed before I left with a cold towel. But by the end it was big and bad looking. I hope it is better by tomorrow because I told someone I'd help them with a video project. I don't know how much of my face will be seen, but I'm not pretty with this eye sty. The last one had one gross swollen day and then it had gone down by the next day.

Seems like a batch of seniors always develop health problems. Maddison got mono. Nathalie slipped a disc. Now my eyes are constantly dealing with stuff. BOOOO. It is really distracting.

So tomorrow will be a video project and then some drawing and reading I guess.

Todays Portrait Is: Caroline Cronshaw.

the great portland blizzard

It snowed! Like an inch...but there was legitimate snow sticking around in the morning. That was pretty cool. The great thing about Portland is that when it snows AN INCH, classes get called off. Okay just the morning classes, which have no actual relevance to my life. Still. Pathetic. Come on Portland. You call this weather? It wasn't even iced over or anything. Rode to school. Photocopied my sketches. Unfortnatly the art director lady couldn't come in because the day care she puts her daughter in was closed. Boo! So we talked about our sketches. Mine and Kristen's were some of the first that people were drawn too. Huzzah! There were some fantastic ideas around Behemoth. Nicole had two pages and when she revealed the second page, we all went "ooohhh". It was a nice little batch of stuff. For the rest of the first half of class, we worked on getting our stuff onto the class blog and general art...stuff. I ate the remainders of last nights meal for lunch (and late lunch). On Tumblr I discovered that the fabulous illustrator Scott Campbell was doing a live webcam stream of his latest Showdown (a series of small illustrations of famous showdowns). So I got in on that, and then it turned out that there was only 50 people allowed to watch the stream at any given time. I kept it on, on mute of course, and sort of double tasked the rest of class. I would see the drawing and then listen to the web design lecture. I'm not terribly interested in the web design lecture, all though we do need to get a proper website made by the end of class. It is good to have this stuff and good to know the resources. I think I'll probably get a domain name for cheap (trilliantrillian.com or something...maybe trilliantrilliantrillian, a Beetle Juice type thing) and do the design through Indexhibit. They mention not wanting sites to look too templated, but I'm not a web designer so I don't really care. I think that as long as I do some great background designs and stuff, that will work. I have ideas already...mmm yeah. Anyway. So that was the rest of class. When class was over I was able to turn on the audio of the live stream and at the end, Scott Campbell answered a few questions. It was really cool, seeing him work. Sketch, scan, manipulate scan in photoshop, print, trace onto paper, color it, line. And he was working really tiny too. So cool. I then worked on scanning my thesis stuff at the monstrously huge 600dpi. Most standard print resolution stuff is 300dpi, which is the number of dots per inch. The more dots, the more resolution. I needed to scan my small drawings at that high a resolution so that when they get blown up, they don't get too horribly pixeled. I went to my studio and dropped stuff off. Talked to Mel. Went to school. Put on yoga stuff. We had a substitute for yoga but she never showed (probably due to the weather). About eight of us were there and all wanted yoga, so we taught ourselves! We knew the general order of things, and we all guided one another through downward facing dogs and "the warrior that isn't the other warrior" and "tricky bind" and pigeon and wheel and "counter flop". It was great! Amazing how the students most noted for slackers all stepped up to the plate. Art students I mean. We rule. We also did three Oms. All though on the third everyone was reluctant to start for some reasons and then when one did, which was really awkward, we all broke into giggles. I love it. Love love love it. That is how community works. We all want something and band together. Sure it wasn't the most trying of classes, but we went forward and did it anyway! We culminated our knowledge. Chatted with Jon and Dom. Went home. Ate a salad and drank some orange juice. Watched my tellie. Now it isn't even midnight. A really good Thursday. Tomorrow is my meeting with Martin, yoga (if the sub shows) and then Thom's going away party. He is going away to Korea to teach English. He'll be a great teacher.

Todays Portrait Is: Nicole Cuvin.

draw day

Slept nicely in. Maybe I would be more stressed if I didn't sleep so much. Maybe I would get more done if I didn't sleep so much. Hmmn.

Had a massive scramble to give me the zest for the day. Documented and queued up the next few days portraits. Then at about 3pm, I headed down to Pioneer Place. It was so cold. I need to remind myself why I even have long johns. Keep forgetting about them. Keep thinking "oh it isn't that cold". When it says it will snow in Portland, I know it probably won't snow in my area, but it will at least be cold. Anyway. I went to the mall and drew lots of people in different ways. Trying to figure out how to do my "anonymous scene drawing" drawings. One half of my thesis art is anonymous collective stuff blah blah blah to counter the personal portraits. Did that for a few hours. Called Heather at 6pm, who I planned to hang with and draw. Got directions to her house and headed out.

So I went up Morrison (or whatever the west one way street is) turned North on 12th. Turned East on Lovejoy. Crossed the Broadway bridge. Turned left on Williams. Rode that for a while. Went past the venue where Odd Owl played at. Turned onto Fremont. And turned on another street, but I won't say to not give away Heather's location to any internet stalkers. But it was a good 2 mile bike run. And thanks to it being so cold, I wasn't dripping with sweat when I arrived. I wasn't all that exhausted either. Need to put some air in my tires. I'll do that tomorrow. Anyway, we hung out for a few hours. The drawings I did of her were not quite right, but at least I was drawing. I have plenty of the friends side of thing to draw from already, so that isn't a major issue right now. Keeping up with the drawing is. Afterwards, I went to Karen, BT, and Phil's to hang out with them. Since I was on that side of the river, might as well touch on all the bases. It is actually a lot easier to get over there than I thought. Broadway is also much more convenient than Hawthorne ever was. We swung by Fred Meyer's, and I got myself some Deli food. Then we hung out and watched BT play Red Dead Redemption for a bit.

Then it seemed a good time to go home. Didn't want to return when it was too late or cold, but it was already pretty cold. What with the snow and all that. It didn't really become apparent snow till I was in Nob Hill, and it wasn't sticking. Still, snow is snow. It was a pretty brisk ride home. But the apartment was warm and Justified was waiting to be watched. Did some more Behemoth drawings. Tomorrow we will have the art director in class and she'll give us feedback. It would be so cool if one of us got printed on a wine label. All legit and stuff!

Tomorrow is class and yoga. In between that? More people watching probably.

Todays Portrait Is: Amanda Belmont.

good mood day

Woke up to a chainsaw in the courtyard. They are apparently bringing in some landscapers or something. So they just took out a bunch of plants and trees and stuff. It looks barren. So I'm looking forward to the time when they put more stuff in. My eye is doing much better. Hurrah. A little bit twitchy, but not nearly as teary as it had been. I was worried about pink eye or something. Just hysterics. Yay healthy.

Went down to school at 1:30ish to get a cupcake from Kristen and Tabitha. They were holding a bake sale to fund their thesis. So yeah, did my part. Chilled and chatted. Then returned to home and did some portraits and went to Trader Joe's and did some shopping. Found the seaweed snacks. They moved them to a place that I couldn't find. But now I know where they are.

Then yoga! It was a fun class. Volunteered to help this girl with a video project on Sunday. Back in the Studios, I hung with Jon for an hour and drew him. Thesis stuff.

Went back home. Ate some stuff. Tomorrow I'm going to go to the mall and draw people and then call Heather and hang out and draw her. Holla!

Right now is television (Glee, Lights Out, White Collar) and more portraits. Like being on top of them.

Todays Portrait Is: Rachel Haywood.

ow my butt

I tripped over my laundry basket and grabbed my chair to prevent my fall. Too bad a wheely chair on wood floors does nothing to stop a fall. Now my butt hurts. Bleh.

Got up an hour early to finish my illustration piece. It just needed some final color and some texture. Did that. Had some toast and tea before I left for school. Got to class right on time. For the first chunk of class we played around making websites using Virb. Very little of my art looks properly nice online. I do such a poor job of documenting it. That is the benefit of digital art, it always is crisp. Hmmn. Anyway. We did that. Madeline and I got burritos for lunch. I think Chipotle are making them smaller than they did. They don't seem quite as filling as they once did.

Back in class we reviewed our projects. We got our new prompt. And then it was work time. The next assignment is wine label design. In front of the back row's eyes Chase whipped out an amazing digital illustration just like that. He sure is good at his monsters and digital art. Kid is a whiz.

After class I looked up the address to Arvey Paper and rode my bike over to the other side. Then it turns out the directions were all wrong and I was about 15 blocks north from where I needed to be. Going down traffic on crappy sidewalks isn't fun. But I got there. My thesis will be 11"x17". Because it is an intimate size, and it is easier to print, and easier to buy in bulk than single sheets. Hahaha. Anyway, I could either order one thousand sheets and pay around a hundred dollars (because I'd be buying reems and then paying for shipping) or buy a box of reems which contained two thousand sheets, wouldn't have shipping, and it would cost $130. I went for that. Now I can go for broke on the thesis. I'll be printing a "distributing" edition and a "collection" edition. So there will be one set of prints that are designed to be given away in a whole batch of thesis prints. For the parents and people. Yeah! Just need to start printing, now that I've figured out what I'm going to put on the other side of my poster. Just draw draw draw and print print print. Once I have my paper, I can just go full on. I'm so excited. Tomorrow I have a meeting with Martin and I feel really good about it.

But I did not feel good about riding my bike through icky traffic and across bad roads. But it wasn't that bad. Crossing over Broadway is easy, and it sets you down right in the Pearl District close to school. I finished my burrito. Talked to Jon. Then I went to the library and took a nap. I woke up right on time for yoga. Which passed by very fast.

Out of yoga I tracked down Mel and spent a couple hours tailing her and drawing her. Drew her screenprinting. Drew her eating pizza. Hot Lips was closing and they gave us free pizza! Huzzah! And I drew her screenprinting some more. Talked to people about my project. Was all "we should hang out!" to Carla and Heather. Three friends drawn! And if I draw three interiors then that is practically three posters done! Whoop whoop!

Got home 10:30ish. Downloaded my tellie. Drank some water. Fell on my bum. Now I shall retire. I'm setting my alarm for 8am. Trying to slowly get myself up earlier. Normally I hit the snooze on a 9am alarm a bunch of times. Setting it to 8 gets me awake earlier and even if I snooze a bunch, I'll be starting my snoozing earlier. Tomorrow is a full day. Going to draw some interiors. Talk to Martin. Go to yoga. Go to the print exchange.

Listening to Jamiroquai's A Funk Odyssey right now. Makes for nice background music.

Todays Portrait Is: Kristin Rogers Brown.

buddying up

The weather sucked and I stuck around in bed for a long long time. Rain and rain and rain. I like the morning. I just lay about and think. But then I have to get up. Boo. Had a scramble with frozen rice and veggies. I should get a straight up frozen veggie medley to throw in scrambled eggs. Rice is such a filler. Followed that up with some nutella and toast. Then I headed to my studio. Worked on finishing up my chili recipe. Inked it and did some pencil shading. Then went to the library and scanned it. Threw in some digital color. Before I knew it, it was time to head to Goose Hollow to see Robin. Tonight she was my drawing subject. She made me a wonderful dinner and I drew her as we ate and talked and drank copious amounts of tea. We walked to Safeway and got some cake and watched Glee. It was a really nice evening. Just hanging with a friend, talking progress and relationships and gabbing about this and that. Got some great drawing done. Really understanding my practice more. And last night I figured out what I'm putting on the back of my posters. On one side will be portraiture of friends drawn from meetings and chattings. On the other side will be anonymous group drawings. Malls and coffee shops. Anonymous depictions will unfold to personal ones. Lovely. I can't wait to just go places and draw draw draw and listen to my audio book copiously. I need to order my paper though. But I'm building up a good stock of images.

Left Robin at midnight. Now I'm going to finish watching Justified and go to bed.

Todays Portrait Is: Serenity Ibsen.