grease is the word

Another day with a tad misjudged weather. Dressed in light short pants and shirt and a hoodie and I should have worn full pants and maybe a thicker coat. Anyway, I stayed inside most of the time anyway.

Solved my cube for real for the first time! We got more group theory (closure, identity, associativity, and that other one). We also got the grading rundown. If it takes us under 10 minutes to solve the cube without notes, we get an A. With notes it is a B. I can do it real fast with notes. Well, I haven't solved it again since. It kinda broke open during a twist and I think I put in a piece upside down (which I didn't think would matter). Anyway, trying to solve it. I solved Madeline's cube so I know I can do it.

I wasn't feeling too good so I mostly just sat at a table in the library and talked to who came and went. Mostly Jon and Terry. Well, mostly Jon. Cool guy. We both agree drawing ladies is much more fun.

Had some meager lunch munchins. Didn't have much of an appetite, I just had to get something in me.

Digital tools was goofy. We went over thumbnails an rough sketches and joked about ideas. A lot of people were just in a laughing mood (or a weird car discussion mood). I left a little early because Madeline called and said she had an extra ticket to see Grease at the Keller Auditorium! It is the travelling version with that Taylor Hicks fellow who was on American Idol a few years back.

Anyway, changed into much needed warm clothes and pedaled down to 3rd and waited for Madeline to show. We had balcony seats but she came with binoculars. It was a fun show. NOT the high school edit. The binocs allowed me to see the actual expressions and sheen of sweat as they performed under the lights. I do hope Madeline has extra tickets in the future for shows. Whee musicals! Made me think of Ma.

Anyway, when I got back Katie and Nicky were watching Fatal Attraction so I sat with them and watched that. Okay, if the police tell you that a crazy stalker lady can't be found, why do you leave your wife alone for longer than a minute? Like, go on vacation or something. I get that you don't want to show that you are afraid of the crazy stalker but come on! It had some lovely direction.

I'm going up to Seattle for this weekend. Going to see Bloc Party, going to hang with Llyw, going to kick back and relax before returning to Portland for final projects. It is focus week, which means everyone is giving Thesis so I get a few solid days to just work (with exception of the proposals that I see).

To do:
Digital Illustration! (just need references, a tablet, my headphones and I am good to go)
Screen Print! (three of the transfers are on one screen and the final just needs to be applied, four colors in an edition of under 38? Please, I could always add a few more stripes if I see fit)
Revised sketches, color compositions, light passing by paintings for Illustration! (a little more tricky, I just need to sit and work)
Rubik's cube practice!



Anyway, like I said. I will be up in Seattle so I probably won't be blogging. Full report Sunday night.

How to solve a Rubik's Cube (or what I have to remember, in order, so that I can):
R'D'RD
URU'R'U'F'UF
U'L'ULUFU'F'
FRUR'U'F'
RUR'URUUR'
URU'L'UR'U'L
R'D'RD

Fortune Cookie Concept Sketches

In class, Joe gave us a fortune cookie to determine our next assignment. Mine was "The next full moon brings an enchanting evening" or something like that. Here are my initial idea sketches: me getting attacked by a werewolf, dusktime demon hunter who looks a lot like a certain friend, pretty lady, pretty lady about to assassin a guy with a fortune cookie.

Marker and micron in flimsy moleskin.

rumbly in my belly

12:30 already? Oh they day just went by.

Woke up early and sat around on the computer while waiting for things to happen.

Left at 10:30 to get paper. Bought 13 large sheets of Stonehenge paper, which later turned out to be twice as much because I misunderstood what a "half sheet" was. Now I can do twice as many prints! Or do the amount I was thinking of and save the paper (that was Karen's suggestion, been thinking about it more actually even though I blew it off a little when she first suggested it which was mean. I think I've been more mean lately. Maybe stress, maybe irregular eating habits).

Printmaking was half productive but half counterproductive. I have my transfers and stencils cut and ready. All that is good to go. I just had a lot of trouble getting the flat color to work. In the end, after about an hour or twos worth of effort and piles of newsprint, I decided to nix the idea of a flat background and just go for the stripes and Luna design. Yeah, I'm doing Luna art. Actually people really did my representation of her and her recent weight gain.

It was mellow. Had a mellow little lunch in the library. Talked to Jim. Worked on my cube.

I got some silkscreen ink on my favorite shirt but I caught it just in time and washed it off. I just changed into my yoga shirt for the rest of the day.

Yoga was nice but my tummy was hungry.

Gabe made lamb thing. It was tasty.

I did two loads of laundry, now I am set on clean tees and pants and everything else. Hurray!

Finished Arrested Development. Yeah I liked it but it got so disjointed in the end. Now I have to put my laundry away if I wish to sleep in my bed tonight.

Oh, I also entered a couple things into the Illustration Juried show. I totally failed at how to submit things though.

Katie With Jade Plants

15"x22".
Four color silk screen on Stonehenge paper.

blarg

I solved my Rubik's cube for the first time today! All though it happened by sheer happenstance. I didn't use the last algorithm to solve the thing. We got all of the little codes in class to solve it. I can the first few memorized to solve one layer and I am getting better at solving the second. I'm happy I have a slick cube that moves. Trying to work with Karen's is a pain. It is so herky jerky and stiff.

During the break I worked on the cube. Robin and I took a walk to get a free cone for Ben and Jerry's free scoop day. It was a brilliant and sunny day. All warm and perfect for ice cream nibbles in the park blocks.

Upon return to school, I sat with Nathalie at the fancy table and benches. Amanda came and joined us. Then Karen. Then Bryan pulled up a chair. Jim lingered. It was neat.

Critique went well for me. Mostly nitpicks and questions about weighing the importance of the bus versus the larger meaning of the cars. It was a brilliant day and we were given the option of staying in or leaving early. I was going to stay in but then I got an invite for Margaritas from Ursula, Amanda, Karen, Nathalie, Terry, and Erin. I decided to go for it. I've been so good.

Karen, Ursula, and I rode our bikes over to Mazatlan and were the first to get there and spent some time pushing different tables together and irking the waitstaff. I should not listen to people when they suggest orders for me. I started with a Fiesta which was a nice cocktail. When the second round came up, I was urged to get this drink that came in a bowl. And came in a bowl it did. Nathalie helped but still that thing kinda knocked me on my butt. It was a long meander back to the Goose with Karen. Long long long. A sad little baseball game was playing at PGE Park.

And then I crashed on the couch. I got some teasing from Gabe and Katie but they were overall nice and gave me some Ibuprofen and chilled ice water. Spring focus week is almost here. I don't have much due this week (if anything). Just have to work on my screenprint. Will probably head out early and get some paper. Also need to document some work for the Illustration Juried Show.

time to rest

Back to school after such a very long but wonderful weekend.

A brilliant and beautiful day greeted me this morning. It was all sunny and warm and stuff.

It was a quick little sum up of the color studies and thumbnails. Not a lot of people were able to get them done. Robin did. Hers were excellent and photorealistic from a distance. We teased her a little and then I felt bad. We were only teasing because she was totally awesome and we were totally projecting our own anxieties about our performance. Yeah. We all adore Robin, we mean no harm.

Anyhoo, lunch greeted us early and I got Yo's chicken and sat with Daniel and Vanessa on the loading dock. There was quite a bit of wandering inside and out and all about. And oh shoot I just realised I left half the paper I bought for today's assignment in the classroom. Oh well, I don't think anyone will nab it. Anyway, the rest of class was this rather fun mixed media assignment where through the course of it she would instruct us to switch mediums and switch the orientation of the piece. Mine turned out cool but I liked the initial sketch much better. But it was a nice day and we got out early.

The Goose Hollow people FINALLY found the package that Aunty Celia sent me for my birthday. It has this amazing hat which is now a little out of season, but only because it is wool. It is too neat to not be in season:

Also my hair is getting so long. The longest it has ever been in my life and probably the healthiest it has been in years.

Kevin bleached his hair and now looks like me, crica 2006 when I tried to bleach it by hand. Remember? My graduation? Yeah. Well, I think he can rock it. He has some good looks in his closet.

Anyway, yeah we collaged and the fair weather bikers came out in droves. And moron bikers. Who text and wobble while biking. Dumb butt. So many bikers being all la la la when it is sunny. Where are they when it is cloudy and cold and raining? No where! Probably driving a car.

I spent the rest of the day resting and recuperating from the intense week. Ate a lovely dinner from Gabe, watched Arrested Development. Solved the top part of my cube, again. I can't wait to learn the second part!

There is an Illustration Juried show. I needa document some work and submit. Or else Thom will just grab it all. Hmmnn.

My First Stumptown (as a seller)

Stumptown Comics Fest: 2009. Third year attending, first year selling. First time EVER selling my work for reals.

Saturday:
Rolled out of bed after such a long day working on the print. I hopped on the Max and arrived at a little bit before 10am. I stood in line for a little while before realizing that exhibitors can go right on. Got my badge and found the PNCA tables. Tables. Two. Two whole big tables for Lacey, August, PNCA stuff, and myself. No one else was there. I spread out my comic on half the table and showed many different formats. Lacey showed up just a little after I did and set up. No one else was there still. Daniel came with the PNCA pamphlets but there was no one coming with a set up. NO ONE! We had a couple comics spread out across a full table. Some people stuffed a half table with more than we were offering. It was a rather silly looking display. Very weak. But we still sold. Lacey would edge a comic along every now and again. She sold minis. I was selling mine for $2 so it sold really easy. People were impressed by the format and the colors and how unusual it was. I made a lot of on the spot sales. Sure I got the, "I'm just doing the rounds" line and the "I'll come back later because it is big and I don't want to crush it" stuff. And about four people did come back and buy it. So great. It sold. It sold well. I made about $45 the first day and about the same the second. It was a nice little return and it felt good to get my stuff out there.

I saw Keith Knight speak about the comics business. Jeff Smith was giving his lecture at the same time so Knight's was a tad vacant. Which actually worked out well for me because he recognized me afterwards and we talked and he bought one of my comics! Farel bought one. Jesse Reklaw bought one. Greg Means, who edits Papercutter, bought one. He was apparently showing it to other people all over the place. Some people came to my table looking for it because they saw it around.

I traded some and gave some away with chocolate. I'm not all that attached to it.

August took his sweet time showing up. Lacey and I had our pitches down. We would do one and the other and pimp each other out and trade off. It was a nice little enthusiastic show. August was shy or whatever and we didn't really sell anything when we left the table. I sold one when we took a half hour for lunch. You gotta make eye contact and smile and talk and talk and talk and show off the wares. I got some great reactions when I opened the whole thing out to its unfolded glory.

Jason (Dagit, not Powell) stopped by to support me and he got a comic. That was nice. He invited me out for drinks with him and a couple friends later on.

A lovely lady with the last name of Yanow and I chatted a lot.

Jim had a cozy little nook, he bought a comic. Bryan over payed but I bought one of his first, as well as 1-4 of BT's Otto Zeplin comic. I stopped by Farel's table a bunch. He had a lovely set up and was one of the honored guests.

Talked to Martine Workman, who was delightful and lovely. Dame Darcy was there and I was giddy. I love her work!

Kenan Rubenstein loved my comic so much and we traded. He had this epic calendar style format and the comic unfolded over a year and you turned the pages like a calender. It was really nice. He was super nice. He had a sort of fold out comic like mine, just smaller. He really loved Lacey's work as well. A lot of people did. The people that connected with it really loved it. It was awesome.

Thom and Dom showed up and sat at our table and brought some of the late afternoon energy. They also payed paper money for my comic. So awesome! I love being supported by my friends.

We stayed all the way through till 6pm, when things shut down. I had invites to the Cosmic Monkey party but I decided to chill with Jason instead. I met them at Lompac at 7:30. I rode my bike there as it was at 23rd and Raleigh. We had pitchers. I had fish and chips. Me his friends Sandeep and Chris. We drank and talked and laughed and were loud and I think some of the other patrons didn't like us. But we were making fun of them. Well mostly this one girl and guy. The guy wanted nothing to do with this girl but she was pawing him and sitting in his lap and all but throwing herself at him. He just sat there and ignored her and pretended like she wasn't there. It was kinda funny. We finished up there (I waved to my friend Michael on the way out, he was far from us and probably didn't notice me because I was with math majors and forestry chris). We went to the Matador for a nicer drink in a nicer place. I don't know how it happened but we left at 1:30am. It became a sudden long night. Sandeep lives a block from my place and Jason and Chris were crashing at his place so we all walked to the Goose Hollow region together. I really should have payed better attention to the time because 2am and 7:40am wake up do not go together.

Sunday:
UHG! So horrible getting up. It was a slug and a trudge and crawl. I stuffed some stuff in my face that made up some semblance of a breakfast and was late out the door. I got there right at 10:00. Not early but not late. Not late as I was the first one there again and Lacey the second. I brought blankets so now our setup looks a lot nicer and a little less pathetic.

I managed to make some rounds to creators and really talked to people. Talked to Jon Chad and he had some awesome format comics. One was about descending into caves. We traded. I talked to so many people and got such a wide variety, some of what happened is going to blur together. Most of the Greg Means stuff happened today I think. Today was fueled by sugar and adrenaline. Bought the set of Ouija Board Interview comics from Sarah Becan. She came by and got my comic as well. He talked and it was lovely.

Karen stopped by. She got my comic for free because, well duh, I couldn't have finished it without her screens. Farel gave her a print to give to me. He also gave her one. What an awesome fella!

Madeline was there and picked up a comic. So awesome! She said someone mentioned to her that she was walking with an awesome comic (when they saw her with it) and she hella name dropped me as her friend. Ha! She is so cool.

Talked to these lovely fellas with a castle set up display for their comics. We traded. Will Iversen and Dan Bouse I believe they were.

It was great to feel like my comic was being shown around and considered awesome. I traded a lot. I wanted a wide range of people to have it. And it seemed like they were eager to take it. Greg said cartoonists thought it was awesome. Some bought it as an inspiration for printing. It was, well, wonderful. I was this ecstatic feeling. I sold really well. I am at about 10 copies right now. I sold around 46. Gave away or traded maybe about 20. Hard to say. Didn't keep the best of track.

A guy gave me a card asking if I was interested in an internship. He said I seemed to know what I was doing. Lacey sold all of her comics and had a strong interest from local bookstores who might carry it.

Now I just need to think of a new, cool format. Or keep doing it like this. Make a niche for myself as the massive format comic girl. Cheap and creative. It also helps to talk and smile and network and introduce myself.

I was in a daze. Flustered and stuttering and it was so hard to get my pitch but I still sold. In the end I made $93 and Lacey made around $172. Pretty awesome for our first go.

August showed up for barely 2 hours. It was frustrating having to have to trade off the whole day. You don't want to stay at the table the whole time.

Oh and one of the models at school was selling her comic, Erika, she was really cool.

There were just so many awesome people who were psyched. I've used the word awesome a lot of times but that was what it was: AWESOME! My friends came and supported me, strangers liked my work, editors and professionals dug it.

Now I just need access to a screenprinting studio. Gotta get into the comic GAME YO!

Went back home on the Max with Lacey. Gabe made dinner. I am exhausted but have to pull up the stupid freaking Illustration assignment that was impossible for me to do half of it (how can I take pictures of the same inanimate object at noon and 3am when I'm at school or printing or selling my wares?). Argh. I'll do as much as I can but my heart just isn't in it. I WANNA SELL MORE AND PARTY! So much went down this weekend. I wish I could write it all but it is hard. I met so many people.

long day, late night

I had a long day and afterwards I went out for drinks and I just got back and its 2am so I don't feel like trying to recount the whole day right now.

But I'll say this: it went very very well! I sold a lot of comics and made like almost $50. Which is good for this type of thing. I'm selling it for 2$ so the price is right.

It's going good. Full recount tomorrow.

broadsheet comic

Photos of me(Trillian) holding up my freshly printed broadsheet style comic. Massive format. I'll find a way to document the actual, you know, written stuff later.

Left over silkscreen ink, newsprint, 17 hours hard labor, 5 hours soft labor, countless hours writing, sketching, drawing, inking, lettering, cutting, pasting, and photocopying.

master puller

Never did I think I could have so much success and have so many prints! I got up at 7ish though I really didn't wanna. Stuffed myself into the shower and prepared a bag full of snacks. At 8:00am I left the house. It was gray and cold but the weather report said it would pick up.

No one was in the lab at school. Lots of people said they would show up for early printing but no one did till like 10am. Which was good. It gave me time to get my dibsies in on the table space (which I needed a lot of). And I got printing! And it went smoothly! I got better at pulling and knowing which ink to do twice before lifting the screen. After the halfway mark I just stopped loosing pages. I was hoping to have 50 but I ended up with around 70! Palmarin was around, Rainbow said hi, Matt said hi, Sandra worked on her project, Anthony was working, Christy (Kristy?) printed his thing that he is collaborating with the teacher who looks like a healthy Nick Cave. I shared my riddles and worked. At my top speed I got a series of prints done in about an hour. It helped when I could set them on the table behind me instead of the one across the room.

I only took breaks when my screens were drying during the transition point. I removed the emulsion as I cleaned the ink and reapplied all the emulsion and exposed the transfers at around the same time. Just easier to not have to do the running around of those steps. I had another burrito for lunch. Not the delicious one I had yesterday (it was a limited time offer).

Most of it went off without a hitch. Sure I did have to toss some due to being illegible but in general, they look really great. And when they are all piled together, ohhh that makes me happy. The last screens to print was the cover and that I had to apply the emulsion on another screen because the screen it was on had an odd mesh count. Something was weird. But redoing it only set me back 30 minutes.

A group of people were printing shirts when I was doing the cover so I had to set them on the table far away from me. So that final part took a little long. Still, I got it done and it looks GREAT! I gave one away to the people printing and one to, oh I forget her name but she is nice. People are so delighted when they give you art, specially if they know HOW MUCH WORK IT TAKES! DID I MENTION THE PAIN I'M IN? Argh I hurt all over. Shoulders, knees, feet, just ow. Something panged in both my hands when I was doing the last pulls. Like a sprain. I just had to keep going. I can feel the Advil now. I also used the foot massager that Rubie and Nate gave me for Christmas. Sooo good.

I got out of there at 9pm. 13 hours. The ride home was nice because it was actually working my legs and reliving the stress put into my feet. It was nice when I got past the point of feeling my callouses. I have about four. Damn squeegee.

2/8

Long day. Again. But I'm on track and feeling good.

We got a lot of group theory thrown at us during math but no more tips on solving. I can do the top layer no problem. Just need to learn the next two. Yup yup.

There was a class in the silk screen lab so I couldn't print but I could remove the emulsion, reapply it, and reexpose the screens without getting in the way too much. Karen has loaned me TWO SCREENS! So now I can comfortably print. Finished painting my digital tools project in class so I don't have that to worry about at all. I used a self made brush to do the cars so I could get the lineart in really quick.

Then it was straight to printing! Oh I had this awesome burrito for lunch. It had edamame, sweet corn, black beans, and brown rice and some sort of cheese. It was super good. I think I'll order another one tomorrow during my insane printing run. But back to printing today. I cut the edition in half to 100 prints at the first color. I got two pages done and they are coming up great. Sure there is some loss due to crappy printing but I'm getting better and knowing how to print and what causes errors. So from 100 it might be at around 80-90 now. I think the loss will slow down and I may end up with about 50 comics, which is fine. It is a lot of labor but its mostly labor back to back. My feet hurt but I wasn't wearing the best shoes. There were lots of print people in and out and chatting. Devin was there, Karen was working on her letterpress, Anthony Roberto was busy being a genius, Rainbow sewed. It was a nice crew. Printing is nice because you are never alone. I took up a lot of room with my prints but people were nice about it (mainly because I was around and never left the room for more than five minutes. Lots of printers will leave stuff about for hours with no note). Helped Devin out a little bit. Poor fella had to reapply emulsion a bunch of times for this one book project.

I got out of there at about 10:50. I'd say about three and a half to four hours was spent printing. There was about 15 devoted to setup and the rest was all cleaning. I'm removing the emulsion from the screens as I wash the ink off so when I'm ready for the last 4 transfers, I can do them all pretty much at the same time. So there will be a break while I'm waiting for all of it to dry to expose and then dry to print.

Now to sleep for tomorrow will make or break me.

Each edition should go faster as I will be printing less and less. It will be a matter of minutes difference but still, a little faster is always better.

Cars Go Vroom (editorial illustration)

Digital Editorial Illustration for a supposed article about cheap cars. Accessibility vs the environment. Or something.

Digital. 1500x1200 pixels.

stress levels rising, must keep calm exterior

Got up super early to get a jump on things only to find out that Art Media opens at 9. Arrived right as they opened and bought two 100 sheet pads of sturdier newsprint to print on. It was a big trouble to curl them to transport them to school, but I did it! It took a while to get everything set up and I ended up finishing the layouts during the comic meeting. I'm missing the cover and the backside still but I need to get on with the printing.

We had artist presentations today. You would think 9 kids doing 10-15 minute presentations would result in taking up only the first section of class with maybe an hour after. No! It took till bloody 3! I quickly did the emulsion on my screens and oiled up the transfers to sit while lunch went on. I screwed up one of the emulsions and had to redo it. I spent the rest of class folding paper to the specific broadsheet layout.

Good thing: the transfer worked perfectly.
Bad thing: I ran into issues printing. Could be the ink (I have never worked with opaque before, only the more transparent process ink). Could be that it dried a little (which I think it did during the first time). Could be that it is too close to the side. Either way, I'm letting my screens sit over night and I am going to come back at it tomorrow! I have way too much printing and too little time. I'm sort of getting into panic mode. I had a hard time focusing in yoga and sleeping doesn't come that easy. Part of me hopes to get to a point where its like "OK, there is no way I can finish this by Stumptown" but right now I'm still stuck in the, "well if I work every free minute, I can get it done." I would hate to get to the point where I only had one or two more pages to complete.

Comeback I didn't get to use today: You can't be that busy as you made time to hang with Mr. Grumpy.

Gabe and Luna

Luna and Gabe.

crunch time

It's late and I'm getting up early so I'll make this quick.

Math! Rubik's Cubes! We spent the first hour looking at videos and talking about the history and then we learned how to solve one side. I can get one side really quick but I can't get some of the edges in the right order and need to work on that. Still, yay! Except now every time I leave my cube for a second, someone rearranges it and I have to do it over. Mel, I'm talking about you.

Worked on layouts and lettering during lunch. Going pretty fast actually. I'm behind on the cover but I need to just start with the printing. I don't want to fudge the cover. Nothing much happened at Student Council. The copier went on the fritz and did like 11 copies when I only wanted 1. Serves me right for stealing paper from it earlier.

Joe grilled us about not having the neatest or most complete of thumbnails. Worked on value and color studies. Went to Trader Joe's after school to ge bread and cheese so that Gabe could make me a Monte Cristo. It was delicious.

Worked on what I need to work on but I still am a little behind. None of my cover sketches worked out. Up late and have to get up early. BOO!!

schedule righted

Fixed my schedule! Well the school fixed their scheduling issues and I got it all resolved and the base schedule I have for Fall 2009 is awesome. First semester of my JUNIOR YEAR!! WHOO!! I will probably add another class so that I'll get more of my money's worth. Anyway, it goes like this: Monday: Narrative Image with Daniela Molnar. Wednesday: History of Printmaking with Morgan Walker (had him for the figure last semester) followed by The History of Laughter: From the Ancients to the Postmodern with Barry Sanders. Thursday: Illustration Studio II: Visual Vocabulary with Martin French. All of them are 300 level. Only three days a week scheduled up. Awesometacular.

So Joe had to pull out of teaching us for the rest of the semester. Bummer. Family things. He will still be there for Digital though. Some of my classmates were not so bummed out. Daniela has stepped in to teach us for the rest of the semester. First we did the critique of our pieces (finally). A lot of people really stepped up to the plate and delivered some amazing things. I think the divide between AWESOME and uhh, okay was more clear. Robin produced this beautiful work with so many textures and compositional brilliances. I'll be sad when she goes away from us Illustrators. Mine was mostly favorable with little nitpicks. I think it helped that I had spent the whole day inking before I started in on it.

Did the registration thing and tracked down my Madeline for lunch in the library as usual.

In class we dug up a photo that we liked and did line art and then those were photocopied. We reduced the colors of the image down to 12 and colored it in, and then we switched color swatches and colored it in with those. We were supposed to do it a third time but I couldn't finish fast enough. It looked neat but I didn't have my supplies (the teacher supplied some). It was a busy day. Someone commented that it was the most productive we had ever been in class. I think some people would have had more productive days if they bothered to stick around till 5pm.

I took it easy. I mapped out what I need to get done in the next couple days (a lot).

Watched Terminator 2 for what I think was the first time tonight with Katie and Gabe(Gabe made Ragout). What a lovely action movie!

I miss the sound of rain on a roof

Guess what I got done before 6:00 pm today? That's right. MY COMIC! I inked that sucked in record time. And it looks. It looks like a comic. I layed it out in a few hours and I think once it is all compiled, it will look amazing. Now I just need to sort out the text, the cover, the back flap, and the screens. I think I can manage two transfers on one screen. I'll just tape over one while I print the other. That way it will save me time on applying the emulsion. I will just have to clean and dry and tape, which will take considerably less time. And while one drys, I can print the other layer. It is all coming together! I just need to find paper big enough.

Got that done, and my Illustration homework. Which only took an hour and a half once I got reference photos. Zachary and Joe were right, the more detailed the thumbnail the easier the final result is to make. I had a very productive day.

I spilled ink on my leg but I was too lazy to clean it off. As the day wore on, I began to think that an ink spot or drip would make an awesome tattoo.

It rained ferociously for a little while. Things washed down the hill and people ran. It was really beautiful. Mom called me and we talked about the poem where our, "Goddamn the rain, Goddamn!" quote came from. Actually it doesn't have that line at all. Here is the poem, for your Spring Weather having enjoyment:

Ancient Music

Winter is icummen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm.
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.

Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Damn you, sing: Goddamm.

Goddamm, Goddamm, 'tis why I am, Goddamm,
So 'gainst the winter's balm.

Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm.
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.

Ezra Pound

I did it!

Guess what? I got all the sketches done! And by 9pm. Amazing! I didn't think I could do them all but I did. It took a season of IT Crowd, a bunch of Kids Down the Hall, and a Heath Ledger double feature of Knights Tale and 10 Things I Hate About You.

Gabe made a burger and served it up right after I finished the comic. It nearly put me into a coma with its greatness. Mmm.

Then we walked to Hollywood. Now I'm going to watch some movies, relax, drink some wine, and relax some more.

Now it is movie time!!

medium goal

I inked the three pages that I had fully drawn. Took about an hour a page, a little more. Watched Gangs of New York and the new Red Dwarf episode.

That's right.
New Red Dwarf. Series IX. Nine years later. It is supposed to be a three parter. The actors were rather stiff and not quite in full character. They were also looking a little rough. I'll give it time.
But still, new episode!

Caught up on my programing. Breaking Bad. Lost. Heroes. And other things. Watched Kids in the Hall while doing the thumbnails. I have almost the whole thing done. Tomorrow morning I can finish and then set in on a marathon sketching and inking session. I have a lot of work but as long as I have something to watch, I'll be good. But I can almost see the end. Even if I just get the sketches done this weekend, I'm still in good shape and I can ink Monday and Tuesday. The high goal is sketch and inks. Low goal is sketches. Today's was inking and thumbnails.

Root for Trillian!

threes

I'm really exhausted. Again.

The crop circles went over well. Someone had stepped in it slightly (from the angle we didn't mark off because Liz and Karen thought three sides would be enough). It was fine and resolved quickly enough. We had a good review. Most people had interesting alternate ways of doing it. There was projected light (which seemed like cheating), rice, collage, screen print, and one group went to the beach and did a 20 foot construction of the Death Star! It was way cool.

Cleaning was a snap. We broke apart the circle and swept it all into one trash bag. One big, 120 pound trash bag. I watched the stuff while Karen and Liz struggled to bring it to the dumpster. I had a meeting with Martin at 11 so I rushed to throw some stuff together.

He still likes my work, we talked about classes and why the heck was Narrative Image at the same time as his studio. He likes my work. It wasn't a very heavy discussion.

I chilled and finally ate something. Illustration Drawing Club had a meeting in the library. We talked about classes and what to do over the summer and maybe a use for the money the Illustration Department has. We are very proactive people it would seem.

Eh. Yeah. Printed out some stuff to make a portfolio. Should have one. Just need to document my other work.

Digital was another pop quiz. Had to recreate this insane portrait. Now it is an editorial illustration. Four topics, mostly about the economy or something.

I'm really tired.

After class, Karen and I rode our bikes up to 21st to catch the 7:00pm showing of Tokyo! We got there early and we were met with a notice that the theatres becomes 21+ after 6:00pm! What the hell? I mean, I'm, 21 and all that but now I can't see a movie with everyone that I would like to. Including Karen who left her ID at home. We enjoyed an Italian soda together and parted ways (I still wanted to see it, company or no).

Tokyo! is three short films by Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, and Joon-ho Bong. All of them center around people living in Tokyo. As the shorts go on, the reality of Tokyo decreases. Gondry's is very beautiful and a lot of the shots seemed like places I remember. It was touching even when it went a little weird at the end. It all made sense. Carax' was about this weird creature who lived in the sewers and tossed grenades and was sentenced to death. He had a weird language and talked about his God. This man was on of three people in the world who spoke the language and translated. It was interesting. Bong's was about this man who did not leave his house and what eventually drives him out into a world unfamiliar to us as well.

They were nice. It was raining when I got out at 9:00pm. Now it is time to sleep well, I have a full weekend ahead of me.

this post is dedicated to Kody

Nonstop day stage 1:
Comic meeting! Lacey had a test print. It looks fabulous. She got her stuff so done on schedule and all that. Amazing. I am going to try for a broad sheet fold. I will need my comic to be done THIS WEEKEND. AHHH!!! I have three solid days to just work work work. I still think I can.

Nonstop day stage 2:
Printmaking critique! Mine went really well. Only one complaint about the color and that was resolved when I pinned up the print on the other paper. I felt really good and satisfied that it was so well received. Other pieces were more problematic in terms of color choices and composition. I wish the critique chairs were more on the comfy side. I squirm a lot in the metal ones. It has been a fun class and we were assigned our final project. Four colors, edition of five. Next class I will be working on my comic, if I didn't have two screens to use I might be worried that I might fall behind. With two I can get two colors set up to print so I'm not waiting for one screen to dry all the time. Rock on! The critique was split between lunch, as usual. Everyone was fairly nice. I wish I was a little more gutsy in saying things but I'm not sure how they would take it. Oh well. Yoshi gave us more demos about using a transfer and removing the emulsion.

Nonstop day stage 3:
Lunch! Okay lunch was a nice break. Lean Cuisine and a root beer. Sat with Robin and Natalie but they were studying and gave Madeline and I looks every time we talked so we moved. I'm sorry but I asked if we could sit and you said okay and then you get mad that we talk? Just say "only if you don't talk because we are busy studying" and that will be fine. So we moved to the couch and took it easy but some people totally joined them and they didn't ask them to leave! Probably in their class. I'm assuming because otherwise it would just be mean.

Nonstop day stage 4:
Figuring out my schedule! I figured that it is all screwed up. Most of my first choices for History and Social Science Seminar are stuck on Wednesday, which Martin French's studio is scheduled for. I have no idea what to take now. It is a weird mess and hard to find things that will work. Might retake the second part of illustration painting. Might take art since 1945. Might take theory and practice. Who knows. It is a mess and nothing really fits.

Nonstop day stage 5:
Yoga! We did lots of high energy, major warming, and back bending postures. We worked on Camel against the wall and it really pushed our limit. I'm drinking lots of water.

Nonstop day stage 6:
Crop circle construction! Karen rolled in with two 60 pound bags of sand at 8:30 and we got to it. The construction itself only took about 20 minutes. Filling some of the shapes in with sand took nearly two hours. Lots of packing and flattening and all that. I'll post pictures. It looks really good. It represents the Pacific Northwest sun cycles. Kody, awesome Kody, made us a massive sandwich to share! It had meat and all sorts of things. It was delicious and just what we needed. Kody rules. I left school at around 10:30pm today. I arrived at 9:45am to put up Illustration Drawing Club posters.

Nonstop day stage 7:
Had to stay up and write a damned paper about the crop circle. I'M SO TIRED! I'M GOING TO BED NOW!

yes, Trillian can

Another beautiful day. I think it is said that it will hold for the rest of the week.

We did a practice run with our circle construction. Just doing the lines and all that. I drew, Karen and Liz held the strings. Some of my lines left a little to be desired but all in all it worked out beautifully. The mythology we are creating for it centers around it being a representation of all the false starts of Summer that Portland has. All the sunny breaks before it actually maintains for a season. We are also working on a dance to go with it but we probably won't perform it.

Thumbnailed another chunk of my comic. Listened to music. Loitered around Karen.

Student council was straightforward again. Not many people showed as it was sunny and bright and warm and we are all cooped up and have hot soup.

Joe has his third round of flu so class was cancelled. Bummer! So after chilling with Karen in the print lab, I went home.

First I stopped by Key Bank and dropped off my final two paychecks from Gap. $80! Yeah! Whoo!

Then I went home and chilled. Luna and I took a lovely nap. Then while Katie played Grand Theft Auto, I drew my comic. Got another some 15-20 panels drawn. I have about three solid pages worth to ink and about a page left to thumbnail. The end is almost in sight. I want to get it all sketched before I start inking. Thumbnailing in the afternoon and drawing at night is giving a great pace. Tomorrow I won't be able to work but Thursday I have a big lump of time. Hopefully I'll get all the thumbnails done in that four hour period. Then I will just have to hold up Friday and Saturday and work my butt off. I can do this!!

it ain't sweet tasting, I tell you what

16 panels penciled in two hours. Pretty good for a late start. I also ran out of thumbnails. Which means my goal during the break tomorrow is to print the assignment for Digital and thumbnail the rest of my script. I don't want to ink till I have all the pencils done. Just so I can do them all at once and build up a good pace, you know? It takes longer to work up the nerve to work than it does to get things done.

BEAUTIFUL DAY! Holy cow. Sunny and warm. I dressed for the weather and was quite satisfied. Lightweight pants just below the knee and a tee. I was pretty chill.

Illustration was another round of critiques with the more finalized sketches. It dragged a little but there were some cool middle work. I guess spending more time in this stage is better because once you are finished, you are finished. This is the point at which you can help people to make a pretty piece of art.

For lunch I got a drink and a lean cuisine. A not quite filling lunch but more affordable. Madeline and I crashed in the library and played with these design blocks. It was fun but it went quick.

During class we just worked on our flyers for Zachary Baldus' assignment. I settled on a Bad Taste Costume Party. So I drew three people in costume posing for a photo. It could have been in worse bad taste but as is, I got some good laughs and entertained my crew. Which is good. I drew a freckled dude dressed as Hitler with an arm around a smoking, drinking pregnant lady and Jon Benet Ramsey. Baldus loved it, even if JBR didn't read quite so well at first (it is hard when people are dressed up). I should have drawn the "pregnant" ladies' pillow under her shirt sticking out. Anyway, it was fun if a little in bad taste (but that was the theme). There were some groovy things and some unfinished things. Robin's cake decorating party was rendered insanely good. Trusty Ticonderoga. It was a fun class, aided by the fact that we had air conditioning available to us.

I went home to work on the comic. Took a while to get to it, but I did. Gabe made tacos.

Illustration Assignment: Coles Phillips Concept Sketches

Some of the preliminary sketches for my current Illustration Studio class. We are to do a Cole Phillips cutaway style image. The skirt, the arms, and the headband are designed to not have an outline and are defined by the negative shapes. The top image was the second, more formal sketch, and the bottom is the third drawn with references (which Katie was nice enough to pose for).

blog post #666

Friday:
Got up bright and early and stuffed my weekend things into my Trader Joe's bag and set out at 1:00am to catch a 2:50 train. Very early set out. Stopped by Plaid Pantry and got some snackums for the train ride. It was sunny and I got very warm very quick. Picked up a hotdog at the station and chilled. There was a slight freakout when I heard a train was having problems but it was only the one that was Southbound. Got into my window seat and set out on time with no problems. Hurray! Read Graveyard Book and thumbnailed my script and did lots of fun things to spend the time.

Llyw was waiting with Meiji and Pocari Sweat(a drink, it is good and not sweaty at all) and all was good. It was a bright, beautiful day and the weekend kept shining. We dropped our things off and lounged about. Dinner was tacos handmade from stuff bought from the nearby Safeway. College kids, not art school kids, are so different looking. And they buy a lot of cheap beer. We nibbled on food and watched The Illusionist and eventually went to sleep.

Saturday:
Another beautiful day. Breakfast was quesedilla and eggs scrambled with last nights leftover taco meat. We had a later snack of Bubble Tea. I shook mine up and the plastic cracked and spilled green stuff all over my lap and shirt. Hoping to find a replacement shirt, we went to Buffalo Exchange. I did not find a shirt but did find a great deal on a sweater (50% off because the season is ending)and suspenders. The shirt and pants dried with no stain so that was fortunate.

Big Fish Games, the company Llyw works for, was having an office party. They were going to have it during Christmas time but the weather called a halt to that. We arrived fashionably lateish. I was in my floral velvet dress and tights and the only heels I can pretend to walk in. I checked my jacket and Llyw held onto my ID. But I wasn't carded anyway. Amazing the trust that exists in Seattle. Met a wide variety of nice and cool looking coworkers. Started things with a Long Island Iced Tea to speed away the awkward-being-in-a-huge-unfamiliar-group feeling. And it zoomed away. It wasn't that well made though. Anyway. Met more people down in the concert area. Rockaroke was scheduled. It is Karaoke with a live band backing the singer. A lot of people were very good (or the music was very loud and I was a little bit tipsy). Llyw performed Tainted Love. There was Buddy Holly and Rock and Roll and a ton of other things. Some prizes were given away by the fairly inebriated CEO (who wore slacks that were way too baggy and made him look very stunted and short).

It was very fun and we stayed all the way through. Then at the end Llyw checked his pockets and oh no, my ID had gone missing! We checked all the areas he had been, checked the coat check and the bar and all around multiple times and it was nowhere to be seen. Fortunately I have my passport. Hopefully it will show up in the next couple days. If not, I'll have to make another trip to Vancouver and get another one made up. Major bummer. So that put a damper on the rest of the night.

Sunday:
Last day. Brilliant day. Insanely sunny and warm day. 77 degrees out! What the hell? No word about the ID. We had orange rolls for breakfast and walked over to Trabant and had Italian sodas and played Mancala. Then we took a lengthy walk down to the water and all about while I sweated and wanted fish and chips. None were to be had because we caught the 4:28 bus downtown and ended up in the International District at 5 and I had to board right away. The lady in front of me had a Sandman sleeve tattoo and a Hellboy sleeve on the other arm. They were really well done.

The ride was uneventful but it went quick. I took a nap and read and ate another Hot Dog. Missed one Max but only had to wait five minutes for the next. It was a warm night and very quiet with no crazy people to be had. Now I'm back. The weekend went by so fast. Now it is time to work again.

I must admit, it was nice to take a break from the writing thing, even though I know how much you all enjoy it and look forward to it (you all being my family mostly).

the weekend is here

Math class:
Just met with Liz and Karen regarding our crop circle. Liz worked on reproducing it and Karen and I practiced chalk circles. I did some running about and errands but it went generally well and quick.

The break:
Scanned in all of the comic that I had done, resized it, and put in placer text and posted it to the comic class site for other classmates to look at. It is coming along. The text didn't take that long to put in so I feel good about that. I figure I'll need a day just to get all the transparencies set up. And by that I mean, getting text printed out according to the size of the panels and getting see through (except for the black of the linework and the text) versions printed up so that I can put them on my screens and print them. It's a weird process with probably lots of photocopying. I might copy and paste the text right into the frames and photocopy it like that. I'll figure that out. Need to finish the comics first. Speaking of finishing: I got the script done! All of it! Every crummy line of dialogue and action. Uhg. I don't know how I feel about it really. I'm so close to it. Need some distance. So with that, I just need to thumbnail and away I go! I have hopes of getting it finished over the course of next week and into the weekend.

I just bought some stuff to microwave for lunch. A little lean cuisine and a little drink. Was relatively cheap though in the grand tradition of lean cuisine, not filling at all.

Digital Illustration:
We worked on text and cropping images. It was a shortened class and I took the chance to bounce before the rain came back. My mistake as no sooner was I on my bike for a minute than did the heavens spew fourth gallons of wetness. Uhg. It didn't last long but it was horrible.

First Thursday:
Changed into some snazzy tights and shorts and shoes and went to rock the First Thursday thing. Dominic and Thom have a show at Litterbox (named because a kitty named Lester lives in the gallery) so I went there first. Dom put up a drawing I gave to him in the show, but in a clearly not his work section. It was sweet. It was a nice show and lots of people were coming through, and lots of familiar faces. Chatted with Thom mostly. Shared bad jokes. Checked out Pony Club, where I ran into Farel and Zachary. Farel had put up some of the assignment he did in class in the show. Ha! We all chatted a little bit. Karen was also there but she did not talk to Farel. She had one of Adam's friends, Stu, with her. Neat Scottish guy. We all hung out a little bit but we parted at Dom and Thom's show. Janessa, Josh, Craig, Serenity, August and I all went to Upper Playground because Craig said there was a show that was awesome there. Wheeled my bike along and struggled to lock it up. The Upper Playground show was okay, it was saved by having 3D glasses which made the work really pop. It was covered with bright pop monsters and photo defacement.

You spend enough time at First Thursday and people start to look alike. It is the same types of dress and facial hair and all that stuff repeated and stuffed into a crowd. It gets a little overwhelming.

Bike Trouble:
I parted ways with the pals and rode my bike down to the Max. At some point during my struggle with locking up, my brake became dislodged and I was without them and had to skid to stop with my shoes. Thankfully it was flat and I wasn't going fast. I can't imagine not being able to stop on demand like fixed gear bikes. When I got to the max, I fixed the brake and all was well.

Seattle:
I'm going up to Seattle this weekend. It is Llyw's birthday so I'm crashing at his place and partying it up a little at one of his company's shindigs. I consider this my break. Spring Break was just a sham, stupid food poisoning! I'll try to blog but if I don't, don't worry. Taking the train up tomorrow afternoon. Getting there around 6:30. I'm coming down Sunday night. I'm pretty far ahead with the school stuff, so don't worry. And I have train time to focus.

Cardigan Edit

We had to crop and add text to our image to promote our department. Here it is.

Photoshop.

working 11 to 8:15.

The print lab was crowded yet still functional. Everyone was in different cycles and occupied different parts of the room. Still it was busy. Lots of trouble shooting. Lots of "egads, why is it not printing right" and so on. I on the other hand was almost done and not having really any issues, having had to sort them out a week ago. I drew on my screen and while that was drying I mixed up the jade green. I should have started fresh and made it opaque so that it would layer less suspiciously on top of the other layers. Oh well, my bad. It still looks good. Got the emulsion on it and exposed it with Patsy's at the same time right before lunch. Set the puppy out to dry and went to Quizno's.

Comic club had a small turnout. I introduced the pictionary telephone game. It isn't that hard to explain? I made a tiny little speech bubble flyer to canvas the school with in interesting spots (a flyer away from flyers draws more attention than one amid the rest).

Printing went quick but I got so speedy I got a little sloppy and the last layer was more crooked than it should have been. I could have had more lined up correctly but I didn't I got sloppy. Oh well. The two color edition turned out nice. Gave one to Madeline. Her litho is looking purdy. I introduced her to the curved wood used to rest your hand when drawing. She was happy about that.

Read and internetted while waiting for Yoga. I did fairly well in yoga despite being two weeks out of it. I was a little tight but the twists did me good. I scarfed the rest of my Quizno's after.

It was raining heavily all day. I had my rain pants with me and they served me well on the ride to school (which I did with Karen who was leaving at the same time. Very fun. She is a semi-fair weather biker now! Go her!). When I left the school, at 8:45pm, it was dry! Dry dry dry! Hurray.

Now I'm decompressing and assessing all that I have to do tomorrow.

Oh, also gave Dominic one of the two color prints. And Serenity. They are going fast.

too ontop of the game

Liz, Karen and I banded together and discussed our ideas for our crop circle. Liz had some ideas worked out already so that was way cool. We settled on this rather biohazardian symbol. We aim to do it in the commons with chalk and sand. It will be very very temporary. We shall start practicing Thursday.

After that I went to work on my screen. Had to buy a brush because I left mine at home but that was probably for the better as now I have one specifically for the drawing fluid. And it is longer than my watercolor brushes so that makes it easier to get some of the spots. Between class and lunch I got it all drawn and dried and the emulsion applied. Left it to dry in the exposure room and then it was student council time!

Not much went down. We got this furniture we budgeted for three semesters ago. Some guerrilla gardening was brought up. We are getting a Foosball table. Then it was back to printing!

The line work looked great. Very clean and exactly what I wanted. I mixed up a ton of my color. Like, way too much and I had to split it into two plastic containers. The printing went really fast and it registered fairly well for the most part. It is looking quite awesome. I am excited for it to be finished. I just powered right through that sucker. I had tons of ink and time left so I bought some more paper and printed 16 smaller bleed prints (when the image runs off the paper). So when I am done, I will have 20 four color prints and 16 two color. The 20 will probably end up being a nice edition 6-8, about 7-9 unique prints that are still cool on their own, and then the remainder just being stuff I screwed up on too much or tester. I feel good about it. Silk screening isn't causing the frustration that other printmaking mediums tend to. All I have to do tomorrow is apply more of the drawing fluid, apply the emulsion, expose it, mix up the final color, and then ink that sucker. I should be done early as it takes no time at all to print.

I got it all clean in time for digital illustration. We had the pop challenge thing. I watched House while working on it. Then I finished up my Coles Phillips piece. Joe came by and said that removing the background pattern was a breath of fresh air. I agree. It did look better with just the smooth blue. I reworked the knee and that part I'm still iffy on. I never collected a reference.

Went to Safeway and picked up soap and shampoo and detergent and other things that feel like they cost a lot but last a long time so in the long run it isn't so bad.

Put things away. Ate dinner. Emptied dishwasher. I can finally return to yoga tomorrow. So happy.

Lovely Cardigan

Final version of the cardigan Coles Phillips piece (sans text). Got rid of the texture, it was deemed too much.

1500x1200 pixels. Photoshop.

quick fire challenge: lady

600x900. Quick fire popquiz digital challenge. We had to recreate this fashionable figure lady.

people need to wash their hands

Okie doke! Back to it and I'm feeling fine. I wore a skirt and it was chilly. Figures. Still, I looked good.

Joe has the flu! Again! Poor fella. We went over our sketches and had time in class to refine our ideas. Mine were generally well received, it probably helped that I had a range. Kevin amazes me every time he whips out his sketches. Boys got talent. Dominic is doing some flowerflage. Like camouflage but with flowers. Gabe found some Quiznos coupons so I used one for my lunch. $2 off a large! Hooyah! Sat with Madeline and Leah and Kody in the library. Talked about au juice sauce and where it comes from.

Joe and Farel's buddy Zachary Baldus came in to show us his stuff and give us an assignment. He is being recruited as a new teacher in the illustration program so this is giving him a little test run. We have a week and a bit to do a flyer for a theme party. I have ideas. In true Illustration Major fashion, once it was clear nothing more was going down everyone took off at 4:10. Dominic and I hung around and chatted with Zachary. Never hurts to make connections.

Then that was that. Watched movies. Read book. Worked on sketches. Had to prepare my own dinner as Gabe is off at his parents. Wahh!!

Tomorrow is math and student council and digital painting (if Joe isn't too sick). Also will work on my silk screen. Get ahead! That is my goal. Whooo!

taking notes

Threw myself at my sketches and script for one last push through the dredges of Spring Break. Got a few more lines of dialogue. Just pushing through it. It isn't so bad. It really is the hardest part. I could probably get all the inking and panels done in a week if I could just get this SCRIPT FINISHED ARGGGHH!! Yeah. Doing that.

Sat for hours with movies and TV playing while I sketched out some ideas and looked at art books. I'm so over thinking this project. Just thinking and thinking. Forcing ideas. It isn't fresh anymore. But I did get a cool character out of it.

I woke up early again. Freaking whiskey sour. I wanna sleep in!! Well it will help me get to bed right tonight.

Gabe made claw chowder but I'm not a chowder type. Also Katie started feeling ill so maybe it was for the best I didn't have any. It has been fun this spring break, just the three of us lounging about. It hasn't been fun having to be cared for when I was really really really sick.

Have some nice sketches. I feel fairly confidant about it. Back to the school stuff tomorrow! Holla! I have to crank out some stuff because I'll be up in Seattle this weekend. I'm ahead in the printing which is the most labor intensive part (it also requires me to be there). So printing is school dependant, and if I can get the script finished I can print that out and do the thumbnails wherever.

little day

Slept in to counter the early morning last night. Slept way way in. Sketched out some stuff. Watched JCVD properly. Sketched more stuff. Went to Scooter's with Katie and Gabe and got a cheap whiskey sour. Then we went to Jake's and had some stuff off the happy hour menu. I had a $3 cheeseburger and fries! We sat with some former coworker's of Gabes. It was really fun. The drink was on an empty tummy so I was like woaaaah when eating my burger. Still a little now. Anyway. Watching Princess Bride with them now. It was a fun little day. Katie made cookies and Gabe helped.

Tomorrow is the last day of spring break. Have to whip out those scripts.

JCVD is Jean Claude Van Damme in a serious role. He is playing himself and it is really good.

step off my 'turf yo!

My alarm went off at 7:50am. I slept in till about 8:40 and bounded out of bed to shower and pack snacks. I got to the printing labs at 9:30. Karen and I were going to silkscreen together but she was a noshow (other work had to be done). With a better squeegee and a new mix of ink, I actually got some decent pulls! And some, uhh, not so decent ones. It is about 50/50 right now. But I won't judge till I finish it up. I'll probably have a lot of singular looking ones that are still neat on their own.

I was mostly by myself for the whole day, mostly. The print aid, whose name I can never figure out, was there and mixed up massive batches of transparency base and process and opaque inks. Nice and fresh! And clumpy. My ink had little white splotches in but they didn't effect the printing too much. I managed to get two colors of 20 prints each done! I'm half way done! In one long day's worth of work. 9:30-5. But with breaks for food and waiting for things to dry. I reread almost the first two volumes of Scott Pilgrim while waiting for things to dry. It is nice when it is vacant because you can really spread out. So yeah, 20 prints. 10 on white and 10 on creme. I think I like the creme better. They are 11x17, 15x22 with the border. Very sizeable. I'm not looking forward to trying to print when there are classmates. I might try to whip out another color tomorrow. Ain't no thang to show up to class and be all "Yeah, I only have one layer and a week to do it. BOOYAH." I don't want to gossip but the majority of the screens of my classmates look untouched.

Rainbow was in the studio for a bit. She had free AstroTurf to hand out. I totally got a little bit of it! It sits proudly as a mat on my balcony right now. It is awesome. I'm so classy.

I reread the first four volumes of Scott Pilgrim today. Now Gabe is reading them. Watched Royal Tenenbaums as well. Good but sad.

SO MUCH PRINTING!!

screen and cut

My back has been hurting me. If I turn to the left it spasms. It is really painful but not constant so I can't really take an Advil for it.

Went in to silk screen today. Got my screen emulsified, my paper bought and cut, and all that. My screen exposed alright. I'm going for the soft, jagged edges effect. Karen was around and we chatted but otherwise the studio was very vacant. I managed to get the color that I wanted but I had serious issues getting it to go through my screen. I just don't have the arm strength for that size of work. Hopefully it will get better. Just have to practice.

Didn't do much else. Gabe made pizza.

Tomorrow I will be going in with Karen and getting an early morning printing session in. Hopefully it will go better.

chocolate badness

Just when I got better I get worse. Gabe made some hot chocolate that was just too thick and had a tad too much sugar in it. Made me so nauseous.

One good work day is followed by a nonwork day. I wrote down lots of things to try and generate ideas but nothing came to mind. Just did little drawings of Luna and Gabe and Katie.

Had a weird dream about a zombie invasion. I entered a building and this wolf attacked the desk clerk. I went into the elevator and Batman came out eating coleslaw. I wanted to go to the top floor, and the elevator only had one button. For that floor. I woke up in a scared panic and sat in bed quite numb. I went back to bed and fell into another vacant dreamscape. This person I was travelling with had Lee Pace in a box and was deceiving me.

I've been reading Another Roadside Attraction. It's an awesome old school paperback. $3.50 at Powell's. Right on.

cue Eye of The Dragon

I woke up this morning with INSANE energy! I'm better! I stuffed toast in my gob and drank tea and wore not pajamas! It is so lovely not being bed and couch ridden.

The first thing I did was my math homework. Which isn't due for a week! A whole week! We had to redo one of Zef Damen's crop circle reconstructions. This guy Zef, all he does is redo crop circles in proper math constructions. Shows how the people (or Aliens) who design crop circles do it. Pretty sweet actually. I had to restart about 21 steps in because the paper was too small and I goofed early on. The restart took less time though because I had figured out how to make some of the shapes needed. I used markers to color in the final construction so that I could still leave all the many pencil marks.

Then I took a break and watched telly.

Gabe made massive chili for dinner. And made me chicken soup. Because he is awesome. I put in Hot Fuzz and wrote out ideas for a new silk screen. Then I drew and colored in the one I liked.

Banana, math, chicken soup, silk screen layout, saltines, candy. I'm in good shape!

Katie and Jade Plants Layout

Layout for the reductive silk screen project (redone to be something a tad more interesting and less Coles Phillips). Katie with jade plants growing out of her head. Need I say more? The colors are not the colors that the silk screen will be, they are just a test so I know how things will lay.

11"x17". Graphite and watercolor.

day three

Feeling much better!

Even managed to take my bike out for a quick ride to Trader Joe's and back. Got veggies and oatmeal. Now I can munch my way to good health! Sadly I got the wrong type of granola bar but they are still good.

I'm eating larger and larger portions and keeping it all down. I finished up the inking on my comics so now all I have to do is proceed on the writing. I took a lengthy nap in the middle of the day and will likely go to bed early. Lots of rest, lots of water.

Katie and Gabe made Laab. I was only able to stomach the sticky rice. I can't wait till I'm healthy and can eat all this fabulous cooking!

still sick

I'm still sick. Keeping hydrated alright but I have no appetite whatsoever.

Just sitting about, wallowing.

Katie is awesome. She is taking awesome care of me. Got me 7up and saltines!

This is still the worst feeling ever. Uhhg. Two days lost!

sickness

I got food poisoning last night (probably from Montage). 12 hours of vomit. Little breaks of rest. Trying to keep hydrated.

It really sucks.

the lovely visitor and what we did

Inked in another page and a half worth of panels. Almost got it. If I get the rest of the script done by Wednesday, I should be golden. I can get the rest drawn in no time at all. All this stress better be worth it!

Dear Auntie Dorothy is in town for a conference tonight so we met up for dinner and a lengthy Portland stroll. She said she would be out of meetings at around 5 or 6 so I caught the max to Lloyd at 5:20. At around 6:30 I got a call saying she was at her hotel, about 12 blocks away from Lloyd so I got to walking. I'm so rarely in North East. Saw a bread making plant and walked by one of the TBA venues. We met up on Burnside and hugged and made our way further South to Montage.

It was actually open this time and we got a little table at a table section of three (they put people elbow to elbow). We gabbed about school and work and all those little things. I had the buttermilk fried drumsticks and she had the beans and rice. There are many things that I would like to try on the menu, it is very diverse. My leftovers came in a snail design. Very cool!

After the walk to Montage, we trekked across the Morrison Bridge. It was a misting sort of rain. From there we walked in a series of lefts and rights towards PNCA. The school closed at 10 and we got there at 9:10. I showed off our printing studios (and some of my prints) and the art on the walls. A quick little run down. From there we strolled along 10th and grabbed some gelato to top off the night. And there we hugged and parted. It was a nice little lovely visit with tons of walking (and for once someone keeps MY pace).

Now I'm enjoying some tea and really noticing how much energy I used during the day. Whoo!

party in cancun! and by cancun I mean the pearl district

Spring break! Yeaah! Whoo!

Math was spent in a computer lab. We looked at some construction geometry computer programs and crop circles. Our new assignment is to make a crop circle and reproduce it really big like.

Then it was break time! I sat in a classroom and worked on my screenprint layouts. Then it was free lunch May Day Soiree planning party. We talked about music and decorations. When I say we, I mean they. I didn't have much to contribute.

Then I was kicked out of the lab by the teacher (which I thought was silly because there were 10 students in there and it was clearly a studio work period). So I found another computer and worked there on my digital piece. I worked till about 5 and went home. Whoo! SPRING BREAK!!!

Watched some TV. Met up with Matt at Goose Hollow Inn and we had a couple drinks and watched The Office (meh) and 30 Rock. Matt is almost graduating, I'll be sad to see him leave Portland.

Katie had a little girly party with her friends.

Dorothy! Tomorrow! Can't wait. I think I will take her to Montage. Shhh it's a surprise.

Cardigan

A near final version for the Coles Phillips Digital Illustration assignment. Just tweaking the color and the lines that form the negative space a bit.

1200x100. Photoshop.

Screen Print Image Test

Some different compositions and tests for my first screenprint project. It is a little reductive so I wanted to lay it out before I began. I'm not sure about the clouds. Another Coles Phillips inspired piece. I'm on a real kick right now.

Photoshop. About an hour and a half.

painin

I got cramps really bad and they persisted all through the day. So bad I couldn't do yoga, and you know how much I love yoga.

Daniel showed up late for the comic meeting but Lacey and August and I started our discussion early. Things went over pretty well. I just need to keep churning out panels.

Printmaking was five hours of instruction. Hour and a half about spreading the emulsion and the introduction of our assignments. Quizno's lunch with Madeline in the library. And then many more hours of printing explanation, using the waterbased stuff and assignment explanation. It took so long. Thankfully I had a preexplanation from Karen a while back. The irk in the stomach was very distracting. I walked home with Diana. Then I self medicated and curled up and watched telly. Nothing due tomorrow. Just have to bring in the tablet and a notebook.

Almost Spring Break! One more day! And Llyw says Auntie Dorothy

the other green day

Katie, Gabe and I went out for some Saint Patty's Day drinks. Gabe was buying. Whiskey sours. I was in no state to write when I got back but seeing as how there is all this lovely art to look at, I'd say it isn't so bad. There were some English guys at Scooter's and at first we thought they were using fake accents to pick up the ladies. Later when talking to one of them (Matt) he showed us his English driver's license. Oops our bad. We talked about Red Dwarf and other things. The place has crazy loud music so that wasn't so much fun. Katie is awesome. She locked elbows with me all the way home (which wasn't that long of a walk, only about 8 blocks). She is awesome.

We did paper folding in math. Just simple little exercises to try and better learn the concepts. Maybe to reconstruct the principals we are learning in a different kind of visual format. I got a handle of it pretty quick so I spent about 45 minutes telling Derek Franklin my jokes and playing hangman.

Made photocopies and chilled in the library.

Student council was uneventful. We are going to stage a protest to try and get some money from someone was payed money to a year and a half ago.

Worked on the thumbnails between the second part of my break. Just whipped them out. I have a whole list of ideas. I'm going to rework a few of them for my Illustration class.

The class itself didn't have that much to it. We went over our thumbnails. I got an explanation about creating brushes. We worked on our backdrops for another hour and then it was a "stay and work or leave" option. I stayed and worked. The security desk made a big fuss about me returning the tablet to them so I took it home. Well I also didn't want to just leave it in the lab, just in case of the possibility of something happening.

At home I inked about half of my sketched panels. And when I went over my script, it turns out I have like half of the story sketched! Well half of the outline. There is more action coming up but the dialogue is relatively simple. Huzzah! That was a good feeling. I'm on track. I returned Two Towers and borrowed Snatch. During the viewing of which Gabe made me a big sandwich with chicken and lots of other stuff. It was good.

And then we went out. It was not raining in the evening as the clouds had expelled it all earlier.

Cardigan

I'm going with the cardigan. Rendered at 1200x1200. Photoshop.

Belgium!

Two hour digital illustration quiz! Based after a photo from our trip to Brussels. Mural copyright Herge.

After Coles Phillips - Idea Sketches

Digital thumbnail sketches for the new Digital Illustration project. A quick critique will help me decide which concept to do. I'm like the towel and jetpack one. I'm doing this same project for another class so the ideas might double up slightly. Ha!

An hour and a half in photoshop total.

beebee

I've been feeling crummy all day. It has been raining like crazy so that put me in a sore mood. Just feeling tired and unenthused by it all. Yeah.

Illustration was a quick go over of our pieces. Mine was liked but the knife details received less than favorable responses. Spent time with Robin during lunch. Didn't get much to eat though. Didn't have a big appetite. Then we drew a clothed model for a few hours. Joe showed us some of the videos I had previously watched in his digital class. Our assignments in the two classes are the same. So I have to whip out some awesome ideas! Whoo!

The bag on my seat had vanished so I walked home with Robin. The seat was one big sponge, didn't want to ride it. The rain stopped long enough for our journey back. Acey walked with us for a while.

Spent the last few hours just sitting. Gabe made sushi.

Luna update: Luna is really cute. She is all fluffy and sits on my bed when Katie is gone. She whines at Katie when she isn't being fed. She is getting a pot belly. She has a slight lazy eye sometimes. We love Luna!

got stuff done, yeah!

29 panels sketched and of those about 10 are inked. Inking takes no time at all. I'll do that tomorrow. Just knocked out a HUGE chunk of the comic. Very productive.

Thumbnail: A rough sketch of the composition of an image (or comic panel).

Did my taxes! I owe nothing but I have nothing coming back to me. Oh well. I used TurboTax and it took no time at all (an hour). Lots of no I don't have a mortgage and no I didn't earn any money blanks to fill in. Now I have my FAFSA.

I worked on the thumbnails for a while and then went over to Diana and Robin's to borrow a Lord of the Rings to watch. The sketching took most of the extended version of The Two Towers. Never saw the extended version. There are lots of lovely little moments in it. A few more songs and jokes and all that.

Gabe made this sort of lasagna but not really for dinner. I ate a reasonable portion.

Yeah, productive Sunday! Whoodathunkit?