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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NOT anita blake

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

tulip take two

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

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

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

"this isn't our first rodeo"

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

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

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

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

live plant LLLIIIIIVEEE

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

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

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

RIP Jade Pinkett Smith

I tried so hard to replant my beloved Jade Pinkett Smith, but she never took. The dirt or climate just did not work. A little Korean lady told me that if my lucky jade plant dies, as does my own luck.

fashion friday

I made a skirt today! Took me many hours and a couple instances of "I don't understand what the instructions are saying, so I am just going to wing it."

Still feeling sick. It sucks. Oh well.

After a sizable bacon, eggs, and toast breakfast I went to school to see if JP could print my patterns. He helped me size it so that it printed at a 1:1 ratio. The printer automatically charged m 20$ for printing because it was about 25x50 or whatever, but JP adjusted it much lower because he is awesome like that. Much much lower. What a sweetie. Wayne Bund came in and we chatted about how awesome Fabric Depot is.

On the way back home I stopped by Josephine's Dry Goods and bought a couple zippers.

Relaxed a little. Then I cut out the pattern and got to cutting and sewing! I used some of the fabric Joyce sent me because I wanted to do a trial run of the pattern, fit, and technique before I committed to the nicer gingham I bought. Cutting it out went fine. Sewing the side seams went fine. I learned some things about sewing zippers (namely to not sew near the part that zips it open and closed). Sometimes the instructions got confusing and lacked picture explanations. I was doing a pattern from later in the book, so I'm sure some of the techniques got covered in earlier, and easier, patterns. But I learn better by just doing. Pleating was a challenge. I didn't pleat enough of the skirt so the waist band ended up being a little loose. I didn't have any overlap of the buttons...or the zipper. Next time: pleat a lot more. The instructions also called for slip stitching. I have no clue what that is, but since I didn't mind having the thread show I just did the seams the way I know how. I'm pretty happy with it, for a trial run first try. I still need to sew on the buttons.

At 10 I went over to Mel's. She wanted to check out this bar that she constantly passed. Turned out it was small and near empty. So we walked to The Annex instead and got a table under the stairs in the cellar part. We sat and gabbed for an hour in a half. It was really cozy. She is loaning me Six Feet Under season one. Very excited to start watching.

ohygod you guys ohmygod

I had a great day when it comes to ink washing. I switched to newsprint instead of the pad of bond paper. Worked a lot better. Nicole was our model. Morgan read to us from A World Lit Only by Fire. He also explained why he always wears the same thing day after day: it makes life easier by not having to think about one more thing. Every morning it is a black teeshirt and Levi 501s. If it is cold: shoes, warm: flip flops.

Illustration was a low key day as it turned out. All the plans Martin had sort of fell apart, so it was a work day. My book cover was approved, it was just suggested to think about the icons a little more. I spent some time working on color and text. Lunch was Quiznos and Lucien Freud artbooks in the library. Man I love that guy. Draws hands with the same attention to detail as faces.

At 3pm I joined the life drawing session in 815C. Nicole was our model again! Quick poses and a couple longer ones. Just drew in my sketchbook. It was fun.

It was a brilliantly sunny day. Had a lovely ride home.

At 6ish Madeline called me to ask if I was busy tonight and if I wanted to join her at the Keller Auditorium for Legally Blond: The Musical. I said yes enthusiastically. I dressed in pink and black and met her outside at 7:15ish. Her grandma and great aunt were there as well. Very sweet ladies. The musical was very fun. It had some really good numbers, some sparkly costumes, UPS guy... A brilliant way to end the week. And since I wasn't familiar with the musical version of the movie, it was all new for me.

I put the registration for Stumptown Comics Fest in the mail. I hope we get our half table.

Don't know what I'll do this weekend. Read. Maybe go to school and see about printing out some patterns. Buy some 9" zippers...

When In Doubt, Draw a Cat

Six color silkscreen.

figure Drawing 3 - 2/18/2010

Figure drawing from Morgan's Figure Drawing class. Ink.

9"x12"

figure Drawing 2 - 2/18/2010

Figure drawing from Morgan's Figure Drawing class. Ink.

9"x12"

Figure Drawing 1 - 2/18/2010

Figure drawing from Morgan's Figure Drawing class. Ink.

9"x12"

lovely gifties

I got a late Valentines box this morning from someone who shall remain anonymous. But it was a fella. In the box was an assortment of art supplies, all in shades of pink. Pink colored pencils, pink gouache, pink watercolors, pink acrylic, pink pastel, pink stamp pad, pink oils. A great present. Just simply perfect.

Even though I got a decent amount of sleep, I went full groggy after 3pm. Heather gave a little presentation that was well thought out and presented clearly. Not the disaster that mine was. Then we talked about earth works and The West for an hour.

Karen and I sorted out our Stumptown Comics Fest form during lunch. We are going in halvsies on a half table. Registration is still open, so hopefully they will find a place to smoosh us that isn't too stuffed away. A full table would be ideal, but we don't have a stock pile of work ready. It would also create incentive to make displays for our work. Go vertical instead of horizontal. Very exciting. Marketing work and promoting yourself. I think I'll print a coloring book, that is an easy project. Need at least two new materials in editions of at least 60. Hmmn.

After lunch, we watched a bit from Jeremiah Johnson and The Outlaw Josey Wales. Robert Redford and Clint Eastwood. I think I should watch more westerns. I checked out The Searchers from the library, unfortunately that has just been added to the pile with Zorba the Greek and The Bicycle Thieves. I'll get around to them when I feel in the mood, until then I shall renew renew renew.

The third video was about a Cuban land artist. We watched the full thing and I fell asleep. Don't know why, I got a good amount of sleep. Well I nodded off and back up and off again. Phil told me I was breathing really heavily through my nose (I have the snuffles). Goddammit! I actually did get through the reading this week and everything. Argh. I felt bad. I told Phil he was allowed to nudge me.

We chatted some more and then critiqued Phil, Tabitha, and Sandra's pieces. Phil did an etching about his disappointment with the desert from his point of view (he is from Hawaii). Sandra took some air, water, and land samples from a park, and Tabitha did a video compilation of various westerns.

I napped for 20 minutes, then got my bum handed to me by yoga. Again. I'm so out of shape. I could barely hold any pose. So not fun!

For my next illustration project I am doing a cover for Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne. I have some ideas, just need to bounce them off Martin. Why this book? Uhh, maybe because doing Oliver Twist would be too obvious? Eh.

Time to sleep now. Still coughing. It sucks.

the ginger puppet master

Just reviewing some of the reading. Trying to absorb some more stuff about earth works and the like. Blaaah.

We drew for an hour and a bit in The Figure. More construction proportion drawings. Apparently perspective is coming up soon. Talked to Serenity in the library.

For the rest of class we had a marionette guy! He gave us a little demonstration with one of his puppets and explained the dynamics of making them and doing stages and all that. He only had two puppets on him, and they were both insanely stringed. They were very expressive. It was an awesome way to spend class time. He said he was teaching a marionette carving class. If I didn't feel so drained so often, I would totally love to sign up and do it. Maybe he will do another during the summer. It seems really cool. I would love to make a proper marionette, too bad I am also awful at carving.

I have a horrible dry cough. It sucks.

Critique day in printmaking. Well, it was really a review day. We just put up our projects, wherever we were in them. Most were done. Patsy had a huge bird silkscreen print. Seriously large and magnificent. That girl has skills. Robin's porch light piece was beautiful as well. Very striking and bold, and it still retained that quality that her work has. My stuff was pretty well received. Mostly a conversation about paper and being precious and how to fine tune the zine projects I do in the future. Amazing how a 23 person illustration class gets through pieces in an hour and a half, and a 9 person printmaking class takes around three hours to get through 6 people. Hmnn.

Walked around with Karen during break. Documented my cat. Karen and I rode our bikes over to button emporium. Needed to get some buttons. Can't make a shirt without buttons. Got black, red, and gray, and two square orange ones for the tulip skirt I want to make. I'll do a run through with some fabric that Aunty Joyce sent me, and then if that turns out I will make it again using the blue gingham plaid that I bought at Fabric Depot. All I want to do is relax and sew, but it seems like I keep needing things to get to that point. Fabric...zippers...patterns.

Went home. Coughed. Started reading stuff. Watched stuff. Ate leftover pizza. I hate being sick in a dry, can't do anything about it sort of way.

presidents day is a pointless holiday

Cough cough cough bleh. I hate having a cough.

Another dense day of class. Professor had a stamp from a club on his wrist. Tee hee. We delved into the Cogito chapter. I understand what he is explaining, but I can't get my brain to expunge it.

Went to Trader Joe's for some food stuffs. Delicious food stuffs. Celery, huge cucumber, apples galore.

Then homeward. To sit and do stuff. Eventually. Worked on sketch for figure. We are doing a three week long, multiple figure drawing. It has to be around 18x24. I have a sketch that is okay, but I know I can do better.

Katie's pop came over and tried to unjam her bike chain. He was unsuccessful. Katie's friend Paula was also visiting. We pitched in together and got a pizza and hot wings for lunch. We gorged and watched The Departed.

My entries a few years ago were so long. I was able to say so much about my days. It is really exhausting to try and sum up every day for closing in on three years now. But I will keep at it! At least till I graduate...and probably since it will be a habit by then, for however many years after. Maybe less frequently.

merleau ponty is HARD

This Existentialist Phenomenology reading is bloody difficult. And I have a whole pile of Homeland readings on top of that. I wish I had dropped one of these (probably Homeland, to be honest, it isn't up my alley at all and I'm not being very successful in branching out into it). It is a whole lot of reading...and I am very very slow at reading. Bleehh.

Bacon and eggs for breakfast! My favorite. I have no bread. Really must get bread. Without it I can't make sandwiches, which are a staple part of my diet. Also no pasta.

Watched some Project Runway Canada. I need to get some buttons and zippers, so I can sew stuff. All the fabric I have has no stretch, so I can't just free style some tee shirts. Need to figure out how to print patterns at school using the epic huge printers they have. JP said he could discount the cost based on the fact I won't be printing quality. I want to make this tulip skirt so bad, but I need to get a lot better at sewing first. Don't want to muck up the nice fabric I bought.

A pretty do nothing day, aside from reading.

This coming week is fairly low impact. Reading for Phenomenology and Homeland, sketching for Figure and Illustration, and editioning my print for Intermediate Screen. Nothing major due. It is a nice feeling. Last week SUCKED. I still don't feel recovered from it.

birthdays are fun

Whooo! Just came back from Mel's 21st Birthday! Yay!

Slept in. It was good. Slow morning. Ate pasta and sauce and bacon for breakfast. Mmm.

At around 2pm I left for school to go print. The lab was full of people finishing up the Sandow Birk print thing. Basically being print monkeys for a famous print maker. So I loitered in the library for an hour. When I got back a table had opened up, so I took and and started printing.

I really liked the three color prints, but we had to do a four color assignment so I added three more layers. Right now I'm too close to the project to correctly judge its quality. I feel that I mucked up a lot of prints by not being careful enough. Some look good. I added two darker layers and a more reddish final color. Some looked okay. But like I wrote, I need to wait and look at them all with a fresh eye. Right now I'm kind of psissed and feel that I ruined a great print by over working it. Just need to relax.

Went to Safeway. Picked up some food stuffs. Went home. Got my party face on.

Went to Mel and Melissa's for Mel's 21st. I bought her a bottle of vodka. A nice basic mixer I felt. The majority of people who came stayed for about forty five minutes to an hour and a half. So there was a constant shift of people. A lot of design majors, most of whom I have never seen because they are all cooped up in their little department. And a lot of coworkers. I mostly talked to Chris Bodven, Taylor, and Melissa. Sipped drinks, ate candy and chips. There was even a pinata. I spun Mel in a circle 21 times before she hit it. As people left, I remained. Jim showed up when things had calmed down. In the end, Zaneta, Jim and I took Mel to The Matador for her first ever bar experience.

I bought her a shot, Zaneta bought her a shot and a drink. She was pretty well drunk by the end. Dancing happy drunk though, not having to drag her home and plop her down. We just loitered near the bar and boogied. Mel lives about 10 blocks from me, which is super convenient. We brought her home in once piece. I poured her a glass of water. Made sure she was okay and made my way home. I was fairly responsible the whole night, except for the amount of candy I consumed. It was fun. Nice meeting people from PNCA who I have never seen in the almost three years of being here.

Not looking forward to homework filled Sunday, but oh well. It is what it is.

fun facts and evil men you didn't know

Had a nice slow morning and afternoon. Woke up at 10 and dozed till around noon. Mmm it was nice.

Showed up at school at 3. There was a class but I asked the teacher if I could emulsify and expose. She said it was okay as long as her students had first priority. I showed JP how to apply emulsion. Did my three screens. Waited around. Different people in the lab asked for my printing advice, I felt very cool that people saw me that way. You know, helpful and knowing. I obliged to the best of my ability. Sivonna texted me to tell me she was running late. I was halfway through exposing my second screen when she showed up.

When I was helping Sivonna with her screen, the TA told me that there was a class in there and that I should make sure not to occupy their space because they have priority. I told her that I asked the teacher and she said it was fine. Also, a grand total of three people were actually using the printing tables, everyone had just spread out their stuff way way around. It was weird that I had been there for a while before she decided to confront me about my presence. I guess she didn't like how people asked me for advice over her.

While waiting for screens to dry, and exposing units to expose, Sivonna and I talked and looked at the poster show that is in the commons right now. It is way rad. Hundreds of posters from all around the world. A lot of political stuff.

My three screens are ready to go and Sivonna's exposed quite nicely. I can't wait to print tomorrow.

I rode my bike home, grabbed a heavier coat, and rode to the East side. BT invited me to a little documentary viewing party at Anthony & Allison's. He made pie, Allison made mac and cheese. Tesar and his lady were there, as was Thomas W.C. Other people were there but they left before the documentary started. We all played Tetris for a while. I lost some and won some. The documentaries were from this short series called The Century of the Self. It was four one hour parts. The first was about Freud's nephew Edward Bernays who pretty much figured out how to deceive people into buying things, among other things. Basically he was pretty damn evil. I started drifting off in the second part, which was about the war. The third part was about the 70's and 80's and EST and hippie stuff. Uhm. It was very interesting, I just wish I was more awake during it. And also not freezing cold as for some reason they didn't believe in heat. It was weird to ride my bike and not dread going out in the cold. It was a fun night, and an effortless ride back. Just went straight across Broadway Bridge, which sets you down on 10th, so you skip the whole waterfront hill.

Just going to finish up this episode of Project Runway and crash. Printing tomorrow! And Mel's 21st birthday! Hopefully my sore throat and snuffles will be better.

Also I trimmed my bangs all by myself yesterday! It is really easy to do in fact. Take off the volume straight across and snip upwards to break up the chunky line.

booyah

Woke up at 7:30am. Let out a swear as I bounded out of bed. Showered, grabbed a granola bar, and magically arrived at school right on time!

I was out of it for the majority of class. Wasn't keen on my ink work. I need to get slightly better paper. Well, anything is better than bond. I didn't have any caffeine what so ever today, mainly because I didn't have time to brew up a thermos of black tea.

With 25 people in class, the wall of art in illustration filled up. We had to tape or pin our stuff up. A lot of people who came late had to put theirs beneath or above other pieces. It was cool though, to see it all together. We had a a general conversation about the process. I said that having to include digital print and documentation in the turn in process encourages us to get our projects done ahead of time. Then Martin went through the pieces and gave feedback. Only he talked about the work, it wasn't open chat time. By and large it was extremely favorable across the board. The pieces themselves were also damn awesome. A very diverse group, but we all get along swimmingly for the most part.

My Fanny Drazier piece had the comment that there was some nice drawing in the concept sketches and maybe the face didn't need the shading. The class got a good chuckle when Martin called out Danny Frazier's opinion on it.

Kristen, Josh, Janessa and I went to Mio Sushi for lunch. After the way harshness of yesterday, I needed a treat. Shrimp sushi is my favorite. Mmm! And I ate a lot of it.

Back in class we were given an impromptu illustration assignment. It was designed to see what type of image we could create in a few fours. It was either a 3"x3" Dante's Inferno video game illustration, or a 3"x5" Haitian earthquake triage editorial thing. I thought I would do the video game at first but an idea of a shot of the doctor the story is about (Michael Millin) looking through a hospital curtain with blood splattered on him came to my mind and I jumped on it. The thumbnails were due by 2:45, but I talked to Martin at 2:10ish. And I jumped right in. Sketched it out. I was laying in some flat color and about halfway through I though it looks like crap and ditched the color, and worked on the lineart some more. I touched it up, tightened it in, threw in a color for the doctor's coat. Originally there was going to be a scene of hospital beds through the curtain. I put some red in as a background color, and found that I liked how the illustration looked at that moment. I waved Martin down and he said that it was a very good illustration and that I was could consider myself done. I tightened the picture up a little bit and felt really good.

Nice that a long stressful week ended on such a high note. Hurrah!

Rode back home. Sat down. Ate food. Drank fluids. Watched stuff. Tomorrow I am going to help Sivonna screenprint. Then later on BT and I are going to hang out with Anthony and watch documentaries or something.

triage

In class illustration based on the concept of triage in Haiti.

3"x5". Photoshop.

well that was bad

Uhg.

I made it through the day, but it wasn't a fun making it through the day. My essay sucks. I had to photograph the pages of my book because there were no online versions of the pieces. Uhhg.

Spam and egg for breakfast!

Got to class and found out the first chunk was devoted to going to the Chinese Gardens and checking them out. For some reason I left my scarf and gloves at school. It was raining all the way there and continued till it was time to leave. I was wet and cold and wearing totally the wrong coat for it. Still, it was nice to see the special gutter things in action. The gardens are meant to be observed during the rain. It was just numb and cold. We read the little booklets and all that.

I stopped by Lovejoy Bakeries and got hot chocolate and some pastries for lunch. Best hot chocolate I have ever had, hands down. I just sat in the library and warmed up and dried off.

My presentation was horrible. I thought I knew what I would talk about, but I didn't. I mumbled and couldn't form coherent thoughts. It was bad. I'm not looking forward to getting my grade for this back. After that we watched Fast, Cheap & Out of Control. A great film about a topiary dude, a lion tamer, a naked mole rat enthusiast, and a robot scientist. Each explained their passions and that was it. The themes overlapped. It was good, hard to explain. We talked for an hour after that about gardens and then walked to Kristen's place for her and Tabitha's project. They converted their apartment into an indoor garden space...sort of. The critique wasn't favorable, unfortunately.

I hung back a little afterward, and was about a minute late to yoga. Bonnie was subbing. She is a tough teacher. I am sure I'll be feeling all the strain tomorrow. It has been months since I last did it. Oi...

Wasn't raining when I returned. Watched the new episode of Lost and White Collar (such a great low impact show for when I want to relax, really charming and this was a fairly delightful episode, White Collar I mean. Lost was a rather useless episode). Now I am going to watch an episode of Weeds and fall asleep at a reasonable hour for once.

gotta get it done, have no choice otherwise

Blogging now so I don't have to write it when I'm more dead tired in two hours.

Figure: check. The majority of the class was spent doing five minute proportion drawings. We looked at Euan Uglow and Stanley Spencer art books for the last half hour of class. That was good.

Emulsified screens.
Bought paper.

Talked to JP and turns out he had paper to print on right there, so I didn't have to run and get some. Nice! Printed out illustration pieces. They look pretty good side by side. Happy I got to check all that off my list early.

Went to student council for lunch.

Got back and pretty much printed for the next three hours, and I got three colors done! It is turning out pretty good. I'm going to do another three layers over the weekend. It needs greater depth of color. I got a pink layer, a red, and a brown. The next will all be progressively darker browns. I'm excited to work on it more, and that is a good feeling to have when it comes to art. Generally I have that feeling with screenprinting pretty much all the time. The lab was very crowded, but what are you gonna do when they put 9 people in a class that only has 12 tables to work on (and you need more than one table to work on most of the time). Time passed fast.

Spent about thirty more minutes in the library looking up artists. Finally got a great book: Land and Environmental Art. Perfect resource to browse through and find artists. Ian Hamilton Finlay and Christo's Umbrellas are being added to my paper on gardens. I was silly to think this would be easier because of growing up around the damn things but nope, it sure isn't.

Got home. Drank some caffeine. Read some articles. Now I'm just writing.

twelve hour monday

Even though I spent the majority of the day sitting, I am really tired.

Existentialist Phenomenology:
Uhm. Another heavy day. I'm really digging this whole concept of only questioning reality when things go wrong. Also the whole only being able to perceive something through our perceptions, and the impossible inability to see someone beyond how we will take it in. It is a trippy block. "The real has to be described, not constructed or formed." Perception is the basis of knowledge. "Science operates according to a theory of reality in which there is a clear demarcation between interior and exterior but this isn't how things actually appear to us." Making meaning. Object subject. Everything is learned. Also apparently Seattle is the only place you can study if you want a degree in existentialist phenomenological therapy.

My to do list for the next two days is extensive, so I got right down to it.
Scan Fanny Drazier sketches? Check!
Assemble sketches into an 11x17 size file to print out? Check!
Print off remaining reading assignment? Check!
Finish digital illustration because I have to print it out and there isn't much time to print stuff out when you have class all day long and really the only time I have to do it is tomorrow, so I have to finish something that is due Thursday today? Check!

The last one was checked off at 5:30pm. 11am-5:30. In the library lab. Working. I ate two granola bars and an apple. Being stationary fights the hunger. Watched and listened to a ton of stuff. The time flew by.

After that, I powered over to Laughing Planet because I knew they had my favorite in: Mr. Green Jeans burrito. Totally vegetarian but still delicious. Edamame, sweet corn, black beans, pico de gallo, pepper jack I think, and it is all tasty! Also got a lemonade. Karen ordered some food and we chatted for a bit. Then I went back to the library.

Look up Guy Billout because I want to write about him. Check.
Find out Guy Billout has NOTHING AT ALL written about him outside of Illustration annuals.
Tear through books trying to find something to do with gardens that relates to reading. Get very tired. Decide on Tarsem for a part. Check.

My paper will focus of the idea of gardening as creating work using the land provided, as opposed to bringing in new content. I'll be using Tarsem's film The Fall as an example for its rich on scene location imagery. There is a lot of beauty already in this world. I need to find more artists though.

Tomorrows to do list:
Draw in The Figure
Expose my screens (three of them)
Talk to JP about printing
Buy paper
Announce yoga at student council
Go to library and look up more artists
Print! (screen printing and finals for illustration)
Possibly library it up some more
Go home and write paper and construct power point
Go to bed very late, but happy because I can sleep in till 10am!

KEEP NATALIE IN AMERICA!

Fanny Drazier

Fanny Drazier.

11"x17" in print.

Photoshop.

Graphite on bristol paper.

Fanny Drazier - work in progress part two

Another work in progress of Fanny Drazier. Don't know what I'm doing with the background just yet.

11"17" in print, photoshop!

save Natalie!

Saturday:

Slept in a bit. Not much but still a bit. Lounged around. Ate food. Adobe crashed on my computer for some reason and absolutely refused to open any of the .pdfs. Which sucks because I need to read .pdfs for class, the majority of our assignments are not in purchased texts.

Nikki came over with Baby Elliot. Oh my god he is the cutest baby ever! And so mild mannered and adorable and expressive. I played race horse with him. That is I held him in my hands and jiggled him like I do with Luna and other cats. He loved it. Great baby.

Karen and BT were having a house warming party, emphasis on the party. The theme was "your high school self". I didn't go for the casual self, more the mismatch assemblage of black clothes self. I tied back a bunch of my hair to replicate the 'do I had and put on some legwarmers. It was pretty silly. Rode my bike to 23rd & Stark on the other side of the river. I brought them a caution wet floor sign as a house warming gift. I was also super early so we got our pre-party drink on.

Leah showed up with her three metalhead roommates, who were pretty cool dudes. Didn't break anything. Jay, Tabitha, Sandra, Anthony and his lady friend, Evan and Holly, Agnes, Ursula, Phil & Andy, Taylor, Katie, and a few other people I'm obviously forgetting showed up. It was crowded and awesome. I had a great time, but I was also really tipsy. The booze was free flowing so the party got loud quick and then everyone bottomed out really soon. No sense of pacing at all. Karen and I both went to woozy tired mode at about the same time and went into the bedroom, closed the door, and fell asleep. I mingled like crazy, which wasn't hard to do because their apartment is small and there were tons of people. The porch was happening, the living room had head bangers, the kitchen was full of drunk people kissing, and there was even a slapping competition. It was pretty off the wall but no one called the cops because, like I said, the party pretty much ended at midnight.

There were some great outfits. Karen had a blue wig, Katie was mall gothed out, Evan had a flannel shirt and an over sized The Tick shirt under it, Agnes put in more of her piercings, Tabitha had her hair done in a mohawk. It was fun. I can't wait for pictures to start showing up on the internet.

Sunday:

I didn't drink that much, enough to keep me going and I drank a good deal of water, so I'm not hung over. Just tired. BT, Phil, Katie, Karen, and I met Evan and Holly at Pine State Biscuits for breakfast. The biscuits place sells biscuits that are made up of these Louisiana biscuit makers grandmother's recipes. They combined them to make the ultimate biscuit. Apparently there is always a long line, but it was so worth the wait. I had the standard biscuits and sausage gravy. Katie had this fried chicken, bacon, cheese, egg monstrosity, as did Evan and BT. I managed to eat about half, and saved the rest for left overs.

It was a nice day to ride back. Not too hot, not that cold. When I got back I pretty much got situated in front of the computer, downloaded a new Adobe reader which fixed the problem (whatever it was), and read readings about Olmstead and Anti-Olmstead and Arcadia under Glass...stuff. Pasta dinner.

I heard some people had less fun at the party, which is a shame.



On a serious note, my friend Natalie Abulhosn might be getting deported. PNCA wouldn't allow her to register and then reported her to immigration. She has 60 days to leave the country unless she is allowed back into school. Natalie is one of the most hardworking students I know. She lives for the school and the art scene. The petition to keep her with us is here:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/keep-natalie-in-america

fabric and ricfaab

I was up and ready to go for Fabric Depot at 10am. Then Karen never called or picked up. I was on the Red Max line headed to 122nd street when Karen called and told me how her phone had died, etc. She said she would meet me at the place and give me a ride back and that she was sorry.

Shouldn't have bought the all day pass.

Turns out the Blue Line takes me from three blocks from my apartment to within three blocks of Fabric Depot! How exciting, I can pick up quality fabric with ease now. Whee!

Fabric Depot is epic! Huge! Hugely epic! Bolts of fabric as far as the eye can see and it doesn't skimp. It's got fabric worthy of mermaid costumes. Just so much...fabric. And it was all 20% off! I just wanted enough to make a skirt, shirt, and a couple berets. In the jersey section I got a cute white fuity print, in the other section I got a dark gingham print for a tulip skirt, and in the fleece section I got some green stuff to make a beret out of! I also got some scissors especially for fabric cutting. The lady who cut our fabric studied calligraphy. As we were checking out I saw some Violet Crumble. Best candy ever! I literally stopped right in the middle of what I was saying and bounded over to get some. Mmm!!

Fabric Depot was everything it lived up to be Grandma, and more!

After there, we went to Ikea for lunch. Meatballs ahoy! So delicious. Then I picked up some smaller bowls and an alarm clock. Not for me, it was a gift for Karen who has often had issues with relying on her phone. Then we were homeward bound.

A box of fabric was waiting for me. Auntie Joyce sent me some stuff, and it was a jam packed box of stuff. It is mostly quilty fabric so I don't know what I am going to do with it...yet.

Then I made a hat! I used this pattern making thing that came with one of the books I ordered, it has a program and you put in your measurements and it generates the pattern for you to print out, and I transcribed it, but something must have happened where I redrew it too small...anyway the hat ended up being a bit small. It's cute but not really my style...I wanted a beret. I have enough fabric to make a second one. Still, it is nice to become more confident with my machine. And I used interfacing for the first time!

Ate pasta. Watched QI. Made a to do list, not as much to do as I thought, just a lot of stuff to get done by Wednesday.

the other vinyl culture

I have this twinge in my back and I have no clue where it came from.

Anyway, slow morning with again no eggs or bacon. Still got to school in good time. Ink day isn't as fun as I thought it would be. It is a lot of awkward sitting and horrible paper and not good drawings. It got a little better near the end, but it was still tough. Probably because of my back.

For the first chunk of class Ryan Bubnis came in to talk. He graduate from PNCA in 2006 when the illustration program was about 5 people strong. He does a lot of toy design and readily accessible graphics for use on things like cellphones and what not. He gave a talk about other illustrators who do such a thing and how they are rolling in cash. He passed around some of the things he has designed. Toys and a $50 Kid Robot tee shirt. I could design fancy shirts.

Then it was work time. The assignment for the day was one part artists statement, two parts working on the final project due next week and four parts work on product development using our art. I whipped up a couple shirt designs. I wasn't really thinking about it as I wasn't fully aware it was assigned in the first place. I was relatively productive through the whole class. Even stayed till about 6pm working on things. Not yet sure where I want to take the Fanny final image. Bold and graphic? Most likely...

I ate a burrito in the library by myself. Sort of. Wayne Bund and Heather Zinger were also in the couch area. Chatted a little. It was a good burrito.

It was nicely drizzling but I said "screw you, I have rain pants" to the sky and rode off into the night in my bright yellow pants.

Finished the burrito for dinner. And ate bacon and eggs. Ate some celery and peanut butter and raisins. Watched Nip/Tuck. Generally relaxed. My back is seizing up.

You know where I'm going tomorrow morning? Fabric Depot.

Fanny Drazier - work in progress

Digital work in progress image of Fanny Drazier. 11x17" in its full version.

Photoshop.

tees

some ideas for tshirts

labor day labor day hey everyone its labor day

My back feels all twisted like...uhg.

Had a nice sleep in. Got up early. Made myself a big bacon and eggs breakfast. Read what was remaining of the reading. It is nice to take a longer morning, but when 6:30 rolls around tomorrow, like hell I'm leaving bed till 7.

In Homeland, Hannah presented on the Sublime. Well a couple sublime artists. One of them did this field of metal poles, it was called Lightning Field. Another slide show from Duford followed. More Thomas Cole and other Hudson River School painters.

During lunch I had a meeting of sorts. It was a focus group of Goose Hollow students and we were giving some feedback about what we liked and didn't like about student housing, and what we would like to see. The purpose of the meeting was to generate a starting point for a potential residence facility near school and exclusively for PNCA. We all strongly vouched for keeping kitchens in each room and having an open studio space. The school also fed us tons of pizza and free soda. Robin, Jaymee, and I all had the special limited edition apple lemon soda. SO GOOD!!

In Homeland once again, we listed to a chunk of an episode of This American Life. It was about these people, Alex Melamid and Vitaly Komar, who polled people. First they used the data from several countries and painted pictures based on what concepts were most favored by everyone. In every polled country, except for Holland, landscapes were preferred. The second poll was about music and they composed a song based on what people liked (it was 3 minutes long) and a song featuring what people hated (20 minutes long). The Most Unwanted Songs song featured operatic rapping about cowboys. Seriously. The episode the segment was a part of can be found here: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1277

After that we watched Touching the Void, a documentary about Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, who are two British climbers who scaled the face of Siula Grande in Peru. No one had done it before, and no one has done it since. The movie was narrated by the pair of them, so you know you make it from the start, but watching it and knowing that Joe survives breaking his leg, falling into a crevice, being left for dead by Simon (who cut the cord thus plummeting Joe to his most probable death, but if he hadn't cut the rope they most likely would have both died), scaling down further into the crevice, crawling along the bottom towards a break in the ceiling, scaling up towards the opening, and crawling down the glacier and through the rocks. He survived about 4 days of severe dehydration by himself, with the broken leg and no food. He crawled all the way to about twenty feet from the base camp (which was still a ways from the bottom of the mountain). AMAZING!

Then for an hour and a half we talked about the sublime and how mountain climbing is such a "privileged" thing to do (I disagreed) and other stuff.

It was misting rain on the way back home, nothing worth wearing rain pants for though.

I put on the new episodes of Lost (oh my god so GOOD) and then White Collar and then about three episodes of Weeds. Ate udon and egg, a cucumber, some ants on a log, and then I churned out some sketches for Martin. Used reference like a mad woman.

deep fry it! makes everything better

I woke up at 2:30am in a delirium in knocked on the bathroom door and demanded Katie emerge so I can shower and get ready for school. I then came to my sense. Two hours later, I awoke again convinced it was time to go to school.

Needless to say, getting started and getting going today was rough. No breakfast. I did manage to make a limp sandwich and grab a granola bar.

Another technical drawing day. We talked about the puppets we plan to make for the puppet fashion show. Lots of figure studies. Lots of proportion. It is slowly coming back to me.

In screenprinting we had an hour and a half demo from JP on using the printers to make things like stencils and transfers. Then lunch. Yoga got approved! Chilled with Karen, BT, Jay, Urusla, and Bryan out on the loading dock. Made some zine sales. Whoo!

The rest of class was a work day. I finished my image for printing, but because it was a toner wash on duralar I had to burn a step test onto the emulsion to see what it would look like with different amounts of exposure. I don't feel like explaining any of the technical stuff in that last sentence. It has to do with light and whatever. Anyway, first I expose it for 30 units, then another 30, then 60, then 120, then 240, then 480, and finally 960. Each unit is roughly a second, so add all that up and it is a long time to sit around. Thankfully I brought my assigned reading with me, so I knocked that out while waiting. The step test worked perfectly, but getting to that point took all damn class.

Chilled with Karen while she got a late lunch. Went home. Read more.

Katie, Karen, BT, and I met at Fire on the Mountain for delicious wings and beer. I ordered six Vietnam barbecue flavor and six honey BBQ. The Vietnam was far spicier than the sample I had. My mouth went numb eventually and I finished it all off. Leah K. also joined us for delicious munchies. MMM. BT ordered us two deep friend twinkies and deep fried oreos for dessert. The frying process makes the oreos entirely soft and all delicious. I was supremely gorged.

I went home with Karen and BT, they now live together, and chilled there for an hour. BT informed me that Hercule Poirot's mustache is fake. Karen worked on putting together an Ikea desk. On Saturday they are having a "come as your high school self" party. Should be fun.

BT drove me home and now I am going to sit and read for a few hours. Whhooo!

brunettes all around

Amazing morning. I was washed and dressed and had bacon and eggs on a plate...and all of that was done by 7:30! Gobbled it down, got all my stuff together, and left right on time. I was so productive I thought I must have been an hour late.

But I wasn't.

Class was another brain killer power hour. Talked about the tain of windows, and how it is something we can only perceive when it reflects and what we perceive isn't a tangible thing, only a reflection. I was first to speak when he asked us our general thoughts. I brought up the idea of how we are meant to both perceive ourselves as a small part of the world AND how the entire world is our perception of it. Go me.

After class I loaned Samala a few comics for her class. Then I picked up some 1920's reference material for my illustration project. Making a character based in that time so I have to get good reference for it.

It was misting rain, still I departed. Got some miracle grow for my jade. No dirt. Trader Joe's for a weeks worth of apples and celery and eggs. Key Bank to deposit the money I earned from the holiday art sale.

Then I went back home and sat and drew for hours and read some Homeland reading. Watched all of the second season of Weeds. It is fun to just draw costumes and not worry about composition or anything. Ate a cheese steak. Ate some salad. Ate some ants on a log.

Katie dyed her hair.

read a page, relax a little

Today was a long effort of getting through some required reading. My system is I'll read a page or half a page, depending how the books are broken up, and then relax a little on the Internet, then I'll read some more. It is really easy to put off blocks of time devoted to reading, but not so hard to read a small chunk knowing there will be a break soon. Took a while to get through, but I had a good time doing it.

Didn't understand a word of it though. I have Skynet written in the margins and a couple things underlined but by and large, existentialist phenomenology is hard and way over my head.

Got through some of my homeland readings as well. Flipped over the calendar and realized I have to present Gardens in a week and a half.

Speaking of gardens, my lucky jade's stem broke! I stuck the surviving stalk in the dirt and watered it. I think I'm going to try and track down some quality potting soil and some nutritious plant growing stuff tomorrow. Pearl Hardware probably has something. I don't want my plant to die! It just doesn't seem to be taking root in the dirt it has.

I've really taken to watching Weeds this weekend. It is a fun show with some good casting. Helps the majority of it is on Netflix instant watch.

Hung out at a little R.A. glitter party thing.

Oh, I made myself a real breakfast this morning. I almost never do this. Fried up two slices of bacon and using that grease I made scrambled eggs. Finished with toast. Delicious way to start the day.

Now time to try to hit the hay early. School starts at 8am on Monday now.

a fridge is a terrible thing to waste

Did more shopping today. I need to break out of my pasta + sauce habit. Bought meat and veggies (not just apples, I got lettuce and celery and cucumbers). Bought some cheese and hoagie rolls. Bought lots of tasty things that are not pasta and sauce.

When I got home and prepared to put away my haul, I observed that the refrigerator was in an awful shape. It had a lot of little things in plastic bag and I noticed some expired things in tupperware. Also the meat drawer was a sticky mess. So I unloaded every piece of food from it and set about cleaning! I filled the tub with hot soapy water and soaked all the drawers in it. I scrubbed them and set them aside to dry. Then I wiped down and cleaned up the interior of the fridge. Lysol and soap and all that. There was a big pool of something red and sticky that had been there for a long long time. It was gross. I tossed quite a few things but now the fridge is neat and in order and looking clean as can be. Real proud of all that work.

Bit by bit, the apartment comes together. A little bit cleaner every day.

After all that labor, I celebrated with ants on a log! Celery, peanut butter, and raisins oh my! Fast on track to becoming a new favorite snack. MMMmmm.

Then I made myself a cheesesteak sandwich. Had to make sure I had not forgotten how. It came out allright. I should have used more onion and tried to slice the meat a little thinner. Still, it was tasty and filling. Followed that up with a meager salad. Mmm.

Watched a Bill Plympton DVD and followed that up with Magnolia. That was long and dramatic and...long. Great performances across the board no doubt.

It feels good to get major cleaning done. It is the type of accomplishment that you can really see the difference for a long time with.

milestonearrific

1000th blog entry! Whooo!
That is a lot of writing. Hundreds of thousands of words.

Slept in. It is Friday so that is what I do on Friday. And Saturday. I'll probably try to set the alarm on Sunday so that getting up on Monday won't be such a pain.

Ate toast. The fire alarm went off so I had to stuff Luna in her cat carrier. Katie came back during the alarm so we chilled in her borrowed car a little while waiting for it to end. After that was all over we went for three dollar burgers! Shelly even remembered us after all these months we have been gone.

After dinner, I joined Katie in her errands and she also agreed to take me to this fabric place she knows, Fabrics for Less. We went to Camera World, but they didn't have the thing for her tripod that she needs. Fabrics for Less had a lot of silks, but not enough in the stretch jersey type that I want. I bought a couple zippers and we went to Goodwill to see if they had a handbag. They didn't.

Made myself a bowl of popcorn. Watched the last episode of New Amsterdam. Now to sip hot apple cider and point my eyes at some existentialist reading. Yay.

end of week

999th blog post!

We did wet media in The Figure. That is ink and brush and bamboo pen. I couldn't find my pen so I just used a brush, but Moran whittled the other end of my brush down and made it double ended! I wasn't too enthused by the things I did. The poses were very short so by the time a layer of ink wash had dried, it would be time to start over with a new pose. Oh well.

Illustration was an In Design demo and meet with Martin day. Mia gave us a demo about In Design, the program used for layout and book design. We made mock source book pages. They are pages that go into illustration books that are used for reference for hiring artists. So we made them for ourselves just to have practice. I only had the images on hand to make mine, but I am pretty happy with it. Large, bold and cropped.

I bought some lean cuisine and a root beer for lunch. Mmm. My semester plan meeting with Martin went really fast. Even though I finished my work early, I still hung around till 5. Chatted with Karen for a bit.

I'm working on another zine. Gave my classmates bits of paper to draw on, and once I get enough I will put them together in a silkscreened zine! Whoo!

I have shin splints real bad, probably from yesterdays hill filled day.

Got home. Ate food. Watched TV. Poured through my sewing patterns book. Started drawing designs. Getting ahead of myself a bit though. Need to get fabric.

Sent out some thank you cards as well. Yay!

Oh and did laundry. Tomorrow I shall rest and read. Yay!

mock sourcebook page

mock sourcebook* page

*sourcebook is an image resource for the promotion of artists

walking!! argh

Sleep. Glorious sleep.

All eight hours of it.

Got up at a decent time. Actually packed a decent amount of food. Sandwich, apple, slice of spiced apple bread that I made from a Trader Joe's mix, and a couple cookies. Enough to get me through the day.

For the first hour and a half of Homeland we talked about landscapes and their meaning.

Lunch was staple zine and cut the top offs time. Now I have a pile of zines! Hurray! Very cool.

Back in class we watched some Bob Ross, the "master" of landscape painting.

And then we walked.

We walked to the Max and realized we forgot Lana back at school. Oops. Took the max to Goose Hollow. Walked up the huge hill to the scenic bridge and then up to Washington Park. And then up to the Rose Garden. A lot of up hill walking, for well over a mile. I'm so out of shape. We left school at about 2:20 and got to the gardens at 3:10. We spent an hour drawing the landscape. Or attempting to do so, it got really cold really fast. At around 4pm we gathered and discussed the experience. And then we walked down the hill. Straight down the hill. Which was a much more direct way than the long way around that was the Goose Hollow direction. Because my bike was still at school, I joined the group returning to PNCA. Took the max for a little distance, but walked the rest of the way. Chatted with Kirsten (not Kristen).

Sat around for about half an hour relaxing. Did not want to bike home just yet. Chatted with Sandra, Tabitha, and Robin. Then I went home.

Pasta! Salami! Finishing Dexter season four!

Then illustration work. Wrote up my semester plan. It is very minimal but I feel good about it. Sketched my ideas out. I feel like I should do more, but I can't think of more right now. First project I am doing character sketches and a final image of an original character: Fanny Drazier, a maybe 20's era reporter/journalist. I'm excited about it. Another definite project will be a promo poster for Carmen.

Ahh so exhausted. Weekend is almost here! Damn, already looking forward to resting up.

wiped

Boy howdy am I tired. I was doing really fine but then it all caught up with me in the past hour.

The Figure! We Received a more in depth lecture about simple proportions and laying out the figure. Again, I was taught it but I wasn't following it very well. And class will be different. Tuesdays are tough and full of information, Thursdays will be fun and wet media. Anna was our model. She has a new tattoo and piercing. The tattoo is of the rocket Saturn V. Pretty cool. Class went fast.

Silk screen! We talked about our semester plans for an hour and a half. Mine are mostly mass production things. Little bits I can sell. Emphasis on many, not few. If that makes sense. I want to do a lot of projects, instead of a few larger ones.

I went to student council for lunch. I was there to represent and talk about yoga. The date and times of it are still up in the air, but I can't wait! Gotta get fit again. No more softy Trillian!

Photocopied and cut out my sketchbook drawings. Making a little zine so I had to get the images ready to be oiled up. A class came into the photocopy room so I couldn't finish. Thankfully the next two hours of class was lecture and demonstration. Lecture about a brief history of screenprinting. There was an image of these old stencils that used silk thread as structure. Previously the Japanese had used human hair. The demonstration was on this technique for printing multiple layer wash drawings and how to play with the exposure to get different levels of detail. I would love to do a print of that nature, just need a good subject matter (when in doubt, draw a cat).

In the meanwhile, I got my stencils ready and my screen prepped. Only needed one for my zine project as both of the stencils fit just fine. All this silkscreening stuff, it comes pretty natural to me now. I have my system down. When I started school, I caught a glimpse of the print lab and it just looked like a mass of confusing equipment and chemicals. Now it all makes sense. Funny where education will take a person.

Anyway, printed one side of my zine. Took a break. Walked with Karen to help her pick a studio. It was raining furiously. Walked back. Printed the other side. I used blue for one side and orangey red for the other. It looks decent. Not the best printing or the most professional. But pretty good for a little zine. I'll be mailing these out to some people in the coming week. Got them folded, they need to be stapled and cut. Whoo!

Chatted with Karen at Laughing Planet. I ate an apple. Go me and restraint!

It was raining all the way home. A car honked at me. I was pretty far over towards the shoulder and many other cars had gone past me. What a jerk. I wish that there had been a red light up ahead so that I could have broken his side mirror off with my bike lock and peddled away at high speed. Seriously, honking at bikers isn't going to make them bike faster. It will just distract them and probably make matters worse for you.

Ate rice and lettuce and salami for dinner. Yum! Read my readings. Well parts of it. I am starting to majorly doze off now. Good night sleep, here I come!

long class name is long

Turns out the Existentialism & Phenomenology class is really Existentialist Phenomenology. We will be reading Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. No Nietzsche or Kierkegaard.

Exactly the types of names and words a person wants to discuss at 8am on a Monday. Melissa, Deanna, and Leo are in the class, as well as Tuna and some of the MFAs. The majority of the people in class are new to me. Sort of rare at this point, normally I know a good bunch of the people in my classes.

The teacher, Adam Arolla, looks a bit like a more hip Jason Statham. Apparently he DJs at Holocene. We talked about how all science is entirely hypothetical, just some things have not been proven false yet. But what makes science science is that it is falsifiable. And we talked about perception of the world and stuff like that. It was a heavy introduction that went fast, but I am excited for it.

1) all experience is intentional. Perception is a conversation.
2) all experience is interpretive.
3) beginners mind. sedimented manners of encountering an interpreting perception.

After class I printed some of the required reading. Not a big pile of stuff...yet. Swung by Trader Joe's. Apples, pasta, sauce, salami, mayo. The staples.

It is amazing when you wake up early and run some errands and still get back to the house before the usual time you are even our of bed (11:56am).

Put away the dishes. Finally got around to making the spiced apple loaf mix I got about a month ago. Read some of the required reading. Watched Dexter. Wrote up my proposals for printmaking. Looked over syllabus. Loaded and ran new dishwasher load. Watched Katie play Zelda: Twilight Princess. Generally puttered around and consumed food.

Screenprinting! Figure Drawing! Tuesday!

I checked out Magnolia and Bicycle Thieves from the library. Will watch them some time soon.

best birthday EVER!!

Yesterday (the party)

I made cupcakes and tidied up the apartment. Adam made some truly awesome burgers for lunch. It had bacon and stuff in them. And avocado. Delicious. Yum. The sink drain got clogged from all the intense cooking. I borrowed a plunger and unstuck it, and vacuumed again. Had to have it looking nice for the after party.

The theme was shiny so I put on my sparkly striped tights, my hand made skirt, a black top, and my super sparkly over shirt. I looked great. Karen, Adam, Robin, Diana, and I made our way to Blue Moon at fifteen till 5. We arrived a little after, but were the first ones there. We took one of the long tables in the back because it was near other tables that were prime to take over more space once people arrived. Harmony and her fiancee Peter were the first to show. It was during happy hour so cheap food was bought on mass. And I didn't put down a single penny.

While only scheduled for 5-8, we stuck around till 9. We ended up taking all three tables. People who came: Diana, Robin, Karen, Adam, Harmony, Peter, Peter's brother Paul, Cherish, Isaiah, Sandra, Sandra's pal Alice (if I remember correctly), Kristen, Madeline, Justin, Daniel H., BT, Katie, Nikki and her baby Elliot. I think that is it...

Kristen gave me flowers. I've never received flowers before. And I got several cards. Madeline gave me a fake cupcake. I was ordered a real slice of cake and everyone sang happy birthday to me. Everyone was really social with one another. I moved around a lot because I didn't want to ignore any of my most awesome friends, many of whom were sparkly. Elliot, the baby, was adorable and awesomely behaved. He just stared at everyone and was cute as a button. Everyone just went into full "awww look at the baaaby" mode.

We were nerdy, we were sociable, we were not that loud, we were arty, and just in general we were awesome. The atmosphere was perfect and things could not have worked out better. After I blew out my candle, I was pressed for a speech so all I said that having such awesome friends is all anyone should want from life. Without a doubt, the best birthday I have had.

After the long dinner, everyone that was left at the table (Robin, Diana, BT, Karen, Adam, Peter, Paul, Harmony, Madeline, Daniel, Justin, and Kristen) returned to my place. Some biked, some carpooled with those who had cars. Some people made booze runs. Everyone fit in the apartment in a great way. My living room isn't that big but it didn't feel overly crowded. I put in Labyrinth on the projector because we are all nerds and that is a good movie to chat over. I had a beer and Diana made me a drink that was a little bit creamy for my taste. Katie came back from another birthday party and had a balloon. It entertained me very much.

Between movies I drank a little bit more, and that little more I shouldn't have consumed. So I got a little sick, but in a respectable in the bathroom way and not...all over myself or on my guests sort of way. That sucked, but thankfully I was in my own apartment so it was easy to just say good night to everyone and fall asleep. Apparently everyone stuck around through Star Wars (hopefully to sober up before they drove home). I was out.

Today (the day after yesterday)

Karen and Adam had crashed here. Adam made us fluffy eggs and hollandaise sauce drizzled over bacon and toast. I felt ill so I couldn't finish mine. It was gourmet though. I mostly sat around in a daze and watched stuff and napped and Karen and I watched some Kids in the Hall. I ate some crackers and drank ginger ale. I am still way tired. It should make getting to bed early tonight no big thing though.

Way fun party. Lots of awesome friends. Piles of them. I wish I could say more about all the happenings. Good times.

great night

I had a great night. The type of night where you leave at 7pm and return home at 4am and it is fun all the way through. Whoo!

So I slept way in after last night. Managed to roll out of bed at around 1pm. I love having Friday off. Did the dishes a little bit, ate pasta and bacon, watched stuff, sorted my things out a little. Generally took it easy.

Jay messaged me asking if I wanted to meet her for drinks at the Annex at around 7:30, and I said yeah. The 22nd is the day after my birthday and the day before hers. A good night for joint celebration. I ordered a Terminator Stout while waiting for her to show. At the start, I was the only one there. Jay was the second. As we girl talked the place filled up a little. I ordered a Harvey Wallbanger next, instead of my usual Greyhound. Since the Annex uses fresh ingredients, any drink that needs something squeezed into it is extra delicious.

8:30 rolled around so we wandered over to PNCA for some extended celebration with some other friends over at Yur's. The other friends ended up just being BT and Daniel because other people couldn't make it. Still, the four of us had super fun at Yur's. The boys even bought the girls drinks. I just had whiskey with a beerback, didn't feel like anything fancy. We hung around for a good long while. Daniel ordered mini corndogs, Jay ordered bacon cheese fries. When I went to the bathroom someone threw a beer over the bar. Sucks that I missed that fun, but good it wasn't a PNCA student (this time).

Daniel parted ways after Yur's so we hugged goodbye and off he went. Too inebriated to bike home, BT, Jay and I walked down to his(BT's) studio in the Goldsmith Building. I drank some water and looked at all the neat artist tables in it. Arvie Smith, a painting teacher, has a studio in the same building but it is much larger and only he is in it. I left my bike and helmet and scarf and gloves int he studio and we three went to Mary's Club.

Gus Van Sant apparently wore a Mary's Club jacket on the episode of Entourage he was on. It was a little hole in the wall strip joint with some not run down looking ladies working. I didn't order anything to drink, just sat and chatted and worked on being less drunk. Sat with Jay at the stage for a few numbers but in general I held back. It was fun. Not too loud, just a good place to chill with friends and see some ladies.

After the club, we hung around in BT's studio for a while longer while waiting for Jay's cab to show up. After that, BT and I stayed up for a while longer and talking about sewing and comics and mustache wax. But even that had to come to an end, so at around 3:45am we rode our bikes in opposite directions and returned to our respective homes.

The Internet wasn't working so I was unable to write events right after they happened. Great great time.

so many well wishes, I feel really wished well

More Figure Drawing! It seems like I will be getting the same thing I learned a year ago put back into my brain, but that is okay as it is good learning. And the class seems like it will have a different direction.

When Morgan was doing attendance, Kevin exclaimed it was my birthday when it got to my name so Morgan got everyone to sing to me! It was a great way to start the day. I got many well wishes through it all. The good thing about social networking sites is they tell you when friend's birthdays are coming up. Even still, when people pay attention to it. It is awesome. I felt good all the way through.

Class was loose drawing practicing getting things on the page. Catharine was our model. It is a crowded class. In art school, a crowded class is anything over 15 people.

The illustration studio has 24 people in it, including myself. Specifically: Nicole, Kristen, Danny, Beth, Madeline, Amanda, Rachel, Morgaine, Kyle, Jeff, Chase, Jon, Kevin, Dominic, Chelsey, Janessa, Sivonna, Josh, Samala, April, Kenny, Leo, and Cassandra. That is a lot of people. Mia has come in as an assistant. She assisted Kurt during the Pre-College class I took and graduated a few years back. The class is more studio and personal project based, and we will be spread out between several classrooms, so it may not be so crowded. Plus with Mia, it won't all be on Martin. We get to pick the five projects that we will do during the course. We will also make a .pdf of our sketch and development phases and create a book of that...of sorts. We will also get In Design tutorials and some more advanced digital demonstrations. Also guests galore! And open drawing time after 3pm with a model. It is going to be jam packed. I don't know which assignments I am going to do, but the ones in the book segment speak to me a lot.

I treated myself to a burrito for lunch. On the way there I saw JP and he loped toward me and gave me a big hug for my birthday. Saw with Madeline and Kristen in the library and chatted about pop culture and TV. Then back to learning! Martin answered some of our questions and that was pretty much it. Madeline, Beth, and I explored the new space and played ping pong for an hour. We totally have a rad ping pong table to unwind with. I'm not particularly good at it, but it was crazy fun. Just gabbed and we were nerdy and ponged about.

After some tidbits that needed doing at school, I went home. Chilled out. Watched some whatever. Finished my burrito. Later in the evening, Katie and I walked to Fred Meyer and did some shopping. Toilet paper, bacon, supplies for phad thai, and birthday champagne! I never made bacon for myself, so Katie taught me how. Now I can eat bacon whenever I want! Super easy and delicious.

Adam is in town, so he, Katie, and I drank bubbly and ate spicy food and watched Tampopo. It is a lovely Japanese film from 1985 about the joy of eating and food and all the forms it comes in. It was a perfect delight to watch. Bizarre at times, but great. Llyw suggested it for me so I was happy to find it was in PNCA's library. I ate pretty much constantly through the whole thing, including a slice of cake I bought at Freddies. Mmm food.

Food, friends, and a good movie. That is a great birthday in my mind. Couldn't have asked for more. 22 and 2010 are looking great.

early gifting

It was quite nice to sleep in. But I will be up at 7am again tomorrow.

Homeland! Theory & Practice! Lots of reading and some presentations and a couple projects. And more reading and research. It is basically an intense focus on studying a specific subject matter and showing that you get it. Homeland is about America. It is about its landscape and a sense of home and place and neighborhoods and gardens and The West. It is a lot of stuff, and I am quite excited for it. Tabitha, Phil (who grew a beard), Joey, Acey, and Matt are in the class, as well as a handful of semi familiar faces and new people. We looked at a slideshow and there was a Breugel included in it. Remember all the Bruegel's we saw dad?

The class was a lot of explanation thrown at us, but it will all get sifted out as the class progresses. I am looking forward to it. I ate my packed lunch with Kristen and Tabitha outside Laughing Planet. We talked about boys mostly. Girl drama would fill a thousand volumes and there will always be more. Rather amazing I think.

After lunch we go into pairs and learned about one another and where we come from. Kristen and I teamed up and we both presented one another. Two Kitsap girls talking about Kitsap, but we both have very different Kitsap experiences. Port Orchard/Bremerton/Silverdale vs Seabeck.

Class got out early, so Tabby, Kris, and I headed to Powell's to check out the prices of the required reading. I snapped up the cheapest copies of Ecotopia and Sometimes a Great Notion. I let Kristen have the cheaper Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, but there was an edition for $7. We parted ways. On the way back I stopped at Josephine's Dry Goods and picked up some black thread, safety pins, and more needles. Never have enough needles. I continued to spend money and ordered some books that came with high recommendations. Sewing books. But that should be the end of my birthday splurging. Until Karen, Lacey and I go to Fabric Depot.

Got home. Borrowed Lacey's vacuum and cleaned our floors. Holy cow the apartment looks so much better. Our dirty floors were really holding it back. Amazing what a difference it makes (probably not amazing to people who are much cleaner than we are).

More figure drawing tomorrow and yay Illustration!

narcissism ahoy

I slept with my hair in braids so it would be super cute and crimped and all that. And it was!

Got to class on time. The Figure with Morgan Walker. Technically a two parter class, but not really. I took the first part about a year and a half ago.

People in my class: Michael, Jon, Kevin, Amanda, Rachel, April, Andrea, other Justin, and some other cool cats. We spent and hour going over the syllabus and introducing ourselves. We had minor story time with Morgan. During break I showed off my new 'do round school. But it isn't all about my hair (though that would be nice).

After break we got right down to drawing. A couple five minute poses, a 30 minute, and a 10 minute. Just to see how we draw. I focused on the proportions but it was hard to break the contour practice. Still, it was good.

Next up was Intermediate Screenprinting. In class are: Ali, Diana, Robin, Patsy, Tabitha, Deana, Junko, and Casey. I might be forgetting someone, but a total chick fest none the less. We got the standard safety lecture and Christy Wycoff, the instructor, told us at length about some of the more special processes we could utilize in the advanced class. Thankfully I have three good quality screens so stretching and procuring more isn't an issue. Just need to figure out first project. Probably nothing too big, as we will be getting demos.

Sat with Lacey in the library during lunch. Chatted about holidays. They shifted the couches around. Our favorite nook is all different now. Oh well.

I got a huge metal drawer now! For my paper! Moving on up, yee haaw. Class got out early. Printed some stuff. Chatted with Bryan, BT, and Melissa about how smoking is banned from the loading dock and now they have to do it at an uncovered corner of the school. Also the looks on their faces when they found out our illustration class is going to be 25 strong were priceless. It will be something to watch how Martin handles us.

Went to Safeway. Got the stuff that turns toilet water blue, two things of toothpaste, a new brush, dish soap, a peppermint patty, and something else I forget. I was really working my tube of toothpaste to get the remainder of stuff out.

Pasta. TV. Relaxing. The tired is catching up to me fast. I have two 8am days, followed by 11am, then another 8am. I can do it.

Tomorrow is my first ever Theory & Practice class. I haven't taken the prerequisite 200 level but I don't really care. I've been in 300 level since my second semester, and Daniel Duford knows me so I'm not worried.

Katie helped make the invite page for my birthday party. It is going to be at Blue Moon Bar & Grill on Saturday from 5-8pm. NW Glisan & 21st. Shiny themed!

last day of winter. FINALLY.

Still love the bangs a day later. Whee!!

Spent the last day of winter break doing what I do best: watching lots of television and eating pasta and left overs. Consider that pulled pork sandwich eaten! Yum.

Later on in the evening I made a skirt out of some teeshirts. It is really choppy, but still fun.

Read a little from The Year of the Flood.

Yeah, not much went on.

Gotta get up at 7am tomorrow. Doesn't sound so bad... The Figure and then Intermediate Screen.

start with a bang

Tea Zone was the destination for breakfast. Llyw and I got there at about 10:20. I had green tea and a ham & cheese croissant sandwich, he had french toast and black tea. My croissant was good but had way too much creme cheese. And here I thought you could never have enough creme cheese. After the filling delicious meal, it was time to walk to Union Station.

It is always nice to have a visit with non art school friends. Get sort of tunneled by the community, as great as it is.

Caught the green and blue lines back and took it easy for the rest of the day. Cleaned my stuff out of the living room. The apartment needs a vacuum real bad. Gave Lacey some unused woodblocks. Caught up on Dexter. Watched the first episode of The Inbetweeners. Watched the new episode of QI. Nibbled on left overs. I'm sure I did something else. What could it bee...

OH!

I went to Bishops, the hip young groovy hair cutters place down the street and paid for my first haircut in almost three years. I've acquired free haircuts these past years in Portland. Cut by kids, coupon, and another coupon. I wanted to liven up my 'do. Cut away some of the breakage. And go for a new style in a way. So I got bangs. Sure I've had bangs before, but I've never had bangs with long hair. I'll have to learn how to cut my bangs. Save money. I also had the layers updated and tidied up a little. My hair stylist did a great job. It was exactly what I envisioned it to be. I feel really good about it.

Twenty ten
Twenty two
Trillian's year!