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Tuesday, May 30, 2006

late nighting it (surprised?)

Well, I did make that little art journal using Mr. Cake for the front cover...and this excellent tutorial for making the journal, specifically, the binding. She's a riot, a good writer - it's a fun read as well as well-written. wuh wuh wuh.

So then I had to film it, although, dang it! The digital camera, she's just not made for doing films like this. Hard to get proper lighting, and it 'sees' funny...anway, head on over to YouTube for a peek if yer so inclined.

I think I've found me another addiction! I need to make more journals!

I think the bike ride today was 23 miles. It was definitely more than 20. Huh! I got some color on my skin fore shore! Felt good, all of it. I'm not a speedster but sure is nice to be able to ride for miles and miles - thank you, body.

illo fryday - CAKE



"Let 'em eat cake! I don't care! Just get me out of this hellish pink!"

Here we have another multi-purpose image! I'm learning! For a small book to draw in (one for a gal who is working in an art journal I am presently passing around...care to join?....and maybe I'll just make one for myself with this fellow too) and also for this week's illustrative theme. It's a carving from a piece of some kind of rubber, I drew the image directly on it, and then printed on a piece of paper.

I was going to draw a man walking down the street eating what looks like a hamburger, but it is really cake. This is why:

Sweets In Disguise

Sugoi!!!!! (marvelous!)

Got a new Speedball carving set, oh yeah, uh huh. Putting that magical little tool to lots of good use these last few days!

Brave New

I'm getting all my ducks in a row this morning (bills, etc) (sold my old G3 beige tower to help with all that! sweet!) but in between the necessities...another necessity which is of course, art:



4x6 on Strathmore 130 Watercolor paper...natch :-) ZIG Millenium 01 size pen, watercolors, watercolor pencils.

The crows have lots to say. Much ado about I don't know what but they're in the parking lot saying it.

I think a bike ride along the McKenzie River, today, instead of the Willamette. Cool that I can choose, is it not?? Time to roll, then!

Monday, May 29, 2006

Oh, what another amazing day this has been. Went for that longer bike ride again too...figured it's about 12 miles. That's long when you're not in the habit, but not long if you're gonna do the STP (Seattle To Portland - two century rides in two days....GAH! No thanks!!). It's nice to feel so good, to have the strength, health, and time to do ride my bike like this. And the sun was shining on us all day long. I'm sure all the people on holiday really appreciated it! (it's my usual day off)

I finished up a couple ATCs for a Skull and Bones trade. Of course I had to carve some images with my handy dandy new Speedball carving tool set. Will I ever tire of it? Mmmm...who cares! I'm having a blast right now!!

This is Marmalade Cat Dreams of Picked Clean Herring:



And this...this kinda scares ME! In a good way. It's Kali - On A Good Day:



Both done with a Millenium ZIG peg 01 size (very fine) and watercolor on Strathmore 130lb.

Had quite a fun time washing ink down the drain, it's so cool with the bubbles and all:



You KNOW I am going to film it next time, when the ink is just coming off the brayer and the glass.

And finally, this evening, a flipbook video. I loved making those as a kid!! In one, I drew a chicken emerging from an egg, and the last frame said

OCH

meaning, of course, "OUCH!!"

I wonder if I still have that...my mother was famous for saving all my stuff but I went through a frenzied purge several months ago. Surely I wouldn't have thrown that out?! Well, maybe tomorrow I'll look.

Ok back to the art table with me, I go! And hello to all of you who may be stopping by and have emailed me. I have been thinking about you all, all day - really. Lurve!

take two

Did a little finessing on the Gay Paris Howling Woman this morning. I am sure it will be sent off in Mail Art form to the four corners in due time...I am having so much fun. In case I didn't mention that.



This time I used some paper I remembered I had. Who knows where I got it? I had stashed it under the couch (one of the few storage spaces in my apartment where something that large will lie flat...it's a big piece of paper!) It's pretty good stuff I think...me like!!!

Sunday, May 28, 2006

printing press

What a glorious day. Spent the morning noodling around putting the finishing touches on a deco, using Trudy, my hirsute beaky heroine. I'm going to sculpt her in papier-mache as soon as the weather turns a bit drier. Trudy is also my laundro-mat name. What's yours?

A scrumptious breakfast with Jacque precluded a pretty stout bike ride - not only did we ride a little further, but through several weather systems. Thank god for gore-tex. What a blast. Came back and J saw something she said would make a great picture:



She's right! It's taken from above, my second-story balcony. So much water everywhere this last rain-season.

Went to FredMeyer (one of those one-stop-shopping places...I was good, I passed up the 3 for a dollar bakery sale items, after six o'clock everything must go!). Got a big bag of UNorganic flour, to use for papier-mache paste...a few other sundry items, and the cashier automatically reached for a paper bag - asked me if that was okay and I said, "sure." A little unusual, plastic is the default for most cashiers. Gathered up my things and noticed that he was drawing an outline of his hand on the next paper bag. Got home and saw he'd put his mark on mine too:



Ahhh! Isn't that great? I wonder if he and a friend dared each other to do that all day at work today? When I see him next time I'll thank him for the unique giftwrapping.

And finally, I carved my first big piece (well, big for me, it's 4x6 or about 10x15cm)with my new Speedball carving set (I did an eraser carving first)! Oh wow. I can't go back now - using an exacto knife for the last few months on the occasion I carved (even for linoleum) has helped me appreciate just how slick this new tool is. The right tools, baby, makes all the diff! So I decided to use one image for two projects: one is a 'draw me' swap and the other, a 'favorite artist' swap for decos (mini art journals for those of you who have never heard of decos).

The 'draw me' is from Swap-Bot, a place I haunt now and then. It's an art challenge swap. You are partnered up with someone, you most likely do not know this person, you obtain their picture/s via email and - draw him/her.

I found Samuel Casal through Guilherme Merconde's Tygeranimation short. A collaborative effort between several groups of artists who never actually met in the same physical place. Check out that animation, it is superb. Samuel Casal's art is amazing. So, I pay homage to him here and fulfill a couple of projects and I had a hell of a good time to boot. Here is a prelim:



What a rush! Every time I've carved an image, be it linoleum or a rubber stamp, and then ink it up and print it...then peel back the paper...I'm astonished. I love printing. You could carve a stick figure and it'd look super keen. For this print, since it is still in progress, I used a piece of newsprint paper. I burnished it with a spoon (lacking a 'real' printing press). I bought some good paper at the art store on payday last week...I'm stoked to start using it!!

A good day indeed.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

when it is enough

ooh oooh! Tomorrow is Illustration Friday!

Yesterday on my bike ride home (when it started to rain), I saw this old gent walking down the sidewalk with a nylon windbreaker on, the hood up, and over that a big Don Ho straw hat crammed on top. It was great. We hailed each other. Wish I'd had my camera.

Yesterday before the bike ride, I messed about with crayons. After trying several different methods, I finally figured out how to heat up the paper (without burning it - my trusty cast iron skillet on low low heat, ha haaa!) and and doodle this way:



It's a coaster from Outback Restaurant. One of the LMAO guys said he had the best dinner on his vacation, I'm guessing this was the place. He brought back several coasters and distributed them among us and we're all swapping them with each other. Oh you gotta love it. I mean really - and I just realized how the whole thing reminds me of going to Pizza Hut as a kid and coloring with crayons on the paper placemats. I always wanted pepperoni pizza, and then picked the pepperoni off. My mom was real cool about that, she kept ordering pepperoni pizza and let me do my thing.

Had this cool dream slice last night. I was given glowing coals, or magma, or rocks, or maybe coal. They were from Christine in Florida, who is a pal of mine, we met through a CD swap at Swap-Bot. I was enchanted. It was SO cool. So I tried illustrating it for my dream journal:



I was sure wondering how to get those hunks of seemingly inert rock-like objects to glow...that's why the dream was so cool, other than Christine being there to gift me with magic rocks..they were so alive! I was bummed when they went out, the light crept across the surface, but the light came from the core. But I had seen them living and that was enough.

Sure are a lot of life and death themes going on lately, not surprising...

Time to oh my god! it's 11:30?! Time to get to bed, I've got an early to work day tomorrow.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

me tired happy girl

I had a bunch of blogworthies to throw atcha...now I cannot remember them. Just a lovely day here, contemplative, artful, active, restful. Instead of a dream journal entry, I did a couple mail art pieces. Got some mail art, too, which I'll post soon. Can't decide if I want to take them with me to work and use the scanner, or rely on Ye Olde Standby (picture-taking).

I did a lot of standing at the art table tonight, after a stop at the post office, a longish bike ride, a stretch and meal and shower and laundry. No hanging the clothes out to dry on the line today. Rain all afternoon. It's been amazing, though - I ride between storms, all through my weekend. By the time I get home, it starts clouding up real good and it rains like the dickens.

What? Where did that saying come from?

I just looked it up. Isn't the internet a most unusual, curious, fantastic tool? It's a mild oath to reference

THE DEVIL

Thank god it doesn't scare me!

It doesn't refer to Charles Dickens. It's much the same as 'deuce': 'what the deuce you say?' Both euphemisms for Mephistopheles, The Horned One, etc et al.

Made some decos tonight. Love it!

And then I looked out the window and saw this:



I tried to take a photograph by setting the camera upon the stand-upright pantry cabinet and got this:



That is so cool it makes my scalp tingle. The camera is pointed towards the outside, which is also on the other side of the sliding glass door.

Time to catch up on a few emails, and call it a day. A good day.

Monday, May 22, 2006

gathering




This afternoon, I remembered a slice of dream from last night. I was hovering outside of a window. There were figures inside beckoning. Half of me felt sure of safety, the other half was certain that safety beckoned far from this window. Everything was all...stretchy...as dreams are, often.

I just learned about a blog called artwords. Huh, whaddya know, this week's theme is Dream. Check it out. I'm almost off to dreamland again, myself...

Sunday, May 21, 2006

necromancer



Downloaded the new TOOL album this afternoon, decided to spin it while rendering yet another dream-induced-or-inspired image. It's the one I alluded to..yesterday I think. The one that was a largely empty space. I think I succeeded where I wanted to in terms of making the sparseness of the scene interesting. Of course, I was there, and it's like a joke that way - better in person. It was my dream, after all. Yes, it was rather unsettling. But cool nonetheless!!

Thanks folks, who are stopping by my blogland to say hi and give me encouragement in my art and stuff. Feels good to be connecting with you all via these mediums.

I think I need something warm and cuddly now, like milk and cookies. Although I did treat myself to a scone and a hot chocolate/latte-type drink earlier, so...maybe just a nice cool refreshing pure glass of water will do the trick. I am not loathe to shake off my mood, particularly. I like inhabiting dreamspaces and moods. This is a safe enough way to explore the darker side of things, and I don't have to become a heroin addict, for example.

That may be a bad joke. It's not a laughing matter. But I like altered states and dabbling with a few colors on paper, well, it's my drug of choice.

Saturday, May 20, 2006

whenever



It's going in my dream journal even though there is no specific dreaming last night that initiated the image...more a general feeling. Plus, the perspective, always that, lately. I have another more dream scene specific image but it's largely...empty. Trying to figure out how to render it and make it visually interesting.

Talking about space...during the last week while riding the bus it's been a little more crowded than usual. On most days I sit by myself, there's enough room by far. My personal space is rarely challenged in public, I don't live in a real people-packed place. And it wasn't challenged on the bus. Earlier in the week a young guy sat in the seat next to me, not looking at me, you know - pretending that we're not sitting next to each other. Thank god he wasn't a jiggler. He seemed pretty calm actually, just rather indifferent to my presence. Which is okay. And then a couple days later, a young woman sat down next to me (she wasn't a jiggler either, and she didn't holler into her cell phone the entire ride, so...both of my traveling companions were pleasant and also not stinky like The Great Unwashed stinky).

But you know...I liked sitting next to someone. Anonymously. We didn't have to make chitchat, neither of us felt obliged or inclined. But I gotta say it was rather companionable. Simple human proximity and warmth. Reminded me how much I really do wish that we as a race/society/culture were more friendly and that the world was a safe place with safe people to do that with.

I could see how people get off on stuff like brushing up against other people, developing fetishes. Nah nah nah I'm not condoning pedophilia or inappropriate groping or any of that shit. We're fucking lonely though. And needy. In want of companionship. We're social creatures. And we find ways to cope or deal.

My art is my lover these days. Now I begin to understand the phrase 'married to your ___________'. Sometimes I wonder if I'm besotted with the whole process - but that would imply a certain sort of...well maybe a lack of depth. And I feel deeply about my art. But I notice that for several months now I have been experiencing many of the same rushy woozy tingly feelings I get when I've either got a crush on someone or am seriously interested in someone and who knows if it's love, I don't know, I'm not going to tackle that whole concept tonight.

Am I confusing passion with narcissism? I don't think so. Although I may have a touch of the fever of both in measures. Hee.

I watched Bjork's Pagan Poetry Video again tonight. It's been..oh god..a couple years since I watched it last?? I got the same shivers, shudders, and tears that I usually do when I watch it. I find it and her completely and utterly riveting.

It's later now, I'm editing the post. Man, that illustration of mine is unnerving. It looks like I'm gonna fall off the edge of the Parquet World, which is very small and flat. Didn't quite capture the slope of vanishing point, which is admittedly off-canvas. Well, so be it, and let this be a lesson to me.

Friday, May 19, 2006

je regrette



It's friday and I'm illustrating for this week's theme: sorry. I'm also illustrating a dream I had, so - dual purpose, once again. The dream is many years old. From even before my mother died. In the dream, I was standing above her, on a staircase of some sort. I saw her spiraling down, with her hands in her pockets, away from me, head bowed. She looked so lonely. I saw her as such, and I'm sure she felt that way too. But in many ways I was younger when I had that dream...we're both big girls now, even if she really isn't getting any older while I am. I like to think my perspective has broadened and deepened. They say that everyone in your dream is a projection of yourself. For this and other reasons I took a picture of myself to base the illustration on for perspective (literally and figuratively). I'm sorry we didn't get to really patch things up before she died.

When it comes down to it, the real patching up occurs within yourself, whether or not someone is around (in body or spirit or whatever) to do it too.

Interesting that yesterday's post is titled 'je ne regret pas'...n'est ce pas??

And it's interesting also that I am listening to Love and Rocket's LIFT and I do believe he is singing So Sorry, in Party's Not Over Yet. I could be reading into it of course. Tomorrow I could listen to it while eating a pastry that went bad and he could be singing, 'this potty's not over yet....soooo hurry!'

Happy illustrating, everyone.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Je ne regret pas



Well, last night's dreaming (or, remembering) made up for the previous night's big blank. LOTS going on! An old flame made an appearance. I didn't capitulate, even in my dream...that's cool. Doesn't mean I didn't want to. I listened to Jeff Buckley's Grace while drawing and painting, and now it's a live recording from some radio station. My friend Clark gave me a copy of it, I have no idea where he got it. Perfect accompanyment for my morning's rendering...thanks Jeff. He talks a fair amount on the show, in between his amazing singing and playing. What a voice.

As for the drawing....a little off, but that's okay, I am learning. Perspective and especially deep perspective/foreshortening is a great interest of mine and I like to play with it. Not so much of that going on in this piece, but hands are so fascinating to me. Had a bit of bump with that today but again - s'awright, everything I do helps me learn and grow. I was positively jigging around the kitchen/studio this morning because honestly I have so much fun and satisfaction drawing and stuff like this. I mean I'm about beside myself, it's so great.

As you can see...lately it's been line drawing and watercolor, or watercolor pencil, or all three. I loves me those ZIG Millenium pigment ink pens.

Time to go out into the world now.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Lola



I couldn't remember any of my dreams this morning. Nothing triggered a memory. Sometimes if I make a certain movement with my body or say something a certain way, a snippet of dream will surface and then a whole bunch of images will cascade. Not this morning! So I just did a me-based illustration and she's Lola.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Circe



I just learned about Circe, latin circus, ring of animals; also known as She-Falcon, death-bird (kirkos)...and as cirque/circle, spinner of Fate and Destiny-weaver. I guess people associate her with turning men to swine but in fact (as the legends go) anyone who steps foot on her island just bought a one-way ticket into her menagerie. The above image is an 8"x8" page for a Creatures of the Night Deco, by Trish in Idaho for our friend Annie in New York. Thanks Trish for the inspiration!

Last night I did an ATC for a Carnival (circus, hee hee) Sideshow swap:


And I just received a Mythology deco, so there is more Circe on the way. I think I saw a Mail Art call for Goddesses or something like that too....

What a gorgeous day today! I did art, rode my bike an entirely new route - I was a scout and explorer today, much fun. Got a bunch of stuff done around the house...now that the weather's warm and sunny, I can once again put my line up on the back balconey to hang the laundry up to dry. I love it.

Am I?

What a gorgeous day it's being here. Sun sun and more of it. Today I have promised myself to get on the bike earlier rather than later, while it's still cool. Talk about shifting gears.

I'm working on my own Dream Journal, now. I am actually keeping some art! For the last several months I have been giving it all away or doing ATC swaps and the like. I came across a great link to an artist name of Loren Holyoke (that's the short version) via Drawn!, an illustration blog. He makes his own little books, they are enchanting...Check out that particular right here.

This morning I remembered part of a dreaming from last night, a sense of wanting to be a part of a larger whole, a group of old friends who I've lost touch with (I am good at sequestering myself, plus, people do tend to drift). I wanted to capture that sense so I took some photos of myself and then this happened:



I quite like it. And I want to make my own little book soon, too.

Monday, May 15, 2006

toasty

Had a lovely ride home today from Clark's! You can even ride along with me here. I saw lots of wonderful things in nature, including these seussian flowering brush things:



A little further along, we come upon

The Dangler





By the time I got home, I was wiped out. A few days ago, it was about 58 degrees fahrenheit. Today it was thirty freakin' degrees warmer, and that is not an exaggeration. You see why we are a little nutty around here. We go berserk for the sun and go out and ride our bikes willy-nilly in it, see shocking things, and come home feeling absolutely exhausted:



Dear god. Once again, it's nigh on the midnight hour. Time to close up shop.

Sunday, May 14, 2006

the nature of things



Hey there. Another image from my dreams last night. Don't you just love the way the bottom drops out in dreams? You think you're gonna die, but...you don't. Either the dreamscape shifts or you wake up. Hopefully. I hear if you actually hit bottom in your dreams, your body doesn't know the diff, and gives up the ghost. For reals. Who knows. Why worry?



An ATC (size is actually 3.5" x 2.5") for a personal trade with a gal I met on ATCards. I know this isn't what she's expecting. I made the Pippi one for her too, I think I posted that several days ago. Well, both are exuberant in their own ways. So there's a theme. Not that there needs to be. I just like trying out different stuff and techniques.

Back to the drawing board with me!

Saturday, May 13, 2006

wax on, wax off

Well okay. So a co-worker and I got to talking about waxing, of all things, last week. How did we get on the subject? I can't remember. Not car waxing, no. Body waxing. Something I have always gone...what the hell would you do that for? at. But you know, I have never tried it. And sometimes for long periods I am very European and can't imagine the desire or the upkeep of clean-shavenness. Other times, I am all for it. So I think that is what spawned this postcard, did it several days ago, don't know who it's for yet:



Yesterday on the bus ride to work, I flipped through an Art in America magazine. It was due yesterday and I hadn't really looked at it yet. I about fell outta my seat when I saw this:



(yes you can click for an up close and personal view)

Life is grand. Just grand.

angels and devils



This doubles as a page in the Music of the Stringless Harp journal, and the Illustration Friday installation. I just finished it - I had a dream last night and I wanted to draw it out while the feelings were still fresh. An old friend appeared last night and though in waking life we were never lovers, we thought about it. Didn't really come close, but we're still close friends even though we haven't actually spoken for...oh god, way too long. I tried calling him just now but no dice - not even an answering machine. He lives a few states away.

So anyway, in the dream, we found each other again and slipped hands under rumpled shirts.

I've since shed the notion that skin on skin (and more precisely, outside of marriage) is devil's territory: being brought up in the Mormon religion, they'd have me believe it so. I think I've effectively excommunicated myself. It's just too black and white, for one thing. I like playing with the archetypes and embodiments of angels and devils but there are just too many nuances and shades of grey in the human experience and psyche for there to be hard and fast good/bad rules.

I think.

Ha ha!

Doesn't mean I don't have a freakin' conscience. But my body, and my life, is my own. Doesn't mean I don't have a responsibility as a cognizant being to tender care, either, for myself and for others.

Happy illustrating, everyone.

nexus

Last night I finally had one of those dreams...you know, the kind that stay with you long after you wake up, the kind that infuse your sleep and wakefulness (such as it is..) with a buzz. This is a representation, drawn for a page in an art journal entitled Music of the Stringless Harp, for a gal over on Nervousness name of Teelget. I was SO hoping to have one of these sorts of dreams for the journal...which you can read more about over here on Nervousness.



It's a beautiful journal, too. She did an ace job with the binding!

Got home late, but still, needed to create. I did go to the film festival...quite enjoyable. There were definitely moments. But you know what, I am

TRULY STOKED

about this little film I just found through this site: http://drawn.ca/ - check it out. And here is the link to the film called Tyger. It is utterly brilliant. OH my GOD I hope I have some more amazing dreams tonight.

It is so damn late. I've got to take myself off to snoresville.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

here's lookin' atcha

Drew this up yesterday morning while listening to that Breezeblock CD - you know, the one where Bjork hosts? - because I decided to make a deco. Theme is Self Portrait:



If you are the sort of person who enjoys sharing and swapping art like ATCs, chunky books, decos and the like, you might wanna check out Yahoo! LMAO group. That's where I am co-modding. I'll tellya right up front (and this is on the home page too): we're not a sticker-and-glitter-and-staples kind of group. But it's not a stuffy place either. It's a place for people who spend a lot of time and thought with their artwork (I'm not dissing staples, or tape, or stickers, but we're most interested in illustrating, painting, and drawing). Serious inquiries only and I'm working on a questionnaire that'll go out if you hit the Join This Group Button.

Come on over and join us at OriginalArtDecos too - for more of the same, different mod - my friend Annie just created the group and we would LOVE for more people to join us making, sharing, and working in Decos that you make and illustrate.

I am SO stoked - I got a free ticket, courtesy of The City of Eugene (I am an employee) for the Eugene Film Festival. I was so bummed to miss the animation festival at our local art house cinema a couple weeks ago...now I get to go and see films from around the world, for three days! It's a freakin' $35 ticket!! First come first serve and I was RIGHT in queue for that one. Tomorrow after work I'm going to truck down the block to DIVA (local arts center) and take a gander. Saturday is an extra day off for me, and sunday's a regular...I can pick and choose, ride into town, treat myself on the City's dime to some fine visual fare oh yeah!

I am so sleepy. I need to get me to bed.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

over the hump day

I was given this plant six years ago by a coworker, when my brother died. At the time, it was in full bloom. It hasn't bloomed in six years...this year, it popped out with beautiful flowers! Even more than before, I think! Isn't it just...I love it. I guess I finally found the right spot in the apartment for it. Maybe it just needs its own space, now there are no other plants around it:





Ya know, I just feel so damn rich. I spent my weekend doing just what I wanted. I was sleepy, I slept. On a nice comfortable couch, and a nice comfortable bed (I start on the couch, get up to pee, then climb up in bed, it's a tall bed, and half my apartment is stashed underneath, how convenient...I love having two beds. I could make a third around here somewhere, I just know it..). I was hungry, I ate. My larder is full. I mean, god, I open the cupboard, and there is food. I open the fridge, and there is food. I can afford to eat organic vegetables. I know how to cook and feed myself. It's basic, but there's a depth to that simplicity that I really appreciate and get off on. I go to my art table, and although I don't have really nice expensive paper, I do have nice watercolor paper, and stuff people have given me, and I have learned and/or inherited the gift of scrounge, so I have art materials. I have a brain. My legs work, I can hop on my bike and go for a ride in the glorious outdoors.

Ya know? Life is good!

And now, I am co-moderating a group on Yahoo! It's a great bunch and it's fantastic to be knowing these folk and helping to make things lope along like we do. We have a love of creativity and art in common (no surprise there). We'd never have met, most likely, if it weren't for the internet. You gotta love it.

This evening after work, I walked to the bus stop. The bus station is right across the street from where I work, but I have to either wait forty-five minutes for the next one out at the late-ish hour I'm done with my shift...or I can walk to a bus stop along the way. So I do that. I go for a 45/50 minute walk and catch it...beautiful, I get to enjoy the evening, have a nice stretch.

So this evening I noticed several spots with swarms of ants! Never before have I seen this! And this, just after remarking to Princess Pepper Cloud that I will not ever step on an ant, if I can help it (if you haven't followed the link....her charming drawings, semi-seussian, depict ants in all manner of frolicking and whatnot).

HUH!

Off to beds I go.

Monday, May 08, 2006

even educated weeds do it



The other morning I stopped before drawing back the curtains because I saw a silhouette of these two...bugs?...doing what most happy couples do if they do happy things in the morning. Of course I had to document it.

They were none the wiser.

Saturday, May 06, 2006

lomography!



Few days ago, after waking, I took this picture. I like taking pictures from weird angles, and since the sun is back and rises early, I'm up with it and now the wall in my living room is a real nice palette and backdrop against which to shoot photos. And then a day or so later I came upon a post by a gal in a group who is hosting a skull and crossbones ATC swap and he's into this thing called lomography

http://www.lomography.com/about/

I think it's rather like dada for photographers. If you snap a photo, you are a photographer. It's not about framing it nicely, or even premediation many times. It's about risk and experimentation. And flow. Little bit of luck, dash of serendipity.

The above photo is me holding a cobalt blue glass. Among the first thing I do each morning is quaff water. This is my water glass. And me. Good morning, world.

i-i-it's my friday



Illustration Friday's theme this week:

FAT

Am I poking fun? Rather. As one who's been so thin that I have no menstrual cycle and running five miles a day, to some twenty or thirty or morety pounds overweight and everything in bewteen, no stranger to bulimia and anorexia in the past, I have a lot to say about this issue. I know what it feels like to feel fat but be underweight; I know how it feels to have extra padding and feel absolutely great, healthy, and able to eat one slice of cake and not go ballistic on my own ass. What I absolutely abhor is fashion modeling, the whole fashion industry, and the bullshit they sell and how perfectly it's bought by even the most intelligent people because it's such an emotional issue to believe that being thin equals being acceptable, blah blah blah. It's sad, really.

We're all gonna have liver spots and wrinkles someday, if we make it that old. Hey. I am getting okay with that. I already have wrinkles, and I'm not even 40. I have cellulite, too, and stretch marks, that I've had since I was a puber.

So go ahead. Eat that slice of cake. And slow down while you do it, and enjoy the hell out of it.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

must. make. art.

OH what a glorious day! The only task I did not accomplish that I set out to is putting a new set of rear brakes on the bike. Hopefully they will sally me forth another day. Figured I wouldn't want to be bored of household chores to do tomorrow, sooo....

Made some art for kiyotei this morning and am thinking about some more ATCs for his virus call. Joined another deco group. Good ol' Eraser Queen, going and starting an Original Art deco group on Yahoo!! I really dig collage...but so much of what passes for collage is just stuff I'm not interested in. I want to see people's illustrations!! yeah!

Bi-Mart (a locally owned and operated nearly department sized store with prices that beat the pants off Fred Meyer...for instance...$3.99 for my beloved crayola washable markers at Freddies, saw 'em for $2.79 today at Not-Straight-Mart) finally got a shipment in! Of what?! Of sardines in tomato sauce, that is what! See me do the happy sardine dance. I love that stuff. I am telling you, it's cheap, and delicious over pasta, and it's protein.

It's probably loaded with lead and mercury, too. I try to eat pretty low on the food chain but mmmm....sardines....

So I rode over there, and then ducked in to the dollar store AGAIN to buy some gel pens for a buck a pack and they're gorgeous, I am going to do something on a postcard real soon here. And then I dropped off some stuff at the Post-not-Pre-Office, and got a book at the library (fourth in the Deverry series, Katharine Kerr...what a writer she is!). Went for a ride along the canal...hung up the laundry on the back porch since the sunny weather is back. LOVE IT.

Made a couple ATCs for my new pal Jessye. We swapped. I got hers today! Have a look:





Is she not fabulous?? And talented? Woo!

This is for that 'Sharpies Only' Swap.

Last night I did an 'idiosyncratic' ATC from Blueness. She mailed out several envelopes full of various ephemera and stuff and all of us were to only use the material provided. NO pens, paints, or any of our own stuff. Plus one 'mandatory material'. This is what I came up with, it's called Ruby Flees the Automati-ville. The Mandatory Material is her antennae.



Oh god, what fun. I'd never use the stuff in those ways otherwise.

Off I go to make more madness.

under the sea

...for illustration friday, an ATC that I haven't traded away yet. Originally I made it for a 'cute monsters' swap but I came up with these instead.



Laid down a watercolor background, sprinkled it with salt for a marbled effect, let it dry and added sumi-e ink for seaweed. Then I drew, colored, cut out and collaged the fish and sea-plant-coral-thing on.

Monday, May 01, 2006

all in a day...or ten

Wrote this morning, but couldn't upload a pic so I drafted it...now I'm back and the pictures are uploading fine so here's the first installment:

Two guys are here, installing new carpet! I've lived here nine years, and the carpets weren't even cleaned when I moved in. Finally, this year, I asked the owner for new paint and carpet, explaining that neither had been refreshed when I moved in nigh one decade ago. It's getting quite dusty in here. That carpet is nasty. Shall it be a shoeless household once the new floor is laid?

And I'll tell you a secret. Last week when filming for hinterlandia, I spilled some ink on the floor.

ha ha haaaa!!

Went for a walk last night hoping to capture some really cool footage but my little camera just isn't powerful enough for the subtlelies in darkness I wanted to pick out. So I had to use a flash and a still instead of do the video I wanted.



So now, it's 10pm. Lovely day. Sent off a passel of stuff earlier - decos I made, decos I deco'd, mail art, ATC's. I finally got inspired for the Sharpie Only ATC swap with my new pal Jessye in Idaho:





Last week it was such nice weather that I decided to get my Target (say it like français - 'Tar-JAY') fix and swung over there on my bike ride home to cash in my two dollar in store credit, and bought a pack of four pastel sharpies. Only had to filch a dollar bill outta my wallet for that little excursion. GOD! Simple pleasures! I love Target...I walked in there and inhaled deeply - that snack bar smell makes me weak in the knees every time. It's the popcorn mostly I think. And I can't say I'd never ever ever eat it, but...it's not something I'd buy and eat. But the smell...mmmm.

However - I loathe microwave popcorn smell.

The carpet smell is....very...not-nice. I've left the doors and windows open as long as I can without freezing my arse off. So hopefully I'll live through the night and the carpet will stop fouling up my apartment soon.

Went on a ride this afternoon and this time, packed along my camera. Some videos to upload this-a-way. I figured out how to convert avi to mov! Wow - mov files are way smaller. And I think I can do editing in iMovie with them too.

I need an early retirement.