I was promised a zombie apocalypse!

WHERE IS MY ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE?!?!!

Turkish Delight...

His recent games have brought out the obnoxious fangirl in me.

gifspam of doom after the cut...

Independence Day

Sobbing into my cornflakes. It's over.
There will be dozens of articles, but for now...

Contract dispute between SM Entertainment and JYJ finally ends

The contract dispute between SM Entertainment and JYJ (Kim Jaejoong, Park Yoochun, Kim Junsu) has finally ended after 3 years and 4 months.

According to several reports on November 28th, SM Entertainment and JYJ have resolved the contract dispute, with both sides deciding to end the files for injunction that were filed on July 31st, 2009.

In addition, both sides withdrew all related litigation, signing a contract that they will not embark in mutual matters again.

A representative from SM Entertainment said through a press release on the 28th, "The three no longer wanted to be part of TVXQ as there is no reason to be under the management of SM Entertainment. And so, it was decided to end the case and negotiation today with the agreement that there will be no mutual connections."

"In order to prevent any further discomfort and unnecessary issues for the current TVXQ members, U-Know Yunho and Max Changmin, who have continued to proceed with their activities, the judge decided that it was best to end this trial."

C-JeS representative Baek Changju said, "Three years ago when the court accepted our injunction, we thought that this was a fight we had already won. The legal situation isn't what interfered with JYJ's activities, but this was more of a David vs. Goliath situation. We don't see it as a big change in their activities. JYJ is going to continue with their future plans and activities as planned."

"With this final court verdict, we hope that the restriction that was involved in this case will improve. We want to send our sincere thanks to fans who have been continuously giving their support without any changes."

JYJ first made their entrance into the music industry as part of the 5-member group TVXQ, until the trio filed an injunction at the Seoul Central District Court against SM Entertainment on July 31st, 2009, disputing their contract with the agency. Since September 2010, they formed the group JYJ under C-JeS and have been relatively active in the music industry, going on world tours, and achieving high success in the acting scene since then.

Source: Koreaboo

Still waiting for official confirmations and statements all around. Jaejoong is buried in Jackal promotions. Yoochun is filming his drama. Junsu is flying to Germany for his concert. We'll see who brings it up first.

I'm reeling. It's so huge and I'm so flipping happy about it.
Now for the test. Which station will step up to the plate and broadcast them. KBS has made promises multiple times and chickened out. Come on KBS! Give them a chance! Or SBS! Get Jaejoong on Running Man. Epic lulz would be had!

Totally overwhelmed. I can hardly believe it.

A series of wins...

Same ol' same.
Working on a painting of a hen for my mom's kitchen and building a K-pop website for the giggles. For now, more distractions of the positive kind. Video fun, too!

Politics are so frustrating, but at least there can be relief this time around. Obama won. Thank Odin! Romney inspired enough fear in me to vote Barack instead of my true choices... Jill Stein or Gary Johnson. As a Californian, I should vote my conscience. The Democratic party is a guarantee. But still, Mittens scared the hell out of me. Hopefully, Obama will be encouraged to take more risks in his last term and push for what he really wants. And Congress... well, that's a clustercuss. Meh.

Ronaldo botched a free kick earlier in the Borussia game. In the dying minutes, Real was down 2-1. Crispy let Mesut take a kick and he saved the day with this pretty little curl.

I shrieked and jumped for joy. DAT LEFT FOOT! M1Ö ♥ 

My favorite person singer in the world was awarded with something that neither he or any of his fans thought was possible. The popularity award is a guarantee, because it's a public vote and he's won it three years in a row. But this... this was an incredible surprise and honor...

Best Actor for his role as Death in Elisabeth. Wow. A former boyband idol winning Best Actor. Definitely a first. And he rarely gets emotional in public unless he's singing, but there's no way he'd hold it in for this. Yeesh. You can hear the girls sobbing in the audience in fancams. Lol. I sobbed, too, I admit it. Dude has been been shat on and betrayed by his own industry for the last three years. That after more than 9 years of dedicated hard work under a slave-like contract. Musicals were something he tried on a whim to challenge himself. Three musicals later... this happens. ALL THE FEELS!

Speaking of slave-like contracts. Within the same week of Junsu's win, the KFTC came out with new standards for entertainers. Companies have to make financial records available, pay artists within 45 days, provide records online, and can't whore out their idols to shows without paying them... to name a few. Pretty basic stuff, but a huge step forward and success for JYJ



This is validation that the sacrifice of their careers was not in vain. They made the corruption public knowledge, stood up for what was right, persevered despite being blacklisted by the industry, and three years later, the gears of change are in motion. And Junsu won Best Actor.......... definitely still flipping out about that.
I still wonder if the pink hair was a dare--having played Death. Lulz.

It's raining. ^^
We didn't have the heat on for the first few days of freezing nights. Had to jog around the house for warmth. XD
A bit toastier now.

Mmmm. Toast sounds good.
I'm tempted to post about Hiddles soon. *snort* We'll see.

Ze

In search of Zen...

ひさしぶりですね。
I'd like to say I've improved. The truth is I just don't know. After a month I was feeling more settled and went out to buy frames for artwork. A store I've been to dozens of times. Picking out frames for my own work. No social obligation or challenge. Positive and empowered.
I started having a panic attack not long after walking in. That damned white-knuckle careen into an abyss. I've barely been out of the house since. I'm a coward.

While the anxiety monster keeps me in its grips I'm occupying myself with various distractions. Late nights traipsing through Netflix instant-watch. The 'new' Sherlock season for one. Re-watching the entirety of Star Trek: DS9 for another. Splitting my attention to the 2x5" scrap printmaking paper leftovers with some cathartic Zentangle-ing. See above... and below.

My dad remodeled my room... years ago. Had to box up a ton of my books at the time to put into storage. Eventually, said boxes ended up in the depths of our garage with the rest of the stored things. My mom valiantly dug out my treasured novel-hoard while looking for her own stuff--my Tolkien collection included. WOOO! Made it through The Hobbit and am just diving into Fellowship. Wildly excited about the first movie. The new trailer is beautiful and fun. Some fans are peeved with the humor. I'm not. I hope for the level of silliness present in the book. Balin looks beyond fabulous.

An interesting thing has occured in Kpop over the last few months. I keep up with new pop videos coming out of Korea on a daily basis, so I saw Gangnam Style when it had less than a thousand views. I've always liked PSY and thought it was brilliant and hilarious and an expertly handled commentary on Seoul society, but never imagined it would reach beyond international Kpop fans and their immediate friends... like every other video we see. And then it exploded in unimaginable ways. Right now it has over 270 million views, got a Guinness Record for the most liked video in Youtube's history, and PSY has been touring the media circuit here in the US. The dude was on SNL. Insane. It likely won't amount to much more than a crazy flash in the pan, but it really doesn't matter. What most Kpop fans love is that the Korean music industry has been trying to 'break into' the American industry for a long time, investing a lot of time and a whole lot of money, unsuccessfully... and PSY, with minimal effort, and no intention of doing so, became a worldwide viral sensation. Glorious.

The only thing keeping me from a truly vampiric schedule is rising early for soccer games. The football season is under way, which is great fun. I mostly keep up with La Liga and Bundesliga. I never miss matches with Real Madrid and the German National Team for my favorite footballer. That brilliant German bug-eyed freak with a magical vortex of a left foot, Mesut Özil. I never tire of watching him. He moves like a freaking gazelle. Real Madrid has been kind of a mess thus far, but Germany is doing alright. Frankly, Mesut could play like crap every match (though he never does) and I'd still watch him. It's the Beautiful Game at any rate... it calms me and I can certainly use some calming these days.

More tangles next time, perhaps?
'Til then.

Still hate Act 2...

Since the last week has easily qualified as the most terrifying in my life... 

let's have fun with nostalgic terror!

I kind of miss Baal runs for the creative names that would pop up in the list. Snowbaal Fight. Baal Bonds. Baalerina. Alas, gone are the days of endless runs and rushes. Doesn't work that way in Diablo III. I painted this dude from the cover of an LoD strat guide... I think. Probably 10 or 11 years old now. I was digging around in some old scans when I stumbled onto it. What a riot.

<--- As of this screenshot, I'm a level 56 Wizard. Haven't played much in the last week though. Been a rough week. And I'm in Act 2, which is a massive pain in the ass in Hell difficulty. I don't know how I'll manage it in Inferno. The combos on the elite mobs are simply impossible sometimes.

But I love the game! I do! It's really fun. It's certainly an improvement on D2 and LoD in a lot of ways. A few issues here and there, but overall positive.
It's also a visual feast. Particularly the later acts, 4 and 5, are just stunning looking. The design is just shiny and gorgeous. Not to mention the cinematics, which are mind-blowing. I pretty much salivated my way through the first play-through. So pretty.

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
Terrible spoiler warning, but avert your eyes from this little screenshot if you don't want to be spoiled. D3's equivalent of D2's Cow Level is Whimsyshire. I could not stop laughing when I saw it. Yes, this is me, killing a 'Chubby Pink Unicorn'. Beautiful. Many lulz are to be had in there. The Barbarian in the lower right is actually my brother. Oh, the lulz.

A wonderful highlight to an otherwise ugly week.

------------------------------------------------

I don't mind putting this on the internet.
I've been starting to get help for my anxiety issues. A little therapy, which is more like exposure therapy since the most angst-inducing thing for me is to talk to someone one-on-one. So that's been a blast. To support that therapy it was recommended to try some medication. I've always been reluctant to go there. I like to deal with things intellectually rather than chemically. But I've been desperate enough recently to give it a try. I was prescribed a low dose of Zoloft to start with. Tried it. Had a bad reaction. A really bad reaction.
A few symptoms: numb/tingling arms/hands, crazy dilated pupils, numb lips/tongue, unable to read or type, unable to understand my dad on the phone when he was speaking perfectly clearly... among other things. Essentially, had a full-on panic episode from the stuff. Ended up calling an ambulance to the house and spent the day in the ER. I was coherent for a short while there. Then I went into a totally disassociated psychotic place... basically my brain shutting down to protect itself. I have little memory of the next 4-5 hours. Yee-freaking-haw.
The whole ordeal was essentially my greatest fear. Like, the ambulance-hospital-medical emergency-shots-puking-scenario while also legitimately losing my mind and self.... worst nightmare imaginable and then some. That was my Dementor.

Been sleeping a lot since then, trying to take it easy. I've had a chance to look up bad reactions to Zoloft on the internets and the findings are both fascinating and infuriating. Apparently, a reaction like mine tends to last a while. Like a month. I'm essentially hyper-sensitized, which is the opposite reaction to what the drug is intended to do. I'll be buzzing for a month. My vision is a little screwy. Very sensitive to light and sound. My arms are tingly and strange. I feel anxious all the time. Scattered thoughts. Bursts of headaches. *sigh* So, yeah, here it is. All my apprehension to take medication... validated in the worst way possible. Awesome.

Recovery will take a while and my life will continue to be derailed in the meantime. I'm thinking the best thing will be to draw regularly and work on fun things. That should keep my spirits up. I'm just glad to feel like myself again... mostly. For a while there, I wasn't sure I'd ever pick up the pieces.

Oh, and I love Junsu's album. I suppose that was a given though. ^^
It's the little things, man.
The little things keeping me going.

A breath...

Immortal Coil

While I try to get myself to stop fiddling with the code on my final site for Dreamweaver I'll post my final silkscreen project. We had to use a photo-stencil for at least one run, at least four runs total, and we were encouraged to have it 'mean' something. Plus, it needed to be a 'photo-collage', so I used my own photos of flowers and trees. Mine is (1) the flat background, (2) a ruby lith cut for the yellow to green blend you see below, (3) screen filler to block out for the crimson to red blend, (4) and the photo-stencil printed with a green to brown blend for the overall design. Happy happy happy with the finished product. I had ten prints of the one posted above and they printed totally consistent.

Pardon the distortion of the design. It was windy outside when I took pictures and the paper was moving. The first image is accurate. I have only two prints of this green one, which I might actually like better than the red roses. Made some other variations, too. This marble down below with just the last run and some others printed on top of previous left-over backgrounds.

There it is... another science-related ode. I can repeat the advanced etching class only one more time and there is the rarely available advanced silkscreen class next Spring. Considering both of them, but I'd like to know exactly what pieces I would try to accomplish before taking them. We'll see.

It's hard for me to think about anything future-ish right now. The anxiety is a daily thing. It has completely derailed me from my already slow track. Trying to keep my s*** together.

Compiling...

 

The end of the semester nears. Two weeks to go. About a week and a half actually. Spread out all of my prints from silkscreen at home to put together the final portfolio. Feels rather nice to have a stack of prints almost two inches tall. Productive class.

Also working on final sites/assignments for CSS and Dreamweaver. More staring at code for hours. My eyes are hating me. They'll hate me more once I start playing Diablo III next week. Ha. I'm pretty well on top of my work, so I don't think I'll have to delay that fun. I'm more excited for it now. Not just because the release is nearer, but because I'm in need of the catharsis.

The last few weeks have been weird. I've always had anxiety issues, but it feels like my brain and body have totally betrayed me recently. Even normal daily things have suddenly become massive challenges. Had to step out of class yesterday to walk around the hall because I was freaking out so badly. Felt like I was going to pass out or have a heart attack and could not get my nerves to settle. Ugh. Part of the problem is that I finally got around to seeing a therapist, which I probably should have done a really long time ago. The sessions, being this focused, one-on-one, social obligation, where I'm required to talk at length about myself, are simply hellish. I pretty much feel like I'm dying the whole time and the dread of the next sessions weigh on my chest like an elephant. Feels bad, man. I think it's doing more harm than good at this point. I really don't know what to do about it.

Turning 26 on Tuesday didn't help. The number is like a punch in the gut considering I more closely resemble a 16 year-old with crippling anxiety.
...
Trying to stay positive. My fingers haven't had any swelling problems, which is kind of boggling. Also got my Art Scholarship results in the mail today. Got even more $$$ than I did in 2010, which is really lovely. Then there's Diablo. Oh, and my favorite person singer in the world is releasing his first solo album on the same day. The concept is wild and over-the-top and clearly inspired by his role as Death in Elisabeth. Intense. So, there's that to keep me going through the home-stretch.

Fixing...

 At long last, the sweet sweet violet closure. Glad to have that done. I only printed a few of them and they weren't registered as well as the violet-less ones, but still... HUZZAH! On the left is the only one I printed with the stencils flipped around and I think it looks kind of awesome.

w00t.

"...lungs that suck at being lungs..."

"Pain demands to be felt."

The alternative substrates project. Open subject matter. We just had to print it on more than paper; shirts, wood, stickers, etc. My design was inspired by 'The Fault in our Stars', by John Green. The main protagonist is a teenage girl with lung cancer. I wanted to do something with ribs/lungs and then something with a starry motif, which shows up repeatedly in the story. So I did this stylized constellation thing with the lungs. Pretty happy with the result. Also printed some variations with prints I already had from earlier projects. Originally, I wanted to integrate the text in the design, but I decided against it... 'Pain demands to be felt' is one of many memorable lines from the book.

The poor, mangled bodies of plastic basketballers littered the carpeted ground: here, a ball palmed by a disembodied hand; there, two torsoless legs caught midjump. Isaac kept attacking the trophies, jumping on them with both feet, screaming, breathless, sweaty, until finally he collapsed on top of the jagged trophic remnants.
      Augustus stepped toward him and looked down. "Feel better?" he asked.
      "No," Isaac mumbled, his chest heaving.
      "That's the thing about pain," Augustus said, and then glanced back at me. "It demands to be felt."

Again, I highly recommend reading it, as long as you have a box of tissues within reach.

 Here's John reading the first chapter on youtube.

Blooming...

Some pictures I've taken with my phone on the commute. Pretty! 

The tulip is one of many in the backyard. Pretty!
SPRING IS PRETTY!

Bumb ditch...

I stood on the curb beside the open bus door, waiting for a few riders to disembark. Standard practice I'm familiar with after taking the same bus for more than five years. The first out the door, a rough-looking older guy, stopped and turned directly toward me.
"Could you let me by?" Suddenly all gritted teeth and angry.
The only possible way I could have gotten more out of his way would be to put one ankle in the gutter and flatten against the side of the bus. To my left, the sidewalk was empty. The two kind elderly gentlemen who had ushered me forward to board first were waiting patiently by the bus shelter. There had to be at least five feet of open space in each direction from this guy's perspective. I stayed put, considering I had nowhere to move to, and gave him the double eyebrow raise of utter confusion.
After he got done glaring at me, he passed by--along the natural way anyone would exit a bus--and muttered pretty audibly...
"Dumb bitch."

Aaaaaalrighty then.
I was tempted to call him out on it, but the bus was late and it wasn't worth making myself, and everyone else, more late. Plus, there's a strong chance the guy wasn't all there--mentally. Lots of psychologically unstable people take the bus. He also had some odd scabby sores all over his face... so yeah. I wasn't about to provoke him further.
Oh, public transportation... how I love thee.

Yeehaw.
Silkscreen class more than made up for it though! It was a such a great day in the lab. Everyone had positive energy. Everyone was encouraging and having fun. Since our prof is up for review this semester, one of the other art teachers sat in to observe. It happened to be my first art teacher at the JC. Two semesters of art history... five or six years ago. I loved those classes and took the opportunity to tell her so. She's awesome.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I turned in my self-portrait. Six runs completed. Didn't have time for the last run, which would have been a dark outline in some places and would have made the pen in my hand show up better. I also rushed mixing my ink colors so they aren't exactly what I wanted. It's alright. I think it still works.

'In collaboration with the night'

The registration is a bit off for all the prints because I didn't realize my screen was shifting slightly in the clamps until I was halfway through the runs. Darn. Live and learn, eh?
I am content. ^^

I'll be including this in my scholarship portfolio submission, which I'll be working on all weekend. Exciting!

By the numbers...

Printed 30 times today.
2 runs for 2 states.
3 more colors to go.
2 days left to print them in.
1 week for Spring break before that.

Oh, and...
Diablo 3 releases on 5.15.2012.
Now I know what my birthday present will be to myself. ^^
I vow to not play until I finish the semester!

Looking forward to the next...

"Stay awhile and listen."

...

I got permission to re-print the CMY dealio with a corrected yellow stencil. It will wait until after project #4 since that's a pretty involved process.
But YES! There will be violet!
I will have closure! 

Got started on project #4 today. It's a self-portrait. I had little to no inspiration on that front, so I just messed around in Photoshop until I had something. It's sort of... uh... pedantic? Precious? Meh?
Lol.
I'm more interested in the challenge and learning the process. I included a lot of fine detail, which is difficult to make work with the stencil. The process is a progressive block-out using screen filler. We have to mix at least four custom inks for it. Yay, for mixing color! I designed mine with seven colors. Good thing we have about a month to work on it. Hopefully, I can make a couple of runs per day, despite how time-intensive painting out the screen is.

Also need to start preparing and planning for the art scholarships. I'll have a printmaking focus this time, which is probably an improvement on the diversity of my portfolio entry two years ago. Lots of mat-cutting in my future!

More monotypes...

The rest of the watercolor crayon prints...

 

 A severely cropped section of a Cezanne still-life.

A Fauvist landscape referenced from a photo I took locally.

Slapped this last abstract together in about 10 minutes while some other prints dried. Kind of a mess. XD

Yellcyenta!

 There it is. The product of my stencil failure. I badly want to cut a new yellow stencil and print at least one the way it was intended to be. I'm still so annoyed about it. Art-related mistakes don't ever bother me this much. I don't know what makes this different, but I feel like I need the closure on this print... sweet violet closure.

 After I printed my 12 violet-less prints, I played with the stencils a bit to fill the time. These prints makes me feel even stupider that I missed the violet, because there is obviously violet all over the place. The background here is one of those marbled prints I did for project #2. I printed the magenta stencil and flipped it around before printing the cyan. The waxy nature of the transparent base had an interesting effect on the transparent ink. Auras everywhere!

Three more followed. I printed the magenta stencil on a few sheets. Then I took all my cutting scraps and scattered them around. Printed it once in cyan, flipped the sheet around for the next, and added one more piece before printing the last. I like the result. They're playful and vibrant. I do enjoy the process. Printing is quite zen. I'm beginning to consider how I can continue to print on my own at home after the class--sustainably.

I'll be posting a few more of the watercolor crayon project prints before the weekend is out.

じゃね。

Ugh...

It was just one of those days.

It started with trying to finish my CSS homework last night. The padding went completely out of whack on a page and I still have no idea what is causing it. The work is technically easy. The problem is that we have to modify someone else's old, somewhat deprecated code. Trying to sort through 700+ lines of messy code for a simple assignment is no bueno. Because of the ridiculous amount of time it took to do almost nothing, I didn't get a chance to work on the next silkscreen project, which is a self-portrait (...that I'm severely lacking inspiration for, too). The bro called up in the midst of the coding hell, seeking help for his upcoming finals. Looks like I'll be sacrificing a Saturday to the badass sister goddess.

Didn't get enough sleep, ran late getting ready for school and power-walked in the finally winter-like cold rain. Then stood at the bus stop for 20 minutes in said cold rain, waiting for the very late bus. Power-walked/jogged through puddles to class, which I was sure I would be late to, earning a 'tardy'... a college class...with tardies. Made it to class before roll call! HUZZAH!

We had our critique for project #3, the CMY transparent layering dealio. I quickly became deaf to any praise when the Prof pointed out that there wasn't any violet in the piece. No violet. NO VIOLET.

NO FREAKING VIOLET.

I spent six hours cutting those three stencils and...

I CUT THE YELLOW STENCIL WRONG.

How it was supposed to look...minus the rage.

Yep. So after my heart had sufficiently shriveled into a raisin, I spent the rest of the class cleaning stuff and preparing stuff since I don't have a design for the self-portrait yet. TIME WASTE.

Having a really hard time getting over that mistake. Printed 12 editions of it and I was so happy with the result and I was done early. If I, or anyone else, had noticed that I didn't have violet I could've re-cut the yellow stencil and printed at least a few correct ones. But now it's too late and I failed the assignment. Ugh...

So frustrated.

I brought them home, so I guess I'll post my fail print soon.

*grumblegrumble*

Dissolving...

'Refresh'

 With my screen and equipment all sorted I dove right into project #2. Draw directly on the screen with water soluble crayons and pencils. Flood the screen with transparent base. Let it sit and dissolve for 5-ish minutes. Pull the impression. Clean the squeegee and pull until it transfers as much as possible. Done!

Left: The abstract was my first attempt. I happened to have some old Staedtler watercolor crayons that had been sitting in my room for 15 years probably. Ha! I wasn't sure if they would work so I went for something loose design-wise and thickly layered to test the limits. Turned out way better than I expected. Vivid and almost exactly as it looked on the screen. Some of the topmost black never transferred, but it was a good first test.

'Callas'

 Right: Spent a little more time on this one. I've wanted to do something with calla lilies for a long time. My mom likes them and I worked on it with her in mind. She likes purples, too, so that's the color scheme. I was a bit floored with how nicely it printed. Didn't lose much pigment. There was a little dry area in the top right that needed a little help. Otherwise... I like!

The process uses/wastes a huge amount of transparent base. One way to get a little extra mileage out of it is to swipe the leftover base (which is laced with dissolved crayon) over the screen and pull an impression. It makes some cool marbling effects. This last little square is a section of one I took. I got a few different ones. They'll be fun to draw over and use as backgrounds in various things.

Project #3 is back to paper stencils. We'll do a 3-color transparent piece. The transparent layers will form 7 total colors. One stencil each for the primaries: magenta, yellow, blue. Overlap will create orange, green, violet, and black. It's a little tricky because the colors are really similar in value. Yellow blends with the white of the paper. The orange is more like red-orange and blends with magenta. Blue and green are really close and the violet and mixed black are almost indiscernible. I spent a bunch of time in photoshop trying to figure out what to do. Ended up surrendering to a geometric thing, which isn't very original, but if I'm quick with printing it I can do something else. Spent about 6 hours today making design masters and cutting the yellow and magenta stencils out of mylar. My hand hates me right now... like... we're not on speaking terms. Lulz. It was already cranky from drawing with crayons, but whew. I know my neck is gonna feel completely crap, too. Fun. ^^

Ciao.

First screen shots...

Oooh! Pretty colorssssss!

 It hasn't rained more than a light sprinkle since the robin-fest. It's like late spring... continuously. Sunny. Warm. It's easily the warmest winter I've ever experienced. The ankle is improving, but still hurts. Now I feel like I have an alien foot. For the first time in 25 years I can't flex or point my foot without pain/limitation. Super weird.

After the first run of paper stencil prints we've just been preparing our own screens and equipment, which is quite an intensive process. I've just finished everything, as of yesterday. Next week I'll start project #2, which is a bunch of monotypes with water-soluble crayons/pencils. Should be interesting and colorful and the subject is completely open, so I might end up with six or more different prints along with some ghosts.

 Here is the result of project #1. The stencil was cut out of a sheet of mylar. I have twelve prints that look like the above. Below is the actual stencil with ink on it. It's essentially the inversion, which looks a lot better... *sigh* Too bad. I think I'll cut another one later on without using mylar. I could barely see/handle the stuff even with my fingers doing fine. Paper, ftw!

I'd take a picture of my whole screen rig, but the Prof is super anal about seeing, hearing, or getting a whiff of a cell phone. So that might not happen until I can get my ninja on.
Dreamweaver and CSS are just getting in gear. Both classes have really involved assignment structures and websites, so I'm still trying to settle in properly.

Peace.

Robins in the rain...

A ton of robins in all their rainy delight.

I don't think I had seen a robin since the last spring rain, which was a really long time ago. The weather has been unusually dry and warm here. Some days it felt like summer in November. But at last, it rained! Heavily, too. On the first day, I looked out the front windows to see a dozen robins splashing around in the puddles and gutters. When the rain got hard enough to hurt they all flocked into this fig tree that spills into our backyard. At one point, I counted about thirty robins. The scrub jay and mourning dove fled when it really started coming down, but all these robins looked positively gleeful. Robin doodle!

Whenever the rain kicks in I think of this poem:

All the rivers run into the sea;
yet the sea is not full;
unto the place from whence the rivers come,
thither they return again.

It is raining today in the mountains.

It is a warm green rain
with love
in its pockets
for spring is here,
and does not dream
of death.

Birds happen music
like clocks ticking heaves
in a land
where children love spiders,
and let them sleep
in their hair.

A slow rain sizzles
on the river
like a pan
full of frying flowers,
and with each drop
of rain
the ocean
begins again.
-Richard Brautigan

Luckily, it should be dry tomorrow while I haul 90% of my Silkscreen equipment to class. The screen is just large enough to be really uncomfortable to carry under an arm. And there are three more bags to juggle. Yeehaw. Commence printing! Maybe I'll have something to scan on Thursday? I don't know what the policy is on drying or bringing prints home yet. No more oil-based inks though, so that's nice... or at least, less toxic. Woo!

Oh yeah, I forgot to transfer all of my brush and tool presets over to my new computer. Fail. I'll have to set up the old computer and put them on a flash drive or something. Oof.
I must get some sleep!

おやすみ！

Stupid stumbles...

I sprained my ankle today. I blame SOPA... because I want to. Lulz.

Stepped off the treadmill at home and gravity tried REALLY HARD to break my ankle. But failed, thank goodness. It's not bad really. The ankle isn't even bruised. It's just puffy and hurts if I move it around much. At least I can still walk on it.  But FFFFUUUU. One more thing to fret over.

Finished The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Spent about 40% of the book bawling. Hoo boy. So many triggers. But it was wonderful. Sad and wonderful.

16-page syllabus for the Silkscreen class. *facepalm*
Mmmm'kay. Good to know he's... organized?  >.>
First prints will commence next Tuesday! Yay for learning new things!

...
10+ years of ballet and never a sprained anything.
How does that work?
-____-

Winter throwback III

I'm sensing a theme here. A bit of an odd story behind this one. Claytonian is a Youtube vlogger who lives/teaches English in Japan. He visited a gallery somewhere... this was quite a while ago... and this piece caught his eye. As seen on the left, I screenshotted it, because it is rather gorgeous. Eventually got around to painting a version, based totally on the screenshot. Claytonian didn't know who the artist was or what it was called. I couldn't find any information either. I would love to know. Until that happens I'm just calling her 'Clay's Geisha'. Kept messing up the eyes and redoing them 'cause they're so much lovelier in the original, but I couldn't make them work. I like the grey-ness of it, though!


In other news, I have fully moved in to my new computer. Still getting acclimated to all the Windows 7 jazz. Feeling less anxious now. I was worried I wouldn't be settled in by the time my online classes start next week. Silkscreen, CSS, Web Development, and Dreamweaver. I predict I will be confusing the three online classes with each other. Lots of passwords and schedules to stay on top of. I'm suuuuuper excited about Silkscreen, but the teacher is notoriously a bastard. As far as I have heard, he rarely gets through a semester without making at least one student break down in tears in class. Soooo... yeeaaahhh.

Oh, and I got The Fault in Our Stars a day early from Amazon. w00t. One of the gazillion pre-orders signed by Vlogbrother, John Green. I'll start reading it tonight. Huzzah! DFTBA.

Winter throwback II

 

I worked on this one during the 'beginning painting' class also. The antique picture to the left is the obvious reference. I stumbled across it somewhere on the net... possibly the Pink Tentacle blog. It hasn't been updated much since the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, but they had a lot of incredible old artwork/posters/photographs on a regular basis. Anyway, this lovely lady was rather striking. The fabric of the kimono looked like a fun challenge. Unfortunately, I never finished her face and neck, so she's a little lacking. I was really pleased with the kimono and obi's color and pattern. As far as I recall, the rounded hairstyle indicates she was a married woman... 'marumage'. There is a Japanese language lesson in there. Weee!

Winter throwback I

A handful of older pieces will be on their way to this space during winter break.

First up...

Alphonse Mucha's 'Cycles Perfecta'. The Art Nouveau style is so... accessible? I think it just always looks good. Mucha was the master. Came across this poster a few years ago. I hadn't seen it before. Interesting combination of the crazy hair and dress and simple bicycle. Kinda spiffy. I painted this during 'beginning painting' at the JC. It's more like a class for experienced painters who can take advantage of the studio and get units for it. Our Prof let us paint anything we wanted. Actually, the three figure studies I posted recently were during this class... from the only day we had something specific to paint. I digress...

So, my Cycles Perfecta is acrylic on canvas. 18x24. Pardon the terrible photo quality. I was really happy with it and thoroughly enjoyed painting it. But, the curse of a perfectionist, I wasn't quite happy with the blend on the face and the arms. Went over them again and it irreparably dulled out the color. Gah! Even though it's glaringly annoying to me, I guess it's not obvious to everyone else. Miss Perfecta has recently taken up residence at my bro's place, where she can be enjoyed by real cyclists who would never let their hair get silly enough to get caught in the spokes.