All that is gold...

Got to doodling and overlaying and flipping and coloring and...

somewhat gilding the lily.

Heh. Kinda wild.

Big rainstorm coming. Woo!

Winter is trying...

... but mostly failing to come. Slightly colder. And we had some light rain for a day. The drought is seriously screwing California though. It's dangerous. Can only imagine how rough this is for farmers and anyone with agricultural concerns.

Doodling away.

Seeing advertisements for Cosmos during the Super Bowl was glorious. It made up for the Scientology ones. So excited for it.



Bring it, NDT!

Productivity...

I hit a proper art phase. That hasn't happened in... well, at least two years probably. Strong ideas for pieces popping in all sparkly and fully-formed. Some new. Some updates of older inklings. It's a bit torturous since I'm seemingly always going to be babying my fingers, but I've been drawing more and more and they still hold up with only the lightest swelling and sensitivity, so I'm ramping things up.

Steadily dumping these Mesut-y sketches onto my Tumblr after every game (or two). Saturday's game against Crystal Palace still needs to go up, but I have a feeling he won't be playing until next Saturday. All of the starters should be taking a much-needed break for the mid-week Cup game. Frankly, it has been quite the ride. I had no great expectations of success at Arsenal, but these boys have been Top of the League since Mes joined and maintaining their momentum despite injuries/exhaustion. I feel spoiled. The Norwich game alone was the stuff of fairy tales. Meanwhile, Real Madrid is struggling. Ancelotti's 'system' is not clicking. Makes me wish Khedira and Benzema would bail and join Arsenal in January.

Bring on the compilations, Gooners! (Nice song, btw)

Got to meet my 3-month old #1 favorite nephew. Just so happens that he is the cutest baby I've ever seen. Seriously. I'm not much of a baby fan, whether family or not, but sweet tapdancing Odin... the little tyke is so cute it makes you squirm and squee involuntarily.

Anyway, back to art and productivity. If I can get a few pieces finished I might do the typical print-shop thing. Like Society6 or something. Perhaps by the end of the year. Not long off, but I have some stuff well in-progress. Still too timid to actually paint with actual paint. Too much going well right now to risk the use of my hand. So, just digital. Then I'd like to refurbish Kpoppy for it's first birthday. I've already coded all the structure for that. Just need to update a bunch of content. Aaaaand, what else? Oh gosh, I might try to do NaNoWriMo this year. Likely setting myself up for total failure there. Hahaha. Especially with all the art stuff. But there's this story my brain is fixated on that I want to just get down. I'm a shit writer, but I want to challenge myself to go for it. Typing extensively can irritate my fingers though, so I'll stop if anything threatens.

Still playing with those paisleys...

Off to bed!

I do art things sometimes...

Sometimes...
Not of the greatest quality.
But sometimes.

Thusly, a little set of zentangle doodle experimenty thingy-mabobs:

Electric Paisley

Lil Tangles

Oceania

Exploring some odd color combinations that I would otherwise not choose.
Playing. Satisfying.
I've actually begun drawing again. Not just simple zentangles, but some proper graphite renderings. Sketchy still, but my fingers have been resilient through each test. In that regard, I had an idea to make a little Özil sketch after every Arsenal game during the season. Could be an amusing series. Mostly just amusing for me, but I might post them to my art tumblr if I can keep up with it.

A little preview. The actual series will be only greyscale... I think. Mesut played his first game for Arsenal last Saturday. He had a stomach bug. Poor kid. Wenger wouldn't have played him if the team wasn't so thin due to injuries/illness. Despite being sick, coming off of two successful International games, being slammed by nasty Spanish press, and having his life turned upside-down... he made his first assist for the club after just 11 minutes. And it was a beauty. Great long pass from Gibbs as Mesut took off down the left wing. Timed his run to have the ball come down over his left shoulder, split-stretched to slow its fall with the perfect touch of his left foot, passed it with an exquisite nutmeg to Giroud, who knocked it into the goal with a perfect finish.

Jokes were made that he adjusted rather quickly to the Premier League. I couldn't stop laughing. Partly from how great it was. Mostly from relief.

His debut at the Emirates (Arsenal's home stadium) is in... about 2 hours. My schedule is a bit screwy again, but NBC has full game replays online, which is amazing.

Alright. That's all. I'm off.

Just a patina...

A Paisley Patina.
Liked that tangle so I messed with it in Photoshop. Finally posting something that looks vaguely more finished for once. ^^
Paisley/boteh has a fascinating history. One of those things that you touch on in art history and then see it everywhere you look. Love those old elements of deeply shared culture and design going waaaay back.

All tangled up...

Four to tangle...

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.

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.

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！