Tuesday, January 24, 2012

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!

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

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?
-____-

Thursday, January 12, 2012

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.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

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!