creative slump.

It seems, that aside from writing poems to the guy downstairs, there has been rather a lull in my creative output over the last couple of months. I'm not really sure what thats about, I guess I should blame a combination of working a lot and the downloading of Lego Harry Potter to my phone.

...But, my friend Kellyn asked me to make some t-shirt scarves to sell at her booth up in Castleberry Hill this weekend, so I did that and then made a sign, which is cute and somewhat creative and will hopefully inspire people to buy things:

Ode to the guy downstairs

Ah, the drunken babbling of the guy downstairs....
your voice is like a rubber mallet gently pounding away at my frontal lobe.
your knowledge of early 90's alternative rock music is unrivaled and very impressive to the ladies.
your persistence in the use of the word "dude", despite it being 2011, implies a "devil may care" attitude and a refusal to follow the rules.
you talk with ease on subjects about which you know nothing, never letting a lack of understanding or intellectual inadequacy stop you from making your point.
from the floor above, I hear you addressing the street below,
when you speak, I feel the need to clear my throat, but I don't, incase you should hear me and possibly try to use that gravel filled loud speaker in the front of your face to acknowledge my existence.
if I had to live with a voice like yours, I would probably be drunk too.

Happy fish!

Spaceship

Pumpkin and Ralph

So the dog wormer didn't kill my fish, but it did make Spaceship look a little pale and unhappy. unfortunately it also had no visible effect on the worms. Pumpkin was the only one with worms I could see so I set up a brackish tank and moved my mollies into it and continued to feed them the disgusting wormer/food mixture in hopes that the salt would kill the worms if the panacur didnt... and two days later, I see no worms and my fish all seem happy and alive!

Parasites and pizza.

This month I have mostly been dealing with fish issues and drinking far too much diet coke.
It seems that my fish are suffering from the hilariously named, but less hilarious to deal with, Camallanus worms, which for anyone who doesnt know, are small, red, hair like worms that cling to the fish's intestines and dangle out of their butt. it's gross. after several failed attempts to correct the problem I have now resorted to feeding them a dog wormer smashed up with their regular food into a disgusting looking gray paste...fish, it seems, will eat just about anything. anyway, it's a good possibility that I will be heading home to a tank full of bloated, floating fish...we shall see.
I also made breakfast pizza and it was awesome! I saw it on howsweeteats, I site I visit because I like the pretty food pictures, and so I made it. Also, pizza dough is super easy... so I will be making loads more pizza in the future!
Robert and I have been cleaning and organizing the studio space and finding homes for everything, which is also awesome, after my class today a couple of the parents commented on how great the studio looked and it made me feel all warm and fuzzy and proud of my amazing work space.

and thanks to Jennifer and Cole Parker of DivasInDefense I now know a variety of different ways of breaking someone's wrist!

...end post.

Limey Freedom Cookies

Partly inspired by boyfriend's request for cookies, Erin's key-lime cupcakes and July 4th discount cookie cutters at Michael's ...it's Limey Freedom Cookies! 

they were awesome, so heres the recipe: 

1 1/4 sticks of unsalted butter

1 1/2 cups flour (I used self rising)

1/2 cup  extra fine white sugar

1 tsp vanilla (plus a couple extra drops for icing)

1 lime (zest lime and juice)

powdered sugar for icing

preheat oven to 350.

cut butter into little pieces and mix in flour with fingers so its all crumbly (I usually end up adding a little extra flour) mix in sugar, vanilla, lime zest and half the juice (about 1 tablespoon) mix to form dough.

flour work surface and roll out dough to about 3/4 inch, stamp out cookies and arrange on greased cookie sheet, bake for about 17 minutes.

icing:

combine about a cup of powdered sugar, the rest of the lime juice (about another tablespoon) and a couple of drops of vanilla, mix until smooth.

when cool, spoon icing over cookies and let set. 

Panama

I'm in Panama, its beautiful, it's also impossibly hot and despite it being rainy season, so the sun hasn't actually been seen for days without a cloak of clouds shielding it, and my liberal application of sunscreen, I have managed to burn myself quite impressively. 

Living in a city, in an apartment with noise reducing, double paned windows, a balcony and a couple of pet fish, its almost impossible to imagine that in other parts of the world people live on tiny islands, in small wooden constructions with thatched roofs and glassless windows, on stilts, in the ocean. There are monkeys in the surrounding trees and dolphins in the water under the house. This is something that only exists in the medium sized black boxy thing that sits in the living room of our apartment, under the books and knickknacks, not out in the real world where the crocodiles live. 

We sailed down rivers and along the coast and out to little islands which look like tiny forests sticking straight out of the ocean. We paddled the dingy through Jungle, surrounded by giant snappy teeth, and flocks of parrots, listening to monkeys howling at each other, or us, either way they are loud and sound far bigger than they actually are. They sound a like a pack of dogs that have barked themselves almost horse all screaming into a megaphone at once. We met the people who lived in the houses on stilts and the children who all stopped to stare at us as they rowed to or from school in their canoes and their uniforms. 

and I'm pretty sure I discovered several new species of crab, that I shall name appropriately...small yellow feather duster crab is my favorite so far. 

Currently we're in Bocas del Toro, theres a town and bars and shops and an airport that runs the length of the island. 

I miss the monkeys.

chocolate and guava oatmeal bars

soooooo good. 

May, mostly in pictures:

May 11th

Desmond was born. sadly he was not born on my birthday so I did not get to chose his name, which would have been Batman Vs Terminator Lutgendorf, but he has the correct number of digits and was born without a tail, so I guess thats good too.

May 14
Turned 30, went to Serenbe with boyfriend, jumped on an in-ground trampoline, got bitten on the boob by some sort of flying insect, drank wine and played board games with friends.

May 21st
Cornmeal and Bacon muffins!

May 23rd
Disney Princess book inspired piccies, the little mermaid.

 May 29th

bought fishy friend for Mussolini the snail, a powder blue gourami, Spaceship.

May 30th

Finally moved out of house and into apartment, lost a garden but gained a balcony and a basil plant!

cleaned the entire house and threw out 3 truck bed loads of trash and donated another truck load of old tv's, guitar amps, candle sticks, weird art and clothes to Goodwill. 

May 31st
Bought new shoes, this may not be much of an event for most people but given that my shoe collection consists of about 20 pairs of boots and 6 pairs of paint and glue coated converse, actual shoes are something of a rarity. Also they are pretty.

figure drawing

given that its been about 8 years since I've actually drawn from a live model, I think I will give myself a break and say that I am seeing an improvement...if I don't look at it for too long, I would almost like to try and finish this one. 

...Also, hypothetically speaking, if someone were to take part in a figure drawing group week after week and continue to draw nothing but the model's boobs... can I say something to them or should I just let it go unless further creepiness follows? 

They are beautifully rendered boobs, but I'm not sure thats the point... 

I've been reading a lot of fairy tales...then this happened.

IF-Bottled

So heres a sketch, (below) I wasnt going to do anything new as I am all busy and the like, but I started this the other night while I was half asleep, totally forgot about it and then found it in my sketchpad this morning... maybe I will turn it into something... maybe I wont...its all a mystery. I think perhaps it is time for another cup of coffee. Also theres this drawing I did few years ago that just proves that I have stopped developing as an artist!  "bottled" Yay stagnation!

sadly I think I like the older version better.
...two days later: finished! (above)

Balloon Planets

Sophie (who is 11 and will show up sporadically at the studio with her dad demanding crafts) and I made planets on Friday. Usually Sophie just wants to make different kinds of birds, but this week I was able to convince her that it would be way more awesome to build an entire world!*
Sophie's Planet was colorful and decorated with tiny flocked bunnies and frogs, we made a small boat with a feather mast to sail the ocean and a weird nurse goddess to watch over the planet.
My planet is brown and made from inside out cereal boxes and used packing paper.
Incidentally, cereal boxes are my most favorite of craft supplies, they can become almost anything and are basically free!
Sophie named our creations Balloon Planets, although no balloons were used in the making of our tiny worlds.


*something I've wanted to do since boyfriend bought me Little Big Planet last year...next I will turn my work area into a life size "pod"and decorate it with googly eyes on stalks and stickers! I can never seem to find good stickers though, the only ones I have that I like at all are my friend Jennifer's business stickers...maybe I shall start making my own. 

Daisy, Cheesecake and Dennis

This morning I went to the pet store and instead of buying a rabbit, which would have been adorable and fluffy and left poop in all my shoes I bought more fish! it's possible that I have a problem, I started with one little tank and a couple of little stripy jobbies and now I have the little tank, (which is mostly just breeding snails at this point) and a 15 gallon tank with 7 neon tetras (all named Jeff), 4 zebra danios (the little stripy jobbies), two big fat ones, Cheesecake and Dennis, Ted the poopfish (I can't remember what he is exactly but he seems to enjoy eating poop) and a hatchet something or other I named Daisy.
I'm thinking that I will start emailing pictures of my fish to my friends who like to send me pictures of their kids/puppies...

WALL!!!!!

The wall is almost finished! we have the Alum show coming up next weekend and, due to the number of submissions, we actually needed more wall space so we built a new wall... technically its more of a mobile room than a wall, and really Robert mostly built it, I just held things, did a lot of measuring and drilled holes where I was told. Today I filled all the seams, screw holes and molded a corner from wood filler and then sanded it, now I am waiting for my second coat of primer to dry so that I can start on the top coat, then we can attach the trim, move it into place, load up the shelves cunningly hidden in the back portion of the wall, rearrange some of the track lighting to properly illuminate our glorious new studio addition, and hang art on it!

....on an unrelated note, and I feel very strongly about this: art is hung, people are hanged! 

Dammit!

Dandelion & Burdock

Dandelion&Burdock

This is the birthday present I made for my sister.

I started it a while ago and for some reason I couldn't seem to get it right. I am mostly happy with it now, so it probably wont change at all. I did steal the house for IF's "cultivate" and a small section of the background for "duet" but I might change the background of that one because I was feeling lazy and it doesn't really fit the image. 

Dandelion and Burdock was this weird fizzy drink my gran used to buy when I was a kid, it sort of tastes a little like dr. pepper, I haven't seen it since I moved to the states. 

let the randomness begin....

Ok, this is just  string of random comments and thoughts, its mostly pointless, but its a blog, what do you expect?
My boyfriend pointed out to me that I can be somewhat judgmental (a word, I feel, that deserves to have an "e" in the middle of it) and perhaps, overly critical? but whatevs, I have 6 weeks left of my twenties, I'm not really going to change any time soon (although this is probably to my detriment)

This week I have been wondering these things:
1. how can a person eat a tub of icecream and a packet of milkduds a night and yet never gain a single pound. I wonder this not because I am jealous, I think that much candy would just put me off, but mostly I just don't understand it. where does it go? do the calories evaporate? how do you not have diabetes? (also someone should probably explain to me how you develop diabetes)
2. how can a person practice something for years and call it their trade and yet not get any better at it? I have things I am bad at, lots of them actually, but I think that if I were to pick one thing and practice it everyday, I might just get a little better at it.

 crap, I just got my first mosquito bite of the year!

3. why did Firefly get cancelled?
4. what the hell am I going to submit to the alum show? I managed to annoy/bully many others into participating, now I have two weeks to submit something myself.
5. do people get shallower as they get older? it seems that way, I doubt that ten years ago I would have been blogging about ice-cream consumption and cancelled tv shows... nor would I have had a blog.
...but one day, will I stop caring about things altogether and start painting pictures of my pets? or my plants assuming I am unable to keep a pet alive long enough to actually render it's portrait.

Borders is going out of business. I got a pile of books for the studio,  one that is just various artists interpretations of disney princesses. I will probably keep that one for myself. and I might start drawing disney princesses.

Started reading a blog belonging to a woman who drew a picture of a giraffe everyday for 300 days and then posted them to that blog. I can't quite decide how I feel about that. I probably don't.

my baby sister turned 24 today. Happy Birthday Dan!

IF-duet

It feels like it's been a very long week.

Allergies

Its Wednesday which means my friends get back from their honeymoon tonight and I can go home!  house sitting is weird. Other peoples houses, regardless of how clean or welcoming they might be, just seem strange, everything's in the wrong place and I can never find the light switch. The last two weeks I've felt a little bit like I'm wearing someone elses socks. Also I can now add my friends pets to the long list of things I am allergic to. So far the list goes like this: cats, cherries, raw almonds, tree spooge and the entire city of Atlanta from mid February thru late May.

IF-Cultivate

Illustration Friday-cultivate.

Ah College!

I stumbled upon this photograph on a well hidden blog, from the Agnes Scott publication Aurora, this was our college arts magazine. Why on earth someone saw fit to stick my suitcase full of boobs on page 36, I have to admit to being a little confused by. But it made me smile. the whole thing was made from green floral foam and paint, except for the suitcase, which was cunningly fashioned from an old suitcase. I think it was supposed be some sort of commentary on the male gaze...ah, to be young and idealistic.

Going to a liberal arts, women's college was awesome! I cared so much about everything, and got pissed off at make-up commercials (despite my sizable eyeshadow collection) and yelled at strange men in bars, accusing them of misogyny (while not being able to spell it) and frequently declared myself smarter than everyone else in the room (which of course I wasn't, but thats why college is great). 

Anyway...suitcase full of boobs.