Let it Snow (for maybe 5 minutes)

First snowfall of the year was a couple of days ago, and now it's really goin'...wheeeee. My excitement is just palatable, isn't it?
Good things: Christmas shopping! Usually I hate shopping (well, aside from shoes, stationary, and office supplies. Mmm, office supplies...), but God if I don't love shopping for Christmas gifts.
Rewatched a wonderful piece of cinema, surely the paradigm for all films to be judged by. I refer, of course, to "The Running Man".

Starring:
Ah-nald
Jesse Ventura
Yaphet Kotto
Mick Fleetwood
Dweezil Zappa
Professor Toru Tanaka

Where the Hell else are you going to see TWO wrestlers, TWO governors, a member of Fleetwoo Mac, and Dweezil frickin' Zappa in the same movie?!

Now, some art (not to say "The Running Man" isn't art...)




I had to make a Carnegie Hall performance seem appealing for people in my demographic (20s), and incorporate hand-lettering into the piece. I based my piece off the famous Man Ray photograph "Violin d'Ingres". I love Ingres and all associated with him...








Medium: Ink wash, digital color

Flikr etc

I'm mostly out of my funk, but I'm more sure than ever that I need a break. There's few things less productive than depression or anxiety (well, that and hangovers) so it's especially bad to get either one during senior year. One more week and I get to go back home. Cripes, this has all felt like a prison sentence for the past month or so.
I set up an account on Flikr, basically just a place where I can dump my photos and be self-indulgent (as if I'm not already). I really want to get into photography a bit more, just for its own sake. I'm sick of doing purely digital images (I mean basically Photoshop from start-to-finish) but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop using them. I just don't want to end up basically being a photo retoucher.
Speaking of which...

Ta dah!
Yes, I finally got a copy of my VERY FIRST PUBLISHED PIECE! (Cue the parade) Only took me a couple of weeks. So I'm slow. It's in Paracinema Magazine, a mag devoted to b-and-cult movies and things of that nature. Check it out! Buy a copy (look on the site for places you can get it or order it online)! If it takes off, we might all actually make money on the next one!
Stringing up colored Christmas lights in my room. My room now resembles a horribly tacky LA Mexican and/or Italian restaurant. Peeeeerfect.

Thesis and Zombies

So, because I'm sensible like that, I decided to change my entire thesis idea what, two months before it's all due?
Yeah.
Sensible.
Anyway, this one's a lot funnier– it has to deal with the various wiretapping and government surveillance scandals we're hearing about, and how very fucking BORING that job would have to be for the poor bastards who actually have to sit and listen to everyone's horrendously dull lives. When I get more work done, I'll throw a couple of images up to track my progress.

In more personal art, I'm totally getting into the idea of pinup zombies, starting with this lovely lady:

As dad said, "The old girl's still got it. Well, most of it, anyway."
Actually, Dad gave me a really good idea about what to do with them– keep crankin' 'em out, and make a pinup calender at the end of it. Mom thinks licensing is a great idea and that I could do cards and thing with the zombie girls, too. I think that rocks! Man, my parents are cool. I'd really love to get into licensing my art somehow (cos, y'know, it pays REALLY well), and who doesn't love zombies and sexy pinups? I know I do!


Medium: Ink wash on vellum, digital color

RIP Tessa

We had to put down Tessa, one of my dogs, this weekend. She'd been going downhill steadily for a few months now and this past week really was the end. She had diabetes and it wasn't going to get any better, so it was the humane thing to do for everyone. She didn't have much personality and she was a dumb as a bag full of hammers, but she was sweet as Hell, loved to hold hands, and was part of our family for about 13 years. I was feeling pretty rotten but I had a good cry, prayed to St. Francis to look after her (ironically, when I found out she died yesterday, there was a St. Francis of Assisi festival in my neighborhood) and I feel a lot better. "We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day."


Medium: Brush pen, ink wash. Lyrics, "We'll Meet Again" as performed by Vera Lynn

Keep Your Hair Free of Drunken Mashings!

Yeah, I haven't updated in awhile. I've been busy!
Saw this pic on an ephemera blog I frequent (Swapatorium) and thought it was just keen.
Not only because of the lovely graphics, but because Unicum in an incredibly potent Hungarian liquor that's a lot like Jägermeister...but tastes even worse.
Maybe that's what the bubbles represent. That, and her utterly HASHED expression.

Not much else happening otherwise (that's fit to print, anyway). Been working my heiney off with Thesis, having odd dreams about protozoa, clown balloons, and Shane MacGowan (not necessarily in that order)...
Oh! New art! That actually I'm really really happy with (oh, God, they're cooking BBQ under the window where I'm sitting, and though I've been a vegetarian about 8 years now, that smells SO damn good. Uh, where was I going again? Right. Art.)
It's based off a song I have been obsessing about since I heard it in a movie, "Flame Trees" by Cold Chisel (or, as sung by a children's choir in the movie, 'Little Fish'). Basically just sketchbook noodlings that came out a lot better than I thought they would. I'm really happy with it as a piece.
Oh, God. BBQ. Sigh...

Phine Art 2

Ah, fair Vulnavia. Who else could make wearing a hat described in terms as "a pincushion" (by me) and "a mama quail" (by Mom) look so damn....well, maybe not ELEGANT, but certainly less ridiculous than...well, no, it still looked strange and silly, but...
Um...
Oh, well. She liked her hats. And helping to commit increasingly bizarre murders. I still wonder how she managed to get that gig. Did Dr. Phibes put a want ad in the paper ("Wanted: Beautiful mute female assistant for dinners, dancing, Biblically-themed murders.")? Did her career-services counselor at school set her up with it? Ah, Vulnavia, you keep your secrets well.

Phine Art

Schlock doesn't get nearly enough credit. I'm not a B-Movie connoisseur, exactly (although I watched MST3K for eight seasons, at least, it was mostly cos the jokes were funny), and I don't really subscribe to the "so bad it's good" school of thought (they usually aren't), but I do like, and can appreciate, a movie that at its heart is so schlocky and campy that you KNOW absolutely nobody was taking it seriously when they were making it, and where the star had to sit in the makeup chair longer than usual because he kept laughing so hard his prosthetic face kept falling off.
Holy crap, what a run on sentence THAT was.




Medium: linocut, digital text
Inspiration: The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Leonard Cohen

Work-in-Progress

Man, my scanner bed is FILTHY.
Anyway, this bizarre little girl popped into my head while I was listening to Nouvelle Vague's cover of 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'. That's going to be on the wall, in Japanese calligraphy (in blood, natch) when it's done.
She'd make a swell doll. I hope I get famous in a really nerdy way so I can get dolls or action figures made out of my work. How cool would that be?

The Black Dahlia

I'm getting better at this. Poor Elizabeth Short- she wanted to be famous, and God knows she got there, but I doubt that's how she wanted it...









Graphite and digital color

Hot DAMN, if I do say so myself

Just finished this– pretty damn good in my (totally unbiased) opinion! She's Erzulie, the Voodoo version of the Virgin Mary (basically). She's the spirit of femininity, compassion, love, beauty, jewellery, dancing, luxury, and flowers, and is often associated with gay men. So, yeah, I can relate.

Graphite with digital color.