shoppin' cart

Here's a shopping cart I made in Illustrator. It's a small piece in a 24 page book i'm working on for DIY about how deodorant is my forbidden love. Vectors are my bbf. EDIT: ***bff

mushrooms and beetles

These are some coloring book pages from my mushroom book. I'll include the common and scientific name for the mushrooms in addition to some info about its toxicity. My aim was to make pages that people would have fun coloring and laugh about. It's companion piece is a mushroom identifier iPhone application.











Here are some of the pieces of a current project. I don't know if I like how shiny/blendy they look. I might make the others with more texture. I am sort of digging the rainbow colors, so maybe shiny is the way to go?


Listening to:
Wintersleep - Murderer
Cake - End of the Movie

resume and frogs on phone lines

I've done it. I've finished the resume. It involved a lot of dredging of the past and some merciless sleuthing. But it's over now. and I've learned my lesson. From now on, I will keep a running record of my achievements and awesome feats of artistry.

Eventually, I'll post it on my website.

This is just a silly thing I slapped together a few years ago. The phone line photo is courtesy of T. Jones.
Listening to:
Mojave 3 - My Life in Art
David Gray - Shine
Tom Petty - The Waiting

website! what what!

It's been a big day.
I finally bit the bullet and bought web hosting and a domain name today. 3 years worth, in fact. I spent the better half of the morning trying to figure out how to work it and upload stuff. Sadly, I'm still on the retarded end of the knowledge spectrum, but I'm getting better. It's basically just a pretty placeholder right now, but I'm building something sweet. Welcome to the not-so-grand opening of ellenkling.com!

I've been typing up a resume today as well. It's a troublesome process because I've kept no record whatsoever of my life's achievements (however meager). I sit here racking my brain, desperately trying to remember what I did in which year and then debating whether or not it even matters to anyone. *shakes head* terrible.

I got sidetracked for several hours in Illustrator. I decided it would be a good idea to digitize ole Red Snake. Regrettably, I decided to change the scale of the scales AFTER I drew them all, so now they don't line up perfectly with each other, but... oh well.


My eyes ache.

deodorant woes.

Listening to:
They Might Be Giants - the entire Flood CD

bienfang

Nolan came for visits on February 13th. He was here 'til Tuesday (the 17th). It was good and great and fun. We had a belated Valentines feast at Akbar, a local Indian place. It was the most delicious meal I've ever eaten. The snooty waiter told us we were ordering too much bread. HE WAS WRONG! It was a very reasonable quantity for a meal of such grand proportion. We took leftovers home.

Then my grandad died.
He had smoked when he was younger and got lung cancer, which then spread to his brain. I've spent the week briefly crying in awkward locations. Like in the grocery store today when my mom called me. Earlier in the week, I went out and bought a bag of life saver mints, brought it home, then cowered over it, holding the pile of individually wrapped mints and weeping. He loved those fucking mints. He used them to help him quit smoking when I was little. I guess he just didn't quit soon enough.

I know we all die. It's inevitable. It's just a shame that he died such an avoidable death.

Enough words. Time for pictures!

I am currently working on a TON of illustration related projects. In fact, I'm drawing things for 4 our of 5 of my classes. Most of the stuff isn't in a stage where I would like to post it yet, but... here's some Mushrooms from the mushroom coloring book i'm making. These pages aren't done yet. I'm thinking about drawing them sprouting out of the tops of peoples heads. I think that would be more fun to color than just plain ole shroomies. These by themselves are a bit of a bore.












I've also been doodling a lot lately in class. Perhaps too much. Here's some evidence:

French floods and mangled men

Here are some drawings I do during class. I don't feel like they really need explanations.

I've been very interested in old photos documenting natural disasters, especially floods. One of my teachers was giving out stacks of old postcards last class and I was fortunate enough to end up with one containing pictures of a flood in Paris during 1856 (last image in the post). So surreal. Floods are bizarre looking in themselves, but captured in old film, they look downright dreamy.

I have been re-reading The Professor and the Madman since winter break (it's been taking me way too long). But it had me thinking about the atrocities committed during war. and I was researching some stuff when I ended up here . Keep in mind... this site is not for the faint of heart. I'm just very interested in this type of long term plastic surgery. I wonder what kinds of lives these men led after their service.

finished instruction sheet

WOOO. So I finished my instruction sheet on how to fold and build a stellated octahedron. It went over real well in class tonight. I'm also very pleased with it. To the rest of the world, it's probably exceedingly bland, but to me... it is... the first thing I've been proud of in a long time.

I've deleted the previous 'in-progress' post for the sake of saving file room on this blog.

If anyone wants to try and follow the instructions to make one, I'd be forever grateful to you if you told me how it went. It's a rather time consuming endeavor to begin, but the product is a lot of fun (if you like 3-dimensional paper ornaments).

More good news:
I no longer have Strep/Tonsilitis.
Nolan is coming tomorrow morning!

Lame news:
I have a lot of homework to do while he's here.

Listening to:
Billy Bragg - Help Save the Youth of America
Billy Bragg - Levi Stubbs Tears
Brightblack Morning Light - We Share Our Blanket With the Owl
Sigur Ros - Inní mér syngur vitleysingur

nighttime is killing me.

Listening to:
Wintersleep - Fog