Wall Dolls and cover design

Hey guys. The past 2 weeks have redefined my idea of what "busy" truly means. I don't have time to elaborate on everything i've been doing right now, but i wanted to let you know that i am still alive. I'll have a lot to share pretty soon!

My teacher still has the other box i made with the painted crab man in it, so i've been unable to photograph that one right now. Wall Dolls are just sculptures with flat backs and a bracket that allow you to hang them off nails on the wall, btw.

I'm going to alter/add a lot of new content to my site directly. So, be prepared!

I'm in charge of designing the cover for the latest edition of the Best Type Found In Baltimore. This is the progress. There will eventually be an image where the black is.



















listening to:
The Macrea Sisters - And Am I Born To Die
Jean Ritchie - Edward

crab man and little girl

I finished clay girl and made crab man.
















I plan on sealing them, painting them white, then deciding whether or not to paint them colors and then seal them with gloss medium. What say you guys? Should I paint them?

I post on here too often...

Listening to:
Nina Nastasia - Dumb I Am
Jens Lekman - Julie

hey, girl

I didn't write my paper today. Instead, I bought butterfingers, watched Smilla's Sense of Snow, and sat around in my wheely chair missing my family. My landlord showed the house to some potential new renters today. That was a little awkward considering I wasn't entirely awake when he knocked on my door to show them my room.

I've been working on my little, flat-backed clay girl. Here she is:
I plan on adding her teeth later. They were just too much of a PITA when I was trying to put them in her mouth while the clay was damp. I'm seriously considering giving her a mastectomy. I don't think my little girl should have boobies. I'll squish 'em right down into her belly.

It has been 2 years since I'd seen my landlord. And in that 2 years, he's probably aged 10. He's really grey now. And he said "Boy, Ellen, It looks like you're a foot taller than I remember you being. You sure you haven't grown?" I think he might have shrunk.

Age is such a sly bitch.

In other news:
I am scared that my "thesis" wont be done for graduation. WE SHALL SEE.

Listening to:
Electric President - Good Morning, Hypocrite
Emmylou Harris - Where Will I Be?

I saw a cat get hit by a car tonight

There was a kitten meowing a foot away from my open window earlier tonight. I looked at it and it looked at me for about a minute, then it ran away and peeked at me from behind an electrical box across the lawn. I thought it might be hungry, so I went outside with some tuna fish. As I was sitting the tuna down on the sidewalk about 50 feet away from the cat, it darted through a fence into North Avenue. Right in front of a car. I stood there, wincing with tuna can in hand, watching the cat scream and try to stand. I couldn't hear anything over the sound of cars. No car stopped because there was no space to pull off the road. But finally, the cat dragged itself off of the road and through the fence again.
I wanted to call the humane society, but it was around midnight and they would be closed. And last time I called them about a stray dog ripping apart garbage in 20 degree weather, they didn't even ask me where to locate it.

I looked for the kitten from afar (because it was clearly terrified of me), but it had dragged itself down some hole and disappeared. It's probably dying a painful, slow death as I type this. I feel terrible :(

I made some stuff. I'm still thinking about a leave-behind.
Tomorrow, I have to make some sort of presentation and write a massive paper about something. So that day is pretty much wasted. Still, it's much better than dying alone from getting hit by a car...

Listening to:
Gregory and the Hawk - August Moon

what kids should[nt] do

These are wicked old (from freshman year), but they still cheer me up, so I'll post them for any of you who haven't already seen them. They're from a series called What Kids Should[n't] Do. I can't seem to locate the other 3 images in the series, but here's the 3 I have!
Brace yourselves, now...Okay. Yeah.
My favorite is the one of the little boy shoving a fork into an outlet. Couldn't find that one. It just occurred to me that I've always had a sort of sick fascination with drawing cute children in peril. Weird, huh?

Today wasn't awesome. I DID discover my lost driver's license under my dresser though, so that was nice. The picture on my license is from 2005. I never got a new photo taken.

P.S.
The GRAND opening of ellenkling.com is nigh! GET READY!

Listening to:
Basia Bulat - I Was A Daughter
Pedro the Lion - Options
Elliot Smith - Needle in the Hay

leave-behind

I've been thinking about what to make for a leave-behind at companies I will be applying to. Here are my thoughts on the matter:
No, my handwriting does not always look that wretched.
Yes, the "cupcake" looks more like a meteorite than food.
I don't know why I always capitalize "OR".

Other News:

Today felt a lot shorter than you'd think a day of normal length would feel.

Nolan got me into this book series by George R. R. Martin, starting with A Game Of Thrones. It's pretty darn epic. I'm only a hundred or so pages into it, but I can already tell it's going down on the ole list of great books. I just wish school would quit getting in the way of read time.

Also. I am deeply weary of the rain. Seriously. 5 out of the past 8 trips to campus i've made, it's been pouring rain. More also. Why do the birds wake up at 2:3o am? The little bastards start waking up just as i'm trying to go to sleep. They must have it out for me. Don't they know it's still pitch black outside that early? I wont shed a tear this Spring when I see pasty dead bird fetuses on the sidewalks. No, sir.

Listening to:
Yann Tiersen - Les jours tristes
Yann Tiersen - Comptine d'Un Autre
Echo & The Bunnymen - The Cutter

foil in a hurry

I had to make the header for my DIY class blog this week. And this is what I came up with:
I'm working on THE CALENDAR. It's gonna be great, folks. The theme is pretty morbid. Every month, I'm illustrating the accidental or malicious death of a child and/or children. Yay! I think i'm going to call it "An Unfortunate Year"

Ran again today. My calves hurt pretty badly. I guess that means i'm improving because my heart and lungs aren't what's holding me back anymore. I ran to riteaid on my way home and bought some tin foil. The lady behind the counter said "You musta really needed foil in a hurry!"

Every day is better than the last.

Listening to:
Chuck Berry - Johnny B. Goode
Beirut - After the Curtain

3 dimensional characters?!

I am making a clay, 3 dimensional sculpture of one of my little, stubby-legged characters. I'm planning on putting this character in a cigar box I built. The box is made out of translucent corrugated plastic. This is for my DIY class, but it's also for me. Exciting!
here's the rough prototype for the box:
and here's the in progress sculpture:
self-hardening clay smells incredibly bad.

In other news:
I went running today. It was the perfect temperature (65 degrees), but it was hellaciously windy. I actually felt like I was moving backwards when I was running up Bolton Street into the wind. I saw a lot of weird things on my trip... namely, a dead rat the size of a cat, a couple screaming at each other and threatening to kill one another with various kitchen appliances on North Avenue, an old man with wispy purple hair, and a whole bunch of smoking children. It was a friggin' freak show out there.
What a great run.

I went to Giant around 7 tonight. The lines were long. My check-out clerk almost gave me a hug for bagging my own groceries. I kind of assumed that was just something you do when there isn't a bagger working and the store is that crowded. Then, when I wheeled my purchases out into the parking lot, I discovered a creepy man leaning face first on my car. So, that was weird.

The end!

tomorrow is my Mom's birthday.

nobody should want my organs