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

groundhog cards

My mother doesn't send Christmas cards. She instead mails out groundhog's day cards that I make upon her request. These are two examples from this year and last year. This little man is from '09.
















This one is from '08. I've since changed the dimensions so that they will be consistent in future years (Yes, my friends, There will be yearly cards)

more later

I dreamed I was in my subconscious idea of New Zealand last night. Everyone kept telling me I was drunk. And I kept telling them I wasn't and that I didn't want to go... not yet. They'd hug me, cry, kiss my wet cheeks, and then tell me to leave while everything was still misty beautiful. It was a night of constant goodbyes. And when I woke up, Sigur Ros was still playing on repeat on my computer.