Update

Time to update this blog!

I went through my portfolio and fixed a bunch of things that were problems. Most of my stuff was just too dark and it needed extra help. Among those was fixing my nanny picture so it had more...temperature contrast, if that makes any sense. Y'all probably can't even tell the difference, but its different. I'll just put the two that were the most different.

Other than that, my more recent projects have been sent off as christmas presents before I scanned em. They weren't really portfolio peices anyway. I managed to finish my portfolio book, because I realized that I have to compete with Graphic Designers for a publisher, and Graphic Designers make sweet looking books. Who would have thought my weird Bookbinding habit would actually be worth my time one day?

The cover, for now. Its polka dots! Yay. I'm obsessed with polka dots right now and it seemed good for the demographic I'm aiming for. We'll see how long the sleeve lasts. I might just have to put something else on the front because it ended up being mighty a-lot of polka dots.

then I was looking through this portfolio magazine that had this add for cutting lasered patterns into your paper, and it was so freakin cool that I decided to copy it a few places within my portfolio. Just a few places becuase this took way longer than I thought to hand-cut, and because they tear themselves apart when they're on consecutive pages from eachother. It was a fun experiment, though. I was worried about it being too scrap-booky, but since it's all placed on white it didn't turn out that way.

there were more, but these were the biggest spots, later I got more reasonable and made the cut-outs smaller.

On another note, it is raining dogs and cats all over Northern California, so much so that it actually hailed on me! I thought I would go through this winter without hail, for a change, but o well. It turns out my sunroof leaks like mad in the rain, and I had a bucket collecting water overnight and it filled it almost completely full, and then splattered all over the rest of the car. I felt like I was trying to keep a boat afloat, taking a bucket at my flooding car, but now that its been caulked with silicone rubber, we'll see what the rain does now...

what is going on?

So I've finally stopped taking classes at any school, I've sat myself down and I've told myself, "Now you are done with school and you are not going back to school until you work on something having to do with the Degree you worked 5 years for." and for some reason that didn't have the effect I so desired of myself.

I attempted to make a portfolio, and failed a lot of times trying to use Tween Classes in Flash CS4 (shouldn't be difficult, but it is for no reason) so I went onto Wix and it sort of um...well you saw what happened in the blog entry right below this one. It's quick to make but the end result is very slow, too. Needlessly slow. I don't know how their script is writing out this type of pull menu, but the other ones I've seen are a lot quicker. How is it so slow? Why can't I just get my Tween Classes to work and make one myself half as slow!?

Look at me, now I'm turning into a Flash-snob, too? Thats the thing about art, you start doing it and then your snobbery has no bounds. Not even the internet is safe and the internet is pretty tacky by default. For now. Maybe someone can change that eventually? I mean, I appreciate what they're doing with Chrome and Bing but its still pretty much the same boring mainstream browser that everyone has. /theinternetistackyrant.

Its getting tough to work like I used to! Its an art bum-day, where I look at what I'm doing and I've said "yes this is the best that I've ever been, but I'm still at the worst of where my career is going to take me because I've just started, after all" and it is a bum-day.

So I wondered, how do other artists get a pick me up during art bum-days? I know that Rockwell and Michealangelo had seriously awful bum days but they seemed to get over it and go back to work. I looked to others who work really hard, and I think 'well a lot of them have kids relying on them' and I remind myself that Rockwell and Michealangelo aren't really the people we think of as 'fatherly.' Michealangelo was single for pretty much his whole life with only a few scattered romances here and there who's credibility is questionable, at best.

So is there a secret handshake to shake off the bumminess? Is there a special drink to--OK, there is--but is there a special boosting...non illegal...thing...that just gets other people passionately for what they're doing when they feel like its an art bum-day? Other than the obvious 'put your butt in the chair' method, which does work to an extent.

pianists

trying out more digital painting techinques and getting faster at it. I am not so fond with what I ended up with for the Background but I don't think I'd be satisfied with it unless I were using real paint with real texture and I'm too lazy to print it out for that degree. Because no one's buying it. speaking of buying it, I've started revamping my portfolio as to compete with the graphic designers. I don't even know how to explain it, but if I talk about it here, then maybe I will finish it?

that book I was doing

I really need to finish this thing. PS wow that came out way too dark. Its always great when you shrink something down to 500 px.

After finishing this step of the process I think I'm going to change the composition a bit, pull that thing out of the corner (i didn't realize how heavy it would be once it was darker) and such (not to mention working on the waves.) But I've been trying out this new painting technique that is so much better than what I used to do on my B+W's. I realized just recently that I still didn't know anything about photoshop when I graduated college. Luckily since I've been learning a lot through these little practices.

I really need to scan the bottom layer better, (this is just a photograph of my tracing paper, which isn't too hot) I did it w. mechanical pencil on tracing paper. Mostly because I don't have this problem with smudging that other people have, and it erases without that dental bzzzzz of an electric eraser when you use something stronger to draw with. I'm going to give in and go to Kinkos to get a really nice architectural scan. Because this isn't ready to be dummied into a book. Especially with this composition, anyway.

ghosts

So right after we saw the neighbors cat get mauled by a bobcat in our backyard, we later the next day saw that same exact cat strolling around the back yard! weird! Probs there's a couple black and white's running around but it spooked me out for a couple of minutes.

LIGHTFIGHTER!! ps this is a joke

So Katie and I were driving down to Big Sur the other day and realized there is this strange offramp into Santa Cruz called Lightfighter Ave, and she really wanted to see a superhero based off of it. On the way were a lot of creepers on the side of the road like you generally find around that area, and then Lightfighter was born.



To fully appreciate the tacky graphic design you must go to Santa Cruz and the camping areas nearby, where the 60's never truly went out of style and marijuana is smoked freely on the street corners (medicinal, of course). That and a strong obsession for the Earth and a strong conviction that a lot of people are going to light it on fire. That and I didn't spend tooo much time on this.

poster

Its kind of fun to come up with fake band names for my fake band posters, although this one is a bit too bizarre and not really my ordinary style, I have finally decided that, after years of quandary, I do, in fact, enjoy the color orange.