Octopus > Your Mom

Why do I think octopuses are so amazing? Why do I insist on painting them, wearing them as jewelry, framing them to display on my walls and bookshelves, etc? Start by reading this informative, hilarious opinion piece by The Oatmeal.

This is why an Octopus is more awesome than Your Mom.

Hilarity: in the form of a complaint letter to Virgin Airlines

Although this has nothing to do with craftiness, sometimes hilarity must be shared. This is one of those times.

Hands down, the world's greatest complaint letter (with pictures).

Happy Belated Bunny Day!

Considering my complete and utter lack of religious bent, Easter barely registers on my holiday radar. However, there are three things about Easter very much worth celebrating:



1. Bunnies. As a child, bunnies were totally my thing. I was bunny crazy. These days, I still hold them dear to my heart. Especially this kind of bunnies (which definitely makes my list of Top Five Favorite Animals Ever).

Angora Rabbit

2. Jelly Beans.

3. Dying eggs. My roommate extraordinaire and I created these little masterpieces. I am responsible for the top four (swirly blue/red, the owl, the paisley, and the swirly green/yellow to the right of "Jeff".) We jammed to Ray LaMontagne, Sufjan Stevens, listened to This American Life and had a ball.

First Day of Spring: Coney Island

When I grow up, I want to be like this man.

As you may already know, I'm a big fan of Coney Island. Coney Island is essential to a complete NYC experience. It's just SO WEIRD it cannot be missed! What better way to welcome spring and to enjoy the 70+ degree weather than to schlep on down to good ol' Coney Island? My beloved roommate/dear friend wrote about our adventure here. My Coney Island croonies were lovely Hannah-Jane and the incomparable Kersti.

Octokites!

I don't know about you, but I can't think of a classier wedding backdrop than Sideshow by the Seashore (note Lizardman). Pure Coney Island class.

No trip to Coney Island is complete without a visit to my favorite ghetto aquarium.

Walrus high five for spring, everyone!

Molokai, Hawaii

Kapuhi Beach

For those of you unaware, there exists a small island in the Pacific called Molokai. It’s in the chain of Hawaiian islands, but it is rare that a native Hawaiian has ever visited Molokai. The island is roughly 38 miles long and 10 miles wide at its widest point and is home to about 7000 people. It is known as the most Hawaiian island (the birthplace of hula) and is fondly referred to as “the friendly island”. I simply refer to it as Heaven.

Spanish goats frolicking on sea cliffs

In order to alleviate the winter blues, and with the generous help of my parents' frequent flyer miles, I escaped to Molokai for a week and a half in February. After an obscene amount of time on three different airplanes, I landed in the tiny airport (see map) and was greeted by my goofy, welcoming parents.

We had fabulous adventures climbing seaside rocks, basking in the sun, hiking, biking, and I had my first flying lesson. I flew a small Cessna from Hana, Maui, to Kaulapapa (the leper colony on the north side of Molokai) and back to the itty bitty main Molokai airport. I took off and landed twice and I'm proud to say that I didn't kill anyone. Success!

Such a bad idea.

Gorgeous Molokai sea cliffs (note my arm's reflection!)

This is the "airport" on the Kaulapapa Leper Colony. Only 2% of commercial pilots are able to land on the first pass. I am both pleased and slightly disconcerted to report that I am better at landing than 98% of commercial pilots.

Gerald Ford (small plastic dinosaur extraordinaire) basked in the sunset.

Not only did I have an incredible reinvigorating adventure, I discovered where my creativity comes from. I handed a bit of clay to my dad and a few minutes later he had created this little guy. When asked what he is called, my dad replied, "Um..... Fartblossom!" Is the man a genius, or is he a genius?

Best Dressed: doggie style

Pink. Polka dots. Ruffles.

I found this gem of a dog shivering outside of a Starbucks on an usually freezing day in New York in January. If only I could be as cool as this dog.

tattooland

I'm addicted to vintage tattoo inspired aesthetic, so much so that I made an entire tattoo-inspired wonderland.

This addiction is a little bit out of control, but I think after this one, it's out of my system.

Materials: artist's board. acrylic paint.

Seattle Paintings #4: The big 'un

This is my monster. I don't recall the exact measurements of the canvas but I'm guessing it's 60"x48". This is the largest painting I have ever worked on. It's about 12xs the size of one of the twins. The female figure is based on the back of the Venus de Milo (an image that the commissioner mentioned as a favorite of his).


This painting was an exploration of various textures. Although it's difficult to tell in the pictures, the spotted areas of white on her back accentuate the crackle paste that I used. I wanted to contrast the smoothness of her lines and the nature curves of the female body with a rough surface covered with imperfections, cracks and deep fissures. I used a fan brush on the red/gold section to create a curious almost rake-like texture. It kind of looks like it was sponge painted. I watered down the acrylic paint and let it drip down the blue section. On the bottom third of the painting (water?), I used staccato arc-like movements to create a wavey texture. The white sections of the painting were done with white paint on a piece of cardboard that I carefully dragged around the canvas.

Monster Monkey Mash

I recently started a class at the School of Visual Arts for animation in their Continuing Ed program. Other than a few pencil tests (zoetrope, pendulum, perspective), this is my first foray into the animation world. Our assignment was to cut out stuff from magazines and then play around with them to get a sense of timing and movement. This filmlette was handmade with magazine cut outs, 992 frames, an hour's worth of time and a touch of awesome. It's rough and kind of dumb, but I like it anyway. After I finished filming, I slapped a couple songs on to give it some pizazz. The first song is "Lenin" by Arcade Fire and the second is "This City's Summer" by The Honorary Title. (In no way do I have rights to aforementioned songs)

Coney Island is so weird...

My favorite part of Coney Island is the artwork on a glass wall in the subway station. Creepy. Vibrant. Kind of demented. You don't even have to enter into the streets of this strange place to get a dose of awesome oddness.

EmbroiderBirdies

On a daily basis, it is almost guaranteed that at least one item of clothing adorning my body is polka dotted. I don't understand my fascination with a pattern consisting of nothing but repeated circles, but I embrace it regardless. This blue hoodie was a little boring, so I embroiBIRD it. (sorry. lame.)

Each vintage tattoo inspired sparrow measures between 3-5 inches. The design of the birds is based on a stencil I saw quite some time ago and I don't remember where.

It turns out that this seemingly unassuming hoodie was a poor choice of an embroidery subject because: 1. The combination of the knitted fabric and thick screen-printed dots made any kind of marking on the fabric impossible. I had to freehand it entirely. 2. Trying to force a needle through those thick screen-printed dots resulted in some seriously sore fingers. In life and in craft, no pain, no gain, and since I'm pretty hardcore I conquered the dots and through that pain, gained a pair of sweet birdies.

Both Birdies

Birdie 1

Birdie 2

Birdie Hoodie!

(Although difficult to discern in the picture, birdie #2 is on the collar bone region and the other one is on the upper chest region, not mid-boob as it may appear.)

Seattle Paintings #3: The Twins

These paintings were not originally intended to be a part of the series. However, the friend who commissioned me wanted to have a painting night in which I was to teach him a few basics. I decided to teach him a quick and awesome technique involving cardboard and blobs of paint that I later employed on the city series. We sat down on his apartment floor with trash bags and newspaper spread out on his nice hardwood floors, put on Monster's Inc. and made masterpieces. At the end of the evening he asked me if there was any way he could add those to his collection because he loved them so much. I call them The Twins. They're quite small (8"x10"), but they're super charming.

Thing #1

Thing #2

Seattle Paintings #2: City on Fire Series

Now that FAIL is out of the way, I can move on to success. FAIL was originally intended to the centerpiece of a three part series but never got past the first part. From a mental standpoint, these were less about composition than they were about moving paint around on the canvas. After the excruciating mental effort that FAIL required of me, I decided to approach FAIL #2 without intention or forethought. I knew which colors to use and roughly where to use them (burnt orange and golds towards the top, blues towards the bottom) but that's it. I mixed acrylic with water and played with opacity and blending. I squeezed out splotches of paint directly onto the canvas and used pieces of cardboard to spread. I got into the zone that doesn't involve thinking about what you're doing, just doing. I think it looks like the skyline of a city that is on fire.

This is the piece that directly replaced FAIL as the centerpiece. (24"x24")


And this is the piece in context of its series. (each side piece is 10"x24")

Featured Project on Craftster!!!

My first post has been chosen as a featured project on Craftster! Hooray for my dino coloring book art!

Dino Fun Time

I have a small ugly plastic dinosaur named Gerald Ford (no reason in particular, it was the first name that popped into my head) and I have toted him around the City taking silly pictures of him for the entire summer. Personally, I think they're hilarious. Two of my faves:

Dino stomps West Side Story

Dino scales a building.

When not stomping on Broadway or scaling skyscrapers, he fuels up on cupcakes. His favorite is from Billy's.

Seattle Paintings #1: FAIL big and go home

A friend commissioned several paintings to decorate his apartment. As my very first commission, I was nervous to come up with something satisfactory. I took him to a paint store and asked him to pick out a color palette of acrylic paint and canvases, and asked for a list of images he is drawn to. After several months of incubation, planning, trial and error and more error, I came up with seven satisfactory paintings. But, before I get to my successes, I'd like to present a painting that I fondly titled FAIL.

This was my first attempt of the series. It was the first concept that I came up with and since it is the smaller of the two large pieces, I thought I'd get the "easier" one out of the way. Wrong. This painting was the bane of my existence for several months. I was plagued with the frustration of being completely unable to translate my vision to the canvas. Most of my paintings start off as a relatively clear picture in my mind that then transforms and evolves as it comes into being. This one sucked when I started it and sucked when I finished/abandoned it. I attempted concept after concept, a variety of methods, I painted white over entire sections, I took breaks and completed other paintings, I asked several helpful artistic minds for input and I still managed to fail. I lost sleep mulling it over and woke up in the middle of the night with a new brilliant idea that would save my crap painting, which never worked...

Two weeks prior to leaving Seattle, I put FAIL aside, bought a new canvas and cultivated a new frame of mind. Sometimes you just have to know when to say when. If there was a theme for my year in Seattle, I'd say it was giving up. In a good way. I can't fix everything. Sometimes giving up is a perfectly appropriate and acceptable response. I tried to cover up the evidence of what didn't work instead of putting those remains aside for a blank slate with unlimited potential.

When I think about it (don't want to get too philosophical here, but I can't help but make the comparison), my dear FAIL was the physical manifestation of what was happening in several areas of my life. You can only put forth so much effort and invest so much time before you have to take a step back to admit to yourself that it is not working. I'd never given up on a painting before, I'd never given up on a relationship before, and I certainly hadn't taken a second look at the career that I've dedicated a decade and am now veering away from.

I don't know if FAIL ended up in a dumpster or as an eyesore on someone's wall, but either way I am grateful for FAIL for the hell it put me through and how wonderful it felt when I figured my way out of it.

Moral of the story: Fail big. Fail often. Then get a new canvas and create something fantastic.

A Salute to Summer

Summer usually means the following to me: Colorado, mountains, hiking, climbing, swimming, gorgeous cloudless days and cool nights, camping, friends, family and relaxation. This was my first summer in New York City and let me just say that I am thrilled to embrace the fall. NYC can be a pretty nasty place to be during the warmest season. Although this summer was rather mild, so I hear, I can't wait to say goodbye to:
-oppressive humidity!
-everyone sweating literally all the time
-sweltering summer nights that provide no relief from the heat and actually seem hotter than the day
-descending the stairs into subway stations = descending into the pits of hell. that's how hot it is down there.
-subway trains with broken air conditioners
-rainy days that manage to not be refreshing because it's still relentlessly hot!
-garbage baking in the sun on the sidewalks

I did have a few fantastic NYC firsts and summer-specific adventures. Highlights include a sunset cruise around Manhattan, free concerts in various parks, Nathan's 4th of July Hot Dog Eating Contest (68 hotdogs in 10 minutes. Intensely gross and I secretly loved it), the strangeness of Coney Island and the strangeness of the fact that I went there 4 times, lazy Central Park days, zoos and the aquarium, my birthday, a tranny in a bad blonde wig's bad impression of me (totally jealous of my natural locks), cat-sitting for a kitty that drools when she's happy, and the relaxed pace that the City adopts. The City offers endless summer attractions, free entertainment options, street fairs, festivals, restaurant week, etc because without them, this place would be an empty smelly oven.

The view from my summer residence on the Upper West Side of the Hudson and New Jersey.

Manhattan from Brooklyn.

A sailboat, the Hudson, and New Jersey. Taken from the water.

Tim's Brilliance/My Banner

I have a friend who is insanely talented. For my birthday, he sent me this painting all the way from Telluride, CO. The chick in the lower left hand corner is me (looks exactly like me). It is this painting from which I have created my banner.

Tim Johnson is brilliant. Seriously. And he is one of my favorite human beings.

p.s. The pegasus's eye is a googly eye.

Coloring Book Art. Collection #1.

I'm starting a movement. A Revolution. For those of you who scoff at calling coloring art, I beg to differ. Thesis: coloring books may be considered art if your contribution to the image is significant. Now, what does "significant" entail? I consider significant to mean that you have contributed a bare minimum equivalent of what the original artist created in terms of design. So, the original artist creates a dinosaur, and I create a skin pattern for the dinosaur that creates an entirely new dino! For instance, in the brachiosaurus picture below, the original artist would have had to draw every single stripe and line that I colored on those two dinos. I transformed his image. (And just you wait, even greater transformations are yet to come.) True, it is not entirely original art. I believe that coloring books provide an excellent basis for greater artistic exploration. Plus, they're just stinkin fun.

Now, feast your eyes on these babies.

Collection #1: Unaltered Pictures.
Required Materials: Crayola markers. Dover Thrift coloring book. Too much time on my hands. Brilliance.

Art Deco dinos:

Brachiosauri. I wish I had pants that look like these guys.
This guy was created on the subway from Manhattan to Coney Island.
Paisleysaurus.

p.s. Stay tuned. The best of my revolutionary dino coloring book art is yet to come...

To paint or not to paint: shoes.

Object: A pair of platform cork sandals that the mom's friend bestowed upon me.
Answer: To paint.
Materials: acrylic paint, suitable shoes that are in need of some glam.

Just your average cork platforms become vibrant vintage tattoo vessels for your footsies!

Now if only these shoes weren't hideously uncomfortable to wear...