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.