Thing-a-day.com

I got to see Persepolis today! It’s been about a year and a half since I first read the wonderful graphic novel. The movie is really neat visually, I’d recommend it.

While we were in the theatre, it started snowing and we walked all the way back through piles of snow. That somewhat inspired me to draw this when I got home. I had to rush it, and I wish I could’ve refined it more, but oh well.

Tomorrow, though, I get to fly home for five days — to Florida, where it’s about 70 degrees. I never get over the shock.

[media: 02 and 005 micron and 1 sakura graphic on strathmore vellum bristol.]

Click here!

…And when I say “We” I, of course, mean Amy Winehouse and myself.

The only thing I had ever taken in from this brawd was when they played the chorus of “Rehab” in every freaking commercial break on MTV. All I knew was that beehive was too freaking much and that MTV had officially kicked me violently out of their demo.

Then eventually I saw a full body shot and she was like 13 lbs.
And that photo was of her in nothing but a tacky red bra and jeans, barefoot, wandering the streets of London. Now I’ve never been to London, but I’ve seen Mary Poppins a thousand times and I’ve read all of the Narnia and Harry Potter books.

That outfit did NOT sound appropriate to me.

Basically, I didn’t know what the hell was going on.

But now someone had to go ahead and send me a youtube link of her grammy performance. And, well…

Amy killed it.
I’m sorry, but she did!
She killed it while managing to balance on those tiny-ass legs and with that big, fat hair.

So now Amy is all bought up in my iTunes and and she’s stuck with me here in my iPod on the subway. And in my apartment when I’m cleaning. And my bedroom when I wanna dance all sexy by myself…or someone else.

But I’m all Buddhist now and 32 and ready to learn my life lessons from Amy Winehouse. If she can wear a bra outside in the middle of the night, maybe I can wear a surprising color like orange for a winter sweater. Or if she can stick by her man “Blakey-y Incarcerated” perhaps I can widen my dating circle a bit. I mean, do my future boyfriends HAVE to live in the same borough I do?

More importantly, do we think Amy is learning something from me?! Is it possible when she’s getting all gussied up in some really great bra/jeans combo for a wild night in London that all of sudden she has a miraculous change of heart, “wait a minute, isn’t Lost on? Let’s just get some chinese and watch the whole season on DVD!!”

Buddha, or “buddh-sies” as I like I to call him, speaks of the “middle way” quite a bit. I think that’s where Amy and I have met finally met up. She may not know that yet. But she’ll realize something’s up when she’s at a supermarket somewhere buying ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies.

Of course, she will be sending them to dear Blake-y Incarcerated.

today i made clones of myself:

i have made these before and find them to be fascinating to look at, as well as fun to make. the idea is to take a portrait, preferably one that is shot from the front and evenly lit—you might have to rotate the picture a little if the head is tilted. then split the photo in half and flip each side horizontally and match to the corresponding side—so 2 right halves to form one face and 2 left halves to form another. most people will have a dominant side that has stronger, bigger features, and a less dominant side that will look more sensitive. here are some more clones that i have made of myself in the past.

Title: Evolution
Description: Plain papier mache gecko reworked to be a fancy frilled lizard
Inspiration: This day in history, Charles Darwin was born (1859)

I created some patterns out of my illustrations to be interpreted on leather bracelets. For this particular pattern, I used this illustration. See it large.

Traveling for work and a death in the family (rest in peac grandpa) kept me away from this for about a week. I don’t want to give up, though…I figured that maybe I can cheat and make up for the lost week by doing several things a day. Today I did three; I will share two but not the third (a brochure about me for a PR class — my first experience with Publisher!) because it’s got my contact info all over it.

For now, though… a PhotoShopped version of a photo I took this afternoon. I call it “Impatience.”

And a poem, also about impatience for spring. (If you couldn’t tell, the above picture was of a shrub that budded prematurely — actually several weeks ago, I’ve been watching it — against the snow.)

this poem is called “honeysuckle”.

i noticed a place where the sidewalk ended
unexpectedly today.

the concrete yielded to a thin dirt path
scattered with pebbles
and the bones of trees;

it was covered in snow
and a layer of ice,
but underneath it all i saw
honeysuckle petals.

how long until spring sets them free?

i ask this,
and in the small blue hours before dawn,
songbirds start to herald the coming of
the sun.

Day 10
Setting up Shop

So, this task took much longer than I thought it would. Haha, if only because I had little to any help in accomplishing it. One person commented with their etsy shop, and I already knew of her etsy shop… because I had hunted it down and bought things already from her! Hahaha. So what to do? Surrender? NEVER. Oh no, my thing-a-day was getting done, whether any one actually uses it or not. So I figured, anyway. Being the amazing person I am, with apparently a very slow Sunday (somewhat of a lie), I scrolled down the author’s page and clicked EVERY SINGLE USER’S profile to see if they had a website listed. If they had a website listed, I clicked through the website to see if they had a linked shop/etsy page. It got tedious at points, but also somewhat of an amusing chase - patting myself on the back for being an excellent internet researcher. I also thought perhaps what I was doing was slightly creepy, but, who doesn’t like free advertising? And well, if they want me to take it down that badly, I will. I’m just trying to do good and bring ‘em money and share the handmade love I swear!

And now that I’ve gone on a completely diatribe, haha, here is the beloved list. Use and abuse it. It might be slightly incomplete because some people have created/recently finished shops since I finished the list on Sunday, but alas, c’est la vie, I’d also be more than willing to add them on if such people request. Enjoy! And shop away!

Day 11
Charging Up

Day 11 made me realize I do a lot of creative/crafty/making things that I just don’t count. For instance, baking cookies, organizing care packages (I just sent out two letters and three packages today… erm), daily positivity lists, taking photos, organizing my craft supplies, and… I just don’t count them. Why not? I’m a perfectionist and I want to do more than um, what I already do. I guess if it’s already daily in my mind, something I would do regardless, it doesn’t count! Haha. Oops. So I go out of my way to do more. Anyway. This has nothing to do with what I actually made (I MADE A REVELATION!) haha.

The thing I made wasn’t perhaps the most creative thing ever, but it was something I needed to do seeing as it was plaguing my mind. I happened to already be sick yesterday - I woke up with very flu-like symptoms, but um, seem to not have the flu and seems to have been a bad reaction to something. Point was, tissues were everywhere, I slept half the day, I had a searing migraine, doubled over in stomach pain, nausea, bones achey, youuu name it. So I wasn’t perhaps in the most inspired mood. I wanted to be, but I wasn’t. And of course, when my body is down and feeling crappy, it said “oh please, Victoria, let’s be sensible and bring your emotions down with you!” And thus, down they spiralled. So my thing-a-day was to sort out my emotions and make a positives and negatives list of a current situation in my life that could potentially create a lot of change in the next few months, so it was kinda important to do. I don’t think I got it all out, as it’s a rather heavy topic in both heart and mind, but I think I needed to at least write the basics of my dilemma out so that I didn’t keep it locked up inside me. Rather, I have it on a neat organized sheet to remind me that anyone would go crazy with all these decisions intertwined with sentimental emotion. And that makes me feel better. Haha.

Oh no picture or actual result, because as I said, it’s rather personal. Which, actually usually doesn’t stop me, but I guess in this situation it does. Which I suppose really says something, hm?

Day 12
Work in progress…

IS STILL IN PROGRESS. OH NOES. Haha. But I know exactly what it’s going to be. I have this goal on my mission 101 list to write three pages everyday stream-of-conscious for a month. I had attempted it once before, while I was still in school, and maybe made it through half a month or little bit more before I just couldn’t find the time (I would often catch myself still struggling even when I did accomplish it… inbetween periods, on breaks, in classes). So, I decided I’m going to start up this goal again tonight. But, I’m going to do it right. The point of the goal, or writing stream-of-conscious in general, is to free up the mind of creative restraints and just let whatever is in you out, more open to invention. And I’ve taken to meditating the past few nights to calm myself down, also um, one of my goals… hahah but I didn’t start that one intentionally! I just needed it. Anyway, so I figure, after I meditate and clear my mind a bit, I’ll write out everything inside me, and really really clean myself out. Which will be a wonderful cleansing process. And what better timing than right before I go to sleep? So cheers to that. I’ll post my results tomorrow!

I’ll admit that I’m pretty much a cat lady. So when last year’s pet food scare made me totally freaked to feed my cat anything, I began to pay close attention to labels on everything I gave my cat. This includes toys. I found it impossible to find toys that weren’t mass manufactured somewhere far away. So today’s thing was a pile of catnip squares made out of fabric scraps I had lying around the house. I’ll add pictures tomorrow once I find more batteries for my camera.

I finished the merino handspun yarn. It was spun on my spinning wheel (a lendrum).

With another finished yarn, comes another photo collage, with said yarn.

-Robayre

So, tonight, in an attempt to do something other than cleaning, oiling, polishing, plumbing, sorting and other generally un-fun things, I thought I would make some ‘bubbling bath salt.’ It’s not an original idea. There is a store called Bath Junkie that I am addicted to. The problem is, there is not one to be found near Minnesota…and frankly, their products are *way* expensive. Basically, they have a small tub filled with sea salt and over 200 different fragrances that you can choose from and they ‘customize’ a bath salt for you. They also put in a little unscented bubble bath, coloring and if you want a tiny bit of bath oil. I have been collecting the ingrediants for a while - the sea salt, the colors and the essential oils, saving my used tubs and thinking I could just run out to the local drugstore, buy an unscented bubble bath and bath oil and mix it all up. HA! That’s where I was wrong. Do you know how hard it is to find an unscented anything? I did find Neutrogena oil that was unscented but no bubble bath, or shower gel or anything! I went to four different stores to find something and I came up empty-handed.

Defeated, I came home and made some miso soup.

After all, tomorrow is another day…

Look! I made space!

It’s just a raven

Suger rushes to ones head

Becca take a right

This flower is blooming inside while we are getting hit with snow.

I’ll be up early to shovel.

Thing a day 12 - a cup

Originally uploaded by emberlexi

Back to drawing. My art teacher says I need to work more on shading &
value. So here’s another attempt. My perspective’s a bit off.

Today I made music on the piano.  Currently, I’m working on Fantasia and Sonata XVIII by Mozart.  It’s a pretty fun piece.  I also practiced a bunch of hymns.  I have many stacks of sheet music and books on top of my piano that I plan on learning eventually.  Like by the time I’m eighty, haha.  It’s seriously a ton of music.  One piece at a time.

I was disappointed my first hat didn’t turn out, so I started over. Unfortunately, there’s just not enough time in an evening for me to finish it!

Well, this is my final month - dec - of re-decorating the calendar.

{I love this poem by Hafiz}

Creative energy is low tonight so I figured now would be a good time to get busy trying out my ideas for the hubby’s VDay card.  This is most of picture one.  There are a few other layers not present here but in case I use this one I don’t want him seeing it all.  I’m not sure if I like the effect I put on the roses.  Doesn’t really scream warm fuzzy thoughts.  Tell me what you think.  Cool or freaky?