Merry Christmas, ect.

Merry Christmas, blog readers, be you real or imaginary! Sorry for slacking. I have no good excuse except for usual Christmas activities; baking cookies, watching Christmas movies, attending get-togethers, playing the Zelda games. (I've started associating them with the season. :-)) I hope you all get a chance to see The Hobbit, which was excellent and that your holidays are full of joy and happiness and other such sentimental emotions. Until 2013!

sincerely,
me

The madness that was November

I figured I should get at least one more blog post in before November ended. As I predicted, this month was crazy busy! I admire the people who blog every day, no matter what, but I just don't have that kind of stamina. Anyway, here's a short run down of my life the past few weeks.

Writing: Lots of it, in fact. NaNoWriMo ends on tomorrow. My word count is nowhere near the target 50,000, but I'd definitely consider this a good experience (although, if I ever do NaNo again, I'm going to outline my story ahead of time). Writing class fired up mid-November and it's really good. The beginning was a bit heavy on the "rules of how to write correctly," which is not my style, but I got over it. I really like being a part of a class with homework again (yes, I am fully aware of how ridiculous that sounds). I was even a bit bummed yesterday when I got all caught up, knowing I'd have to wait till tomorrow for the next lesson.

"Cabinning": Jon and I stayed at a cabin in Ricketts Glen National Park a few days before Thanksgiving. We pretty much had the park to ourselves, which I loved. We went on a hike, saw way too many waterfalls, explored a lake, read books, burned junk mail (it made the prettiest colors!!) and still found time to just do nothing. I also activated my inner photographer and took a ton of pictures, most of which wouldn't be interesting to anyone but me.

Thanksgiving: After our lazy vacation, we came home and made 5 pies plus dinner rolls for Thanksgiving! Fortunately, someone else took care of the rest of the meal, which ended up being the most exotic Thanksgiving I've ever had. One type of stuffing had truffles, those crazy expensive mushrooms no normal person dares to cook with. Needless to say, I felt pretty fancy.

Visiting Family: The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Jon and I went to see his cousin Lauren, who also happens to be one of my best friends, and her family. She lives pretty far away, which makes spending time with her difficult. We had a lot of fun hanging out together and I survived a somewhat traumatizing arcade experience. And, one of the dishes I ate for dinner had saffron in it; fancy food item number two!! Then Lauren got engaged on Sunday, which was the most epic finale possible for this over-the-top week!

Wow, that turned into quite a ramble! I think I'll be done for now.

sincerely,
me

NaNoWriMo and other adventures

Welcome to November everyone! Hope your Halloween was fun. Ours turned out to be pretty low key, due to laziness and Hurricane Sandy (which thankfully we weathered just fine.) Jon and I started replaying the Legend of Zelda series, starting with Ocarina of Time, which, in my opinion, is the first real Zelda game. But enough about that.

With the coming of this month, I decided to unofficially participate in NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. The goal of this program is to write a novel of 50,000 words in 30 days, averaging around 2,000 words per day. I've already begun my story and am up to 5,227 words!

And, since NaNoWriMo is clearly not insane enough on its own, I also signed up for a writing course that starts on the 14th. There's also an art show I should submit to, a mini vacation I'll be taking with Jon and Thanksgiving. Yeah, I'm probably a bit crazy.

Now, to go fill my world quota of the day!

sincerely,
me

Hipsters gonna be hip

So, remember Hipster Octopus from a previous post?

Well, he got me thinking/obsessing about what other animals/objects are hipster. Not just anything qualifies, you know. It takes a unique combination of pseudo-obscure style and "too cool for mainstream school" attitude to properly pull hipsterness off. (This is why Corgis will never be hipster. They're too happy about everything.) After extensive consideration, here are the Hipsters I came up with.

You will note that Hipster Boston Terrier is disdainful of Hipster Pug's status. He doesn't believe pugs have what it takes to be hipster. I'll leave that up to you to decide.

And finally, the classic Hipster Owl. He and Hipster Octopus practically started the movement. 

Now you have officially been educated on what it takes to be a hipster. However, keep in mind that the rules of hipsterness change pretty frequently. Once something becomes too popular, it is considered mainstream and thus, no longer truly hipster. It's an evanescent lifestyle, but then again, so are all trends these days.

sincerely,

me

Grey Skies and whale sharks

A grey and rainy Monday to you all! Here are a few side projects I've been working on.

This one is called Grey Skies, although I feel like I should come up with a better title. (I was feeling pretty emo about my future when the idea came to me.) It's hard to tell in the photo (curse you, scanner), but the landscape is made up of grey magazine pieces, which I then gessoed over and covered with scribbles pen texturing. I'm hopeful that this could be a neat way to incorporate collage elements into future illustration projects.

Remember that whale shark painting I posted? (Btw, I checked and it actually is a whale shark.) Well, here is the "finished" version and by finished, I mean add a bit more paint and call it a day. Still, it turned out well.

sincerely,

me

Drawing Boot Camp Day 3 plus Hipster Octopus

Day 3! Drawing Boot camp completed!!! 

I started getting a tad loopy in the end, which accounts for the presence of Hipster Octopus. Probably should go for a walk or something.

sincerely,

me

Drawing Boot Camp Day 2

Poses from day 2. I definitely did more today than yesterday and can feel drawing skills begin to level up! I also feel a bit worn out, but that might just be because it's late.

sincerely,
me

Drawing Boot Camp Day 1

In the spirit of artistic self betterment and all that, I've taken on a mini challenge. For three days, I'm going to draw as many different poses as possible. I'm calling it Drawing Boot Camp, as you probably ascertained from the title. Warning; these next few posts are probably going to be rather dull, seeing as how there just of bunch of poses, so feel free to come back later when I have something more entertaining up.

sincerely,
me

Sketches from August to October

Hello everyone! I figured it was about time for another sketch post.

Drew these while Jon and I were in our Doctor Who phase. (They're from the Vincent episode.)

Blind contour of leaves

I do believe my random people drawing skills are improving.

Headphones girl is pretty cool. In fact, I think she might be even cooler than me.

Hope everyone's Fall has been going well. I've been drinking loads of cider and eating orange gingerbread muffins and apples. Pretty soon it will be time to start hunting for good leaves to press. I love Fall; it's totally the best! ^_^

sincerely,
me

So I was bored last night...

Last night the power went out and I couldn't sleep (as usual). Somehow, the idea of reading Crime and Punishment via flashlight didn't sound very appealing, so I devised a low tech way of amusing myself. By my bed I had a stack of post-it notes, (in case of late night inspiration) on which I started drawing. After four or five attempts, I'd switch on the flashlight and see what they looked like. Here are some of the best ones.

Not too bad for not being able to see at all. And, in case you're having trouble telling what they're supposed to be, here's the list top to bottom: mountain landscape, door, tree, sewing machine, lighthouse, eye, wolf, building and hand holding pencil. 

sincerely,

me

Painting endeavors

Remember how I said I got water mixable oil paints for my birthday? Well, I figured I'd better post some of my "attempts" so that you wouldn't start suspecting me of falsehood. Bear in mind, I have two years of oil painting rust to work through before I render anything remotely decent, but in the spirit of documentation, I'm sharing these early studies. Please don't judge them too harshly.

This one's my favorite; I might even try and develop it a bit more. I think it's a whale shark. (Also, apologies if you happen to be afraid of sharks. Or whales.)

It's not my finest work, but we all have to start somewhere. Hopefully the next set of pictures look nicer.

sincerely,
me

Another conclusion written

Remember that story I've been working on? The retelling of the Frog Prince fairytale? Well, I'm pleased to announce that today I wrote the ending!! The first draft is complete!! Currently, the work is about 50 pages long, although hopefully that number grows a bit by the end.

The arduous labor of editing will begin soon, but for the moment, I'm pleased just to have made it all the way to the end of another writing endeavor. ^_^

sincerely,

me

My birthday.....oh, wait

(I didn't actually miss my own birthday, I just missed blogging about it.)

Anyway, my birthday was really good. Jon and I dressed up fancy and went to the Melting pot. He gave me a really sweet note and a pair of giant, awesome headphone. My mother-in-law also gave me a set of water mixable oil paints, which I'm extremely excited about. They have the same properties of oil paints, but you can clean them up with soap and water, which is really good if your someone whose renting and doesn't have a utility sink (like me). 

Oh, and one of my friends gave me this.

How much more epic can you get than a giant birthday fortune cookie?!!

sincerely,

me

Hey look, pictures 'n stuff!

What's this!! Have I finally managed to post some new art on this art blog?!?

  

sincerely,

me