The Melody Of A Fallen Tree

I have taken the scanned image of my print, turned it into a digital image, and submitted it for critique here. Please stop over and tell me what you think. After I get some feedback I can make changes before I submit it for real to the company.

(Windsor For The Derby)

Phone Call

When I was really little I remember my dad watching a tv show about a detective whose shoe was also a telephone. I didn't remember the name of it until a few years ago - Get Smart. I always loved the concept of the shoe phone dearly. I have been reminded of it again recently because the movie is out now, and since my purchase of the cheeseburger phone, it occurred to me that one may exist somewhere out there. So I hopped on ebay and ta-da:




Now there is a great part of me that says I ought to just make one, but who knows how that would go over. I also wonder how difficult it would be to actually hold that shoe while you talk... and it seems a bit silly to spend money on such a thing if it doesn't really function.

I thought if they have these for cell phones,




then somebody ought to make one that is a shoe.


(The Faint)

More Than This

I do so wish that I did not have my online environmental science class to worry about because I want to devote all my spare time to working on new designs for printmaking. This class makes me feel so productive. Being almost four hours long, I have plenty of time to work on projects. Just today I mixed ink to make 5 prints from some woodcuts, designed/drew out all the parts for a new multicolor print, shot the screen, turned my woodcut prints into buttons, and added a layer to a shirt in progress. I don't waste any time in that class, and I am pretty far ahead of the other students it seems.

Here are some other shirts I've made.



The turquoise parts glow in the dark!




These are the buttons I have made so far, I have one . For our assignment we have to do 5 designs: 1 woodcut, one silkscreen, one combination, and two of whatever we want.more design to do.

I made this shirt and some prints on paper,





Then we scanned the print and shrank it down to make the buttons in the picture above.

I'm only halfway through the class so there will be lots more to come!

(The Cure)

Mary, Mary

The current focus of our printmaking class is silk screening, which I am totally into. I like it a lot more than woodblock for sure. You don't have to carve out your design, you can print it or draw it on a transparency and burn it into the screen. This is my first silk screen project:

Black Tee Shirt

Red Tee Shirt

Paper!


Modeled by my lovely assistant Christopher



This is what the screen looks like.



This class is too fun. I love it. It is probably my favorite class that I've ever gotten college credit for. Coincidentally, it is the only class my parents have had to pay for since it is at a different school.

(The Monkees)

Hands Open

Here are some more pictures of my plastic projects. I made this wallet for Chris from a Reckless Records bag.





(Snow Patrol)

Marry Me

I doubt if I could really put into words how amazing and meaningful today was, but I will try.

Today Nate and Sara got married. This was the first time I had ever been to a wedding for one of my friends, and Chris was the best man. The weather was perfect for their out-door wedding. Everyone had such a good time smiling and laughing together through the afternoon. I didn't make much of an effort to catch the bouquet, but Chris caught the garter. (Pretty sure that Nate intended for him to get it, and thus aimed for him) I am so happy for Nate and Sarah. Today really reminded me of how important they are to me, and how much I admire and respect the relationship that they have.
On the way to the wedding we passed a carnival that had set up in one of the towns, so after the reception a bunch of us decided to stop there before heading home. It was fun to just relax in the beautiful weather and make use of the super happy, perhaps even giddy mood the wedding had left us all in.

After that Chris and I headed over to a double graduation party for Alex & Kat. As always, it felt wonderful to be at the Corbin house with the people that I have known for so many years. I always feel like I am coming home. The reality has started to sink in of how much time has gone by since I met them, and I appreciate more and more these times when we are all together.

We wrapped up the day with a small group of people from the wedding sitting around a bonfire. One last time to relax and chat before several people got on the road to go home, unsure of when or where we would all be together again.

Chris and I were so lucky to have gotten to spend a very long day with these two groups of people that hold so much significance in our lives. I love all of them dearly.


(No Doubt)

Stellar

This week I started my printmaking class at the community college and I love it! It is one of the best classes I have ever taken. First day of class, I walk in and the teacher says that we will be focusing on making t-shirts the whole time and also doing a button maker using his 2.25" button press. How cool is that? This is stuff I have been wanting to do for so long!

Our first assignment was a woodcut. We were supposes to take a logo and change it, maintaining the original look, but adding our own twist. I made this design:



(Sorry for the bad picture.) I think it came out pretty well for my first woodcut.

(Incubus)

Plasticine

I have been working on fusing plastic bags together. I'm not sure what I am doing wrong, but I seem to be getting worse at it each time. I have managed to make some cool stuff though. I made a wallet for Chris from a Reckless Records bag. It turned out really nice. I also made this bird wallet:



It's a tri-fold with a pocket for bills and a pocket for cards. Hopefully I will remember to take more pictures of my plastic creations to show you.

(Placebo)

The Kids Aren't Alright

I do have many things to post about on the crafty side of things, but first I must get this out of my system. (I decided to use links instead of directly posting videos so it wouldn't take over my whole page, but you should seriously visit all the links if you have time, because it is so funny.)

Have you heard about Yo Gabba Gabba? It is a fairly new kids show on Nick Jr., kind of like the wiggles meets Sesame Street I guess. Well, I had seen the characters around in stores and suhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifch, but I didn't really know what it was until Sarah posted a for it. While I was on vacation I saw a Yo Gabba Gabba tee shirt in this really funky store, so i went back to that link for a closer look. I then noticed another posted video with a very familiar face...Elijah Wood?!

It is prety low quality since someone video taped it, but all the other ones I found had people dubbing music over it. That was pretty funny too, the songs ranged from I'm too sexy, to Thriller. Then I found this very clever video.
Then I found that some of my favorite bands were on the show. The Shins as well as the Shiny Toy Guns, called 'the Shinys' to be more kid appropriate. What an awesome show! Exposing kids to some really awesome music and actors, but the kids featured on the show, they aren't alright.
Nathaniel for instance. They talked about him on the tv show the Soup.And I also really enjoyed this video of him.
The there is Seth (check out those hios!) and Julia...really, not OK.

Although I have yet to see a full episode of the show, I love it!

Listening and dancing to music is AWESOOMMMEEEE!

(The Offspring)

Boston

Today was probably the most eventful day of our vacation.
First we visited the Museum of Fine Art. We really enjoyed these giant baby heads out in front!




They were created by artist Antonio López García.

then it was off to the Public Garden to find some very special ducks. Have you read this book by Robert McCloskey?



I sure hope so, but if not, you have missed out. In this story, a momma duck leads her ducklings all around the city of Boston, in search of a nice safe place to live - which ends up being the Public Garden. Now if you visit the garden yourself you can see the statue that was built in honor of the book.

While on our quest to find it, we saw a lot of real life ducklings.



Then we finally found them!









The kids were really enjoying the ducks, and everyone else enjoyed the kids. The tiny one wearing the floppy hat kept trying to eat them. This was definitely my favorite part of the trip!

Afterwards, we went to Faneuil Hall , where we found some super duper ducky souvenirs.
And on our way back to the train station we walked through a very interesting holocaust monument.




(Augustana)

Wrapped Up In Books

Today we visited Cambridge, which is just next to Boston. We went to the Curious George Goes to Wordsworth bookstore,



and another bookstore called Barefoot Books.

mostly we just wandered around shopping (lots of bookstores) and looking at all the historic buildings and houses. There are a lot of narrow streets paved with brick. It is a very pretty area.

(Belle & Sebastian)

Vacation

I am on vacation with my family! Saturday we drove for about 12 hours from Elgin, IL to Utica, NY. Ouch! Today was a lot more interesting however. We got up and drove some more to Amhurst, MA so that we could visit the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. It was a blast!
This awesome very Hungry Caterpillar VW beetle was parked out in front.




The inside of the building was so nice. It has an auditorium, studio, library, gift shop, cafe, and two galleries. Outside it is surrounded by patios and apple trees. Aside from an extensive collection of work by Eric Carle, their two current special exhibits are Pat the Bunny, and the work of Arnold Lobel. I am pretty sure my mother loves pat the bunny more than anyone out there, so she was very very happy.
The galleries were nice and quiet when we first went in, probably because we were alone, I could handle the little kids chattering away to each other about the artwork, and even the elderly woman asking lot of questions and repeating herself over and over, but I was NOT ok with the screaming child being (ignored by his parents), or the very rude man TALKING ON HIS CELL PHONE! I just moved on to another part of the museum and went back when they had left.
Overall, it was so much fun!

We got to make our own artwork in the studio,



and eat Caterpillar Cookies in the Cafe.



I now have a much greater appreciation for Eric Carle. What a guy...



(The Go-Go's)