My Week in Sketches

This week has been an exceptionally good one!

I'm currently in Colorado visiting some of my best friends and it's been a wonderful, relaxing week.

This was me packing:

 

This is me flying to Denver:

 

Just for fun, my friend Angela and I toured several model homes in the Denver area.

I love looking at new houses and I love floor plans, 

so touring model homes is my new favorite hobby.

 

I also got to visit with my friend Alison, who lives near Colorado Springs.

It's a weird thing to be a semi-grown-up and have friends scattered across the country...

I miss the days when all my best friends lived in the same city I did.

 

Having lunch in Boulder, CO:

 

We're staying in a house for the week, 

cooking meals and playing board games and relaxing. LOTS of relaxing. It's been perfect.

A Cowboy Hat? Really?

 

I felt a little silly drawing this in the Ontario airport last weekend...it seemed like the further I got in the drawing, the more I was trying to hide it from anyone seeing it. I mean, who sits in an airport drawing shirtless guys with cowboy hats? I do. I saw a cologne ad in passing and for some reason I was particularly annoyed that it featured a guy walking down the street with a cowboy hat and no shirt. I just couldn't help but wonder why the gentleman in the ad had chosen that outfit for the day. I wanted to say "A cowboy hat? Really?!" So I drew it.

Idaho Love

I've been getting to spend this week with my dear friend, Kira, who moved to Idaho a few years ago.

Since then, any moment I get to spend with her is something I cherish...so it's been a good week!

When I first heard she was moving from California to Idaho, I immediately thought "Idaho?! Why Idaho?" and then started to formulate some sort of wisecrack about potatoes...but now that I've been able to visit several times, I admit that I have the same fondness for Idaho that Kira must have seen when she and her husband decided to move there. Maybe it's the sprawling lakes and forests, or the way people just seem friendlier, or perhaps subconsciously I just have a soft spot for the state that now looks after my best friend. 

Avatar

Lately I decided that I should have an avatar of myself. 

You know, like a little cartoony self-portrait. I call it my "Annatar".

I have a hard time drawing myself and having it actually look like me, 

and these are really no exception to that, but I think they're close enough. It's a caricature.

And of course, if I was really trying to draw myself an avatar,

it would have to look more like this:

(That silly movie ruined the word "avatar" forever.)

Animation Practice

This is so fun! I'm still playing with stop motion and learning different ways that I can animate things.

I was a lot more satisfied with this attempt, as opposed to last week's attempt. I kind of wish I had drawn something more worthwhile (I was really just making it up as I went, which is evident when I start to aimlessly draw large squiggles at the end) but this project still made for a really fun afternoon:

And I made this version, too, because sometimes I just get a kick out of watching myself draw everything.

(Draw a little, get out of the shot, draw a little, get out of the shot, draw a little...)

My Week in Sketches

My Thursday nights are often spent dining with friends in a pergola

that we affectionately refer to as "the pergie":

After watching the movie "Rio" last week, my little housemates wanted to pretend to be birds,

and they went running around the living room flapping their "wings": 

 I got to spend St. Patrick's Day with a great group of friends...

We wore green, ate green food, and celebrated heartily.

 

I had never seen the movie "Jaws" before!

My housemates and I watched it together, and now I have an unnecessary fear of sharks. 

When it's really cold at night, sometimes I sit as close to our woodstove as I possibly can.

I would sit on the woodstove if I could. But that would not work out well. 

 I got to babysit my little housemates on Wednesday,

which resulted in a lot of much-cherished snuggle time. And a dance party. 

Jesus Houdini

I give you...the worst animation ever.

Actually - scratch that...I should call it the worst "animation" ever. The air quotes are totally necessary.

Except I suppose they're technically just quotes right now, not air quotes, but you should picture me doing air quotes to get the full effect. Because this is not really animation. It's the worst. I just need you to know that I know that. Sometimes I show you things I'm not proud of, like this, which I still think is good for a laugh as long as we're all in agreement that nobody thinks this is impressive artwork.

So, with all that prefacing said and done (I'm known for extensive over-prefacing), I present you with an art video I made. I'm trying to learn my capabilities in animation, which may turn out to be very slim. I've got an upcoming video project that I'm working on and this was me trying to see if I could "animate" something using stencils and spray paint. I can't. It was such a laughable mess. But that's what I needed to know - that this is not something I'm capable of doing. Twenty minutes of stenciling turned into about 10 seconds of really, really sloppy "animation".

So here we go. It's a poor, poor video of Jesus walking, turning water into wine, and then disintegrating. 

It's ridiculous. You'll see.

Don't Be Such A Hipsdeer

For whatever reason, lately I've been really feeling the urge to draw a deer wearing glasses and a cardigan sweater. Every time I sit down at my sketchbook, that's what's been popping into my head first. So I figured I ought to humor myself, and here we have it. A deer in a sweater. I'm not sure why this was on my mental radar, but I think deer should definitely wear clothes more often. I might actually invite them to parties if they weren't running around naked all the time.

Still Stencilin'

This is my latest Jesus stencil I've been working on for some upcoming projects at work.

I like that it's juuuust vague enough that you don't really see his eyes. I don't ever feel like I should get to dictate what Jesus looks like. 

This is me holding up the stencil I made with some pretty, snow-covered trees looming behind it:

I also decided to throw this stencil up into my stencil hallway.

I'm sure it will work out well...Boba Fett could use a little more Jesus in his life.

McBeardy

I call this guy "McBeardy," and I'm sure his profession is either lumberjacking or being a leprechaun.

Think of him as a belated St. Patrick's Day present. 

My Week in Sketches

My friends have a lot of kids. And they just keep coming!

Sometimes I feel like the pied piper when I'm running around with three or more of them at a time.

No, my dentist does not actually have a punch card system...but he ought to.

I had to go to the dentist (or periodontist) five times in the last three months, which is pretty punch-card-worthy.

Last Saturday I went to Panera for lunch with my Mom and Dad, 

which I consider to be an ideal afternoon.

My parents and I also watched "Murder on the Orient Express" last weekend, 

which is one of my family's favorite movies. My mom can quote almost every scene, accents and all.

Sometimes my housemates and I have spontaneous tea parties.

We drank out of farm animal mugs and made a table centerpiece out of Disney princess toys.

This drawing was just to remind me of a conversation I had with one of my bosses this week, 

and how it got me soooo excited for my job and the projects I get to work on between now and summer. 

This is us watching a youtube video that is the inspiration for a video we're going to make:

And this is me wheatpasting yesterday:

Adventures in Wheatpasting

This was SUCH a fun thing to work on! I made my own wheatpaste!

Wheatpaste is what street artists use to quickly glue posters to walls and surfaces (it's just a slimy flour-based-paste that's easy to make large quantities of.) I made some on my lunch break yesterday. Very enjoyable. Mine was really lumpy, though. It looked like tapioca pudding. But that's why I'm practicing.

I found a piece of wood and started pasting on some silly Ron Burgundy posters I made.

 I had to keep brushing away little bits of "tapioca" that was sticking to everything. 

 I repeated the posters a few times to give it that "street art look".

(Every time I mention street art, I feel like the least-street-savvy-person ever.)

 This was such a silly project but I really loved doing something that I've never done before. 

Who would have thought I could enjoy wheatpasting so much?! I'm glad I tried it. 

And hey, it's kind of like I made tapioca pudding for the first time, too...

Conflict of Pinterest

Oh, Pinterest. It seems like everyone loves Pinterest these days.

I'm still not sure I "get it." I mean, I have a Pinterest account, but I hardly ever use it. I don't know why I want any of these images saved on my "boards." And then I keep hearing other people mentioning how they spend too much time on Pinterest...I just don't get it. Facebook? Sure. We all spend too much time there. Wikipedia? I get it. Youtube? Yup. IMDB, twitter, the Comic Con registration page, they make sense to me...but I just keep forgetting that Pinterest exists.

So today's post is in honor of the cultural phenomenon that is Pinterest,

and the joy it seems to bring to (almost) everyone's lives.

Hot Tea Balloon

Teacups always remind me of the "Mad Tea Party" ride at Disneyland, where riders sit in over-sized teacups and spin around in circles to their heart's content. As a kid, I loooooved the Teacups, but my parents never wanted to ride them because it made them (understandably) feel nauseous. I don't blame them (now). But as a kid, I remember thinking that it was such a shame that grown-ups didn't like the Teacups ride. I swore to myself that I would always ride the Teacups, because I was never going to grow up, and some sort of youthful Peter Pan magic was going to keep me from ever getting sick on the Teacups...

False.

The truth is - last time I went on that ride, it was like a torture device and my stomach felt upside-down for the rest of the day. But I still like the idea of the Teacups ride. I mean, I like sitting in giant teacups. So naturally, I think the solution is to make hot air balloons with giant teacups for a basket. You get all the wonder of sitting in a humongous cup, but without the nausea, right? Win win.

Golden Gate Horizon

This drawing/painting is too dear to me to say much about it here...

I just wanted to capture the San Francisco horizon with as much hope and promise as I could possibly muster.

My Week in Sketches

I've been watching Survivor this season (as always!) and this year the tribes are split up by gender.

The guys team has been winning pretty consistently, and the girls team has been a train wreck of cattiness, unpreparedness, and stupidity. It's hard to watch and have any girl pride left in you by the end of an episode.

 During the winter months, I often have to work late on Fridays.

This is me rejoicing after my last late-at-work-on-a-Friday-night of the season:

 I woke up early on Saturday morning to register for Comic Con,

and even though I was all ready when Registration opened, I was still 24,000th in line!

Needless to say, Comic Con is getting a little too big for its britches:

I saw The Artist this week (the silent film that's been winning so many awards.)

It was good, but I officially like talking movies more than non-talking movies:

Dinner with my housemates...

I am particularly fond of how 2-year-old Iris pronounces the words "hot dog":

I caved. I bought an iphone. I suppose I should be more grateful...who complains about owning an iphone? But I'm a PC girl through and through, and I've never been drawn to apple products...but dang it, it was $200 cheaper than the android I wanted, so here we are. I feel like a traitor:

My Favorite Phrase

 Okay, so maybe it isn't my favorite phrase, but it ranks in the top ten.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it! Ahhh...such attitude and yet such class. Who smokes pipes any more?

I first heard this phrase in the Austin Powers movie "Goldmember" (don't judge me. I would unwatch it if I could.) Dr. Evil utters the phrase in the middle of a rap song that he and Mini-Me sing while they're incarcerated. So naturally, I thought Mike Meyers invented the line. But then one day I was reading the James Bond novel "Moonraker" and super-villain Hugo Drax says it while he's playing cards with M and 007. At first, I thought it was extensive research on the part of the Austin Powers film team, that they would pull such a rare, specific quote from an old Bond novel for their silly spy spoof...but then, I realized this phrase is muuuuch older when Maggie Smith's character said it on a Downton Abbey episode I saw last week. She has a lot of great one-liners on that show, and I'm glad this was one of them. Apparently the phrase has been around since the early 1800's...and here I thought Dr. Evil was so clever.

Musical Explosion

Last week I pulled out my guitar and played for the first time in a while...

And I had forgotten how magical it can be to play guitar. Really, it soothes my soul. I shouldn't ever let myself get through a week without playing, because I enjoy it so much. Why do I let myself get too busy? So, while my guitar does not actually shoot rainbows out the end of its neck, I do like what can come out of my guitar on a regular basis. Really great things. Slightly-off-key things, sloppily-strummed things, all accompanied by sub-par singing, but wonderful nonetheless. 

Drumsticks

This guy. I don't know what to say about this guy except, obviously, he's using the wrong kind of drumsticks to play the drums. Perhaps he thought this would be a good way to get his protein in while he was drumming?...I don't know. Maybe the fried chicken drumsticks make better drum sounds. Maybe he's on to something. But I wouldn't have too much faith in the guy with the barbed wire tattoo and no shirt. My guess is that he grabbed the wrong drumsticks by mistake and just hasn't noticed the difference.

Hunger Birthday Games

As I was thinking about my upcoming birthday this year, I was reminded of the birthday parties of my childhood...I had some pretty epic birthday parties. They were always themed - a James Bond birthday party, a Star Wars birthday, Spice Girls birthday, "Annie Baba and the 40 Thieves"...you get the picture. I loved it. I've sort of outgrown themed birthday parties at this point, which is a shame. But as I was thinking about this year, I thought about what I would choose as a theme if I had to. And then, since I've become obsessed with the Hunger Games, that was what my mind went to first. A Hunger Games birthday party! And then I changed my mind because how could you ever have a Hunger Games party without a fight to the death in a big arena? That never goes over well with party guests.

My Week in Sketches

This sketch is a little weird to start off with...I drew it to commemorate the fact that my friends' daughter, Iris,

has started giving sly side glances out of the corner of her eye and I think it's the cutest thing ever.

This drawing, however, does not do it justice. The cuteness factor is way higher in real life.

Last Friday I finally discovered the tv show "Downton Abbey," which I promptly fell in love with 

and I stayed up until 4am because I couldn't stop inhaling the episodes:

I recently found an airsoft gun in a dumpster (I know, I sound like a lunatic) but this weekend I finally went and tried it out! 

I hung aluminum cans from trees and ran around my backyard shooting them.

Sometimes my friends have to dress up in beaver costumes for their job, which I think is wonderful:

The first legit snowfall we've had in 2012! I couldn't stop staring at it in wonder:

The salad tonight was so good, it got its own sketch: