I Have No Interest In Drawing Animals

More from old sketchbook. I like my notes to myself in these, and especially the old lady sitting in front of the mystery tree. Her face is totally fucked up logically, but you get a ton of information from it.

That drawing animals thing is still true, by the way. Animals suck.

Sequin Sequence

The first video is one of the first things I made this semester in my Image Making class. It's a strip of clear 16mm leader with about ten seconds of thread sewn through each frame; every two seconds (every 48 frames) I switched from just thread to thread and sequins, one sequin per frame. This effectively created (as you can see) one giant sequin flashing different colors for a couple seconds.

The second video is a rayogram onto color positive film stock. I took the unexposed film and held the strip of sequins against it, with a light table below. By turning on the light table for a second or two the film was exposed, light shining through the sequined film strip, and an image was created that roughly (really roughly) approximated the first embroidered strip of film. My group and I also played with a bunch of filters laid on the light table, which is where all those crazy colors come from.

Nautical Warning

 This is the cover of my current sketchbook. Her name was not invented by me, but by Andrew.

Potluck Planning

And here is something more from that old sketchbook. I used to throw a lot of dinner parties. I love cooking and I love hosting and I think I'm pretty decent at both. In this instance, I was planning a meal for about ten people, including some vegetarians, and because, well, not really because of anything, I drew pictures to go with all my ingredient lists.

Here is another thing from the same sketchbook that I think is really funny. Like, really funny. I don't know what it means so don't ask, although I do vividly recall completing these steps on several occasions.

Are You Lonesome Tonight?

 I made this mini-comic last week for my Indie Comics class. I found a zine called "Elvis Goes to Parkes" about a bunch of non-Elvis fans dressing up for an Elvis convention. The zine is just a bunch of low-res bitmapped photos of Elvis impersonators. I really liked the range of characters and effort. It was an assignment to respond to whatever zine we picked out, but after I finished this (in its physical form it's a little twelve page booklet) I liked it so much I decided to keep working on it. I'll be printing copies in my offset printing class, and probably add a layer of inkwash tone, a la Alison Bechdel's newer stuff. (Many artists do this but I've been thinking a lot about Alison Bechdel recently, after re-reading Fun Home and talking to my mom about how she was a fan in the eighties. Alison also talked to my class yesterday over Skype, which was pretty cool and also weird, having a giant pixelated head on the wall, and she's coming to Chicago next weekend to be at Women and Children First's 30th anniversary party.) Anyway, I like this little comic because to me it's all about this kind of postmortem obsession and devotion, sad and funny and strange.

Electrolyte Enhanced Doritos

More pages from that old sketchbook. That is a cutout from a Doritos bag in the middle. The brown coffee stain occurred later but I think it really helps with the overall what-is-this-shit aesthetic.

Brainstorm

From an old sketchbook, circa 2007. I think I was in my Media Practices class (the prerequisite to all film and video classes). I remember my friend Nick leaning over my shoulder, chuckling and getting glared at by the teacher.

BUGEYE

I made this on Saturday morning in under an hour. My free (stolen) internet has disappeared so this happened instead.

I don't know why Apple doesn't use these kinds of videos in their ads for Photobooth and iMovie and Garage Band. That's all I used, in conjunction with the camera and microphone built into my MacBook.

Abstract Etching

Here's the third plate I made in my etching class, and the only abstract one. This is the best print of it. I made a couple runs of this print with different color inks and papers, and this one was my favorite. I filled the plate with black ink, wiped more than necessary off, and filled the rest with a sepia-ish ink. That's why the darker, deeper lines are black and the rest of the print is lighter.

Claw Kite

I followed my first etching with another along similar lines. Instead of an arm umbrella, here we see a kite with claws, which is on its way to attack the little boy who's looking for it. I think this images is much more successful than its predecessor. The composition is considered and loops your eye around nicely, and the figures stand out against the plain background much clearer than the girl and her umbrella did.

The reason the little boy's pants and the kite are a different color is because I was working with a technique called chine collé, where a different type of paper is used to fill in an alternate texture or color for an area of the print. This paper is trimmed to the desired shape and size (pants and kite, in this instance), quickly placed on the inked plate, and then the larger paper placed on top of that so that when the whole thing is run through the press, the smaller paper is printed upon and affixed to the larger paper all at the same time.