...Wow. It's been quite a while since I tossed up a post here. I'm not dead, though there are days when 'suspended animation' takes the place of 'life' in general.
To say a lot has been going on since my last post would be equivalent to saying, 'Mount Etna is getting ready to blow in 3 seconds. I haven't packed yet but I -think- I can squeeze a few hundred items into a duffle bag before I have to run.'
The biggest thing thus far, out of the list, is that I've been finishing up a commissioned piece of choral music for the amateur choir I sing with. It wound up being a piece for 4-8 voices, and my choir mistress has, in a demonstration of great faith and staggering optimism, given me the privilege of training the quartet. Our performance (which is an entire evening of original local compositions written specially for us) premiers all pieces in October.
I'm also trying to put together a short, few-week curriculum for teaching a small costuming class as requested by my creatives group director. This is still in progress, and my brain is short-circuiting. Since the main feature of what I'll be teaching them is 'costuming on a budget and creativity', it requires a staggering lot of thought that I'm not sure I'm capable of. Nervous? Hell yes.
On top of that, the job has notched up from 'Nnnngh stress' to 'AAAAAAAAAAAAGH GET ME OUT OF HERE'.
Needless to say, EEEEGAH. Yeah. I'm sort of snowed under.
But! I will be posting a little more regularly now, I hope!
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Illustration Friday: Angels and Devils
Finally, Illustration Friday. Don't ask me how many months I've told myself boldly that I will Go Where I Have Never Gone and post something for it. Last count, it was roughly about 6 months ago. Boldly Go apparently means 'Let's promptly scream in panic and not do it' in my melted eggscramble of a brain.
It started off, innocently, as a pencil-and-ink drawing. Somewhere somehow I had the Bright Idea (tm) of adding some pencil shading to it as I'd done in another piece some years ago. The result, after some screaming at the wall in attempts to find out what was missing from it to make it complete, was promptly thrown into a digital ink-and-paint program in desperation and given a hit-and-miss treatment with something called a 'Weather Effect'.
Here lies madness...and maybe the occasional Death of a Dude(tte).
This is the sound of the brain that said I will draw, that worried the Muse, that hissed at the girl, who hid in a funk, who picked up a pencil and went insane from Cthulhu-germs --*ffffffffffffffffttt*.
It started off, innocently, as a pencil-and-ink drawing. Somewhere somehow I had the Bright Idea (tm) of adding some pencil shading to it as I'd done in another piece some years ago. The result, after some screaming at the wall in attempts to find out what was missing from it to make it complete, was promptly thrown into a digital ink-and-paint program in desperation and given a hit-and-miss treatment with something called a 'Weather Effect'.
Here lies madness...and maybe the occasional Death of a Dude(tte).
This is the sound of the brain that said I will draw, that worried the Muse, that hissed at the girl, who hid in a funk, who picked up a pencil and went insane from Cthulhu-germs --*ffffffffffffffffttt*.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Sunday Scribblings: My Shoes
I wouldn't recommend that anyone try my shoes. At size 5, sometimes 4.5, they're a bit small for most people to fit into. Mind you, I wouldn't recommend my FEET to anyone either, since they're the ones that's causing the problem with my shoe size. After all they're shaped that way --but they would require an act of God, Nature, and plastic surgery to correct so I'll just leave them out of the equation for now and blame the shoes instead. It's easier in the long run.
My very first pair of 'I-want-those-now!' shoes were a pair of strappy red and white 2" sandals of the sort that would make any sane adult blush in shame to wear. Then again, being about 5 years old sort of colours one's judgement. My mother said Absolutely Not, upon which I persuaded my grandmother to get them for me, and promptly sprained my ankle in them so badly I was laid up in bed for a few days.
We retired the shoes after that. I don't remember much of what else happened, so they probably met a quiet, given-away-to-someone end.
My first pair of 'I-am-grown-up-see-me-strut' shoes were white close-toed high-heels with a basket-weave pattern in a woman's size 3. They were for a wedding - I was to be the bridesmaid for a friend of my family's. They lasted me quite some time and died a natural death after about a year or so of not-so-careful pre-adolescent use. When you're 11, grown-up shoes are one of the yearned-for validations that one's a Grown Up Person. I was a Big Girl Now. I wore them proudly. I strutted. I was a lady, and I felt like a lady in them.
I yearned for high-topped basketball sneakers as a teenager; oh I yearned for them and craved them because I wanted to be a boy. I wore them just like the older teenage boys did - unlaced, arrogantly, and with the certain knowledge that I was Not A Silly Girl, I was a Tomboy. That wasn't quite as good as being a boy, but it came close.
When I went to college, the first thing I did to celebrate my return to the world of Normal Girl was to buy a pair of stiletto-heeled velveteen strap sandals with russet-and-gold flowers. I did this because I fell in love. Naturally it was unrequited. The matter was settled over a long quiet talk after dinner one night, afterwhich I was convinced that the root of most of my social problems in college was my trying too hard to appear tough and manly (it was.) The sandals lasted me through a Diploma in Liberal Arts and all the way into the continuation of my degree overseas. They were promises of good things yet to come.
Nowadays? Finding the right shoes is almost impossible because all that clattering about on rocky terrain and hard tarmac gave me a permanent tendon injury, not to mention walking miles to get anywhere during my university years. Anyone who enthusiastically recommends walking to and fro to work and school generally has never done it through pouring rain, ill-favoured umbrellas, freezing winters and iced-over sidewalks. (They've also probably never clomped to work in a pretty magenta Indian-cotton broomstick skirt and black tank top, and been followed by a policeman in a patrol car who is of the opinion you're a hooker - at 12pm under the blazing heat with a huge rucksack and minimal makeup, at that. But that's a different story.)
So let's talk about ideal shoes for the moment. My dream pair would be comfortable to walk on - soft cushiony impact each step, ooooh what bliss. They'd have good sturdy heels, the elevation of which would give definition to my short legs and elongate my calves to a work of art. They'd be multi-purpose for a variety of occasions - blue jeans and pearls, dinner-and-dance, work, casual wear. Practical and useful and just lovely. They'd allow me to sail across the dance floor like the Latin dancer I've always wanted to be, they'd take my clumsy, stubby feet tripping gracefully down the most mysterious highways and byways in search of adventure. They'd make me look tall and elegant; they'd let me float like a cloud, like an Italian senorita, they'd make my every step fascinating. New York sidewalks. Thailand country roads. Tibetan plateaus. They'd transport me to places beyond Oz - click 3 times, Dorothy, and you're not in Kansas anymore.
These shoes would embody my dreams, my hopes, every yearning step I want to take to a better something, a better somewhere. Maybe over a rainbow, down the next raincloud, tap-dancing on a star, tango-ing on a dewdrop. Standing on tiptoe to kiss my beloved in the middle of a scarlet, cat-fur-soft rose. Take me here, to another tender memory, take me there to my grandmother's bedside before she died, take me forward to my wedding (will there be one?)
For now though - I'll settle for a pair of sturdy, comfortable boots to go tromping through the rain, to keep my feet warm. Splash through a puddle, jump over a stream, hopscotch like a zany little girl again.
When dreams are far away, feet that don't hurt and soothing shoes are one tiny step closer to heaven-in-the-real-world.
My very first pair of 'I-want-those-now!' shoes were a pair of strappy red and white 2" sandals of the sort that would make any sane adult blush in shame to wear. Then again, being about 5 years old sort of colours one's judgement. My mother said Absolutely Not, upon which I persuaded my grandmother to get them for me, and promptly sprained my ankle in them so badly I was laid up in bed for a few days.
We retired the shoes after that. I don't remember much of what else happened, so they probably met a quiet, given-away-to-someone end.
My first pair of 'I-am-grown-up-see-me-strut' shoes were white close-toed high-heels with a basket-weave pattern in a woman's size 3. They were for a wedding - I was to be the bridesmaid for a friend of my family's. They lasted me quite some time and died a natural death after about a year or so of not-so-careful pre-adolescent use. When you're 11, grown-up shoes are one of the yearned-for validations that one's a Grown Up Person. I was a Big Girl Now. I wore them proudly. I strutted. I was a lady, and I felt like a lady in them.
I yearned for high-topped basketball sneakers as a teenager; oh I yearned for them and craved them because I wanted to be a boy. I wore them just like the older teenage boys did - unlaced, arrogantly, and with the certain knowledge that I was Not A Silly Girl, I was a Tomboy. That wasn't quite as good as being a boy, but it came close.
When I went to college, the first thing I did to celebrate my return to the world of Normal Girl was to buy a pair of stiletto-heeled velveteen strap sandals with russet-and-gold flowers. I did this because I fell in love. Naturally it was unrequited. The matter was settled over a long quiet talk after dinner one night, afterwhich I was convinced that the root of most of my social problems in college was my trying too hard to appear tough and manly (it was.) The sandals lasted me through a Diploma in Liberal Arts and all the way into the continuation of my degree overseas. They were promises of good things yet to come.
Nowadays? Finding the right shoes is almost impossible because all that clattering about on rocky terrain and hard tarmac gave me a permanent tendon injury, not to mention walking miles to get anywhere during my university years. Anyone who enthusiastically recommends walking to and fro to work and school generally has never done it through pouring rain, ill-favoured umbrellas, freezing winters and iced-over sidewalks. (They've also probably never clomped to work in a pretty magenta Indian-cotton broomstick skirt and black tank top, and been followed by a policeman in a patrol car who is of the opinion you're a hooker - at 12pm under the blazing heat with a huge rucksack and minimal makeup, at that. But that's a different story.)
So let's talk about ideal shoes for the moment. My dream pair would be comfortable to walk on - soft cushiony impact each step, ooooh what bliss. They'd have good sturdy heels, the elevation of which would give definition to my short legs and elongate my calves to a work of art. They'd be multi-purpose for a variety of occasions - blue jeans and pearls, dinner-and-dance, work, casual wear. Practical and useful and just lovely. They'd allow me to sail across the dance floor like the Latin dancer I've always wanted to be, they'd take my clumsy, stubby feet tripping gracefully down the most mysterious highways and byways in search of adventure. They'd make me look tall and elegant; they'd let me float like a cloud, like an Italian senorita, they'd make my every step fascinating. New York sidewalks. Thailand country roads. Tibetan plateaus. They'd transport me to places beyond Oz - click 3 times, Dorothy, and you're not in Kansas anymore.
These shoes would embody my dreams, my hopes, every yearning step I want to take to a better something, a better somewhere. Maybe over a rainbow, down the next raincloud, tap-dancing on a star, tango-ing on a dewdrop. Standing on tiptoe to kiss my beloved in the middle of a scarlet, cat-fur-soft rose. Take me here, to another tender memory, take me there to my grandmother's bedside before she died, take me forward to my wedding (will there be one?)
For now though - I'll settle for a pair of sturdy, comfortable boots to go tromping through the rain, to keep my feet warm. Splash through a puddle, jump over a stream, hopscotch like a zany little girl again.
When dreams are far away, feet that don't hurt and soothing shoes are one tiny step closer to heaven-in-the-real-world.
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Sunday Scribblings: Why I Where I Live
I live where I live now because the foreign company I worked with decided that lying was the better part of valour, and when termination came it was faster than a zap in the eye from a lightning bolt and the smell of burnt arse wasn’t quite so savoury.
All right, perhaps that’s not strictly accurate. But it was the beginning of a two-year chain reaction which eventually dropped me into Southeast Asia.
Dropped me. I should say ‘dropped me back’, really. I was born and raised there for almost twenty years before striking out for foreign shores and spending a decade away. Returning wasn’t a choice – it was a non-negotiable option due to legalities and visa issues. Eventually I found a job, and that job required a move from my hometown to the capital city of Kuala Lumpur.
So here I am.
Funny how ‘home’ is defined as where you’re most comfortable. This small, stuffy room in a low-cost flat I share with a housemate is, and isn’t. It’s where I come back to after work to relax, to guard my privacy from the demands of a tremendously stressful job. It is not where my heart is, much of the time. In my dreams I’m still in a small apartment in Virginia Beach with russet shutters and a window with a broken latch. I climbed in through the holly bushes planted in front of it enough to still feel the rough texture of the sill beneath my fingers, gritty granules of dust sifting up into the air. The carpet still feels stiff where 20 gallons of water poured through the ceiling one cold autumn day and flooded the dining room and half my room. My mind has never quite left; sometimes I think that my soul hasn’t, either.
Here, in my room now, the moon can be a firefly darting outside the window leaving glowstick-trails of light. The concrete block of flats opposite offers only fodder for the imagination –a saxophone in a corner phone booth, an imaginary cityscape of lights with the secret lives of its tenants enacted out in lurid yellow and noir. There is no grass beyond a perfunctory patch down below in some strip of courtyard. Whoever coined the term ‘concrete jungle’ knew the vista from these windows only too well.
Sometimes I’m not sure if I live in an apartment or a pocketful of lost dreams spun from a web of days-now-past. It would help, I suppose, if the kitchen were more functional – I learned to love the therapy of cooking in my decade of prodigal-daughter-wanderings. But the stove occasionally explodes in a fury of gas when it’s switched on, and the water pipes have been fixed three times in the recent year, and nothing can be done about them because they’re old, and apartment management wouldn’t replace the entire building’s plumbing system anyway. So, rather than tempt fate, my housemate and I, we do not cook. Not often, and nothing elaborate – one-pot noodles, something simple. There is no inspiration for cooking creativity in a kitchen both poky and bleak.
Simply put: I live where I live because I have no choice. There are few cheaper places around. Public transportation is an abomination, and I do not have a car. Here, the bus stop is accessible and this is an important point. My housemate and landlady is an old friend; we rub along tolerably well, and we are forgiving of each other's foibles. It is not bad, living here. It is just not what I remember, and memory of places loved can be a tyrannical mistress when I can't take solace in baking because we do not have an oven.
But life happens. There are no easy solutions when city living is so expensive and one is not rich, when one must be close to one’s job. Sometimes, however, being here mines a vein of thoughts to be written, to be drawn. They’re often melancholy in nature, but a time or two, the golden colour-drenched sunset filtering through chinks of wire window mesh has made my heart sing. And when my heart sings, I must write it or lose the song forever.
I’m writing now, just before bed. Just before the stars in memory blot out the cheap surroundings and poverty, just before the boy I love finds me from over the sea.
Just before, where landscapes dream and I’m once more in a small Virginia apartment, dancing like a joyous, red-coated lunatic in the new-falling snow at 3am in the morning.
All right, perhaps that’s not strictly accurate. But it was the beginning of a two-year chain reaction which eventually dropped me into Southeast Asia.
Dropped me. I should say ‘dropped me back’, really. I was born and raised there for almost twenty years before striking out for foreign shores and spending a decade away. Returning wasn’t a choice – it was a non-negotiable option due to legalities and visa issues. Eventually I found a job, and that job required a move from my hometown to the capital city of Kuala Lumpur.
So here I am.
Funny how ‘home’ is defined as where you’re most comfortable. This small, stuffy room in a low-cost flat I share with a housemate is, and isn’t. It’s where I come back to after work to relax, to guard my privacy from the demands of a tremendously stressful job. It is not where my heart is, much of the time. In my dreams I’m still in a small apartment in Virginia Beach with russet shutters and a window with a broken latch. I climbed in through the holly bushes planted in front of it enough to still feel the rough texture of the sill beneath my fingers, gritty granules of dust sifting up into the air. The carpet still feels stiff where 20 gallons of water poured through the ceiling one cold autumn day and flooded the dining room and half my room. My mind has never quite left; sometimes I think that my soul hasn’t, either.
Here, in my room now, the moon can be a firefly darting outside the window leaving glowstick-trails of light. The concrete block of flats opposite offers only fodder for the imagination –a saxophone in a corner phone booth, an imaginary cityscape of lights with the secret lives of its tenants enacted out in lurid yellow and noir. There is no grass beyond a perfunctory patch down below in some strip of courtyard. Whoever coined the term ‘concrete jungle’ knew the vista from these windows only too well.
Sometimes I’m not sure if I live in an apartment or a pocketful of lost dreams spun from a web of days-now-past. It would help, I suppose, if the kitchen were more functional – I learned to love the therapy of cooking in my decade of prodigal-daughter-wanderings. But the stove occasionally explodes in a fury of gas when it’s switched on, and the water pipes have been fixed three times in the recent year, and nothing can be done about them because they’re old, and apartment management wouldn’t replace the entire building’s plumbing system anyway. So, rather than tempt fate, my housemate and I, we do not cook. Not often, and nothing elaborate – one-pot noodles, something simple. There is no inspiration for cooking creativity in a kitchen both poky and bleak.
Simply put: I live where I live because I have no choice. There are few cheaper places around. Public transportation is an abomination, and I do not have a car. Here, the bus stop is accessible and this is an important point. My housemate and landlady is an old friend; we rub along tolerably well, and we are forgiving of each other's foibles. It is not bad, living here. It is just not what I remember, and memory of places loved can be a tyrannical mistress when I can't take solace in baking because we do not have an oven.
But life happens. There are no easy solutions when city living is so expensive and one is not rich, when one must be close to one’s job. Sometimes, however, being here mines a vein of thoughts to be written, to be drawn. They’re often melancholy in nature, but a time or two, the golden colour-drenched sunset filtering through chinks of wire window mesh has made my heart sing. And when my heart sings, I must write it or lose the song forever.
I’m writing now, just before bed. Just before the stars in memory blot out the cheap surroundings and poverty, just before the boy I love finds me from over the sea.
Just before, where landscapes dream and I’m once more in a small Virginia apartment, dancing like a joyous, red-coated lunatic in the new-falling snow at 3am in the morning.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Innocent Victim Deathness, Oh Yez Oh Yez
I've been trying very hard to do any amount of drawing at all in the past few weeks. Given that I costumed an Easter play, that just didn't happen unless you count the rough sketches I did for design purposes.
This, while not an EDM challenge, was a rather difficult personal one on quite a few levels. Mostly because I don't do 'realistic' sorts of inking very often (even this one was done with a picture reference in front of me) and also because the female was a shot at drawing without a model. That, and it's linework which I haven't done in a while.
Inspiration for it was a discussion with a few friends, and the consensus was that if I were ever a comic book character, I'd turn out to be either a) the woman who cornrows and zigzag braids Destruction of the Endless' hair with shiny, glittery colourful beads or b) the utterly persistent, terrifying, pestilential person who puts John Constantine of Hellblazer fame in a pink My Little Pony trenchcoat --and somehow lives.
Apologies John, it just had to be done.
This is what happens when I'm really sleep deprived.
This, while not an EDM challenge, was a rather difficult personal one on quite a few levels. Mostly because I don't do 'realistic' sorts of inking very often (even this one was done with a picture reference in front of me) and also because the female was a shot at drawing without a model. That, and it's linework which I haven't done in a while.
Inspiration for it was a discussion with a few friends, and the consensus was that if I were ever a comic book character, I'd turn out to be either a) the woman who cornrows and zigzag braids Destruction of the Endless' hair with shiny, glittery colourful beads or b) the utterly persistent, terrifying, pestilential person who puts John Constantine of Hellblazer fame in a pink My Little Pony trenchcoat --and somehow lives.
Apologies John, it just had to be done.
This is what happens when I'm really sleep deprived.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
No No, the Other Reality
I'm almost certain that if there were Celestial Gamblers, they'd be taking bets right now on the length of time before my sanity snaps. *pttt* just like that, like a fresh sugar-snap pea when you break it in half. This is largely due to work, and self-preservation has dictated certain measures to keep this bit of grey matter intact - namely Stressing Out and Hissing the minute I get home.
That being said, it's done nothing for my praiseworthy, if unexecuted, plans to do Illustration Friday either, dammitall. I mean, I -have- half a blue-lined sketch sitting nicely in my journal. It's just not coloured -nor- inked.
It shall be done within the next few days. Oh yes it shall be, lest the brain turn to mush, and mush be de-evolved into sewage.
***
Ahem. Babble, yes.
***
So people have been talking about fantasy self-portraits, said a little bird flitting in on the Wings of EDM Listmail. Not going to do that, sez she, oh no no, I cannot, I cannot, saith the lady who doth protest too much.
So she promptly sat down and spent an hour hissing and in the Spirit of Not Going To Do That, offered up the sacrificial goat below:
DIGITAL FOX
Self-control? What's -that-?
It's called Digital Fox, the story behind that being when I first met my present SO, he used to call me his Digital Vixen Princess (and still does, for the record.)
No it doesn't look like me. The REAL me is nothing like that.
Cue the raspberries, la-di-da-di-da, and the spit valves.
That being said, it's done nothing for my praiseworthy, if unexecuted, plans to do Illustration Friday either, dammitall. I mean, I -have- half a blue-lined sketch sitting nicely in my journal. It's just not coloured -nor- inked.
It shall be done within the next few days. Oh yes it shall be, lest the brain turn to mush, and mush be de-evolved into sewage.
***
Ahem. Babble, yes.
***
So people have been talking about fantasy self-portraits, said a little bird flitting in on the Wings of EDM Listmail. Not going to do that, sez she, oh no no, I cannot, I cannot, saith the lady who doth protest too much.
So she promptly sat down and spent an hour hissing and in the Spirit of Not Going To Do That, offered up the sacrificial goat below:
DIGITAL FOX
Self-control? What's -that-?
It's called Digital Fox, the story behind that being when I first met my present SO, he used to call me his Digital Vixen Princess (and still does, for the record.)
No it doesn't look like me. The REAL me is nothing like that.
Cue the raspberries, la-di-da-di-da, and the spit valves.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Self-Portrait Challenge and Suchlike Pandemonium
I've been drawing! Really! I've just been too lazy to scan the things and throw them up. Shame on me, I know. So to remedy that I'm throwing everything up, starting with my EDM self-portrait challenge:
I was between cases in the operating theatre today, and figured I'd make use of the time. Not very -well-, it seems, from the way it turned out but at least it was an attempt. I might do another one before the week is out.
And now for something completely different (and unspectacular as it was rather a barren week drawing wise):
and
Yeah, it was a bad drawing week. But maybe it'll get better soon.
I was between cases in the operating theatre today, and figured I'd make use of the time. Not very -well-, it seems, from the way it turned out but at least it was an attempt. I might do another one before the week is out.
And now for something completely different (and unspectacular as it was rather a barren week drawing wise):
and
Yeah, it was a bad drawing week. But maybe it'll get better soon.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Rainy Day Drawing Blues
Maybe this whole community thing really -is- starting to take hold and push the cobwebs out of my brain. After symbolically beginning the artistic year anew by hunting down and purchasing a really nice blank journal, I tossed it into my bag before I went to work and threw in five of my Micron ink pens as well.
The urge to sketch something, anything, is starting to devour my brain. I wound up drawing the chocolate ball I had for lunch, and stood like a nutcase in a light drizzle for about ten minutes sketching out a very pretty plant in front of the hospital. For once I didn't pre-outline with pencil, just dived straight in with the inks. I do that more with the botanical drawings I infrequently do, and it's a good lesson in line, I find.
I came back after dinner, worked like a maniac on colouring the plant, and this is what resulted:
I think I'm going to start having to carry my camera -and- my sketch journal wherever I go. I'm looking at the trees down the side of the road as I walk and seeing beautiful, arched shapes in their twisted trunks and towering boughs. It makes me just itch to materialize them onto paper, watch the curves and angles form one black line at a time.
The urge to sketch something, anything, is starting to devour my brain. I wound up drawing the chocolate ball I had for lunch, and stood like a nutcase in a light drizzle for about ten minutes sketching out a very pretty plant in front of the hospital. For once I didn't pre-outline with pencil, just dived straight in with the inks. I do that more with the botanical drawings I infrequently do, and it's a good lesson in line, I find.
I came back after dinner, worked like a maniac on colouring the plant, and this is what resulted:
I think I'm going to start having to carry my camera -and- my sketch journal wherever I go. I'm looking at the trees down the side of the road as I walk and seeing beautiful, arched shapes in their twisted trunks and towering boughs. It makes me just itch to materialize them onto paper, watch the curves and angles form one black line at a time.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Out of the Cold and into the Fishbowl
My. It's been a while. A year or so more since my last post - how time flies. A lot has happened since then. All things are in flux, so sayeth a great philosopher, and much has changed. Perhaps this year I'll be able to do more things creative, find the spark, motivate, get to where I want to.
I've done two things to kickstart myself into 2006:
1) I've joined the Everyday Matters Yahoo group in a desperate attempt for artistic community and motivation. I don't have much of it where I live, and since leaving the US two and a half years ago, my creativity has taken an absolute downswing for the worse. Motivation. That's the ticket, yeah. Acceptance of what I do without the negative spaces in my head. It might just do the trick.
2) I'm starting singing lessons this week. I damaged my voice some twenty years ago, and lost an octave off my range; with warmups I can still hit the extreme high range but I want to learn the techniques to make it permanent, not just a flash in the pan.
With that in mind, here's my 'Draw A Mouth' challenge for the Everyday Matters group - might as well jump in, newbie or no. The point was to -draw-, right?
The weird little black marks to the left on top of the piece are the bits of ring binding I wasn't quite able to crop out of the picture. And like a dingbat, I forgot that highlighter colours don't show up under scanner, so if you can imagine all the colours in bright neon highlighter, and the 'Adjectives' box in lumiglow yellow, that'll have to do, unfortunately. And I suppose I cheated for the mouth - I kissed the page with lipstick, then drew the outlines so I could learn more about how a mouth creases and folds, all the little intricacies that make it so intriguing to draw one.
Il'l work on the Valentine's Day challenge when I get home tonight. I -will- be creative this week, dammit.
I've done two things to kickstart myself into 2006:
1) I've joined the Everyday Matters Yahoo group in a desperate attempt for artistic community and motivation. I don't have much of it where I live, and since leaving the US two and a half years ago, my creativity has taken an absolute downswing for the worse. Motivation. That's the ticket, yeah. Acceptance of what I do without the negative spaces in my head. It might just do the trick.
2) I'm starting singing lessons this week. I damaged my voice some twenty years ago, and lost an octave off my range; with warmups I can still hit the extreme high range but I want to learn the techniques to make it permanent, not just a flash in the pan.
With that in mind, here's my 'Draw A Mouth' challenge for the Everyday Matters group - might as well jump in, newbie or no. The point was to -draw-, right?
The weird little black marks to the left on top of the piece are the bits of ring binding I wasn't quite able to crop out of the picture. And like a dingbat, I forgot that highlighter colours don't show up under scanner, so if you can imagine all the colours in bright neon highlighter, and the 'Adjectives' box in lumiglow yellow, that'll have to do, unfortunately. And I suppose I cheated for the mouth - I kissed the page with lipstick, then drew the outlines so I could learn more about how a mouth creases and folds, all the little intricacies that make it so intriguing to draw one.
Il'l work on the Valentine's Day challenge when I get home tonight. I -will- be creative this week, dammit.
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Out of Hibernation...Sort of?
Whee. Yeah, amazing, I've actually reappeared into life again.
What's beein going on in the meantime? I've been working. I've been working a -lot-. I've changed jobs - I now work in a much nicer place with a truly wonderful boss. The downside is that it leaves me very little time for arty pursuits especially since I work on Saturdays. By the time I'm done fighting the traffic back to my place, going to the LYS is a thing of the past - all I want to do is lie down and rest. As it is, I'm pretty tied up with the Christmas in the Park concert till after December, so life traipses on.
I've picked up the knitting needles when I was in Penang for a bit - that was about two months ago now. Finishing up some gloves because my workplace is so cold! I haven't done anything else with them since though, and I should because it's not -hard-. I just haven't had the brains to sit down and actually knit though.
The only other things I've actually done have been paper-arts related - drawings, some inkings, just to keep up with the general arts thing.
This is the latest: A birthday card for my dad.
This is the Big Project, so to speak: A tattoo design for a game. It's this huge tebori-style thing which didn't scan out well in the rough because I was sketching with blue pencil, but that's the in-progress. It'll take a while; I'm lousy with watercolours and I'm terrified of spoiling this and having to redraw it. No no no no.
And this is what resulted from a really, really bad day.
Hopefully I'll be updating more in future. Right now I'm getting over a bout of stomach bug and I've completely lost my voice so going into work tomorrow should be oh-so-interesting.
What's beein going on in the meantime? I've been working. I've been working a -lot-. I've changed jobs - I now work in a much nicer place with a truly wonderful boss. The downside is that it leaves me very little time for arty pursuits especially since I work on Saturdays. By the time I'm done fighting the traffic back to my place, going to the LYS is a thing of the past - all I want to do is lie down and rest. As it is, I'm pretty tied up with the Christmas in the Park concert till after December, so life traipses on.
I've picked up the knitting needles when I was in Penang for a bit - that was about two months ago now. Finishing up some gloves because my workplace is so cold! I haven't done anything else with them since though, and I should because it's not -hard-. I just haven't had the brains to sit down and actually knit though.
The only other things I've actually done have been paper-arts related - drawings, some inkings, just to keep up with the general arts thing.
This is the latest: A birthday card for my dad.
This is the Big Project, so to speak: A tattoo design for a game. It's this huge tebori-style thing which didn't scan out well in the rough because I was sketching with blue pencil, but that's the in-progress. It'll take a while; I'm lousy with watercolours and I'm terrified of spoiling this and having to redraw it. No no no no.
And this is what resulted from a really, really bad day.
Hopefully I'll be updating more in future. Right now I'm getting over a bout of stomach bug and I've completely lost my voice so going into work tomorrow should be oh-so-interesting.
Sunday, April 25, 2004
Emerging from the Void
I have carpal tunnel in both wrists. My job has aggravated it to the point where I have to be on medication and wear splints every day. Hence, I've taken a break from knitting to give them a rest - surgery's not a happy option and I don't want it to get to that stage.
On other notes: found a new LYS! Not only that, I may actually get to -contribute-. Am already helping to find suppliers for silk ribbon, since the owner hasn't actually dealt with that before and I did in one of my jobs when I was overseas. Plus, she teaches the art of Nyonya beaded slippers! So so so thrilled. I may try that next month if my wrists allow.
Been doing more drawing though inking is painful on the hands so I can't do as much as I would like.
Family matters seem to be bucking up. My parents are away in Korea currently, and I can't wait to hear all about it when they come back.
Here's to a slow transition back into the arts circuit again, I hope.
On other notes: found a new LYS! Not only that, I may actually get to -contribute-. Am already helping to find suppliers for silk ribbon, since the owner hasn't actually dealt with that before and I did in one of my jobs when I was overseas. Plus, she teaches the art of Nyonya beaded slippers! So so so thrilled. I may try that next month if my wrists allow.
Been doing more drawing though inking is painful on the hands so I can't do as much as I would like.
Family matters seem to be bucking up. My parents are away in Korea currently, and I can't wait to hear all about it when they come back.
Here's to a slow transition back into the arts circuit again, I hope.
Friday, March 19, 2004
ISP Blues
...which I finally think I've solved, but let's see in the future what happens.
Update: no knitting. Absolutely none. Even though I've actually gotten a few balls of really pretty cotton tape yarn, I've just been too tired and far too sick to do much. Lot of stress the last two weeks, including death in the family and illness that wouldn't go away.
That will change soon I hope.
And now to bed. So tired.
Update: no knitting. Absolutely none. Even though I've actually gotten a few balls of really pretty cotton tape yarn, I've just been too tired and far too sick to do much. Lot of stress the last two weeks, including death in the family and illness that wouldn't go away.
That will change soon I hope.
And now to bed. So tired.
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
Fortune's Fair Face Hath Smiled
Because I found the New Knitting Stitch Library, by Lesley Stanfield - and it cost me only half the price. Brand new.
It was the only copy in the bookstore I wandered into, too. The other two places in the mall had it for full price (with the exchange rate that comes out pretty hefty, especially for hard-covers).
I now have a knitting book! And I -love- it. The directions are clear, well-written, and the directions for reading the charts are -wonderful-.
I can now read a knitting chart.
And I've actually been able to semi-decipher one of the Nordic patterns I want for the To Og With Love Sweater!
Very happy. Now if only the sick would go away, I'd be even happier.
It was the only copy in the bookstore I wandered into, too. The other two places in the mall had it for full price (with the exchange rate that comes out pretty hefty, especially for hard-covers).
I now have a knitting book! And I -love- it. The directions are clear, well-written, and the directions for reading the charts are -wonderful-.
I can now read a knitting chart.
And I've actually been able to semi-decipher one of the Nordic patterns I want for the To Og With Love Sweater!
Very happy. Now if only the sick would go away, I'd be even happier.
Sunday, February 29, 2004
Bullfrog Extravaganza
Why am I such a dimwit?
I decided today that I'd use all the 10+ balls of mohair that I'd had in my stash for so long to make something for my friend Og because she rocks and she's one of my favourite people ever in the world.
So I went hunting for patterns. -Aran- patterns, mind you. Came up with a few, and picked the one I liked best.
Couldn't wait to get home and try it, after being stuck in the office all day - on a Saturday no less! - and first thing I did was pull out the needles, swatch a gauge, confirm my guess that I'm a loose knitter and I was right in going down a needle size, and then start swatching the pattern for the aran.
Everything was going JUST SPIFFY until I reached line 5 of the Tree of Life pattern. Line 5, mind you - not even anything more than that, which should have told me that I was in for dismal failure. I came up with four extra stitches that the pattern did -not- tell me what to do with. I frogged, tried again, and came up with the same result.
After frogging about twice more and still yielding the solid fact that a) either the pattern REALLY didn't tell you what to do with it or b) I was just that stupid, I went in and hunted for a Tree of Life pattern online so I could see if there was anything missing from mine that would get rid of the 4 stitches.
I did find a pattern, but that wasn't in multiples of 11 like mine was and I wasn't familiar enough to chart out mentally if changing it like that would make the whole thing go wonky or not.
I gave up on the blasted thing in disgust after an hour's trying to make it work.
Time to hunt again for another sweater - and I found one. I found several, as a matter of fact. The only problem is, the instructions? Are all in either Norwegian, Swedish, or Danish. This particular one was in Swedish. Same difference, frankly - I knew enough Swedish only to check that my engineering and translation teams had done vaguely the right thing when they went me their finished projects to check against the English. And since those were computing terms, they do not resemble knitting terms in the least. Hah.
So I poked about -yet again- and found a stitch dictionary on the same site that translated these foreign knitting terms. After translating 'knit' and 'purl', I printed out the first diagram on the site (the long strip of patterning) and decided to test-swatch it.
It looked so easy. Knit and purl, just in patterns.
Right, and I am a duck-billed ptarmigan named Alphonsus living in sin with a bob-tailed cat named ChiChi.
I couldn't get the dam' thing to work. I must have frogged it about a dozen times already in the span of an hour and a half. It finally hit me that you know, if you're looking at the diagram from the -front- and that's how the pattern should look, you need to -reverse- alternate rows and knit so that the pattern shows up that way on the front of the piece. This after hunting frantically through several websites like crazy (and incidentally, I couldn't recommend this site any highter - it teaches you how to read Japanese patterns, and it's in mostly in ENGLISH, which means the Sweater of Doom, as well as any other Japanese patterns I want to use, aren't so inaccessible any more).
And then...the 9th stitch kept appearing like flab on one's abdomen. The stitch swatch calls for -8- stitches. I don't know WHY I keep getting an extra stitch but right now I'm too tired to figure anything out other than I want to go to BED, and that I'm a bloody dimwit when it comes to reading diagrams because I can't and I don't know how and I've decided I don't -know- how to knit because I couldn't even follow something as simple as that.
Agh. I'm going to bed. Dammit.
And if someone can actually point out where I'm going wrong in the first Aran of Doom, or if I'm losing my mind, or if I'm just too stupid to follow the Norwegian patterns I'd love you forever.
I decided today that I'd use all the 10+ balls of mohair that I'd had in my stash for so long to make something for my friend Og because she rocks and she's one of my favourite people ever in the world.
So I went hunting for patterns. -Aran- patterns, mind you. Came up with a few, and picked the one I liked best.
Couldn't wait to get home and try it, after being stuck in the office all day - on a Saturday no less! - and first thing I did was pull out the needles, swatch a gauge, confirm my guess that I'm a loose knitter and I was right in going down a needle size, and then start swatching the pattern for the aran.
Everything was going JUST SPIFFY until I reached line 5 of the Tree of Life pattern. Line 5, mind you - not even anything more than that, which should have told me that I was in for dismal failure. I came up with four extra stitches that the pattern did -not- tell me what to do with. I frogged, tried again, and came up with the same result.
After frogging about twice more and still yielding the solid fact that a) either the pattern REALLY didn't tell you what to do with it or b) I was just that stupid, I went in and hunted for a Tree of Life pattern online so I could see if there was anything missing from mine that would get rid of the 4 stitches.
I did find a pattern, but that wasn't in multiples of 11 like mine was and I wasn't familiar enough to chart out mentally if changing it like that would make the whole thing go wonky or not.
I gave up on the blasted thing in disgust after an hour's trying to make it work.
Time to hunt again for another sweater - and I found one. I found several, as a matter of fact. The only problem is, the instructions? Are all in either Norwegian, Swedish, or Danish. This particular one was in Swedish. Same difference, frankly - I knew enough Swedish only to check that my engineering and translation teams had done vaguely the right thing when they went me their finished projects to check against the English. And since those were computing terms, they do not resemble knitting terms in the least. Hah.
So I poked about -yet again- and found a stitch dictionary on the same site that translated these foreign knitting terms. After translating 'knit' and 'purl', I printed out the first diagram on the site (the long strip of patterning) and decided to test-swatch it.
It looked so easy. Knit and purl, just in patterns.
Right, and I am a duck-billed ptarmigan named Alphonsus living in sin with a bob-tailed cat named ChiChi.
I couldn't get the dam' thing to work. I must have frogged it about a dozen times already in the span of an hour and a half. It finally hit me that you know, if you're looking at the diagram from the -front- and that's how the pattern should look, you need to -reverse- alternate rows and knit so that the pattern shows up that way on the front of the piece. This after hunting frantically through several websites like crazy (and incidentally, I couldn't recommend this site any highter - it teaches you how to read Japanese patterns, and it's in mostly in ENGLISH, which means the Sweater of Doom, as well as any other Japanese patterns I want to use, aren't so inaccessible any more).
And then...the 9th stitch kept appearing like flab on one's abdomen. The stitch swatch calls for -8- stitches. I don't know WHY I keep getting an extra stitch but right now I'm too tired to figure anything out other than I want to go to BED, and that I'm a bloody dimwit when it comes to reading diagrams because I can't and I don't know how and I've decided I don't -know- how to knit because I couldn't even follow something as simple as that.
Agh. I'm going to bed. Dammit.
And if someone can actually point out where I'm going wrong in the first Aran of Doom, or if I'm losing my mind, or if I'm just too stupid to follow the Norwegian patterns I'd love you forever.
Thursday, February 26, 2004
...Help, She Said
And the public poll/cry for help is: What on earth can one do with Filatura di Crosa's Millefili Fine?
Either I'm not used to the yarn but every gauge swatch I do of this has me reeling at how badly I knit - too loose, too loose -too loose-. Perhaps it's just that it's cotton, and cotton doesn't like anything. It's a bit better on my bamboo needles, but when I had it on my metal circulars for Sigma, ooof.
It's a gorgeous yarn and I want to use it badly - but I've no idea what to -make-.
Help, anyone?
Either I'm not used to the yarn but every gauge swatch I do of this has me reeling at how badly I knit - too loose, too loose -too loose-. Perhaps it's just that it's cotton, and cotton doesn't like anything. It's a bit better on my bamboo needles, but when I had it on my metal circulars for Sigma, ooof.
It's a gorgeous yarn and I want to use it badly - but I've no idea what to -make-.
Help, anyone?
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Frog: frôg, n.
FROG: [Middle English frogge, from Old English frogga.] \Frog\ (fr[o^]g), n. [AS. froggu, frocga a frog (in sensel); akin to D. vorsch, OHG. frosk, G. frosch, Icel. froskr, fraukr, Sw. & Dan. fr["o].] 1. (Zo["o]l.)
An amphibious animal of the genus Rana and related genera, of many species.
Frogs swim rapidly, and take long leaps on land. Many of the species utter
loud notes in the springtime.
- (Definition from Dictionary.com)
This is the sound I am making today. Can you hear it?
So I started on my next project - a Beginner's Hat, because that looked like something I could use to get rid of all that acrylic yarn. Besides, after yesterday's fiasco with Sigma, I felt like a beginner.
I was actually proud of myself - I cast on at the bus stop this morning while waiting for my ride, and finished up a whole row of the hat brim at lunch.
And then I got home and actually started in on the second row.
Since when has anyone ever had to unpick an entire row of ribbing stitch because you screwed up 1 knit 1 purl? That's supposed to be brainless EASY, right?
Frog:Any of numerous tailless, aquatic, semiaquatic, or terrestrial
amphibians of the order Anura and especially of the family Ranidae,
characteristically having a smooth moist skin, webbed feet, and long
hind legs adapted for leaping.
This is also when I remain convinced there is a Knitting God who watches over idiot knitters like yours truly.
Because upon recasting on all 96 stitches, I discover that they said 'stockinette stitch' - which is NOT 1 knit 1 purl as I assumed, but 1 ROW knit, 1 ROW purl. I am still not yet familiar with the various stitch names, apparently. Says the girl who has done -cable- sweaters no sweat.
Duh.
So far so good. But if you happen to hear an unusual lot of bullfrogs tonight, you'll know why.
An amphibious animal of the genus Rana and related genera, of many species.
Frogs swim rapidly, and take long leaps on land. Many of the species utter
loud notes in the springtime.
- (Definition from Dictionary.com)
This is the sound I am making today. Can you hear it?
So I started on my next project - a Beginner's Hat, because that looked like something I could use to get rid of all that acrylic yarn. Besides, after yesterday's fiasco with Sigma, I felt like a beginner.
I was actually proud of myself - I cast on at the bus stop this morning while waiting for my ride, and finished up a whole row of the hat brim at lunch.
And then I got home and actually started in on the second row.
Since when has anyone ever had to unpick an entire row of ribbing stitch because you screwed up 1 knit 1 purl? That's supposed to be brainless EASY, right?
Frog:Any of numerous tailless, aquatic, semiaquatic, or terrestrial
amphibians of the order Anura and especially of the family Ranidae,
characteristically having a smooth moist skin, webbed feet, and long
hind legs adapted for leaping.
This is also when I remain convinced there is a Knitting God who watches over idiot knitters like yours truly.
Because upon recasting on all 96 stitches, I discover that they said 'stockinette stitch' - which is NOT 1 knit 1 purl as I assumed, but 1 ROW knit, 1 ROW purl. I am still not yet familiar with the various stitch names, apparently. Says the girl who has done -cable- sweaters no sweat.
Duh.
So far so good. But if you happen to hear an unusual lot of bullfrogs tonight, you'll know why.
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
And In Other News...
...The Sigma Tank has been frogged. That's not because it's not a beautiful top, because it is. I've just not got the energy to start taking it apart to the place where I accidentally mobius-stripped it.
On the other hand - the frogging has convinced me there is a Knitting God.
It has also convinced me that I'm a knitting gauge-tension nitwit.
The reason is as follows:
When I did the calculations for Sigma, I gauge-swatched it. The results, summed up by the formula that was in the pattern, made it 240 stitches to cast on. You can't -possibly- go wrong with a formula and a gauge swatch, right? Especially when I stretched it out on the needles and it looked just nice, even allowing for some looseness in the yarn after knitting.
So I took the thing off the needles, all 240 stitches of it. And discovered that it would fit my best friend easily, no sweat. Not even tightness.
My best friend is male, 6'4" and built like a linebacker.
I, on the other hand, barely top 5', if you don't count that I'm always wearing huge clunky heels, and I weigh less than 110lbs. Or around that anyway.
Humbling, humbling, embarrassing-as-heck.
However! I -have- finished ONE knitting project and that is a catnip mouse for my SO's two cats! It's the one posted in Wendy's Mouse-A-Thon.
And even there the knitting nincompoopness continued because I didn't understand the extremely simple directions and wound up frogging the entire thing at lunch today at work. But! BUT! I finished it ALL UP today so I am proud of myself. I was taught to knit on the fly with no patterns, so reading patterns is uber-hard; I'm just not used to it.
I've decided to take my knitting to work and use my lunchtime to accomplish stuff. Today I was in the Indian restaurant two doors down from the office, drinking iced chai and knitting away on the catnip mouse, and there were two Westerners eating two tables up. One was bald and one had curly hair; both were male. When they finished their food, the curly-haired one kept looking at my knitting. It was sort of funny and I still don't know why he was looking. Maybe the fact that I was dressed like an office-going Goth (all black with a funky high-necked top that had a diagonal zipper down the front) had something to do with it.
On the other hand - the frogging has convinced me there is a Knitting God.
It has also convinced me that I'm a knitting gauge-tension nitwit.
The reason is as follows:
When I did the calculations for Sigma, I gauge-swatched it. The results, summed up by the formula that was in the pattern, made it 240 stitches to cast on. You can't -possibly- go wrong with a formula and a gauge swatch, right? Especially when I stretched it out on the needles and it looked just nice, even allowing for some looseness in the yarn after knitting.
So I took the thing off the needles, all 240 stitches of it. And discovered that it would fit my best friend easily, no sweat. Not even tightness.
My best friend is male, 6'4" and built like a linebacker.
I, on the other hand, barely top 5', if you don't count that I'm always wearing huge clunky heels, and I weigh less than 110lbs. Or around that anyway.
Humbling, humbling, embarrassing-as-heck.
However! I -have- finished ONE knitting project and that is a catnip mouse for my SO's two cats! It's the one posted in Wendy's Mouse-A-Thon.
And even there the knitting nincompoopness continued because I didn't understand the extremely simple directions and wound up frogging the entire thing at lunch today at work. But! BUT! I finished it ALL UP today so I am proud of myself. I was taught to knit on the fly with no patterns, so reading patterns is uber-hard; I'm just not used to it.
I've decided to take my knitting to work and use my lunchtime to accomplish stuff. Today I was in the Indian restaurant two doors down from the office, drinking iced chai and knitting away on the catnip mouse, and there were two Westerners eating two tables up. One was bald and one had curly hair; both were male. When they finished their food, the curly-haired one kept looking at my knitting. It was sort of funny and I still don't know why he was looking. Maybe the fact that I was dressed like an office-going Goth (all black with a funky high-necked top that had a diagonal zipper down the front) had something to do with it.
Saturday, February 21, 2004
Random Thought for the Day
If Sauron had -beaded- his rings, he wouldn't have made 19 of them, he'd have just stopped at ONE.
Ever try to fit dwarven knuckles blind? He'd have gone -nuts-.
Ever try to fit dwarven knuckles blind? He'd have gone -nuts-.
Friday, February 20, 2004
See! New Toy Thing!
See, see, momma, I was a -smart- girl and added the new techy thingy all by myself!
Yes, I finally got myself a comment function so feel free to spam it to death. ;)
In other news:
The wedding went supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, and I might have to knit a hat just to use up that acrylic wool.
More details later! I'm still sore from my 2-hour high intensity combat workout at the gym.
Yes, I finally got myself a comment function so feel free to spam it to death. ;)
In other news:
The wedding went supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, and I might have to knit a hat just to use up that acrylic wool.
More details later! I'm still sore from my 2-hour high intensity combat workout at the gym.
Friday, February 13, 2004
Wedding!
No, not mine. But one of my oldest friends (known her for about 20 years) is getting married Valentine's Day and she's done me the honour of asking me to be her wedding coordinator and surrogate sister. She has no sisters, and I'm the one who'll be dressing her, calming her down and generally being the Voice of Reason.
So I'll be gone for the weekend, and all knitting/crafty projects go on hold till I get back.
It's gonna be busy. Fun, but busy. Woo!
So I'll be gone for the weekend, and all knitting/crafty projects go on hold till I get back.
It's gonna be busy. Fun, but busy. Woo!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
