Sunrise, Sunrise

...looks like morning in your eyes
But the clock's held nine-fifteen for hours...

Ahh, Nora Jones. It's been a long, long day interspersed with medical drama of the Not Good Kind. Had to chase my housemate off to a doctor with her father in case he had gangrene after a motorbike ran over his foot some days ago. Am hoping and praying everything's gonna be just fine; situation's complicated enough as is without more fuel chucked onto it.

So, just because we've really needed an angel, this is in honour of that. It's an old piece done as a commission three years ago; the client specified 'black and white and sort of unfinished'. Watercolour, colour pencils, ink and a wee bit of crayons.



Sometimes, strange places have strange angels unawares.

...Man I'm tired. I think I need to go to sleep soon and put the sketching ideas on hold for now.

Blossoms, Homecomings, and Domestic Disasters

Four hours, rest-stop-jammed-up-to-highway, and tons of rain later, I'm finally back in my apartment.

Only to discover that my upstairs neighbours have once again clogged up the water pipes and pounded a broomstick or something down the u-bend - resulting in the ENTIRE lot of sewage, rotting food and foul water coming down onto our kitchen. AGAIN. Yes, this happened last year and I was the only one at home to clean it up. This year it was my housemate's turn.

We'd rather skip that yearly duty and move onto greener pastures, thankyouverymuch.

And since upstairs won't pay for the damage and we're going to have to get a plumber in to fix it and, and, and...

Never mind. I'm throwing someone off the balcony tomorrow and it'll be one of the upstairs neighbours if they don't cough up compensation.

Oh, and someone stole our mop off the balcony as well. A MOP. I've no idea why and I don't think I want to know either but...a MOP.

In other news, as promised, the flowers I drew from dinner the other night. I'm not entirely too pleased with the way the colours came out - I am -so- not good with watercolour - but it's an attempt and I'm glad of that, at least.

The Embroiderer...Err, Artist's Floral

Some years ago when I was still working in a fibre arts store in VA, I came across a book called the Embroiderer's Floral. It was, as the title states, a treasury of floral designs and techniques for embroiderers. Fascinating book; I regret not buying it. Maybe I might be able to pick it up at Kinokuniya some time...

...though that wasn't quite the point of the post but the lead-in for it. At dinner tonight, a beautiful cozy little place called Paprika Cafe, we were served flowers with our food --sweet peas for my father's chocolate cake, and two lovely unknown blossoms for mine. I've been trying to take one artist's advice and sketch/paint every day. Which means I carry my sketchbook just about anywhere I can fit it into my ragged canvas bag, and a couple Sakura Pigma Microns of varying sizes.

So I yanked out the drawing paraphernalia and sketched away all through dinner. The waiter and my parents were highly amused. The colours of the flowers were so lovely I took them back with me so I could attempt (note the operative word) to paint in the drawings.

Haven't got a scanner here, but will post when I get back to my apartment in two days.

In the meantime, have another Beldame and Dominic sketch:



"Nic? Soooooooooo not in Chicago any more."
"I noticed."

It isn't the best sketch, but it's my first time attempting a bloody -building- and since I hate 'em I'm trying to make myself do them.

Ooof. VACATION!

CONCERT DONE! CONCERT DONE!

We played to three shows - 2 full and one almost full - and it went off -so- well. The quartet rocked the house. They did so well, I cried off-stage when we got done. It was one of the best shows we've done I think. People want to hear it in another state! They want the same program! And for the cast party I dressed up as Cloud, complete with blond hair, and it went off well and...

Yeah. It was a good show.

And now I am on vacation after two of the craziest weeks ever since the show ended. Work has been absolutely and totally insane. It's been so stressy everything's been making me cry. But since it's Deepavali and Hari Raya and my boss abruptly took Monday off I get to GO HOME till Wednesday! I haven't been home for 7 months over, and it's just lovely to be back to see my parents and my fish and the guppies and my dog. I plan on having a lovely few days before going back to work, definitely.

Oh, yes, the artistic muse bit my brain the other night when I was doing some work on a character. Captain Jishu Kijahng Thalasa, and her best friend, Quinton Arundell, sitting in the sun being cheeky. It's kind of big an image so it's got to go behind a cut. It wasn't even going to be a proper sketch, and it's still pretty rough so...it's not the best thing ever but I'm happy with it because of the expressions. I never finish anything and this time I did!

So, without further ado: Introducing Jishu and Quin!

Maybe I'll do some more sketching later, but for now this redhead is going to relaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaax.

Public Service Announcement

Dear people:

If you have a problem with me? I'd appreciate you actually coming to y'know, -tell- me about it to my face. Not me finding out in a public setting that, apparently, that I'm bidding fair to be queen of kissing butt.

Yes, I'm probably tired and need a good night's sleep, and I'll probably be just fine tomorrow, and I should probably laugh it off because it's for fun.

Except for the part where it hurts like fucking hell, I'm sure it's all in good fun.