SUCH AS: The Gentlemen Sea Creatures Series

This is my first attempt at illustrator. Here we have ‘Sir Sextapus’ and ‘Gentleman Goldfish’. The first half of the series. ‘Capitalist Crab’ is 90% complete, and ‘Scientist Squid’ will come after that. I hope you enjoy my quirky obsession with aquatic animals and victorian culture.

This is still no where near as strange as going over, when I left the Midwest around 11 am, arrived in London the next day around ten am, and then at eleven that evening boarded a night train to Edinburgh, where I arrived around seven am. And while I did get a little sleep on the train, I got none the night before on the plane. I felt as if I hadn’t slept for days, which I pretty much hadn’t. Yet despite all that, I still handled the jet lag pretty damn well, if I say so myself. On those days between traveling without sleep, I still managed to haul around about fifteen pounds of luggage as I spent hours in the underground in London, and walked miles around Edinburgh.

So what is my point in all of this? Just killing time in the airport as I wait for my next flight, really. Yep.

I’ll get more into my actuall trip later, and not just talk about transportation. But I  can’t promise it won’t come up again. A lot.

The Final Piece!!

This is an assignment for my Intro to Illustration class. The assignment was to come up with a name for a pickle brand and then make a label for that brand. I’ll admit, when I first got the assignment, I was not looking forward to it. But then, KRAKEN PICKLES. Cephalopods make any project more fun, and always make me end up spending so much more time on illustrations than I intended. GAH.

At Rainbow, my personal grocery store of choice (or, erm…convenience/necessity), there are three tiers of food, as far as price goes. The top of these is the name brand food. With the logos you recognize and guaranteed to taste good, this is generally your first instinct to grab. But with training and a keen eye, you learn to spot the next two lower tiers. The second tier is the Roundy’s brand (or whatever the store brand is for the store you’re shopping at). This is almost always as good as the name brand, yet at usually quite a bit cheaper. If I see the Roundy’s brand, I will always choose it over the name brand. It’s cheaper, which is the most important thing, but it also tastes good (maybe not quite as good as name brand, but it’s been awhile since I’ve had name brand, so it’s hard for me to compare).

The final, and lowest, tier is the off brand of the off brand. It is the not store name cheapest of the cheap food, which usually contains the world ‘Value’ somewhere in their name. The brand I will be talking about is, of course, CLEAR VALUE.

I was first introduced to Clear Value when, as I exclaimed over the magnificent value of the Roundy’s brand mac ‘n cheese over the Kraft, that my roommate informed me she had found something cheaper than it- the Clear Value. And as the name states, the value is clear. For example, I was awhile obsessed with Clear Value saltine crackers, which were $1 for a box, as opposed to the usual $3.59 for most anything else. Clearly, there was no way I would be ever purchasing any other brand for saltine.

But tonight, as I drank my Clear Value hot coca I purchased this weekend, I started to wonder about one thing. How does Clear Value manage to make all of its products good enough that you will buy an eat them, but not good enough to really enjoy eating it? Every time one of my roommates or I purchase a new Clear Value product, we ask for the eater’s opinion, and it is consistently something along the lines of, “eh, good enough”. Even when I looked up the brand online, the one review I found of it described it as, yet again, ‘good enough’. How do they manage to make food so consistently mediocre?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I worship at the altar of Clear Value. I love it. This Saturday I stood in front of the grocery store for 5 min in awe and delight when I realized that Clear Value made ice cream. But I just marvel at how they never hit or miss, they always just make a product that is what it is. It’s not bad, but it’s not really good either. It is what it is. And that is, the perfect brand for college students. The cheapest, edible brand. And being a college student, I will stop contemplating how a food can be so consistent in its averageness, drink my coca, and actually get some work done.

(I’d also like that I’ve never written this much about food, or cared this much about food, until I started college. It is now, somehow, an integral topic of conversation daily. But that’s a topic for a whole different post…)

This is a quick sketch the current design I’ve been working on, but I’m not sure if I like it enough yet, or if I want to go with a more celtic knot style octopus. In any case, I’m not going to get it done for awhile, if at all. If you have any thoughts or options, I’d like to hear them!

Yeah. Thanks to my roomie for taking the awesome pic of me on her iphone. Booyah!

Anyways, there was a lot of cool art there (mostly from other MCAD students… just kidding. Minnesota has other artists than just us… I suppose.) But yeah. My piece was actually hanging right under a really awesome piece, that I wish I knew the artist of. But hopefully more people will look at mine  because of that X ]

So this was the piece I entered, it is a water color I did two weeks or so ago for my intro to illustration class. The original (this is a print… : [  sadface. ) was 15×15, so I scanned it and cropped it so it would fit the only frame I could find in my dorm (I remembered about the show the night before the final day at around 10:30pm…). I know how to plan ahead. Usually. Anyways, I’m probably going to head back over there some other day when it’s not packed so I can get a better look at all the art.

For more info about the show -> http://artsmia.org/index.php?section_id=2&exh_id=3280

It’s up until June 13th!

when birds cried the songs of the winter sun,

the ice beneath your feet was bare and smooth,

and the footsteps of your neighbor fell muted in the dark

in drifts of mountains of white desert landscapes.

When the Green was just a memory of warmer light,

the Blue just a memory of warmer days,

and the cool cool clouds fell on the ground.

No longer does the Green grow high and wrap itself around your ankles,

but the White surrounds you and grows attached to your eyes.

This is the story of yesterday, and the yesterday of that.

An endless forever,

This is the story of today, and the today after that.

So anyways, I’m a few weeks into this new semester, and very exited. Not only am I now finally taking a class I actually have chosen (Intro to Illustration), but my other classes are interesting as well. I’m taking 3D, which has been really interesting and challenging, but should yield some interesting results. I’ve already created a giant foam hand, but I’m now working on fashioning myself a pair of Art Nouveau wings out of steel rods. I’m also taking what is essentially a figure drawing class, which has been helping me a lot. Can you tell?

Yeah. I actually drew a whole body. And look! Another boob! ( I think I see a reoccurring theme here…) Nudity is my valentine’s day present to you. Enjoy. Good Night, and Good Luck.

As decomposing walls hide the heart of countless stories

Unseen outside the tale of the interior

A nation adrift in a sea of

(Quiet)

Silent. Still.

Beating. Breathing.

(Quiet)

Tonight is a world of color

Seamless streets strewn with fluorescent suns

That think thoughts of nothing but now

Knowing tomorrow is the future that will never come

(While)

Silent. Still.

Beating. Breathing.

(While)

The imagined echo of endless empty spaces

Whispered words that pretty names claim

Are a rhythm of poetry and legend of lies

Dawn is found farther from these places

(That are)

Silent. Still.

Beating. Breathing.

——

(A little poem I edited recently that I wrote originally a year ago for a creative writing class. Enjoy. Or don’t. Or critique me if you hate it.)