Whoah.

I read & loved Banana Fish over last weekend, look forward to hearing more from me on that. Been chasing the government, my potential exchange university, teachers and students while assignments have been chasing me.

So!



View out of my grubby window. The neighbour's front yard is how I tell the time of day & seasons while staying in bed.

Some of my workspace. Stuff piles organically here. I swear off coffee and drink tea when I want to get down to hours of serious work (for the lesser caffeine hit.)

Book Leather, Mull & Endpaper arrives.

- - -

The last one was for a project in which I made... a book. It didn't turn out as neat as I imagined, more like saturated in PVA and sticking precariously out of the spine.

Illustration just ain't coming to me... *sigh*

Creativity =/= fun?

Creativity used to be a fun hobby.

But being creative full-time, under the restraint of briefs and everchanging teachers' opinions; being forced to create in a certain way, at certain angles, about certain things irrespective of your own strengths and interests, can get very draining very quickly.
Ambition and novelty can get you through the first semester, but they won't carry you for three years.
So you tend to be drained at the end of a day and not even remotely interested in pursuing all those things you thought you were put on this earth to pursue.
So you either find your own way and cling to it in every brief, or get by until the holidays. Something about it all though, makes me desperate to assert my own hobbies and passtimes on a schedule that can't really bear it, because expert validation in this world is a long, long way away.

AKA I'm beginning to once again get frustrated and bored out of my socks by coursework! When will it all end?
When can I stop having dreams about amazing rivers I've never known and crews I've never worked with, about white soft powdery snow up to the waist on a special black run off the piste that I practically grew up on these past few years?


Anyway. Either I'll get the better of this or it'll get the better of me. There's always deferral as an option...

She's a Flapper

In a vintage fashion magazine.

A big red sore nose

The symptoms of a cold changing every day is definitely a good sign. Certainly it's evolving... I like to think it's being thwarted daily in its attempts to conquer me and forced to new and exciting frontiers of battle in its futile struggle for existence.

That's what I LIKE to think.


The Secret Project.

Also I'm binding little bits of paper within metcards, in order to test out different methods of bookbinding and which of these will best serve me in an upcoming brief.


Little books.

- - -

Tomorrow: 2 x A2 cardboard papers for my little lantern, and scouting some materials for the cover of my (upcoming) book. Whichever method I use to attach the pages in this volume, I ideally want to make a cover out of a nice thick tactile cloth. Either I buy this, or cut up an old pair of jeans that lives on my shelf in unceasing hopes of one day being properly repaired (I botched it once with non-stretch patches...)

AHH if only we had a sewing machine that wasn't foot-operated!

Something Funny

The Beatles's "When I'm 64" to the image of a septuagenarian Kurt Cobain & Courtney Love in a nursing home. Drinking tea. :)

Planning my amazing route of activity across the span of the city after classes, culminating in the presentation of photography assignment 1 (of 2). Conversely, I will now only be able to play the DS while in transit.

Amateur Photographer

Spring is in the air... as the weather finally fines up (for the most part).


A quaint little mailbox.


The mysterious workings of the tree doctor...


Powerlines and Trees,


A lovingly framed Cherub, and


An abandoned block of land.

- - -

All from my Lettersearching homework this week. When I find the entire alphabet I'll be sure to tell you all about it.

Spending time drawing on the theme of "I don't draw much anymore..."
One day I might just share it with you!

The Asexual Being.

He lives, absolutely disinterested in and unneeding of sexual gratification. But that means he doesn't touch people, ever. It's an excellent thing to be, except for when it's not. I guess?

I liked his posture.

He is now the signature image up in the ^ sidebar up there, hovering.

- - -

It's peaceful, flicking through the CSS and tinkering to make the page look how I want it.

That's 5 years of assistant webbuilding experience for you. Why couldn't I have been a waitress?

Identity Theft

Makes sense, right?

Photo Processing

Question: why do they call it photo processing in 2 hours when in practice everywhere you go they tell you to come back in 2 days? I asked if that was as fast as they could do it, because I needed it in time for class... he gave me this look and "cut me a deal" to closing time the day before. Thank you, artsy monsieur. :/

The teacher sprung a get-quality-lab-prints day on us and there's no way I can take those photos and have them developed in time. Not to mention I can't really afford to buy film, use film and then have 2-3 rolls of it developed every week. I just ain't rolling in it. :/ :/

OH GOD I wish I didn't need money for everything.

....at least the vodka was duty-free.

Hand-rendering & Hand-kerning Letters

2 x 4 hour studios weren't nearly long enough.

First 4 hours: Draw up lines & hand-render the letters of your name, 10 x each letter, in two different fonts. Try to be as true to those fonts as possible. We had references but had to basically scale them up with no rulers. Try for 10 x each letter x each font. I have never regretted forgetting my mechanical pencil so much.



Last 4 hours: Choose the best of those letters & ink them. Then hand-kern (space) your letters to best possible effect.

I spent like 3 hours just inking the perfect letters.... then speed-kerned my alphabets.


Inked genius.


You can see my crazy white-out and lineup attempts here. HOOHAH.

Schoolie APH

Ahahaha. This was one of the ideas I cooked up while I was trying to come up with an ID pic for DA's APHetalia club's competition.
I had this scrap of paper lying around the desk for a while waiting for a scan.
The countries as like, "Boarding School Drama" kids of typical character tropes.

China was like the aloof martial arts dude, England was the punk rebel dude (coz he is, y'know), France was the bishounen, Russia was the Gentle Giant... America was the most fun, because drawing him I immediately thought of those awful know-it-all straight-laced kids that don't have the decency to be self-conscious about it.
He'd just be loud and righteous and... yeah, anyway.
Ita-chan was just a handsome Cloud Cuckoolander.

Himaruya's Italy has rekindled my passion for all things Italian! Namely, men! Except the fact that they're incredibly hairy (or so my sources tell me), they would be the ideal lovers. Unless of course they're Semi-Naturalised Australians, in which case the weird-ass cultural pride thing would totally drive me nuts.
I'm acultural. Culture-pride myths, especially ones so drastically different and unrelated to peoples actual origins... can't you just see the absurdity? D:

Is thinking about signing up to an NPO to improve scholarship chances a bad thing?

People in Glass Houses shouldn't Throw Stones.

Does it make sense from the image? :/ :/

1st Illustration assignment was thrown together in Photoshop. When you can whip up a coherent, purposeful project with a few hours the night before, that's when you know you're proficient at a program. *Digs around for InDesign*

...

You said it!

The Lady-proportioned Cuban Communist Guerrilla was once a sizing chart for ordering clothes on the internet.

On my way home

Things I need to prepare for poking around at home:

- Some form of knitting / crocheting gear. :)
- A multipocket folder to organise my sheaths of drawing paper
- urrrm, catchup on missed classes?


Hmmmmm alright. Just enough NZD to take care of everything and a bunch of cash in the bank yet to keep me going when I get back. Shoes from America? Maybe...
Also need to:
- Make some delicious cookies and
- Some TTGL pictures and
- my busted old harddrive to put together and mail to my agent over in the ole new country.

In perfecting my quiet-night-inness, have finished most of the books I brought over, which I thought were way too many - done with Henry Esmond and Voltaire's Candide, and now ploughing through Empires. All of which are set in similar periods for at least part of their durations, which means you get bits of them referencing each other.
History is like some really, really complicated branched-out series that's been evolving over years and years, so convoluted that if you miss 30 seconds the season is effectively ruined for you, and yet you have literally thousands of years to catch up on before you even start paying attention.

British Empirial Rallying Cry: If you can't beat them, make them join you!

Good day from real winter

Minus 6 degrees on a fine morning in July, strolling around and checking out the facilities, and thinking "this is what losing 2 hours feels like." New Zealand didn't give me a passport stamp. :<
What is it like across the tasman?

Like Oz but not. :/

I've almost finished that pesky book that kept me entertained through a good 7 hours of waiting for and riding on miscellaneous planes. Henry Esmond, indeed. For seconds, Voltaire, I'm looking at you!

Funnily enough the shuttle driver knew my address and took me to the doorstep, her own house being 3 doors down from where I would be staying. I'm quite sure I got the unit number right... the door was locked so I left my things behind and went walkabout.

Time for a coffee, and some more of Harry's melodramatic misadventures.

I've figured out that 3 days ~ $180 or so for a lift pass to one of the given mountains, with free bus from the centre 10 minutes from the house. That and I can get a multiday pass with friend discounts, maybe.

We'll just see how much money I have left after it's all over. This funny New Zealand paper money.... check me flicking through it with no sense whatsoever of the value of each pretty colour note. Kind of like our money but different colours and fonts.
Money's funny like that, before its intristic value sinks into you through the rote repetition of a hundred thousand little purchases in a hundred thousand little stores.

- - - -

I have a massive ego, but that doesn't necessarily mean I have a high opinion of myself. Indeed in my experience ego is there to compensate for self-esteem. You compensating for your own perceived lack