Marci and Deth

Year in Review 2011

2012-01-13T17:11:00.000-08:00

I haven't update this blog in a while. I was trying to finish up a project and decided that I wasn't going to do anything else until it was done. That was December 8th, and now it's the 13th of January. I'm still not done.

The above clip is going around on Facebook and I quite enjoyed it. Adobe Books in San Francisco once had an artist come in an arrange all the books by color. That was way back in 2005, and at the time I was living in LA and didn't get to see it like that. This sort of took that idea to an extra step.

Favorite Reads of 2011.
1. "The Ten-Cent Plague" by David Hajdu.
2. "Citizens of London" by Lynne Olson.
3. "Hark! A Vagrant" by Kate Beaton. You can read all of her stuff online, but in book form it's pretty awesome.
4. "True Deceiver" by Tove Jansson.
5. "Howl's Moving Castle" by Diana Wynne Jones.
6. "The Strange Case of Edward Gorey" by Alexander Theroux.
7. "Freakonomics" by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. There's a follow up book called SuperFreakonomics which isn't as sweet.
8. "The Death Ray" by Daniel Clowes.
9. "Farm Anatomy" by Julia Rothman.
10. "Wild Flowers of the World" by Barbara Everand and Brian D. Morley. I found this used for like $7. It's the best illustrated book on wild flowers I came across this year.

Favorite Movies (Old and New)
New
1. The Muppets (2011)
2. Wuthering Heights (2011)
3. Super 8 (2011)
4. Hanna (2011)

Old
1. True Stories (1986)
2. Walk, Don't Run (1966)
3. Tron Legacy (2010)
4. The Shadow (1994)

Favorite Trips
1. UK: Leeds, Haworth, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Oban, Bristol, and Cornwall.
2. Northampton MA, Providence, RI, Yarmouthport, MA
3. Los Angeles, CA
4. Port Costa, CA - was a funny trip.

Favorite Moments
1. Walking out onto the Moors.
2. Exploring Oban with Marci.
3. Walking around Edinburgh.
4. Having Drinks with friends after coming back from the UK.
5. LA with old friends.

Favorite Eats/Meals
This was way easier when I had a food journal to reference.
1. Jack's Outback Restaurant, Yarmouth Port, MA
2. Captain Frosty's, Dennis, MA
3. Curry Ramen.
4. Otaez, Oakland, CA
5. Gott's, San Francisco, CA
6. Sunday Roast with Jane and Al in Bristol.
7. Things the UK has that we don't: Walker's Ready Salted Crisps, Alpen, adult size juice boxes, King Rib and Tango Soda.
8. This little bakery in Cornwall that was pretty much a lady working in a garage that made the best croissants and jam ever.
9. Box Pizza, Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK
10. Oban Fish & Chips

This is what I wrote for 2010.

Prussia Cove, Penzance, St. Ives, and Marazion

2011-12-08T08:09:00.000-08:00

From Falmouth we made our way to Penzance, and then took a taxi into Prussia Cove. This is the part of the trip where we rented a house in Cornwall with friends for the week. Cornwall is the southwestern most tip of England, and it's all farmland and beaches and small little villages. The house we stayed in was pretty much a 5 minute walk from the sea.

This was our house for the week in Porth en Alls in Prussia Cove.

Marci painted this while working for the show in Leeds. It's just down the road from our house.

During low tide we went down to the beach to collect drift wood for the fire.

Our house was next to this little bakery that made the best of everything. We had croissants with homemade strawberry jam every morning.

The Falmouth Packet Inn.

We took the Double Decker bus to Tesco to buy groceries for Thanksgiving. On the way back our bus stopped off at a school and we rode with it as it dropped off school children. It was pretty rad.

Risotto night.

We spent most of our time drawing and working on small projects. And staying warm.

How an Irishman eats his egg.

Thanksgiving with friends.

We are the Americans.

Starting the fire place.

Simon's drawing of our living room.

Hike to Praa Sands. It was wet and daunting.

Praa Sands is a surf spot. "Some of the best surfing in the world is in Cornwall", said the dude in Falmouth.

Day trip to St. Ives. It was very Studio Ghibli-esque: scenic cove, clear bluish-green water, dramatic wind and waves, and a small village huddled along the coast.

Killer wind.

The view from the Tate in St. Ives. They had an awesome show, and very nice cafe and book store.

Low tide in St. Ives.

Sky Bros.

More epic walks and shit.

Lady Times. I wore my headphones and drew in the corner while they watched the new Jane Eyre on my laptop.

Night Fire. Walking in the dark to the Falmouth Packet Inn. You can see all the stars.

Day trip to Marazion.

St. Michael's Mount an island you can walk to during low tide.

We collected a bunch of rocks and shells on the way there.

Cornwall is pretty crazy cause of all the sub-tropical plants that got brought back from sailors and pirates.

This is in Penzance by the way.

Manny Silva

2011-12-08T07:09:00.000-08:00

My friend, Manny has a new website. You should check it out. He did some pretty sweet illustrations for the Giants.

F

2011-12-08T07:03:00.000-08:00

I restarted my A to Z project while in Cornwall. I got 3 pages done while overseas. I think I'm going to try spending the next two weeks finishing before I go back to painting.

I think I'm going to try and make a proper book out of it instead of zine. Just cause it's the longest project I got into. And the idea of stapling 8.5"x11" zines is kind of daunting.

F was only hard cause I hadn't done these in a while.

Picking Up Books (Part 2)

2011-12-08T06:46:00.000-08:00

Lewis Carrol's Hunting for the Snark, illustrated by Tove Jansson. I picked this up at the Tate in St. Ives. They also published the Alice in Wonderland illustrated by Jansson.

Miles Better by Marceline Smith is a zine about things to do in Glasgow.

Tom Cops of My Two Toms has this really nice book of photos from his travel through the Midwest. It's put out by Betty & Dupree.

Also picked up this UK edition of Moominpappa at Sea while in Falmouth.

I Drew Everything I Ate while on Vacation in the UK

2011-12-07T06:57:00.000-08:00

My girlfriend Marci got invited to do a show in Leeds, so we decided to make a month long trip out of it. I decided to draw out everything I ate to possibly put in a future travel zine.

Our first stop was Leeds. We didn't know anyone and it wasn't much of a place for travelers. We found a pretty awesome place called Box Pizza, which actually made a pretty rad Vegetarian pizza.

My favorite thing on the trip were the large juice boxes that were totally okay for adults to be walking down the street drinking.

Funny things:

-They call eggplants, aubergine. Daikon is called Mooli.
-There are no turkey sandwiches. Only Chicken. Sometimes with Chorizo(?).
-British Bacon is better than American Bacon.
-If you order lemonade in a bar it's just lemon syrup with carbonated water. American Lemonade is referred to as "Cloudy" Lemonade.
-Uh, milkshakes aren't really milkshakes. They're more like blended milk with flavoring and some ice cream.
-My favorite chips (crisps) were Walker Ready Salted. I wondered why it was called "Ready Salted", but then I got different pack of crisps where it came with a little salt packet. Unsalted potato chips are hella weird.
-Also most things that they have that we have in the US are made in the UK, so everything is slightly different. They don't use high fructose corn syrup, so all their Coke is like Mexican or Passover Coke. Same thing with their condiments. In the states if you didn't want corn syrup or artificial flavoring in your ketchup they'd just charge you a dollar more and call it "organic". I don't know. It was interesting to me.

From Leeds we went to Haworth which is where the Bronte Sisters are from. I still tried to limit my meat consumption but then I ordered a Kipper Breakfast for my first meal of the day. I thought I was going to get a Full English Breakfast but with Kippers, but instead I got Kippers and Toast. And that was it.

In Edinburgh we got a burger at the Cambridge Bar. It's where I discovered that Scotch in Scotland is just called whiskey and that it's pretty cheap when you get it in Scotland. Also that our waiter's favorite beers were Corona and Modelo.

We went to Wagamama which is a chain. In Japanese the word means "selfish". Earlier that day I had Veggie chili with nachos. Uh, both those meals made me miss home. But only while I was eating my meal.

We had a kitchen at the place where we were staying at so we went grocery shopping. This is the part where we get our minds blown 'cause they store their eggs out in the open next to cereal, which actually makes a lot of sense. Also when you boil them the shells come off without any effort.

The last place in Edinburgh we ate at was The Mermaid, which we heard about through Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. It was a Fish and Chips shop. Uh, They're known for their king rib which is just various pork meat pushed together to look like a rack of ribs and then deep fried. Also everything has "Chinese Flavoring" on it, which is basically MSG.

In Glasgow probably the best meal of the trip was one I didn't have and so I didn't get to draw. Marci went to Cafe Gandolfi, which made really good traditional style Scottish food. I just wanted to stay at the hotel and draw. Asia Style in Glasgow makes a pretty rad Malaysian style friend rice, and Mono is a good destination to stop off in if you want to eat, drink and look at records.

From Glasgow we went to Oban where we got a pretty amazing meal of Smoke Haddock and a Poached Egg on Mash. We went to the Oban distillery where we picked up a bottle of Cao Ila and an 18 yr old Oban. The Oban was ef'in amazing.

In Bristol we stayed with friends where for the first time we had Thali, Cottage Pie, and a Sunday Roast. Not all in the same day.

We took a day trip into Wells, where we had our first pasty, which are pretty much Empanadas, but with more boring stuff in them. Uh, they were a little too heavy and I never got into them but Marci did.

In Cornwall we rented a seaside house with friends. We made chicken for Thanksgiving, and learned how to make Risotto. We mostly just stayed in and cooked, but would walk the mile to the main road to eat at the Falmouth Packet Inn. They had the best Fish and Chips on the trip. And we did take day trips out to see St. Ives, Marazion, Praa Sand, and Penzance.

Falmouth, Cornwall

2011-11-22T15:22:00.000-08:00

From Bristol we took a 4 hour train to Falmouth to visit Camilla. We dropped off our bags at her work and wandered around a bit.

Cornwall has a bunch of surf shops. Like a lot.

It was pretty cold.

In the Cornwall section of their library.

Also in their library.

We went into this bar where the bartender told us that Cornwall is one of the best surf spots in the world. It's kind of hard to believe that.

In Penryn the next day. The local fire department.

Penryn Bowling Club.

Marci's face when she sees a cute animal.

Marci and Camilla.

I got this pen at the University College Falmouth art store. It's pretty much a Hi-Tec C but they call it something totally different.

Also, this is good, but it's doesn't help you digest nothing.

Bristol, Bath, and Wells

2011-11-22T14:15:00.000-08:00

We took the train from Oban to Bristol. It took 11.5 hours, and considering it took us 12 hours to get here from San Francisco, well, that was a long train ride. We kind of just backtracked our entire trip from Oban to Glasgow, to Edinburgh, and the train from Edinburgh to Bristol went through Leeds.

In Bristol we stayed with our friends Jane and Al. They live in a funny neighborhood a mile from the station called "Totterdown".

When we got there we shared drinks. Al brought out this vodka his dad got from Mongolia.
Chinggis Khaan is what the the Mongols call Genghis Khan.

There were a lot of funny cats in Jane's neighborhood.

Marci's new favorite snack, Piccalilli and aged cheese on an oak cake.

Jane took us to Arnos Vale Cemetery. It was rad and overgrown.

We went to a bunch of galleries and museums, but this is one of the few photos we took.

Bath, Somerset

We took a day trip to Bath, to see the Roman Baths there. It's like a 10 minute train ride from Bristol.

Roman curses they would throw into the water to give to Minerva.

Cathedral

I got a cold from Marci so I was kind of loopy from the medicine I just took.

This is the Royal Crescent. We took a photo of the Circus, but yeah. they're kind of hard to photograph, and they're kind of boring. There was also an Occupy Bath in the park. For the most part Bath was like a giant shopping mall and kind of boring.

We had dinner at King William's, which was pretty rad. We got there really early and had to wait till dinner time. Totally worth it.

Bath at Night.

Back in Bristol:

Little Dude.

Jane took us to the local park.

We saw deer there.

View of Bristol

Wells, Somerset

While in Oban we were watching an Antiques Road Show like show and they were in Wells showing how great it is. It's a pretty small village. Hot Fuzz was shot in it, and it has the oldest street in Europe, as well as the most beautiful cathedral I've seen yet.

We made it into a day trip with friends from Bristol.

Marci and her first pasty.

Wells Cathedral

Radiator Cat

Entrance to some pretty rad gardens. I think this is the grounds of the Bishop's Palace. Outside they had free samples of cider, which I spat out cause it was alcoholic and kind of nasty.

Yeah, fucking swans and shit.

Strange birds.

This is a giant well, which is where Wells gets it's name. The streets have little gullies to offset all the water coming out of the wells. It was crystal clear and super beautiful.

Oldest street in Europe.

Little door.

When we got back, Al was finishing up a Sunday Roast.

It was pretty amazing.

Oban, Scotland

2011-11-14T12:10:00.000-08:00

Oban is a small town on the west coast of Scotland. It's a 3.5 hour train ride from Glasgow. It has the Oban Whiskey Distillery.

My favorite part of traveling is picking something to eat on the train. After great hesitation we decided to try the prawn cocktail sandwich (also known as prawn mayonaise). It not as scary as we thought and kind of boring. My back up sandwich was Chicken and chorizo.

Marci working on her quilt.

The view from the train. Yeah, it's a fucking castle.

Our hotel is just across the street from the train station.

The ruins of Dunollie Castle castle.

McCaig's Tower

Oban Distillery. We took a tour here. It was rad, but you can't take any photos.

Our hotel room. We have stayed in every kind of accommodation on this trip, and this is by the far the fanciest. We went from hotel/apartment with a kitchen in Leeds, to a nice Bed & Breakfast in Haworth, to a Student Hostel in Edinburgh, to a Baptist Christian Guest House (where we slept in a Church pretty much) in Glasgow, to this: seaside fancy hotel with a view that's not either an abandoned lot or an empty office building.

Instead we get fucking swans and shit.

We took a ferry and back to the island of Mull. It was off season so there wasn't any reason to get off the boat- everything's closed.

After Pirates of the Caribbean all boat rides are pretty anti-climatic for me.

It's that castle again.

Castle on the island of Mull. I would look up how to spell it but it's closed till April.

On the return trip the boat picked up some Americans and one of them decided to sing "Amazing Grace". Yeah, WTF.

We went to a big Tescos around the corner and got more of these. All their fruit is from Europe and South Africa. Marci picked up a giant Clementine from Spain. They have Valencia oranges from Valencia, Spain. The patented Valencia orange is actually a hybridization of other oranges, so I didn't know what kind of orange it was.

Walking up to McCaig's Tower.

Glasgow, Scotland

2011-11-13T12:07:00.000-08:00

We made our way into Glasgow on Wednesday the 9th. We checked into our hotel and yeah, they had no wifi. Well, they did, but they wouldn't give us the password. We were staying at the guest house of a Baptist Church, where there were only 8 rooms, and only 2 occupied while we were there. We had to use their funny British laptop. The hotel also didn't have a map so we had to rip one out of our guide book.

For the most part our trip to Glasgow was really disorganized. We didn't actually plan anything out until we got to each town, and it worked so far, but yeah. Glasgow was a little different. Also there weren't any places with free wifi, anywhere. No Cafes and yeah. It actually was the first time I got home sick cause there wasn't a real internet connection. It's actually pretty comforting looking at a Facebook feed of all your friends back home. I was up at 3 in the morning cause of jet lag during Halloween and it was nice seeing what everyone was up to.

So yeah. I did know about this place, which is the Glasgow Botanic Gardens. I chose to go to this one rather than the one in Edinburgh cause I read this one had a better glasshouse. Also I saw an old postcard of this so I really wanted to go see it.

We ate our sandwiches outside before we realized we could have eaten them in the glass house, out of the rain. I picked up this Bundaberg Root Beer cause I had never seen it before. Bundaberg is one of my favorite ginger beers and I think it's the first root beer I saw on this trip. Uh, Bundaberg should stick to ginger beers.

What?!

Marci liked this one a lot.

I took a bunch of photos but mostly for references. They had a killer plant section and a Southwest section that kind of made me miss home. There were a bunch of weeds we'd kill at home, but there was also a lot of amazing stuff from South America and Africa.

On our walk to another museum.

This is the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. This is the craziest museum ever- almost as strange as The Museum of Jurassic Technology. It's as if they just took a bunch of stuff and shoved it into a museum.

Here's a room full of animals with a Spitfire zooming in. From upstairs you can see the Spitfire, some birds, some paintings and a sculpture. Just saying, it was a little strange.

Here's an alternate mask from the movie Willow (?!), next to a human skull.

The UK has a lot of medieval weapons. Marci was really into them.

The next day we met up with Marceline who was super kind to show us around a little. She made Glasgow seem way more inviting.

Here's a view of the city.

Glasgow has a mini-subway that goes around in a circle. There's two lines, an inner and outer circle.

The mini subway comes with a mini-train.

Bagpipe school.

We went to this used book store where we found this amazing 5 volume picture encyclopedia for just £5.

We had to give up on keeping it after figuring out it would cost about $140 just to ship it home.

No Bits/ Juicy Bits.

Sexy Restaurant.

Family friendly sexy restaurant.

It's a restaurant named after one of my favorite bands when I was really young. They even used their logo.

On our last full day in Glasgow I decided to stay in the hotel to draw a little before we went to see a movie in the evening. After breakfast I walked Marci to the Glasgow Cathedral. It's the only medieval cathedral on the Scottish mainland to have survived the Reformation not unroofed. This means it's really old and kind of smells like it.

The Necropolis is right next to it.

Marci took herself out to Cafe Gandolfi, which our friend Myleen recommended. It's like traditional Scottish food done really well.

Lunch for one. Marci eats a lot.

White pudding with apple, crispy onions, and Cumberland sauce.

Arbroath smokies baked with tomatoes and cream.

Later that night we went out to see Wuthering Heights at the Glasgow Film Theatre. It's the first Wuthering Heights film that shows what the Moors are really like that I've seen.

Picking Up Books

2011-11-08T14:00:00.000-08:00

We've been picking up a few books and comics. These are the ones we got at Analogue Books in Edinburgh, which by the way is the greatest little bookstore in the world. Many of these are published by a UK publisher called No Brow, and I can't seem to find their books at home.

Marci's favorite is this Lizzy Stewart zine titled "Paintings That I Did Not Paint".

My favorite is Micah Lidberg's "Rise and Fall", which is pretty amazing.

Other books:

Marci bought another copy of Bleak House cause the cover was illustrated by Hello Von. She has two copies already, including one I bought for her that's illustrated by Edward Gorey.

Marci picked this up at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth. It's one of Charlotte Brontë's earlier books that she wrote like in her early teens.

Ian Bank is another one of Marci's favorite writers. She says it's a little hard to find his books back home. She got this book at a used book store in Haworth.

Edinburgh, Scotland

2011-11-08T12:25:00.000-08:00

After Haworth, our next destination was Edinburgh. We took a cab ride to Keighley and got on a Northern Rail train. There was one automated machine available and it was busted so Marci had to go and talk to the dude at the ticket office who had no idea what Marci was say and Marci had no idea what he was saying but they got it all figured out in the end.

On the train Marci worked on a quilt while I listened to one of my audio books. I was tempted to pick up a magazine on Darts!, but instead I listened to "Citizens of London" by Lynne Olson.

This is our view from the train.

Our stopover was in Carlise. We hung out in a waiting room with placards of historical events that happened at the station.

We got off the train and it was already getting dark (sundown's at 4:15 or so), so we made our way to our hotel and then went to the Cambridge Bar which our friend says serves the best burgers. I got a whiskey from Oban (cause we'll eventually be there) and Marci got a beer called the Hibernator. Our waiter was pretty excited we were Americans cause he had just recently visited LA. He favorite beers were Carona and Modela, and he enjoyed In-N-Out. I kind of regretted not telling him about asking for "animal style", but yeah. It was rad. Also Scotch here is just whiskey, and it's hella cheap.

The place we're staying at has a communal kitchen and so we went to a grocery store and got some stuff for breakfast. Strangest thing: Eggs aren't refrigerated in the stores here. Which totally makes sense, but then we got back in and put them in a refrigerator.

After a huge debate we settled on Alpen cereal over another cause it had slightly more fiber than the other. It's pretty amazing and we're now contemplating sending boxes home. My favorite nut is hazelnut and it's like in everything here, which is the opposite of home. Cause it isn't in anything.

Also, Myleen, you were right. Walkers are pretty awesome.

Edinburgh is pretty amazing.

Our first stop was the National Museum of Scotland. This is a replica of Mary I of Scotland's tomb.

The real Edinburgh Castle. We ended up here a little later in the day. Edinburgh is way more walkable than Leeds.

Another view from the terrance of the National Museum of Scotland.

On Level -1 of the National Museum of Scotland. We actually took a lot of photos from this museum cause it was huge.

We made our way to the Elephant House which is where J.K. Rowling wrote the early Harry Potter books. They said she her inspiration for Hogwarts came from the places view of Edinburgh Castle. But yeah, there isn't a place in Edinburgh where you can't see the castle. I got a veggie chili and they put it over really bland nacho chips.

Greyfriars Cemetery is where a lot of famous Scots are buried. A lot of famouse Scots we don't know about. But the places is pretty rad.

No idea what this place is.

And we vaguely know this is some sort of memorial.

The next day we decided to take as many closes (alleys) as we could. They actually take you into small squares and plazas within the blocks. Edinburgh is a little confusing to get around cause so many streets don't actually intersect, they just go over each other.

Tron Square.

I know it's a small photo, but here you can see another street on top.

We walked up to Calton Hill to see the view.

There's an unfinished monument that was for Scotish soldiers lost during the Napoleonic Wars. It was modeled after the Parthenon in Athens. According to Wikipedia it's referred to as "Scotland's Disgrace" because it was never completed but it was actually one of the best finds of the trip so far.

Another highlight was trying the Haddock & Chips at The Mermaid, which was just a mile up the road from where we were staying. We also split a King Rib, which is just pork meat sculpted in the shape of a mini-rack or ribs then deep fried. It was pretty good but it was a little too much and we didn't eat it all. We tried Irn Bru again, and it was still a no go.

I'm trying to cut down on meat, but then we had to visit the UK so there's no way around it. I've been trying to just eat fish, but yeah.

Next stop: Glasgow.

Haworth, Yorkshire

2011-11-05T23:20:00.000-07:00

Haworth is the next stop on our trip. It's a little village west of Leeds. You have to take a short train, and then either a bus or a small local steam train. Since we got in on the weekend we had to take the 664 bus in. Which was pretty cute cause it was like old lady bus.

Haworth is where the Brontë family resided. They made a museum of their house which is right next to the church. Our hotel room is just a quarter of a mile from their house. You can't take pictures inside, and I didn't go but Marci did. I just listened to my audio book outside.

Haworth has a lot of cats. I think this dude was a Maine Coon. We saw him as we were taking a pedestrian path behind the Museum. He came down to say hello.

Check out the moss.

This little dude came down from the Moors to say hello. His name is Sparky.

They had to make some of the signs out in Japanese cause Haworth is really popular with the Japanese.

We also met this little dude. There were actually a lot of sociable cats around the neighborhood.

We checked into our hotel room around 4 or 5 and then pretty much just crashed. Marci woke up to some fireworks. The next day was Bonfire Night (Guy Fawkes). So from our window we saw the local bonfire and a massive amount of fireworks. We could have left our hotel for the bonfire cause it was just 2 blocks away but we had just finished the 9 mile Brontë foot path.

Here's a photo of Marci's Full Yorkshire breakfast. It has black pudding, and that's a smoked bacon. Uh, I had the vegetarian breakfast.

Then we set out on the Moors.

Brontë Falls.

Top Withins.

So many sheep.

The Church in the Village.

Leeds, West Yorkshire

2011-11-03T18:38:00.000-07:00

I have a little downtime so I thought I'd blog up our trip so far.

We got into Leeds and checked into our hotel room, which is actually a neat little studio apartment with a kitchen. There's even a machine that does both washing and drying of clothes (only really slowly). The microwave also has a "oven function" where you can warm things up with tin foil (yeah, it seems kind of dangerous). This is the only sign posted in the room.

While making our way up to the Leeds College of Art we noticed some pretty awesome graffiti.

Here's a photo of a trash can and it's emblem. It's two owls and I think a dead ram.

Irn Bru, is Scotland's most popular non-alcoholic drink, and Scotland is probably the only place in the world another soft drink outsells Coca-Cola. One of the kids at the pizza place we frequented informed us it's actually called "Iron Brew". It's pretty gross.

Leeds Civic Hall.

That day Marci had to do some minor prep work. 2 students signed up to install the show. They were pretty awesome and did a sweet job.

This is the Thackray Museum. It's a medical museum.

The first exhibit you see is Life in Victorian Leeds, where you follow four characters and their medical mishaps through a series of diagrams. In the exhibition space they also pump in a really gross smell, so we kind of just ran through it.

Other things they have is a skeleton of a witch and this somewhat disturbing video of a dude amputating someone's leg in like 30 seconds.

Royal Armouries Museum is a museum full of weapons. Like 4 stories of weapons. It was a lot to take in and I fell asleep during the hunting film.

On our way to the Abbey.

You learn something new every day.

The ruins Kirkstall Abbey.

yes, yes.

Marci's show.

Lately

2011-10-28T10:26:00.000-07:00

We're getting ready to leave for the UK cause Marci has a solo show at the Leeds College of Art.

I had to buy a bunch of stuff for this trip. One of them being this 220v adapter for my Macbook's electric outlet. It only cost 49c, but it looks hella weird. I had to get a bunch of other random adapters, cause the voltage there is twice as powerful as it is in the States, and their ends looks like this.

I also had to buy a pencil case and a backpack. It's weird the things I don't own. Uh, it took a while to find a pencil case cause I didn't know where to look. I just assumed they would be at an art supply store and they're totally not. Not unless you want to have one that's like leather bound and stores 48 to 144 pens and pencils. Uh, I found this in the Kunikuniya stationary store, so I can carry my 4 pens and two pencils. It was the least feminine while also the least leathery of the choices presented to me.

Other things:

I made a painting of the inside of my brain. Originally I drew out the brain like a real brain, but I kind of like the blobs more. I agreed to try and make 1000 5"x5" for a show for 2012, and yeah, considering the most I ever made in a year is like 300, the, "Oh, shit" phase of whatever I just said yes to has just kicked in. So I figure I should just make a painting of whatever random thing that comes up. I have this, and 46 others, so I'm 4.7% from my goal.

Our neighbor bought a bird seed box, but then the squirrels got into it, so he started just throwing all the seeds on the ground. But then the skunks came. And so did the raccoons. It's like critter kingdom in my backyard.

This is a photo Marci took of a skunk going for it straight from the bag. He was digging in when Marci needed to get her laundry out.

Lately I've been taking alternative routes as I'm walking home and staying away from the main roads. I found this weird house with a window in it's chimney.

Other buildings I've been noticing are the really old Berkeley buildings that are like 1/2 the size of a real home. They look like cottages from Willow, cause they're made of stone, and they have weird circular walls. Also since they're half the size of the other homes around them they have like a lot of green space around them.

I also sketched Marci's brain for her. I drew out all the stuff she ever talks to me about. Mysterious Universe is a podcast that she's pretty obsessed about. I probably need a bigger space for metal.

This photo was taken recently but when we had our 2nd of 3 earthquakes in the past week this is where my cat dove in to hide. It's Marci's big box of stuffed animals.

Drawings for Domy Books

2011-10-11T23:53:00.000-07:00

This is the third year in a row I've been asked to contribute work to Domy Books' Annual Monster Show. It's one of the few themed shows I actually like making work for, cause A) they ask for only work on paper and B) it isn't the most rigid theme to stick to. The first part is pretty awesome, cause, well, it only cost about $3 to ship drawings to Texas, and I also don't get to make drawings all that often. At least not as finished artwork. Just for zines and illustrations.

The first drawing is a remake of a painting I just finished for that group show at Flat Color. I fixed the proportions to the guard on the sword. When I'm done with everything I'm probably going to try and make my way over to a botanical garden cause right now I only have like 10 different types of plants that I know how to draw. There's one really close in Berkeley, and another in Golden Gate Park my friend takes watercolor classes in that she says is pretty rad.

Most of the plants I referenced comes from The Besler Florilegium, which is a book Marci used to reference a lot when she painted plants like 7 years ago. It helps, but I had to make up some stuff cause the depictions are painted not drawn.

The second is a remake of the drummer cat. I was drawing this out at a cafe when my friend, Teppei was like, "Hey, didn't you already make something like this drawing?", and I was like "...".

Cause yeah, How many ideas can a person have? Not many if that person is me.

I don't know how I feel about this drawing. I kind of wish I had put something in front of his first foot cause he doesn't look like he sinks in to much. But yeah. Can't fix that now.

My favorite part of drawing is randomly adding little things like crushed beer cans and lost lighters. With painting I sort of have to plan everything out in advance. The beer can logo I referenced is Löwenbräu, which is pretty decent, but I can't drink it any more (cause of a wheat allergy). They also make Beck's, which I never liked.

These two drawings took 4 days to finish. A day to pencil and a day to ink. I don't know how using a pen fucks up my hand after 4 hours but painting with a brush for 10 hours doesn't. I'm kind of impatient so in my younger days I would just ink something in till it was done, but now I don't, cause I don't like walking around with a crippled claw. Sometimes I'd would just draw until I was forced to use my left hand to use a spoon to eat.

True Story: When I was a teenager I had a sketchbook for just my left hand in case I lost my right hand in some horrible accident. At the time it seemed like a good idea. I think I saw a That's Incredible episode of some dude drawing with his feet after his arms got amputated.

While working on these I watched a few episodes of Dr Who, a few PBS documentaries, and the new Ken Burn's documentary on Prohibition.

Last night I watched a pretty good PBS documentary on the War of 1812. I've seen a few documentaries on that war and I think this particular one is the most insightful cause they give perspectives from the view point of the British, Canadians and Natives as well just American historians. You can watch that here.

Oh, the Monster show is in two cities, and one each of my drawings is going to Austin and Houston. They open on the same night which is the 29th of October. The list of artists in it is mega big.

These paintings are going to Flatcolor in Seattle.

2011-10-01T01:18:00.000-07:00

I made 9 5"x5" paintings for a show in Seattle at Flatcolor. The show is called Nature of the Beast, and the theme is suppose to be like dark arts or something.

The first 8 were pretty easy, and the last one which is the one in the upper right hand corner was kind of the hardest to finish. I started on 3 other panels, and finished two of them but they didn't fit with the others so well. I also drew out two other paintings that were 8"x10" each, but I'm kind of pressed for time with other stuff so I couldn't finish them.

Out of the 21 other people in this show I only know two people, one of them being Chris Sheridan, who I used to work with like 8 years ago. He's a rad dude, who makes rad art.

Flying Over the Earth

2011-09-29T14:52:00.000-07:00

Linoleum Printing

2011-09-22T00:45:00.000-07:00

For some strange reason I woke up on Monday and decided I was going to make a linoleum print. Never mind that I still have a deadline to complete in like 7 days.

I didn't think it was going to take that long to carve a 5"x7" block, but it took me from Monday evening to Wednesday afternoon. I had to youtube videos cause I haven't carved into linoleum since I was like 20, when I took a class on bookmaking in college. By the way, if you ever want to take a class involving a lot of angry women talking about their feelings, you should take either bookmaking or paper making.

I never really liked linoleum or wood cutting, cause it was kind of tedious, and i have a tendency of cutting myself with sharp objects. Which is why this took me three days to carve, cause I went to sleep instead of just working until I was done. Actually I could have finished it earlier but on Tuesday my mind was engrossed while watching a Michael Palin 19th century romance drama and then I spent the rest of evening looking up articles on how much people walk a day.

The thing I never got as 20 year old was that a linoleum print should look like a linoleum print. I just remember not getting over the fact that my lines couldn't be as thin as I would like them to be, and all the weird stuff you can't control. It's way easier just letting things go.

I was going to carve up a couple of knives but decided to do this image instead cause yeah, uh, I also might just carve up one block.

When I finished carving my block, I then had to go out and walk the mile and a half to Dick Blick to buy the supplies to print it. I probably should have bought those supplies the first time I was at the art store on Monday, but yeah. There's always the possibility that I don't finish carving anything.

To buy all this stuff was like $35, including the block, the tools, the weird Japanese burnishing pad, the ink and the brayer. I just used random paper I had around. i printed on the block instead of the sheet of linoleum, mostly cause I think things look cooler on it.

Yep. Pretty anti-climatic.

John Casey/Deth P Sun

2011-09-12T10:36:00.000-07:00

I did a collaboration drawing with John Casey. It took me a month and half to sit down and draw 1 hour of drawing. It wasn't the most creative collaborative drawing on my part. I just drew what I normally drew, which I think John Casey already does, which is draw plants shooting out of pants.

This is for a show he's having in October at Swarm in Oakland. Other collaborators include: Derek Weisberg, Teppei Ando, Jon Carling, Ryan De La Hoz, Adam5100, Narangkar Glover, Michael Mellon, Crystal Morey, and Pete Glover. More info can be found here.

What I did with my Summer in Pie Chart Form

2011-09-09T02:20:00.000-07:00

Evah is making a summer pie chart zine of what people did this summer.

I used an online program called Daytum to help figure stuff out. I just took all the days in June, July and August, and designated each day to where I was at. Nothing too special. All that time in Berkeley is me working, but I also didn't include day trips.

Here's Evah's Pie Chart:

Visualising your days in Pie Charts makes you realise how little time you really have to get stuff done.

LA Trip/Other Stuff

2011-09-08T00:42:00.000-07:00

Our Trip to LA was pretty awesome.

I didn't take very many pictures cause our camera finally died. It was a Canon Elph, which is pretty cheap, but it shoots pretty good photos. We only got it in May, so it was still under warranty, but yeah. Marci dropped it like a half a dozen times. It's hella dented. I think a lot on concrete, once on the car, and once on a pile of rocks. I bought a new one and told her she couldn't touch it, and then I went out and bought a case for it.

But yeah. Here are the last photos from that camera.

Here's a photo of Marci being awesome and installing all of my work. And yeah, she really did install all my work. I was just a little too tired, and I didn't want to mess with Marci's system. She basically measured out the large wall, measured out the length of all the paintings, and then divided all the extra space so that between the paintings there would be equal spacing, which was 10 inches. Uh, if I was just installing stuff on my own, I wouldn't be so exact.

That night we met up with Ryan and Christen at some bar in Little Tokyo.

The next day we met up with friends and ate at the Nickel Diner. We shared this, which is a red velvet donut. Pretty amazing. And super rich.

We had to kill time and walked through the Toy District and into the Fashion District of Downtown LA. We tried conning Conor into buying a rug that was like $25, but he wasn't going for it.

Instead they got these shades.

This is the part where my camera dies, so the rest of the weekend entailed: one opening, pre-made sushi from Nijiya market, seeing Jonah's sludge metal band play in a bookstore, then meeting up with friends in a bar and having a late nighter at the House of Pies (which totally sucked/the food, not the company).

The next day we went with friends to San Pedro where we hung out on a beach that felt like we were on our way to Mordor. We climbed over jagged rocks, pass rotting dead seals where there was barely any sand and a lot of seaweed covered in flies. In order to get to the water you had to walk around walls of flies. Oh, and the water was ice cold. I hate the beach.

We went and got noodles, and later that evening we met up at Cosmos for karaoke. Later that night we went to TACOZONE. TACOZONE is so rad that the other taco trucks hired the Mexican Mafia to firebomb it. That's the rumor I made up. They actually got firebombed cause they didn't pay protection money.

And yeah. Our rental car was a Chevy Cruze. It sucked, but not as much as a Ford Focus. Oh, and our hotel was above a Subway, so it smelled like Subway bread. It also had a quarter operated safe in it.

When I got back I had to start working on the SF Zine Fest and kind of recover from having two solo shows in three months. When I have solo shows I kind of have to forget about everything else and just focus on finishing the show. So now I have all this stuff I have to get to work on, but most of it's like little things, mostly commissions and stuff for random group shows.

Photo from the SF Zine Fest (courtesy of Alex Chiu).

I started a Runkeeper account so I can keep track of how far I walk each day. When I return home from a walk I plot out where I've been. I used to think I walked a lot, but I only leave the house to pretty much just walk to the grocery store, the post office and the library, and that's all a mile and a half to do all of that. So leaving the house 4 days out of the week is like 6 miles. So for the past week I've been plotting out really long walks and taking the long way to get to things.

My favorite long walk is walking to the Post Office on Shattuck, then up Shattuck and into the hills, and then down Hopkins to Monterey Market, and then back home. It's about 3.4 miles. I found Live Oaks park, and that was pretty awesome. Berkeley's way more prettier than I already thought it was and there's a lot of pedestrian pathways to take through the hills.

My next long walk will take me to Lake Anza. Our house is only 3.1 miles from there.

Another thing since I've returned from LA is that I'm trying to eat less beef, pork and chicken. Instead I've been eating some sea food and going mostly vegetarian. My favorite find is these clam cakes you can get for $2.50 at Andronico's (they were on sale at the one near our house for $1.89). I ate one cold while walking down Telegraph and apparently that's not cool.

Marci's been pretty cool about it. I think mostly cause I'm taking long walks and have been bring back all the groceries. We made pasta with shrimp and it was pretty awesome, and Monterey Market is like mini-Berkeley bowl, which means it's produce is pretty amazing and super affordable.

If you're wondering why the change, uh, I don't know. I just felt like it.

Well, actually a little bit is because of the food journal (which by the way was my most popular zine at the Zine Fest). People were kind of appalled at how bad I ate, and the zine eliminates the first few weeks where most of what I ate was bread, water and cereal.

The walking part is mostly cause I'm at home all the time and I think I feel like I get shut in a lot. It's pretty rad plotting out new walking routes, which is what I used to do when I first moved to San Francisco and didn't know anyone.

Other things:
1. ENGLAND & SCOTLAND. We bought tickets for England and Scotland. I forget the itinerary, but Marci has a show at the Leeds College of Arts. That's in like Northern England, we'll be there, then to the Moors, then to Glasgow, and maybe Edinburgh, then to Bristol, and then to Corwall, where we'll be renting a house with friends for Thanksgiving.

Am I stoked? Uh, kind of. It's for like 4 weeks, I am looking forward to seeing old friends in Bristol and yeah. It's kind of a girl vacation, stuff like visiting houses of famous literary folks, and yeah. A swamp. Most of the trip we'll just be on our own, and yeah. The last time we were there the thing that stuck with me the most was how drunk everyone was. And the vomit. Pregnant ladies wearing minis and tube tops. Uh, really bad tattoos. But yeah. There were some good things. They had so much culture. They ate food with utensils.

I was talking to a friend about it and he said the Illusionist was set in Edinburgh, and he imagined it would be like that. I told him it'd probably be more like Trainspotting, which is also set in Edinburgh.

My ideal vacation would be somewhere where they don't speak English. Except for Asia. Or Texas in either 1979, or 1997.

Earlier in the year I got offered a show in Mexico City, but I read in Marci's eyes the words "Fuck, No", cause the last two times she went to Mexico she ended up in the hospital both times.

2. POV on PBS. POV is a program on PBS that highlights documentaries. Here's a list of some favorites from that series:
a. My Perestroika - Documentary on the last generation raised under Soviet rule in Russia.
b. Enemies of the People - A pretty good fil m on the Khmer Rouge and the killing fields. The dude interview some of the remorseful killers and the No. 2 dude in the the Khmer Rough. Just a little background, I'm Cambodian, but my mom's ethnically Chinese. The Number 2 dude under Pol Pot surname is Chea, which is my mom's maiden name. My parents don't really talk about stuff before 1976.
c. The World's Largest Shopping Mall - The worlds largest shopping mall is in China, and it's in the middle of no where and has like 12 shops opened. It's twice as large as the 2nd largest shopping mall in the world, The Mall of America.
d. Armadillo - Danish Soldiers in Afghanistan.
e. Wo Ai Ni (I Love You) Mommy - American adopting a Chinese girl of about 8 years old. In a few months you get to see her gradually become more and more American.

3. Walking around Berkeley I'm noticing a lot of folks who drive around in minivans taking fruit from people's yards with fruit pickers. Uh, it remind me of a part in a Richard Scarry book, where a bear hears rustling noises outside his window then turns on the light to discover his neighbors, the rabbits in his vegetable garden stealing all his cabbages. So yeah, the Chinese are like rabbits, they don't say anything and go through all your vegetables in the middle of the night.

4. Burning Man was last weekend, which is why it was pretty easy to navigate around the City for Zine Fest.

5. Reading: Attila by John Man. Finished this tonight. It was an okay read. I like the beginning then it got kind of boring, and yeah, but that's just an opinion. Next up is Super Freakonomics. I found Cleopatra at the Library, so I might read that next.

2011-09-07T23:30:00.000-07:00

Kelly Tunstall's having a solo show at 111 Minna tomorrow. I know that's kind of late to tell people but I just found yesterday.

SF Zine Fest

2011-09-02T00:00:00.000-07:00

Uh, here's me writing about the SF Zine Fest, which is this weekend, September 3-4. It's Free to get in.

We just received the map of where we'll be at (No. LXXXI), and we're right in the middle, between the floor and the ceiling. In case you can't read the map our table is where the dolphin's nose is pointed towards.

I'll be sharing a table with Teppei Ando and Brendan Monroe.

Teppei just finished this new comic:

It's like $3, and if you buy from him now you can get him to draw you your most hated co-worker for free. If you're not in the Bay Area you can get it online here.

I don't know what Brendan's bringing. I hope he brings this zine he made while he was still in Sweden.

Do you need a map of where this thing is?

Bam!

Oh, I wasn't able to finish a new zine for it, so I'll just have three old ones. I went and re-xeroxed "Please Be Brave" and I still have "The Things I Eat", and this other random one.

Last few days of work till GR2

2011-08-23T21:18:00.000-07:00

I have a few more days until I have to go down to LA to install my solo show. I should have been posting more about what I'm up to but I've been kind of busy. So yeah, all you get is this (which actually is a lot).

Above is the largest painting I have for the show. It's the fifth incarnation of this image. The first was for a zine (5.5"x8.5"), the second and third was for a drawing for print respectively (9"x12"), and the third was an 18"x24" painting that sold in Northampton. Every time I finished a piece I felt like I could do it better. So yeah. I'm pretty certain this is the last incarnation of this image. It's 30x40, so it's 4 times bigger than the painting sold in Northampton. It also took 2 1/2 weeks to complete.

These are some more of the larger paintings I have. They're 16"x20", and I'm hoping to have at least 6 of these for the show. 4 are kind of complete, 2 have drawings on them, and right now I'm drawing on one, but I don't think I can finish it on time. I still have to apply frisket, put stars on some those, and also put medium down on all of them.

The medium just seals my painting so they get a little bit of protection. like if you get something on it, you can pretty much scratch it off. I use two different types of black. One is a liquid black that dries with a gloss (Golden Fluid Acrylics) and the other one dries matte (Lascaux Carbon black). I also use Golden's low viscosity Carbon Black, but that dries with a gloss if you add too much water. When I put a medium over everything it all just goes flat and then you can't tell the difference between the two blacks. The high viscosity is good for lines, the low viscosity is good for covering large areas (and it's cheaper to coat large areas black with it).

It takes about 4 hours to draw the plants, and about 3 hours to ink.

To break down the paintings I have for the show it's:
1 x 30x40
1 x 24x30
4 x 18x24
6 x 16x20
12 x 9x12
9 x 8x10
108 5x5
--------
141 paintings

Other things:

1. I've been using velcro to install my work since my first art show when I was 19 years old. But velcro is kind of hard to get off. A friend came over and showed me a trick she had just learned.

I never even thought it'd be that simple, but yeah, painter's tape. It totally works, and now I'm thinking of all the walls I have possibly fucked up from here to Bristol.

The only thing I worry about it this thing that says "14 day clean release". But yeah. Uh, whatever.

2. I made more beer cozies but I sent them the wrong image file. The text on the drum says "Yes" instead of "Rad". I don't even remember why I have the same drawing but with a text saying "Yes". Fuck. The only upgrade is that this thing is double-sided.

Yes, I re-draw things all the time. It's what I do. I didn't even trace this, which is totally stupid. I also used a hi-tec C for the "Yes" drawing, so the lines are thinner.

Honestly I think the only people who are into beer cozies are my friends, and yeah. I don't really sell things to friends so they haven't really made me that much money. I think I keep on making them cause my friends are really into them. But I think it just comes up cause I see them at BBQs, or at parties and they'll bust one out and it's something to talk about and then I come home and think, "Yeah, more people want beer cozies". I was also going to come up with a new design, one was just going to be a cat that said "Fuck", and the other was a cat with a beer flag. But then I never got around to doing that. Uh. I should have made it with a different color but yeah, I was seriously just trying to restock them cause I only have 10 left of the Rad ones.

Oh, I don't know if I should be telling this to people, but this image is also going to be used for a t-shirt by a company that begins with F and ends with 21. I think they come out in October.

3. People have been sending me images of this. Pretty sweet. This particular image is from Giant Robot.

4. Words With Friends. New word I like to use: "SH". You can use that then add an H for "SHH". Oh, and Words with Friends doesn't let you use the word "fucked".

5. TV. I've been watching a lot of stuff while painting. Favorites from the past week: Heavy (a show about people losing weight), Mall Cops (a show about cops in the Mall of America), Ishi, The Last Yahi (a documentary on the last member of a northern California tribe), and Double Dare ( a documentary on female stunt doubles in Hollywood).

6. In two weekends (September 3-4), I'll be working a booth at the SF Zinefest with my friends, Brendan, and Teppei, and we're probably selling some of Evah's and Marci's stuff, too. It's in Golden Gate Park near the south entrance. I had planned to finish a new zine for it, but I'm only halfway through. If we do alright, I might be able to con everyone to do APE. The last time I did it with was also with Brendan and Evah, and that was in 2006. So yeah. 5 years ago.

APE is way huger. But the SF Zinefest has been around for a while and the space they use kind of looks like the cafeteria of a junior high school, but it's in Golden Gate Park and it's actually pretty sweet.

Seibei Shirts

2011-08-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

WILDWOOD by Colin Meloy, illustrated by Carson Ellis

2011-08-12T12:54:00.000-07:00

Here's a preview for a book illustrated by Carson Ellis.

The Skooler Legacy

2011-08-05T13:07:00.000-07:00

The Skooler Legacy from B-Rilla on Vimeo.

Our friend Ferris made this short a while ago.
thewerehaus.com
ferrisplock.com

Terry Gilliam on Cut Out Animation

2011-08-05T12:53:00.000-07:00

via the SFist.

Spirit Bear

2011-08-02T22:23:00.000-07:00

The August 2011 National Geographic has a nice article on the Kermode Bear of North America.

July Kind of Sucked

2011-08-02T19:02:00.000-07:00

It's still summer and Marci has this song stuck in her head. She's been subbing at her old bar (where strangers touch her butt) and going to the water park and beach a lot.

I find it weird that in a song where they sing about bikinis continuously there isn't a single bikini in the music video. I also find it weird that this song is 19 years old, which is how old I was when I first heard it.

Uh, the past couple of weeks have been alright. I got into a slight accident and had to get stitches in my foot. It was also during my vacation and on the second day so that really sucked. Then the internet went out at the place I was staying at and I couldn't even work. I ended up hobbling around playing Golden Tee and vegging out on the sofa doped up on vicodin.

When I got back to Berkeley I had to finish up a proposal cause I'm some finalist for some thing (Sorry if that's super vague, but sadly, I'm kind of superstitious). I already had the meeting pushed back cause of our vacation, but I had to push it a little further back cause I still couldn't really walk around. Also the vicodin just sort of knocked me out.

But yeah. I think everything is still okay. I still have to draw out my final proposal, and I have about 8 days to turn that in. Uh, I also still have a solo show that I should be working on but, yeah. I haven't gotten to that, either.

Other things:

1. Marci's sister bought her this 50 lb salt lamp. Uh, it's suppose to release negative ions and stuff. I don't know what that means.

2. I was on vicodin for a week and I seem to have misplaced a lot of things, and the most important seems to be my Cal State ID. I found out when I had to go to a bunch of bars this past weekend for a friend's going away party/drinking tour, and I totally got denied at the last stop. I think I have to go out and get another one.

Uh, I was without a Cal State ID for about 3 years cause I just never went to bars, or bought alcohol. Well, I actually just used my Passport, so yeah, if I really wanted to drink I had that. Although I couldn't at major grocery stores cause they have to slide your card through a scanner.

3. My x-ray bill was $35. It felt like I had won the lottery when I opened up that letter.

4. Movies on Netflix Instant Watch I'll like to recommend: "Walk, Don't Run". It Cary Grant's last film role, and it's him in Japan during the 1966 Olympics. The other one is a Korean action/revenge flick called "The Man from Nowhere".

If you're looking for a television series, I suggest you watch the one hosted by Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame), there's a pretty awesome one of the Secret History of Sex, and another on Ancient Inventions.

5. New Gorey Books:

"Sisters of Sorcery" by Seon Manley and Gogo Lewis. Edward Gorey did the cover. This is a series from the 70s, and we have four of them so far.

"The Web and the Rock" by Thomas Wolfe. The cover was illustrated by Edward Gorey before he went on to work for Doubleday Anchor.

A few months ago I was showing someone around Berkeley and we went into Shakespeare Books and I was showing him how to find Gorey paperbacks and he pointed this out particular book out and said it look like a Gorey book, and I sort of blew him off, and was like "no".

But then I went home and looked it up and yeah. Uh, It's a very old Gorey cover. I don't know when it's from cause the latest date I found in it was 1938, and Gorey was still serving in the Army. But yeah, uh, good eye, Nigel.

It took three months but i finally went down to Telegraph and picked it up.

2011-07-12T23:06:00.000-07:00

Pancakes

2011-07-10T12:44:00.000-07:00

I got an illustration job for a pancake festival in LA. I think they liked my food journal and that's why I got it. They'll be in the LA Weekly.

Drawing pancakes.

The extent of my research for this was looking up on Wikipedia for pancakes, and then google image searching what I found. Most of the restaurants were listed and there's a lot of food bloggers in LA. I didn't draw crepes, which I guess some people will say is a certain type of pancake. But yeah, to me a crepe is just a crepe. But maybe it's just cause I have always defined a pancake to just be flap jacks or hot cakes.

Okonomiyaki was also listed as part of the "pancake family". But then most people would describe it as like, uh, "Japanese Pizza", so uh, does that make pizza a pancake?*

In the end, who fucking cares?

The pancake my mom used to make is called Banh Chiao, which is made throughout Southeast Asia (the Vietnamese call it Bánh xèo). When I was a kid I always felt it was like eating a Cambodian taco, cause it's in a yellow shell, and there's ground beef, vegetables, and then some hot sauce. It was like a giant taco that wasn't crispy and instead of shredded cheese you got bean sprouts. Honestly, there's a reason why it hasn't caught on in the US, and it's cause it's no taco.

*No.

Jacques Tati's Trafic

2011-06-27T14:12:00.000-07:00

I watched Trafic for the first time ever a few weeks ago. Not as epic as Playtime, but I think I enjoyed it more. For one thing, I kind of fell asleep to Playtime. Another is there's a pretty good car crash scene (that you can youtube pretty easily), and there are other scenes that are just totally random.

Tati only made like 6 feature films, but Playtime is like his masterpiece. It took 4 years to make, has no plot, was a complete commercial failure and, uh, forced him to file for bankruptcy.

Reading Lately

2011-06-24T12:41:00.000-07:00

The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson. She also does a few illustrations inside.

Cigars of the Pharaoh by Hergé. I tried out a few Tintin books. I don't know if I exactly like it, but the drawings in some of them are pretty amazing. My two favorites are Cigars of the Pharaoh, which was the first one I found and I think is the first one, and Flight 714, which was made a few decades afterward.

Cigar of the Pharaoh is pretty Indian Jones-esque, only 50 years ahead.

I would really like to like Tintin, but yeah. They're making a movie with a combination of like three stories. I think two or all of the stories are from the ones drawn & written during the Nazi occupation of Belgium, when Tintin changed from being a snooping reporter to an out of the way explorer.

Flight 714 to Sydney by Hergé. They actually never get to Sydney.

The volcano drawings are pretty awesome.

Other things.
I got a library card from the Berkeley Public Library.
It's pretty sweet. I've been checking out audio books, so I actually haven't left the lobby.

1. Freakonomics. It's pretty good. The Narrator is kind of dull and I kept falling asleep while drawing. They also made a film made up of smaller films directed by different people to process all the stuff. The one on the sumo wrestler is pretty awesome, and the stuff about the drop in crime in the 90s is also pretty sweet.

2. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. The book was published in 1986. In my MP3 player the genre is listed as "Juvenile Fantasy Romance". Fuck. It's way different than Miyazaki's film which I guess is why I find so many reviews (which are mostly written by middle age women from the midwest) of the book downing the animation. But yeah.

Howl's Moving Castle is Marci's favorite Miyazaki film. Most of my sci-fi friends are into Castle in the Sky or Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Some of my dumb friends are into Totoro or The Cat Returns. I like Porco Rosso, but no one else does, but only cause I think Seaplanes are pretty sweet. But, yeah if you're into Juvenile Fantasy Romance then Howl's Moving Castle is the choice for you.

3. Games of Thrones. Marci's been listening to this on audio book. It's really long and there are several books. The first one was a gigabyte and the second is 1 and a half.

4. Cleopatra: A Life. Marci's also reading this. She's really into Politics and Power.

Zine We've Picked Up

2011-06-22T13:57:00.000-07:00

These were in a pile on our bookshelf.

This is Jay Howell's zine "Punks Git Cut". You can get it here for $6. Next week his new book will be available through MT.ST.MTN.

The zine is full of Jay Howell drawings. And stories.

This is a zine I got from my New Zealand penfriend from her trip to Melbourne. It's one of those joke zines, cause the pages are blank.

This isn't a zine. It's a catalogue of our friend Narangkar's stuff. I think Marci picked this up at one of the art fairs in San Francisco a few weeks back.

Narangkar just completed the MFA program at UC Berkeley. Her new paintings are about her time in a boarding school in India.

We went and did the school crafts fair at CCA. It was kind of a bust but our old printmaking teacher gave us this zine that one of his students made.

It's put together kind of weird, but the drawings are done well. It by a lady named Kate Klingbell. I guess she has a tumblr.

It offers sage advice on how to sex a lady. It's a compilation of three girls.

Maybe they should just stop dating teenagers.

Someone should write a zine on not picking up assholes for dates.

I got this in the mail from Michael C. Hsiung of Los Angeles, California.

I bought this book from Lizzy Stewart's Etsy Store.

She makes sweet drawings.

Here's a picture of my cat sleeping in my drawers.

Tomorrow I'll post about books I'm reading/or listening to.

The Groke

2011-06-21T22:53:00.000-07:00

The Groke is one of my favorite Moomin characters. Uh, this video is kind of weird, but it's Marci's favorite.

Northampton MA/Providence RI/Cape Cod, MA

2011-06-20T11:36:00.000-07:00

So yeah. I haven't been able to get to this blog cause I was busy with a show and then we went away for our trip east. I agreed to do a show in Northampton, MA, a little cause I wanted to show somewhere not in NY, LA, SF for once, but mostly cause the space that contacted me Foe were so nice.

Above is the last painting I did for the show. Up until a month before the show I was trying really hard to finish as much as I could, cause I thought I had two shows in June. But then I discovered that one of my shows was mis-scheduled, so it's in late August instead of June. I think it kind of worked out for the best, cause the space at Foe is pretty huge compared to most of the places I usually show at, and I now had a lot of work to pick through.

120 odd paintings went into these two boxes. Normally I'd ship the paintings as I go, but since I didn't know what I was going to bring I just had to take everything on the plane. We booked a flight on JetBlue, so you have to pay $35 for a second piece of luggage. The weight requirements is like 50 lbs, and if you go over it's another $35. Also there's a length requirement, so the lenght+width+height had to equal 62 inches. So yeah. Both of my boxes were 64, so Marci went through, took apart and re-sized my boxes for me, just to get rid of the two inches. My largest painting was 18"x24" so I'm really glad I didn't make anything bigger, cause just a little bit would have messed me up. I mean, $35 isn't that much, but at the same time I don't want to be that dick with the oversize boxes. I took less small 5x5's because they're pretty heavy all together. That box ended up being 48 lbs, and the one with the large panels ended up being 42 lbs.

I shared a suitcase with Marci, or Marci let me put some stuff in her luggage. I'm a dude, I don't have that much stuff. I was emptying out the suitcase while folding laundry, and I swear to god, she had enough clothes to stay on the east coast for like two weeks. She brought enough socks she probably could have worn three each day if she wanted to, but yeah.

Bam, what else? Oh, I got my boxes at the Packaging Store in San Francisco. I don't know if you ever have problems finding the right size box to ship a painting but that place has everything. If you need a totally random sized tube or anything, or just clear bags to sell stuff, well that's the place, and they're pretty affordable compared to other box stores or the chains. Most box stores just have stuff for moving, so it's all in cubic feet, and then you just get a really large box, with too much extra space. I mean we still ended up cutting down the box but only to reach Jetblue's flight requirements.

Also, Boston airport really sucks.

NORTHAMPTON/WESTERN MASS

We didn't take very many photos in Northampton, which I'm a little bummed about. But yeah. Uh, For the past year I think we just sort of neglected taking photos. But mostly just cause we just wanted to live in the moment. But then you start to forget to take photos for like openings, or birthday parties, cause you forget the camera. But then also we broke our old camera and it took a while to get around to getting a new one.

We actually have had this new camera for a month and someone's already dropped it like 5 times. The last time after I was like, "I'm giving you this camera, just be careful with it", and then they instantly dropped the camera as they got out of the car.

Above is Northampton's town hall which looks like a castle.

We ate at Joe's a couple of times. It's a Mexican themed Pizza place. I think I told someone they switched the S and E by accident.

Northampton was awesome. It kind of reminded me of Berkeley in the 90s, and it was so hippy it made me realize how uh-hippy Berkeley is now a days. We were in a juice bar where some dude was coloring in his Food Not Bombs poster, and there's like a lot people handing out fliers. It was a college town and the kids there had some pretty heavy reading materials compared to the stuff I see kids here reading. I could keep on going, but I'm going to stop. It was all pretty sweet, though.

We actually didn't do that much for our first couple of days, mostly cause we didn't know what to do with all this free time. We still had to install which took about half a day, and Marci got some vegetable drink at a juice bar that kind of looked like dirt, and kind of tasted like dirt so she got a little sick and ended up sleeping till 2 the next day.

The only touristy thing we did in Northampton was walk around Smith College before the opening. This is their boat house. Students can rent a boat and take it down to the waterfall.

There was a dude meditating, and other dude with a bongo drum.

Being Free.

We didn't take very many photos at the opening. I wish we did. Here's one of Marci with Shea.

The next day we made our way out to the Shaker Village. It was kind of a bust cause they didn't have any of the stuff we wanted to look at. The Shakers made pretty awesome maps and drawings, as well as really good wood furniture. Marci especially wanted to see Shaker trance drawings, but yeah, they didn't have any of that stuff. Just local artist's drawings of Shaker themed stuff and people dressed like Shakers and some baby animals.

Baby animal.

Baby animal.

Baby animal.

Afterward we drove to Lenox and visited "The Mount" or the Edith Wharton House. Edith Wharton wrote The House of Mirth and a bunch of other books. She only lived in the house for 10 years but yeah. It was sweet.

PROVIDENCE

We stayed in Providence for the weekend. Here's Marci with Mr. Moose.

Here's Mr. Nook.

CAPE COD

This is our second trip out to the Cape. Our first was three years ago and you can see photos from that trip here. The last time we didn't have a car so I remember checking if we could take a train, but Amtrak discontinued services in 1997, so the tracks are there but no trains. Also we found Dennis Pond the last time we were out there and we had to cross tracks to get to it, so I assumed these would take us there.

We picked up some nice rocks on the way there.

Dennis Pond. It was too cold to swim in for the time we were there.

While waiting outside our Inn we saw a baby raccoon.

Our friend, Andrew recommended we go to Scargo Tower in Dennis. It's a strange structure.

We ate at Jack's Outback everyday we were on the Cape for Breakfast. This is the Lobster Benedict. Jack's is where Edward Gorey ate lunch everyday for like ever. There's an interview of him I found on youtube, and they're conducted here, so it was pretty funny. But we mostly came back cause the food was really good.

They also had two house dogs that like to sit next to you while you eat.

On our walk that day we found an English Weeping Beech Tree.

It was amazing sitting underneath the canopy.

Since we had a car we actually left Yarmouth Port this time around and made it up to the Cape Cod National Seashore. These are the the Three Sisters, which were old Light Houses that used to sit along the coast together.

Marconi Beach where the first wireless telegraphs were sent out.

Nauset Marsh Trail, where Marci made me walk through a swamp. We saw a fox running through the trees.

We ate at Captain Frosty's twice on our trip. It was pretty sweet.

Picking Out Father's Day Cards

Fried Clams, Jumbo Lobster Roll, Clam Cakes, and Barq's Root Beer. Pretty amazing.

We went to Poit's the next day in Eastham. It was pretty awesome and the lady who owns it was so sweet. Check out their old menu.

We went to Poit's cause it had a light house themed mini-golf course.

Other than this sign Provincetown was sort of a bust.

But they had Race Point Beach.

We found some nice garden rocks.

We came into a little trouble with airport security cause Marci wanted to take this rock home.

The National Park Emblem is pretty sweet.

On our last night we ate at the Old Yarmouth Inn and had a really nice dinner. I had my last lobster roll and Marci got a steak and we watched two periods of the Bruins beating Vancouver.

We went around the neighborhood to take some night time shots.

The next morning we made our way to the Edward Gorey House (it was only opened Thur-Sun). And then we made our way home.

For Forever Opening, Good Times

2011-05-29T06:37:00.000-07:00

The opening for 'For Forever I'll Be Here' at Rena Bransten was super fun. Check out pics of the festivities thankfully taken by these kind folks (I forgot to use my camera and then later dropped and broke it!). Click on the links for more pics and kind words!

Art Business

That's Aiyana. She's brilliant AND fun.

Artists and Astronauts run by the one and only Serena Cole. Have you seen her paintings? They're pretty great and you should check them out here.

That girl with her mouth open is my sister and best friend Amanda. We share pretty much the same brain and can occasionally communicate telepathically. If I am ever kidnapped she will find me FOR SURE and then make whoever did it PAY. I'd do the same for her.

This is Courtney Johnson checking out the up close! Have you seen her work? If not you NEED to go here.

Arrested Motion

And from my gallery:

Afterward I ate wonderful french food with wonderful people and then headed to Encore Karaoke to celebrate my 31st birthday with my nearest and dearest where I got do my Axl Rose impression and unveil me and Amanda's crazy good duet of The Chain. There was some serious karaoke- Amanda's Stevie Nicks is insane, Becca and Teppei's A Whole New World brought a tear to my eye, and Ao's R. Kelly should be illegal. Best Night Ever.

Huffington Post

2011-05-29T06:36:00.000-07:00

My show was mentioned in the article 'The Figure Strikes Back: Ten Must See Painting Shows in the U.S' by Steven Zevitas on the Huffington Post! Super honored. Read the whole article here.

For Forever Zine

2011-05-28T22:43:00.000-07:00

Our new camera finally came in the mail, so my new zine is finally available online!

It's 7.5 x 5.4", 34 black and white pages with a one-color front and back cover. Printed by the one and only 1984 Printing in Oakland CA. You can buy it here and I will personally send it to you along with free good vibes and much love. Oh! And a free postcard from the show!

Magnetic Fields "If I Were A Rich Man"

2011-05-21T23:28:00.000-07:00

Tiny Showcase!

2011-05-10T17:05:00.000-07:00

Tiny Showcase

Cat with Gator Over Shoulders

2011-05-03T10:38:00.000-07:00

I was in the grocery store the other day buying tomato soup and a pineapple and I saw an issue of Vanity Fair with Cedric Diggory on the cover. Then I went home and drew this out.

The Russian Revolution by Leon Trotsky

2011-04-25T16:29:00.001-07:00

The Russian Revolution by Leon Trotsky, a photo by Marci and Deth on Flickr.

I found this at Moe's for $3. It's an Edward Gorey Cover I've been looking of since I first started looking for them.

I don't think he did the illustration but I'm pretty sure he did the cover text. The earlier Anchor Doubleday's don't list the illustrators in the actual book.

I always wondered why this book was so scarce, cause I seriously looked everywhere for it. It did come out in the 50s during the red scare, but I don't even know anyone old enough to tell me if that would stop a reader from getting their hands on a book by Leon Trotsky.

Working

2011-04-25T04:42:00.000-07:00

I'm still painting for those two shows. I don't have enough time to scan in the new work. I'll probably get around to it in late May or early June.

On a whim I bought this Moleskin planner/calendar for $12 while waiting in line at the art store. I was going to give it to someone but then I found it a few days after the new years. Usually I plan my shows out in a notebook, but it ended up being a good place to organize my work.

I have to average 3 paintings a day, sometimes I do 3, sometimes I only get one done. but I try to paint everyday. There are days where I don't know what to paint so I have to set the day aside to figure out stuff to draw.

I haven't had to make work for two solo shows in a long time. I think in 2004 I had to do two in two months. But back then my stuff wasn't so detailed and there's more steps now then before. Also acrylic takes about 8 minutes to dry when you're dry brushing, so by the time I'm finished doing the last panel I can start another coat on the first panel.

I got a red pen to mark down the days left for that show in Northampton. 44, 43, 42...

I started writing down the time and color to keep me on track with painting. I kind of get distracted pretty easily by stuff. I can finish a few paintings in a day cause I paint a few at a time. Usually about 8-10. Then by the end of the day I'll hopefully finish 2 or 3.

Some of my lighter colors I have to put down more than 2 layers so it's good to just do them all at the same time. This also saves me time cause I don't have to clean my brush so often.

In the note section I write down my ideas and I make a tally for each show. Foe is getting about 96 paintings, and LA is getting about 150. I'm shooting for more, but yeah. 3 a day.

I don't know who ever uses the notes in these things, like the distances between major cities and international dial codes, so I just doodled little ideas. Most of them are kind of dumb.

Yeah, without a pencil, I draw like a retard.

I have a studio but I've just been painting in the living room, mostly just cause I feel like it. I'm using our bookshelf to organize the smaller works for the show. The top left hand corner is the stuff I have to put medium on and scan, the top right hand corner is for panels ready to be drawn on, the lower left side are the finished 9x12s, and the lower right side are the finished 8x10s. bellow the 9x12s are the panels I have to frisket on, put a coat of stars and medium and then need to be scanned.

If my paintings were to get damaged they would usually be because they were with me, so I'm trying to be more careful with them. I started wrapping them in wax paper. and packing them up. It's a lot of paper to waste, but a roll of wax paper is less than $2.

What I really like about making these 5"x5" paintings is that I can pretty much make any image I feel like making without feeling obligated like I have to make everything awesome.

To make my 3 paintings a day quota I have to make a few monochromatic paintings, although this one took three hours to ink in.

I should take real pictures, but instead I use Instagram. One of my friends say it's like autotune for your camera.

For Forever I'll Be Here

2011-04-18T13:13:00.001-07:00

flier spread 72, a photo by Marci and Deth on Flickr.

"For Forever I'll Be Here"
April 29- June 4, 2011
Reception: Thursday May 5 5:30-7:30

Rena Bransten Gallery
77 Geary Street, San Francisco, CA 94108
www.renabranstengallery.com

NY Riots

2011-04-15T11:51:00.001-07:00

Untitled, a photo by Marci and Deth on Flickr.

I decided to make a NY Riots painting anyway. I really just wanted a reason to paint multicolor flags.

Every Riot in Manhattan.
1834 Anti-Abolition Riot
1837- Flour Riot
1849- Astor Place Riot
1863- NYC Draft Riot
1870- NYC Orange Riot
1871- 2nd NYC Orange Riot
1874- Tompkin Square Riot
1934- US Nazi RIot
1935- Harlem Race Riot
1964- NYC Race Riot
1969- Stonewall Uprising
1970- Hard Hat Riot
1977- NYC Blackout Riot
1988- Tompkin Square Park Police Riot

LA Riots

2011-04-11T01:11:00.001-07:00

LA Riot Painting, a photo by Marci and Deth on Flickr.

I've been meaning to make a proper update, but I think putting off everything equals me not updating at all, so I think I'm going to stop doing that.

Here's a crappy photo of a painting I just finished right now. I was going to make a riot painting for Oakland, but there's only been 4 in the history of Oakland. Then I was going to do one of New York but didn't know if should count Brooklyn. I'm more familiar with LA Riots anyway.

True Story, In 1992 I was 13, and the Rodney King Riot happened in LA. I lived in San Diego and for some strange reason we had a riot in my Junior High. It lasted for 3 days.

1871 - Anti-Chinese Riots
1943 - Zoot Suits Riots
1965 - Watts
1966 - Sunset Strips Curfew
1992 - Rodney King
2000, 2009, 2010 - Lakers' Championship Riots.

Yeah, the last three were pretty dumb reasons to riot.

Pizza is Forever

2011-04-01T00:03:00.001-07:00

Pizza is Forever, a photo by Marci and Deth on Flickr.

it really isn't.

V

2011-03-24T21:01:00.000-07:00

E

2011-03-23T03:34:00.000-07:00

W

2011-03-19T15:10:00.000-07:00

Wombats and Wallabies. W's have a good amount of sweet animals to draw.

I drew Wayne Gretzky cause I thought it would be kind of funny.

D

2011-03-19T14:32:00.000-07:00

I inked in images for the letter D the other day. I figured out it takes about a day and a half to finish one page. About 4-6 hours to compile a list of things to draw from, then about 10 hours to research and draw, and then about 6 hours to ink. I mostly reference google image, and I compile my list using Marci's mini-dictionary, crosswords reference websites, and an Audubon Nature Encylopedia. I try not having to many animals or plants in each drawing, cause you know, a diamondback is really just a snake, and a discus is really just a fish.

Fun things to draw: Donuts. A dozen of the one I remember. Dog in a duffle bag.

I also drew a devil drinking a cup of tea.

Reading in Tree Drawing

2011-03-04T04:47:00.000-08:00

I redrew this so it'd fit a 9x12 paper. I might make a print out of this. or I might not.

Marci made a painting of the Jaws House in LA

2011-03-03T00:20:00.000-08:00

The Jaws house is actually called the John Sowden House. She has a month still to work on the rest of her show for Rena Bransten.

Rob Sato @ Rowan Morrison (Oakland Saturday 3/5)

2011-03-03T00:05:00.000-08:00

Rob Sato's having a show in Oakland at Rowan Morrison this Saturday. It also happens to be Rowan Morrison's last show. Pete and Narangkar want their studio back.

Rowan Morrison is pleased to present BLOWING THE HATCH, a solo show of new drawings by Los Angeles Artist Rob Sato.

Rob Sato was born and raised in Sacramento, California, and received his BFA in illustration from California College of Arts and Crafts. He is the recipient of the prestigious Xeric Grant, with which he published his graphic novel Burying Sandwiches. Sato is largely known for his epic watercolors, and has been featured in Juxtapoz, Giant Robot and High Fructose Magazine.

Rob Sato has been a dear friend to us for many years, and it brings us great joy to host a new body of his works here in Oakland, where we all met so long ago. We will cease our exhibition programming after this show, so it gives us great pleasure to end on a very strong note. It's been an honor to work with a group of artists of this caliber over the last five years, and to have the opportunity to grant a space for solo shows. We are deeply thankful to our patrons who continually contribute to the support structure for all of our artists and our selves.

From Rob:
"This will be a drawing heavy show. Recently, I’ve been compelled to draw more than paint, and have been enjoying the simple pleasures of graphite on paper. It has been an interesting period of getting back to basics and at the same time trying things I’ve never done before. Currently, all preparations are a wild-eyed blur, so it is difficult to gauge what the show will consist of, but several graphite drawings can be expected, at least one large watercolor, and the last installments of my “Slideshow” series. There will be no less than that, maybe more, and as much as I can get in there. Also, there will be one large piece dedicated to the gallery that was never missing. There’s a hare in the grave and Rowan Morrison will not die. "

Saturday March 5, 7-10 PM.

Rowan Morrison Gallery
330 40th Street
Oakland, CA 94609

Teppei Ando's "Locksmith Brothers"

2011-03-02T23:31:00.000-08:00

My friend Teppei made a pretty awesome comic about the time he lived with the local con-artist and two locksmith brothers. Everything in this comic is pretty real. We actually used to live in the same neighborhood, so we saw the con-artist who rammed a local news van when they were investigating him selling cars to people without telling them that he got the cars at the salvage yard. Uh, we didn't get to see him ram the news van but we did see him park his piece of shit cars throughout the entire neighborhood, and one time he stole Marci's parking spot when she was backing and she cussed him out.

But yeah. This comic strangely isn't about that guy but these other two guys that he lived with who were locksmiths.

This comic is 8.5" x5.5" and is 38 pages, with a color copy cover. And is $3, which barely covers the cost of the zine. Actually I don't really know if he's making any money cause Etsy charges 20c per listing, and they take a small percentage, and then Paypal also takes out a small percentage. So he might be just breaking even.

So yeah. You should buy his comic and you can get it here.

Or you can listen to the visual/audio version on his Youtube Page where he also does all the voices.

K

2011-03-02T23:18:00.000-08:00

I need to get a bigger dictionary, cause I couldn't come up with very many "K" words.

Taxi Ram for Cat

2011-03-01T23:59:00.000-08:00

Hamlet and Oedipus by Earnest Jones

2011-02-25T02:38:00.000-08:00

Hi-Fructose Interviews Marci

2011-02-24T16:48:00.000-08:00

The nice people at Hi-Fructose asked Marci some questions, you can read the interview here.

A General Selection of Small Drawings Zine

2011-02-23T17:00:00.000-08:00

The past couple of days I've been working on this little zine of drawings. It's a quarter page, which I used to make a lot of, but the last one I made was two years ago.

It's a fairly simple way of making a zine, which is what I kind of like about it. I pretty much just draw random stuff, and then put them together when things are done, then hope the order comes out alright.

I was thinking about other colors for a cover, but then I just settled for white. All my other zines have white covers. I might republish with a teal colored paper.

The zine has 23 drawings, including a two page spread of one drawing, and these end pages with a herring bone pattern.

I used Faber-Castell's Pitt Artist and Calligraphy pens for the inking in. I usually use a Pilot Hi-Tec C or a Pilot V5, but decided I want my lines to be really dark.

I tried not having to many dark pages cause sometimes the pages gets jammed in the machine from too much toner. But Copy Central has a pretty good machine I liked to use.

I used to go to a 3 cents copy place, but yeah. So did everyone else, and their self service machines were all kind of fucked. Copy Central in Downtown Berkeley is pretty much the best. Everyone's super nice, very helpful and they pretty much leave you alone if you look like you know what you're doing. It's more than twice as much per copy but totally worth it, and their machines are kept in super excellent condition.

There's another Copy Central in Berkeley also off of Shattuck and also on an island block up between the Safeway and a CVS, which isn't as good, so don't get confused thinking I'm talking about that one.

"The True Deceiver" is a book by Tove Jansson.

I used the large fancy xerox machine while at Copy Central. I got a little confused at first on how to reload the page to print on the back cause when you print just one the xeroxed page is facing you, but if you print like 10 it's not. Usually I just take the paper, flip it sideways and load it in, but I didn't need to do that with this particular machine.

This scene is from one of my favorite Moomin panels. The book he's reading says "Agatha Christie". I drew the text with a Pilot V5 cause the Pitt is a little too thick for fine lines.

"We Only Live Once" is also a quote from another Moomin panel. I was thinking about adding more text, but yeah.

I was pretty worried about jamming the machines, so I'm glad all the black didn't mess things up. I have been kicked out of copy places before. Like the old Kinkos on Shattuck cause I was xeroxing something that sort of melted into the machine.

The drawing on the left was the first drawing I made for this project.

I thought these two drawings matched up quite nicely.

If you want to buy one you can get it here for $5.

Cats In Pots on TV

2011-02-18T12:45:00.001-08:00

Posted on JapanProbe.com
Uploaded by probeeden. - More video blogs and vloggers.
Myleen sent us this video.

What What

2011-02-18T03:57:00.000-08:00

I made my first painting of 2011. It's the same image I've been drawing for the past month or so, so yeah, nothing really new.

It's same image I've been putting on everything else. I had panel with glow in the dark paint on it that I've had for months sitting around so I put the whatever cat on it.

Yeah, I don't get tired of seeing my stuff glowing in the dark for some strange reason. It's actually brighter than what the photo's showing.

I have some drawings that I can hopefully upload soon, but I think I should probably stick to trying to get back into the habit painting again. I think I'm putting my alphabet zine on the side for a while. It's kind of slow going with that, and yeah, I don't have a lot of free time these days. I'm probably going to hold off on it till Summer. Or maybe I'll try to just do one once every one or two weeks. I still have to upload my drawing for the letter K.

Beaver Tail, RI

2011-02-16T16:52:00.000-08:00

I found these postcards at Marci's grandmother's antique shop up near Sacramento, in a town called Placerville.

These are some good rocks to reference. Beaver Tail is one of our friends favorite swimming spot so it was kind of random finding these postcards.

I made my first tote bag.

2011-02-15T01:38:00.000-08:00

It's the same image as my t-shirt. Pretty sweet. You can get one here.

Y

2011-02-14T10:54:00.000-08:00

I finished drawing out Y. There really isn't very many interesting things starting with Y.

I enjoyed drawing this Yad. It's a stick that you use as pointer while reading a Torah. I remember seeing the stick with the little finger while at the Jewish Museum last year. A yabby is a freshwater crayfish from Australia.

I also enjoyed drawing out this yacare.

I also drew out a yule, which is just a piece of log you burn during Christmas. And then they also have yule log cakes, which is just a gross rolled cake that looks like a log that they feed people during Christmas. I don't know what's so special with apiece of log. I think they just put cinnamon on it so when it's burning it'll smell kind of Christmas-y.

Z

2011-02-12T13:16:00.000-08:00

I finished the letter Z. Uh, it was a litle difficult but nothing as bad as X. I'm still inking Y.

The Zebra took about a half hour to draw. Which is a lot for me. I was going back and forth earlier between a thin and thick pen, but decided to just do everything with the same pen (which is a high-tec C). I was using the thick pen to ink larger amounts of black cause it's faster, but an extra few minutes here and there isn't so bad.

I should probably take detail photos. But yeah.

Interesting stuff with Zs:
zarf - ornamental coffee holder.
zambogna - Italian bagpipe. There was also a Turkish one that starts with "Z" but I didn't want to draw it.
ziggurat - any kid who took art history should know about this.
zoetrope - any kid who took a beginning animation class should know about this.

Funnest things to draw:
The Zebra, and the Zither.

Whatever Shirt

2011-02-10T20:33:00.000-08:00

This is the shirt I printed. I just made ladies shirts. I might make men shirts if people want them. But yeah. You can get them here.

A

2011-02-08T00:38:00.000-08:00

I finished "A" last night. It took a while so I had to break out the old Audubons. Marci still had her bookmarks in it. Apparently she was really into albino animals.

"A" was the 5 letter I've finished so far. The only spread I have is C/X (pictured above). The zine is going to be the largest zine I've ever made with the most drawings I can possibly shove into it. I only have 21 more letters to go.

The zine is going to be 28 pages. When you plan for these things you have to think of the pages in 4, so you can have a zine that's like 16, or 20 pages, or 24 pages. Originally I was going to combine some of the harder letters together to get 24 pages. My reasoning was cause it would save me some money on photocopying, and work, and I didn't know if I could get enough stuff to finish X. So that's why I finished X early, cause it would be the hardest letter to finish, and it ended up being okay, so I settled on 28, with two extra pages. I was going to have them be the first and last pages of the zine.

This was the start of my original first and last page spread. It was actually the first thing I started on. I pretty much had no idea what I would put down for them so I thought I would just use a popular image, and on the back I was just going to draw whatever. But then I just drew a blank on the back of what I could do.

Then the other night I thought I could just draw out a herring bone pattern for both those pages. I think it would just look nicer. I thought it was going to be fast work, but yeah. It took me like 3 hours to do this and it cramped up my hand.

I still have to come up with a Cover a title, and 21 more letters. I should probably start painting, though, cause I have two solo shows in June. I would have more done, but last week was spent figuring out t-shirts, a tote, and a few prints to make. And then I had to buy stuff to ship stuff. I bought t-shirt mailing bags. They're pretty awesome. I used to just put them in manila envelopes and wrap them with cellophane tape and hoped for the best. Yeah, I did that for 5 years; I'm an idiot. And I knew about the bags but I always plan on not doing t-shirts anymore.

My new t-shirt is going to be a t-shirt of a cat wearing a t-shirt that says whatever. Same with the tote but in another color. The shirts come in on Thursday and I'll have them for my friend's crafts fair in Berkeley. I only have ladies shirts. I might print guys shirts, but I sort of sell more girl shirts than guys by a large margin. Like 2:1.

X

2011-02-05T11:52:00.000-08:00

I finished drawing out stuff for X. I now have 4 out of 26 letters.

There's 30 items and I had to space them out. Also if something came in two shapes I drew it twice. Or if I had an odd shape to fill I drew a second thing of it, which is why there's two eels. Also I didn't want to have proper nouns, but I sort of had to.

Thanks to everyone who offered me suggestions.

Infusions

2011-02-05T11:38:00.002-08:00

Marci took an infusion class with friends in the City. She's making absinthe, absinthe with nettle, lemoncello, and Blood Orange Lemoncello. I'm letting her store them in my secret space to stay out of the light. It'll be done in a few weeks.

Hearts & Crafts at Local 123 (Berkeley, CA)

2011-02-03T19:27:00.000-08:00

I'll be participating in my friends' craft fair at Local 123 in Berkeley. It's in west Berkeley, on the corner of San Pablo and University. Our other friends help run that coffee shop. I stopped drinking coffee when we moved to Berkeley so I've never actually been there. There's a Lanesplitters nearby or you can get a large pizza at Little Ceasars for like $5.

More info here.

The Strange Case of Edward Gorey by Alexander Theroux

2011-02-02T16:28:00.000-08:00

I pre-ordered this book a year ago and it in the mail today. I got it for only $10 cause I pre-ordered it but it sells for $11 and retails for $20. And it's kind of totally worth it. You can get it here. It was first published in 2000, but that book was 68 pages, and this one's 166 pages. Edward Gorey passed away April 13, 2000. It's weird cause I remember what I was doing around that time cause my 21st birthday was a week later, Built to Spill came out with their live album and I had to install and art show. I also became really super popular and everyone wanted me to walk them to the liquor store and buy them beer.

This book has a lot of really good photos of him, and a lot of tidbits on his life, that probably only the die hard of fans would appreciate. Marci and I went to visit the Edward Gorey House a few years ago. You can see our photos from then here.

There's a few other books about his works. My favorite among them is Ascending Peculiarity which is a book that compiled all his interviews through his career and in order. You read them and take whatever information you want from them, which is what I like about that book.

I want to collect all the photos of my favorite drawers with their cats. Like Tove Jannson.

Photos from Bitches Brew at Park Life

2011-02-02T11:25:00.000-08:00

I compiled a list of places that took photos of the group show Marci was in at Park Life a few weeks back. It was a pretty sweet show, and yeah, we forgot to bring our own camera. I think this blog is transitioning from our blog to just my blog. Mostly cause Marci hasn't written in it in a year and a half. But yeah! Ha! Her loss. That and I have more free time than her. She used to have like 4 jobs, and now she only has one, but she also has a solo show coming up and that takes up a lot of time.

But yeah here's the list:
Whorholian
Fecalface
John Casey
Art Business
My Love For You...

Marci saying goodbye to Myleen (photo from Fecalface).

Marci's Work (photo from Art Business).

Kelly, Marci and Becky (photo from Warholian).

Kelly made a video of the installation.

Becky's work (photo from Art Business).

Aiyana's work (photo from Fecalface).

Mirror Ball (photo from My Love For You is a Stampede of Horses).

Brixton & Ferris (photo from Warholian).

Hellen Jo! Marci bought this piece (from Hellen Jo's flickr)!

Marci, Mariah, Kelly, and Tim. (from Kelly's Flickr).

You can see all the artwork here. Or properly in person in San Francisco, and not through the internet.

I don't know if these photos show how awesome the night was. There was a balloon lady and an all girl band and Kelly's friend, Mariah was serving gin with her homemade tonic. We got to hang out with old friends and we ended up at that dragon lady bar. Marci was surprised when she found out I wasn't lying and they did give out whiskey in a glass so large it was almost a pint. We hung out there for a while and it was awesome.

C

2011-02-02T10:27:00.000-08:00

Figuring Stuff Out

2011-02-01T21:53:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking about making a print of the above image.

I'm still working on that Alphabet zine, but I'm going to have to put that aside for a while and get back into painting. I'm making out a list for "X", but I haven't got much. It took about 80 items to fill up B, and so far for "X" I've just drawn a xylophone. My dictionary is so small there's only 5 words listed under "X"; x-ray, xenophobe, xerox, x-mas, and xylophone.

This is my "X" list so far.
1. xerox machine
2. xerox transfer
3. x-ray
4. xyston (ancient spear)
5. xylithol crystals
6. x-wing fighter
7. xanthic (yellow fish)
8. xebec (sailing ship)
9. xeme (Artic gull)
10. Pulsating Xenia (it's an undersea plant) I don't don't know if this counts.
11. x-mas tree
12. Xoanon (wooden image of a god)
13. Xyrid (herb)
14. xanthareel (yellow eel)
15. xenops (tropical bird)
16. xerocopy (it's a photocopy)
17. xiphias (sword fish)
18. xiphosura (horseshoe crab)
19. xiphopagus (conjoined twins joined by a band of flesh on the torso)
20. xylocarp (hard fruit, like a coconut)
21. xylograph (wood carving for printing)
22. xyster (it's a surgical instrument that scrapes bone, but I can't seem to find an image, and all the images I find are kind of hard to look at).
23. x-acto knife ( don't know if this counts).
24. Xigua Watermelon
25. Xanadu
26. X-Box 360 (kinda iffy)

If you know of any "X" items I can draw that isn't an element, a compound, or a whole species of any animal like an anteater or yellow fish, please send that information my way.

Hadrian's Memoirs

2011-02-01T10:56:00.000-08:00

I found this at Moe's Books for $1. I also found another copy of The Secret Agent for $1.

P

2011-01-31T01:18:00.000-08:00

I finished inking the Ps. I spilled some seltzer water on it so I had to use some white out.

B

2011-01-30T16:03:00.000-08:00

I'm working on an alphabet zine. I've only finished the letter "B" and I'm just inking the letter "P". It's going to take a while, and I might not be able to work on it again until after June cause I have two solo shows to work for.

Whatever

2011-01-27T09:42:00.000-08:00

The L'illusionniste is finally in the Theater's here.

2011-01-23T19:54:00.000-08:00

It's playing at Shattuck Cinema or the Clay Theatre in San Francisco.

True Stories

2011-01-20T14:04:00.000-08:00

I watched True Stories for the first time the other night cause it was expiring on Instant Netflix and it was on my queue. I think it's kind of an amazing film.

Bitches Brew

2011-01-11T15:53:00.000-08:00

Marci's in a show that opens this Friday. It's called "Bitches Brew" and it's with Kelly Tunstall, Aiyana Udesen, Becky Ebeling and Hellen Jo. It should be pretty sweet. There's a band playing the opening.

The Richmond is kind of a far off place to get to but there's stuff to do around the neighborhood. Like visiting the Columbarium, or the Aquarium Store diagonally across the street (where it looks pretty dangerous inside), so-so pizza, mediocre Chinese, and pho that equals ass-disaster 4, a bunch of Irish bars (some that give out free hot dogs in a rice cooker, and are actually owned by the Chinese), uh a mini Burger King that looks like someone decided to gut out their living room and make it into a fast food joint, Chinese dollar stores (with products that may or may not lead to lead poisoning), a liquor store that lets you take shots in the back, and of course Green Apple Books.

Uh, there's also a Crepe place that has my favorite Hawaiian canned coffee. I forgot to pick one up when Marci was installing cause I got sidetracked by all the Ramen choices.

Park Life’s First Show of 2011, Bitches Brew, Opens Jan 14th.
Park Life Gallery presents Bitches Brew, new works from Kelly Tunstall, Marci Washington, Aiyana Udesen, Hellen Jo and Rebecca Ebeling. Opening Reception Friday January 14th, 2011. There will also be a special performance from the Wax Idols. More Details to follow.

Parklife
220 Clement St,
San Francisco, CA
http://www.parklifestore.com/

Links
Aiyana Udesen
Hellen Jo
Kelly Tunstall
Marci Washington
Rebecca Ebeling

Built to Spill covering Talking Heads' Dream Operator

2011-01-06T21:54:00.001-08:00

I'm an Idiot.

2011-01-03T17:44:00.000-08:00

I need to buy a paper shredder.

New Year

2011-01-01T20:33:00.000-08:00

We finally got a flat file.

Year in Review

2010-12-30T11:46:00.000-08:00

Favorite Music
Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles (2010)
Wolf Parade - “Expo 86”
Beach House - “Teen Dream”
Boise Cover Band - “Unoriginal Artists”
Magnetic Fields - “Realism”

I didn't have much for new music. A little cause I didn't like stuff, but mostly cause I never bother looking for new things these days, except for random songs from video games and soundtracks, or songs from mid-90s indie rock bands covering other mid-90s indie rock bands.

Boise Cover Band is Doug Martsch's Cover Band. He does Ashes to Ashes by David Bowie on it. Manny sent me it in an e-mail so I bought the album for $3 on Amazon. I gave it to Rob, cause CDs take up a lot of space.

Favorite Movies
Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World
True Grit
Youth in Revolt
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part I)
Hot Tub Time Machine

Uh, I was going for 5 on these lists, so I left off Inception and Kick-Ass. I haven't seen Tron yet. I hear it has bad reviews but I think I know what to expect. But when I was a kid I came away from seeing the first Tron thinking how I would never want to be stuck in a video game cause it would a) be very long and boring and b) I could die at any moment.

True Grit's amazing and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

Favorite Movies I Missed but Glad I Found
Two Hands 1999
The Importance of Being Earnest 2002
Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express 1974
Casanova 2005
Matinee 1993
High Noon 1952

To figure this one out I had to consult my Netflix queue. I watched so much stuff, but only rated 4 things five stars (this is why I don't own a TV). "Two Hands" stars Heath Ledger in an Australian crime film. The Poirot in the 1974 "Murder on the Orient Express" isn't as good as David Suchet, but it has an all-star cast (but the newer David Suchet version is way better).

Favorite Television Stuff
ESPN’s 30 for 30
Secrets of the Dead
Sherlock
Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple Series 5
Agatha Christie’s Poirot

I have a television but there's no antenna and we don't have cable, so most of my new TV watching comes from PBS online.

Favorite New Books
Moomin: A Tale of Two Families
Scott Pilgrim (Vol 1-6)
Charley Harper (an Illustrated Life)
Moomin: The Complete Tove Jannson Comic Strip (Vol. 5)
Almost Silent by Jason
Skim by Jillian Tamaki
Birchfield Close by Jon McNaught

I didn't buy very many new books this year cause we were busy collecting Edward Gorey books, but these are the ones I especially enjoyed.

I've been reading the Complete Peanuts. I was collecting them as they were coming out but I never got around to reading them until this year. Peanuts is the first thing I really discovered on my own an loved as a kid, and I read most of these strips from checking out the old books from the Benjamin Branch Library when I was a kid.

I also bought a bunch of Tove Jansson books. My favorite is one I picked up at Kinokuniya which is just a retrospective of her work. It had photos I never seen before and side-by-side comparisons of her line drawings and paintings of the same images.

Reading Scott Pilgrim's the best, especially ditching work and reading it in bed.

Favorite Trips
Providence, New Bedford, Salem, and Portland, MA.
San Jose day trip with Rob Williams
Los Angeles (both times)
Train ride to Portland, OR

Favorite Moments
Being on the Train with Marci to Portland.
Seeing Strength with Friends in San Francisco.
Celebrating Marci’s Birthday by going to Japantown and watching two movies.
NLCS game with Dennis and Derek.

Favorite Eats
Braeburn Apples
Strawberry Jam
The Rainbow Roll at Kirala on Shattuck.
California Sushi on MLK and University.
Suzu Noodle in Japantown.
J's Oyster Bar in Portland, ME.
Arinell's Pizza on Shattuck.
Las Flamas in Santa Clara.

Fresh Water by Virginia Woolf

2010-12-23T19:34:00.000-08:00

I found this at Pegasus Books on College while waiting for Marci. It was in the humour section which I never thought to check. The Edward Gorey covers are kind of getting harder to find in person for me. Mostly cause we have so much. That and they're not so easy to scan for while going through stacks of books looking for the Anchor symbols on the spines. I have a short list of books I want to find that are in the mystery section but I've only found three that way.

The Scott Pilgrim Video Game Soundrack is in my Head when I'm Dreaming

2010-12-23T15:53:00.000-08:00

Arkansas Black Apples

2010-12-10T01:08:00.000-08:00

We picked up two of these at Berkeley Bowl today. They're very pretty and are super crisp. They were part of the produce special.

This winter my favorite apple is the Braeburn Apple, which I guess originated from New Zealand. One of it's offspring is the Jazz Apple which I don't particularly like. Last year I went through several apples testing which one's I like, but I pretty much settled on Pink Ladies and Braeburns.

I get into conversations of favorite fruits a lot these days. I don't know if it's a turning 30 thing or a Berkeley thing. But, yeah. If you're in a grocery store you should go for one of those Braeburns.

I grew up hating apples cause all I ever had were Granny Smith, Red Delicious, and McIntosh Apples. Last year I went through a tried a new one every week and make a note of why I liked it or not. I think I watched a documentary on Apples and since there was such a variety there had to be one I like.

I know pears are related to apples, and I kind of like them sometimes. But only with pork chops.

BTW Marci's been looking for a Pink Pearl Apple but we haven't found one yet. Here's what it looks like:

I got the image from here.

Lafcadio's Adventure by André Gide

2010-12-09T13:26:00.000-08:00

Edward Gorey's cover for "Lafcadio's Adventure" by André Gide.

Higglety Pigglety Pop! - Preview Clips

2010-12-07T01:26:00.000-08:00

Spike Jonze has produced a new live-action/animated adaptation of Maurice Sendaks Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life. The film will be included on the Blu-Ray release of Where The Wild Things Are.

"Feeling Better Already" Double Punch (San Francsico, CA)

2010-12-02T17:35:00.000-08:00

I'm in a Group Show that opens up at Double Punch in the City, on Saturday the 10th.

These are the paintings I made for it:

I might switch out one, but yeah.

The show includes:
Travis Millard, Albert Reyes, Nate Van Dyke, Jesse Ledoux, Ryan Bubnis, Parskid, Christopher Cox, Shawn Wisenant, Nas Chompas, Sidney Pink, Ryan De La Hoz, Scott Greenwalt, Tom Haubrick, Jared Schorr, Ken Garduno, Mia Christopher, Corey Smith, Tyler Bewley, Max Kauffman, Greg Kenton.

111 at 111 Minna (San Francisco, CA)

2010-12-02T17:28:00.000-08:00

I'm in this show that opens tonight. Uh, I know that's pretty late notice. I'll be doing Sketch Tuesday on the 14th, so if you go then you can see the show, and you can buy a sketch from me pretty easily.

I made this painting:

Winter Shows

2010-11-28T23:11:00.000-08:00

Here's a drawing I made. I'm in a few group show. There's always year end shows in December. I actually said "No" to three others, just cause they're always at the same time, and some folks ask artists a little late.

The first show was at Lopo Gallery in San Francisco. It opened this past Saturday. I didn't make it out there, and I would have written about it, or at least take a photo of my art in it, but it was a busy week cause of Thanksgiving, so I did none of those things. It was set up by Ken Harman, who also took photos of the show.

I'm in the year end show for 111 Minna on December 2nd. I just have to drop off my painting tomorrow. Its just one. I might do the Sketch Tuesday thing. I'm sort of just feeling it out and seeing if anyone else I know might do it. Marci's kind of busy, and I don't like doing those things without knowing if my friends will be around.

The last show I'll be in December will be at Double Punch. I was just going to take it easy and send them framed drawings, but then I realised I had nothing else better to do so I'll be hopefully sending them 4 8"x10" paintings and one 11"x14" painting. A long time ago I bought a bunch of panels in various sizes, but pretty much settled on 9"x12", 16"x20" and 20"x24" as my favorite sizes. But I just have a bunch of 8"x10"s and 11"x14"s just lying around so I've been trying to use then in group shows. I have one of these paintings done, the other 4 I just finished the drawings on. The show is on the 10th and the deadline's probably the 7th so I have plenty of time.

Oh, yeah. These shows are all in San Francisco. I know, most exciting post. Hopefully I'll remember to take photos of the things I make.

Bernard Shaw's "The Black Girl in Search of God"

2010-11-28T00:12:00.000-08:00

I've been looking for this book with an Edward Gorey cover for a really long time. I sort of just caved in and bought it online. I got it for $1. It's not an Doubleday Anchor, instead it's a Putnam Capricorn. The illustrations inside are done by John Farleigh and apparently quite controversial when it was published with this book.

It's added to our Edward Gorey Book Cover Set on Flickr.

2010-11-23T00:06:00.000-08:00

It's hard not to get sucked into gimmicks in photographing with your mobile device. I like using Instagram.

Slytherin Revised

2010-11-18T18:16:00.000-08:00

I made the above painting two years ago. It's kind of a weird painting that combines Harry Potter with Benjamin Franklin's very famous "Join or Die" political cartoon.

I thought it was pretty funny, and I showed it in a few places for like 2 years but I don't think anyone really got it cause no one bought it, so I ended up just giving it to a friend.

But then, recently another friend asked about that painting, so I told them I'd remake it for them. I really do like re-making stuff, just cause after I finish something I always think about how I could have made what ever I just made better. The first time I made that image I pretty much just drew it out and then just inked in the line. It probably didn't take me more than 3 or 4 hours to finish.

This is how I redrew it. The only thing I really changed was moving the text around, and rewriting "Join or Die" to look like a font that would come out of a type set. And I looked up what a real snake's tail looks like instead of drawing it out of my ass.

I bought this funny pencil. It's from Faber-Castell. It's called a grip 2001, It's triangular going down and they have grip marks on it. It's also like $1.19 for just one pencil. The lead actually comes out alright, but it's pretty much acts like a Mirado Black Warrior (which is just 29c each/or $3 for a dozen), but the eraser is much nicer. So yeah, I guess it's worth $1.19. I don't know why I don't like lead pencils, but I drop my pencil a lot cause I never have a firm grip, so my lead always gets broken.

This is my painting after I put down all the colors that aren't black. It's a pretty simple palate, just greenish grey and white.

I've been using high viscosity paints. Lascaux's alright, and I use a lot of Liquitex. I used this color straight up for the inside of snakes, and then mixed white, with a drop of French blue grey for the snake's body in general.

I use a 3/4 flat watercolor wash brush to fill in my color.

The white I use is from the tube cause the high viscosity is a bit thin, so to get something really white on top of a dark surface would take a lot of layers. This just takes three.

I then drew in the scales of the snake. I was going to paint "Join or Die" in all black, but I then decided to paint the text white with a black outline.

The next step is to paint in my lines. I use Golden's High Viscosity Carbon Black. It's really smooth and it dries really fast. Since it dries so fast it means when I put it on my palate I just put a drop down little by little. Just cause it'll dry up and form a skin if you're using it for a while (a while being about 45 minutes to an hour).

I use a Kolinsky Sable Brush. It's suppose to be the nicest, but I've used synthetic/sable blends and they work just as fine. I get e-mails from kids asking me how my lines get so thin, and I don't really know how to answer that, other than to buy thin brushes and use Golden High Viscosity paints. But I did have chunky lines when I first started painting, and I think it took me about half a year until I noticed my line work getting smoother, so I think most people would just work that out if they just painted a bunch. But I think the high viscosity paint helps out cause you don't have to water anything down.

Also the high viscosity paint is kind of forgiving. If I fuck up with my lines, I'll let the paint dry and then take an exacto-knife and scratch out my mistake.

4 hours later, this is what the finished product looks like...

...until I realised I fucked up. I fact checked the original 13 colonies, and Vermont's not one of them. I left off Georgia. So I scratched out VT, remixed the background color, and put in GA. To be fair Benjamin Franklin left off GA, and grouped New England as a single entity, so my original drawing was based on that. I knew that Maine was part of Massachusetts, but then I just assumed Vermont was the last colony. But Ben Franklin also carved his out of a wooden block so I guess it's okay if he took a short cut.

And that's it.