| Like a light turning on |
[04 Nov 2009|08:46am] |
In light of some humbling events the last few days, things are becoming very clear to me. With the loss of someone my age, one of Ryan's best friends, someone who always lived her life to it's fullest and never compromised her true self, I feel like I have been able to see for the first time in a long time, what my priorities are. Life is too fragile to compromise. I need to be doing something that is fulfilling to more than just myself.
I hate my job at the portrait studio. It takes out all of the things I love about photography(the documentary aspect, the real world aspect, the naturalness of it).
I really enjoy interning at the stop motion studio. I love all the people there and it is an all around fun and fascinating time.... but some part of me feels like it's not what I am meant to do with my life. It is a hobby, something I love... but it is not my identity.
I asked myself a question the other day that was also very revealing(partly prompted by a question from a board game, of all things). If I had all the money in the world and I didn't have to worry about a job, what would I do with my time? What is most important to me, and what do I want to be remembered for? When am I happiest?
I would not spend all my time animating. I would not spend all my time working in a studio making movies. I am not jealous of Tim burton, or Henry Selick, or other big movie directors. I am most jealous of Anthony Bourdain, and Jeff Corwin, and of the entire crew of Planet Earth and the Discovery Channel and National Geographic. Art is important to me, a very intrinsic part of how I function, but it is a medium... a WAY of doing things... and what I am DOING with my art has been the missing link for me.
In a heart beat, I would answer that the most important things to me are Personal relationships and Nature.
No question about it, if I could spend all my time doing something, it would be exploring, traveling, seeing new and strange things, cultures, camping, learning about animals and nature, and showing people all the things that make our planet amazing and worth protecting.
Undoubtedly, if I could be remembered for something after I die, I would want it to be for having a hand in protecting our planet and it's unique cultures, introducing people to something amazing they have never seen before, and making people see something that is worth caring about.... not for creating a beautiful story, not for being an amazing animator.
How I do this seems clear to me. I love taking photographs, I love writing, I love making videos. This is my medium. I should be using my medium to serve my purpose in life. I always say to myself, usually with a sigh and an "Oh well..." kind of tone, after watching something on Discovery Channel, or PLanet Earth, or something similar, that I wish that I could have worked on something like that.... that I would LOVE to have the opportunity to wait for days, huddled in a cramp inducing pose beneath a rotting log for the CHANCE at capturing Hippos in their natural habitat on film. I would explode in excitement to see it, to capture it for other people to see, to talk about it. When Ryan and I were in Costa Rica, we followed a capuchin monkey through the forest until we landed upon an entire family of monkeys. We hung around them for an hour and a half observing them and taking pictures of them. We would have stayed there forever. I am the happiest I have ever been when I am doing things like that. That is true fulfillment.
The exact path I take to get there is still new and scary to me. While I have a background in photography and filmmaking and creative writing, I haven't the slightest clue how to go about a career in it. I probably need to take some classes in biology and foreign culture... I probably need to start writing/photographing things(which I already do on a daily basis- which should have been some obvious clue) and making a blog about things local to me(because there is so much right in socal that people don't know about) before I get more global. I am not in a rush. Now that it seems clear to me, I feel at peace. I feel like it will happen, and I don't feel in a hurry to figure it all out anymore. I do feel a sense of excitement to get started though.
I am less worried about logistics, this feels right. Now that I know what path to go down in the long term, I feel ok with things as they are now. If I work at a studio in the meantime, so be it. It's not like I don't enjoy it. I do. But alongside it, I will start slowly building up this future for myself... even if it starts with a blog and a booth at art fairs selling my photographs. I have to start somewhere.
I have always felt like my career choices have left out some part of me. When I was younger, the main jobs that seemed most enticing to me were the following: Vet, Writer, Archaeologist, Marine Biologist, and later, Artist/filmmaker. Whenever I chose one over the other, I felt a little part of me fall to the wayside.... I feel for the first time that I can combine the things I loved about each of them into one thing.
I know the terrible grammar and spelling in this post might indicate that I have no future in writing. Sometimes, I just need to ramble.
|
|
| movie is done done |
[07 Apr 2009|10:33am] |
my movie is done, my client is ecstatic, and I am really pleased :)
|
|
|
[02 Apr 2009|12:59am] |
It's not much, but I was putting this 20 second intro online so my sound designer could have it for creating sound and I thought "what the heck, why not put it on the blog?" The little titles are notes to him, it also doesn't have the 10 second credits in the lower left hand corner yet, but it's the first sequence for you to see!
I am about 75% done color correcting and time tweaking- should see a finished product(ready for final approval) before the weekend :)
|
|
| woohoo |
[20 Mar 2009|08:19pm] |
I have finished animating 75% of the shots - only one more week to go! I am very happy with how my raw footage is turning out... generally my technique is to animate as best I can, then tweak the timing in after effects my stretching and shrinking the shots where I think it seems too fast or too slow. Rarely I will reshoot if time allows, which I already know I have to do for only one of these shots. I try to animate so that I only have to speed things up if anything, so that I have more frames to work with.
I don't have pics or video of near all the footage I have shot- but I hope this is at least appetite wetting.
Most of these shots have not been tweaked to a finish yet in after effects for timing- but they are maybe 70% done in regards to timing and color. I like to do a general pass while I am in the animating process, then finely finish everything after I have all my footage done.
Here is a mix of stills and video. Sorry for the TERRIBLE youtube quality- it's youtube, what can I say. The originals are crispy and clear. It gets somewhat better with their "High quality" button, but not much.
For some reason I think a lot of frames got cut out because it doesn't look nearly as choppy in the file I uploaded. I am including links where you can download a better quality version too.
In general chronological order..
so after the girl gets pulled into the carcass of a dead pig by the arms of an octopus(which is being shot at the end), she wakes up to see these folks standing over her
The better quality download....
http://blip.tv/file/get/Playdohartist-testFootage887.avi
this is a close up of the bee lady looking at her on the operating table
better quality download...
http://blip.tv/file/get/Playdohartist-moreTests673.avi
then things start to get a bit weird as we cut back and forth between the scene on the "operating table" and a scene where the girl wakes up on the ground to find herself in an empty cavernous room. There is a wooden box in front of her. She gives it a quizzical look.
She crawls to the box and opens it to find it full of different eyeballs. She picks one up.
The interesting glowy fuzzy look here is obtained by using my fisheye adaptor lens, and then zooming in so that the image gets distorted. I use it for the POV shots.
she looks into the eyes
through the first eye she see the bee lady moving about "playing" music on the flowers.
The video cuts back and forth from shots of the girl at the operating table and her looking through the different eyeballs. Each eyeball shows her a different view of one of the 3 characters. The next is time pig man. he rolls around in circles like a mad man banging on clocks like drums.
next is string man who walks around in this room full of floor to ceiling strings plucking the strings to hear the vibrational sound they make.
here is a short clip, some of the vibrational instruments from pig time man are at the end of the clip.
Better quality download...
http://blip.tv/file/get/Playdohartist-stringPlay753.avi
through the last eyeball she picks up she sees herself in an empty room with strings attached to herself and no eyeballs
Better quality download...
http://blip.tv/file/get/Playdohartist-string797.avi
at the sight of this she gets really disturbed and faints. The eyeball drops out of her hand and rolls on the floor.
we cut back to the operating room and the bee lady pokes the girls leg to see that she can't move her legs. They all look at one another, deciding something needs to be done. This is the string man's look of approval. There are two shots here, I just filmed them consecutively.
Better quality download...
http://blip.tv/file/get/Playdohartist-realString232.avi
So that's what I have for today. I am not happy with how youtube is playing the footage, I will have to find a better way to show it next time. Something gets lost when youtube compresses it for the internet.
|
|
| humdiddy dum |
[11 Mar 2009|04:04pm] |
I am eating frozen grapes and listening to a bit of Russian Opera while a bunch of pictures upload from animating this morning. Specifically I am listening to my Russian Opera class performing bits from Eugene Onegin and Boris Godunov. I really think Russian is the most gorgeous language... I can't explain what it is I like so much about it, but I just love it. These songs give me chills. the performance is on youtube... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MB20taOo8c You can see my adorable russian teacher there. He wore a different bowtie EVERY day to class. You can see me looking awkward in the middle right hand row.
My absolute favorite song is a duet by these two fantastic women at 44:50 into the video. Obviously not "Average" students- the solos were by music/opera majors. The one with the pearl necklace was in my dorm freshman year and used to sing in the shower. There were some benefits to living in Jones.
I have been having really strange dreams the last few nights. Dreams about people from middle school. They feel so REAL that I feel like I am right back, age 12, walking around Millikan. Strange. All my feelings from the time came right back as if they never left (i.e. jealousy over johnny appleseed-lol oh man mika, remember those code names?- feeling embarrassed in dance class changing rooms... the like ) how can that be so fresh after a decade??
They weather here is so wonderful and breezy. It's my first full year being back in California in 4 years so I had forgotten that we actually do have little seasonal changes. They aren't big at all, and I never appreciated them fully before... but just little things that remind me of growing up here that I never saw when I only came for short breaks... like how every spring the wildflowers bloom. All over the side of the freeways there are bundles of fuchsia and white and saffron and purple and orange. Little joys. I want to go visit the california poppy reserve this year. Big fields full of orange.
I did end up having that picnic I so craved. Fairly last minute I sent out a message to a bunch of my friends and we frolicked over to chatsworth oaks park where we ate sandwhiches and play multiple rounds of Cranium. The weather was perfect and a bit on the chilly side. There were odd children riding mopeds down the dirt hills. There was a dog with an inflamed gonad. There were small dachshunds running around. There were debates about which blue gatorade was better(I go with the light blue... which reminds mika of the snack shacks at zuma beach and reminds me of carmel/monterey beaches... when sniffed).
I actually really liked the oaks park. It wasn't my first choice, but chatsworth park south is still closed for having lead in the soil. This little park was nestled into box canyon across from the chatsworth park reservoir and under some big rocky mountain peak. Looking all around you can't see any buildings and it feels like you are transported to someplace else. That's one of the things I always loved about chatsworth. It's got this weird residue of the older "western" history.. places to tie up a horse, stores that still have saloon doors, oak trees and tumbleweeds. Mourning doves. horse ranches. caves. Big warehouses that we used to run around as children. Now I know those warehouses make up the soundstages for the porn industry, but Chatsworth seems surprisingly wholesome, considering, and I never knew that when I was playing hide and seek around them.
I definitely needed to see friends, I have been feeling so cooped up while working during the week. I don't go outside very often. I sit animating in a windowless garage. It gets lonely. I want to keep up on seeing people more often because I always feel more fulfilled and complete when I do.
|
|
| 4 days of shooting done! |
[06 Mar 2009|06:15pm] |
I am so excited!!!! I have shot 64 seconds of footage in the last 4 days, which is excellent considering my decrepit state of health. I can finally talk again(though I won't be karaokeing for another week or so) and I am getting my energy back.
This is a dead pig. He is made from clay, with a mix of acrylic paint and beige spray paint. You can actually see his storyboarded self in the lower left corner
in the short intro, I have some establishing shots of the farmhouse. This is one of them. The light from the window crawls up the wall and over this picture to signal a passage of time.
aha! Yes, that is the puppet, masking taped to a chunk of granite. For most of the dining room shots, you can't see the girl's feet, and also she was a tad short to make the shots work(you couldn't see her behind the table when she was standing). I was feeling a bit anxious and not wanting to deal with tiedowns in conjunction with her lack of height... so I just took this granite sample and taped her to it. The granite is very heavy so she stayed in place... and the tape was shockingly strong.
a headless farmer
Pig getting placed
I realize this all looks very sloppy,lol. Such a sad sagging backdrop... but you can't see that part in the shot.
a shot from between the dslr and the cheapo videocamera(used for grabbing frames into animator dv so I can have a reference for each move - I use the onionskinning option but don't use animator dv for anything else)
another establishing shot of the crucifix and the little kerosene lamp. there is actually a match stuck into a blob of clay BEHIND the lamp that was lit. I couldnt put the flame in the lamp, it was too small. But this way I got the flicker and reflections of light in the lamp I wanted.
the first establishing shot inside the house. This is that grandfather clock I made. The face of the clock is from a watch. The lens I am using is an opteka fisheye lens that attaches to my nikkor lens. I zoom in the give it that weird hazy circular distortion. The shot goes from a complete out of focus shot to this. The effect the lens has is really beautiful and eerie. When it is out of focus the lights and colors look like paint.
These are frames from the film, yet again I am playing around with color curves in all of them with photoshop- still deciding on what colors I want to have in the final edit. Just quick color touching.
this milk is actually hair gel mixed with white paint. It oozed beautifully to allow me to just put my camera on continuous shooting as it dribbled out of the milk pot and onto the floor. It gets knocked over by the farmer's head which the girl drops on the table after it falls off his body. Complicated. Don't try to understand now. This is a surreal video.
Next I animate her getting swallowed into the pig after being pulled in by these octopus tentacles that come out of the dead, singing, pig's mouth. Just normal stuff, you know.
|
|
| filming and sick |
[03 Mar 2009|04:45pm] |
I began shooting today! I was planning on starting shooting yesterday, but I caught the dreaded bug my whole family has this week, so things have been relatively slow the last couple days. While I normally work 10-12 hours a day, I can only manage to squeeze out 4 or 5 hours a day since friday without feeling queezy and ill. I think it's strep throat or possibly tonsillitis. Blech. It should be over soon, but thankfully I am ahead of schedule so it's not affecting my work flow in any great way. When I feel sick I just resort to sculpting things or doing small relaxing tasks. Thankfully Ryan was here to help me set up the lights and table this morning.
I finished two shots this morning (about 10 seconds), which I will show you a shot from in a moment, but first... the progress from the last few days...
the finished wall for the pig/time man. Some of the cogs turn and the hands on the clocks. That big evil spikey thing spins as well. It looks like a saw/wheel of death. I don't know what it is to be honest. You can't see the sharp razor edges on it from the picture.
this is that magical insulation foam I talked about filling the puppet heads with before. the red one is firm, and the blue one is like packing peanuts(flexible and squishy)
I used it to create the underground walls, give it a rocky texture.
there are pipes and grates that will fill the space too - and I added some rusty color on top of the black
the hill
after the plaster, I painted it brown, then put a layer of glue and sprinkled some leftover cactus dirt I had in the garage.
broom grass got glue on in bundles in a sort of forced perspective height gradation
this is what the grass looked like when I found it at the dollar tree(normally 8 bucks a piece! I love 99cents stores.
the grass gets a bit sparse in the back since you can't tell on the angle I will be shooting at.
building a grandfather clock from a smaller grandfather clock and some extra wood and the sticks left over from the broom grass
I made the clock face bubble shaped by dribbling some hot glue on the wood.
Ryan helps out with putting the table together. Apparently, Ryan wants to be my apprentice :) For those who don't know, he is normally my sound designer and my only other collaborator in all my animations. he was with me when I first tested out some stop motion with a chunk of playdoh a few years ago.
setting up the lights- the background is made from a vinyl window shade that I spray painted beige and then added transparent layers to. the house is sitting on top of a trashcan and a coffee filter box.
testing out some angles to set the house just right
I am adjusting her eyeball
and finally some shots from the real film!!!! This is from the opening shot. All of these have different color tones since I was playing around this singular images to try and get a feel for the colors I want - so they are all different here.
this is supposed to be a tad later in the day.. 20 minutes or so. All of this takes place at about sunset.
testing different colors
that's all for now. Off I go to continue :)
|
|
| last week of making and building |
[27 Feb 2009|12:23am] |
By Monday I should begin filming! I have finished all the puppets(only small details and cleanup left), and have a few sets to build. So far I have built this table and 3 chairs out of wood bought at salvation army, and some foamcore...
I stained it with some acrylic paint, then sanded it back to get some of the original wood color.
here is the dining room drawers(originally a bright colored jewelery box I painted and sanded and aged) with some of the plates and props on top
a plate on the table
two lovely ebay and thrift store finds. A small kerosene lamp and a teapot that was once a saltn pepper shaker.
the back wall to the farm house, made using fabric and print outs of wood. The wood planks are paper print outs that I bent and folded to look 3d- since I don't get close up on it to need it to be real wood. I made the molding out of foamcore board painted to match the wood printout. On this wall will hang a crucifix and a portrait. the drawers will be up against it with the lamp, and a grandfather clock on the other end.
the farm house for the wide shot of the prairie/farm. You don't get to close to it, it's a background prop
since you don't get close to it, I just printed out some textures of brick and shingles and then wrinkled them up and pasted them onto the foamcore model.
beginnings of a hill
plaster and paper towels to form the hill
looks like snow, but it will get brown tall grass
the beginnings of the wall background for the time clock pig man
it still needs clock faces
o look! a finished octopus!
and a rolling pig man!
the bee lady got some hair
the girl got new eyes(made using paper print out of irises, which I glued onto the old hardened clay eyes, then covered with clear nail polish), and some hair. The hair is made of thin sheets of latex which I embedded with armature wire and got glued to her head then painted black.they naturally became wavy when the latex stuck to itself.
|
|
| characters almost done |
[21 Feb 2009|03:04am] |
While none of the puppets have hair yet, I have almost finished the puppets, which is wonderful because it is the most time consuming part of building(though, admittedly, the most fun). On to the good stuff...
Oh Victorian Bee lady ... here is her skeleton and mask. I glue all the parts into balsa wood blocks using my favorite adhesive, gorilla glue. Gorilla glue has been many a savior. It expands to fill in all the gaps in my pre-drilled holes, and dries as hard as a rock. Very important since I don't want these limbs jiggling out of place after I sew clothes on.
See that string wrapped around her lower body? I was a dumbnut and didn't use enough wrapped wires to support her upper body weight. This string doesn't work well either, which you will see I had to reinforce in a moment. The build up on all hands is Mold builder latex over plumbers epoxy and wire.
Oh, the heads proved to be particularly troublesome.... I detest the idea of using foam latex(time? money? machinery? I dunno), so in the plaster molds I created masks by building up the latex layer by layer. Many a time I was impatient and globbed it in the mold, only to be punished by it never drying underneath the top layer. Blowdriers are my new best friends.
After they all dried, I pulled out the masks and tried to figure out the best way to attach them to the body... I tried something new and bought this foam insulation spray from Home depot called "Great stuff" that is meant to be used in closing up gaps in your windows and walls etc... It expands and hardens into a hard styrafoam texture. I sprayed this in with the masks face down and the neck wires propped up into the empty head cavity.
Actually, at first I bought the "flexible" kind which ended up being as soft as packing peanuts. I had to carve it out of the heads and spray in the "rigid" stuff. It hardens in 8 hour, but after about 4, I was able to shave away the excess around the craniums to be some sort of skull shape. It was perfect and not heavy. I can move the heads around with ease without the heads coming loose.
I love me some knobbly fingers. This 3nd layer of skin. I mixed acrylic paint with latex and started first with a white layer, then a translucent brown, then a pale greeney blue, which is what you see here, there is another light brown layer I add next for the shadows and dirtying up. but the hands here need more pale color to soften the hands.
this is the reinforcement I was talking about. My mom kept calling her the bobbleheaded bee lady, so I went wild with the wire wrapping and now she is secure and animates more easilly.
aha! the eyes I made out of sculpy (an eggshell color), and posed holes in them before baking with a toothpick. They need some shine so later today I will put a gloss on them. Around the eyes I placed some purplish sculpy I mixed and then painted a layer of clear latex over it to keep it in place and glue it to the face. the eyelids will be in the same color clay when I need them.
fixed the hands
hellooo. She needs hair badly. and her wings have not formed yet. I didnt get a good pick of the outfit yet but it has oodles of black lace and looks quite swell.
here is our farmgirl. The mask with these temporary wooden eyes I tried out. Many a corpse in the background after I put the heads on with that foam insulation stuff.
this is during one of the MANY failed attempts to fix her eye socket area. I did some plastic surgry here and gave her eyebrow implants with some clay and latex. It was bad. looked swollen. But her outfit is done!
these swollen eyes! Ever seen Rainman? "It's bad... it's bad..."
I know you may not be able to tell a difference here, but I can, I punched the sockets in so they go deeper.
now they still look "blackeye"ish, but not swollen. I am considering buying some realistic doll eyes today to separate her from the other world figures. we'll see. the black isn't working for me. I want an unsetling realistic eye.
the praying mother. needs gray hair in a low bun I think.
the father. no eyelids yet. You never see them with their eyes open anyway.
the farmgirl's future legs. The first 3 coats(a pale blue, then a purple, then a white). It already has the next 2 layers, not pictured here(a red/orange, and a translucent layer of yellow latex)
octopus. he needs to be paled down and a layer of transcluent yellow latex to make him look slimy
So, in the middle of all this working, sometimes I need to eat. And on this particular day I wanted pancakes(the crepish kind, but of the swedish persuasion where they are a little thicker and eggier, but with german toppings- lemon and powdered sugar). This is ENTIRELY on accident... but after pouring I noticed they look like two heads back to back. Don't they? see the silhouette?
Pig time man. I made a mask for him, but wanted it elongated, so I ended up adding foam and cotton on top to make it a longer face. no ears or mustache or top hat yet. he will have cogs and wheels on his lower body and will be a bit of a steampunk character.
string fate man- you can see here how I cut holes out in the sockets and have a layer of van aken clay behind the eyes. I put this in before the foam insulation. I like a bed of clay for the eyeballs to have some traction .
dude only has half an upper eyelid, but that's ok for now
I am gonna start updating more often so these aren't in such big bunches.
|
|
| from my other blog |
[21 Feb 2009|02:09am] |
I have a production blog for the music video I am making, so I thought I would just cross post here. The original posts are at curiousspoon.blogspot.com
This crazy wonderful music video project has begun. I have been working on it for weeks, prop hunting and scavenging through thrift stores and online collecting cogs and gears and wire and rubber. I love the hunt. It's something I don't get to do when I do other computer animations.
If the San Fernando Valley is good for anything(and really, there's only a couple things it's good for), thrift shopping is one of them. After weeks of searching through every single thrift store in the Thousand oaks area, I was left disappointed and pessimistic because everything here is overpriced and hoity toity. even a piece of scrap tin is considered "antique" and worthy of shelling over 100 bucks. Not so in antique row in the Valley. I scored oodles of items for under 20 bucks. Clocks and flowers and odd metal thingies. I also went to the Santa Fe salvage in downtown los angeles, which turned out to be too damn expensive, but eventually led me to finding this wonderful magnificent place...
a prop shop liquidation center in the middle of the warehouse district. I love garage sales, so when I saw a "HUGE GARAGE SALE" sign on the main road, I had to make a quick stop. I had no idea it was a huge prop shop until I turned the corner. HUGE I tell you. currently it is full of old props from Disney films. They are adding a bunch more studios soon.. I guess they recently opened. This is what it looks like inside...
and here are some of the clocks I found, some from the valley thrift stores, and the rest from the prop shop.
and this I did not buy, but I found in the 99 cent store. I was mildly disturbed.
And now, a somewhat chronological barrage of what I have been doing.
Storyboards. I never like doing them, I am bad at doing them, so take these as you will. They mostly make sense only to me, I don't like to waste time on doing beautifully drawn storyboards, so they are a bit hazardous. These are only for the first half of the film, the rest are written out since the image is too complicated to draw and be useful.
some small props made out of clay
Very rough sketches of the characters in real scale
the main farmgirl
and her head in clay ready for plaster
one of the antifates, a victorian gothic queenbee lady
and her clay head waiting to be made into a plaster mold
a sad rendition of the clock/time man, he now has a pig head(still with a mustache and top hat though)
his piggy head made in clay
the string man
and his clay head, ready for plaster mold making, and eventual latex mask
the farm parents
their clay heads
The farmgirl's head covered in plaster
after a horrendous scare, in which I was trying to make plaster in the kitchen, with my 3 and 6 year old cousins crawling over my back to see what I was doing, I am rather surprised this first mold came out perfectly! The plaster was hardening at a stupendous rate, and I thought I had a clumpy first brush on... but here it is! At the present time, I have already layed in the latex.
For some reason I thought I should share this, on my way thrift shopping, a very dumb man thought this would be a good idea. This mattres was going to take flight.
the farmgirl armature- aluminum wire wrapped twice, epoxy putty, wood, and a temporary styrofoam head(eventually to be made of wood and foam and latex)
latex build-up. I use Mold Builder rubber latex by the way. A wonderful, ammonia scented bundle of gooey goodness. Perfect consistency.
The beginnings of the girls future octopus legs for the second half of the movie
a forest of latex hands and tentacles. The hands now have knobbly knuckles and plump fingertips. But I have no pics yet.
the bottom half of the big octopus character that takes the girl into the strange world. this is wire, foam and pantyhose so far.
the octopus head clay scultpure with the foam and wire body
the girl's tentacles with suction cups. I dolloped blobs of latex, waitied for them to partially dry, and then poked the end tip of a paintbrushinto them to make cups.
The underside of the big octopus with cotton and it's suction cups. Hard to see, but trust me.
the foam octopus head with cotton and pantyhose and 1 layer of latex
that's all for now. All of the plaster heads have latex drying in them. Any questions and I am happy to answer!
|
|
| design love |
[05 Feb 2009|06:10pm] |
I am planning on starting a design/art/what I like and do type blog to put on my website, but until then, I will put it here.
Admittedly, I have a bit of a problem. A few people know this, but I LOVE shopping for house decor, and ESPECIALLY dinnerware/plates. I don't know WHY dinnerware in particular, maybe because I love get togethers involving food, maybe because I love food in general - I just like dinnerware, who knows. So, I must share my mild obsession with this these plates I recently found at Target.
You see, I have this fantasy of one day having a full dinner set of big plates, salad plates, bowls, and glasses, that are comprised of several different sets... so the big plate would be different from the salad plate, different from the bowl, etc... Now I already have these lovely big teal plates, I love them. I love how food looks on them, everything looks so much tastier. I discovered this because I used to have a set of black and white paisley plates. I loved the design on them, but once I got a few teal plates on a whim and saw how AMAZING my stir fry looked on their bright tealy blue color, I realized how BAD food looks on black and dark colored plates. It always looks better on brighter plates. Now a purist might say white plates would be best, but I don't like white.
So in the back of my mind I am ALWAYS on the lookout for a wonderfully paired salad plate or bowl to go with my teal plates- a soul mate if you will. To backtrack... I found these amazing, hand blown, cobalt blue margarita glasses last year and bought 8 of them. They are huge and extremely round and stout so you can cup them in your hand like a goblet. Just lovely. ANYWAY, so last week, I was walking through Target and I saw them, a red and white medallion porcelain-ware set. 4 big plates, 4 little, 4 bowls, and 4 mugs. I was in love. Paired with the teal plates they make a great beautiful duo. I even dreamt about these plates. They make me feel whimsical and classy all at once.
I am not sure where the bowls and mugs will come into the scheme of things(I will just enjoy them on their own I guess), but I can't buy the plates separately, so I decided it would look lovely to alternate the teal big plates and red and white salad plates with the teal salad plates and red and white big plates.
I had a hard time convincing ryan that the combo would look good(he can't visualize these things without seeing it), so I created a little inspirational collage of styles I love and hope to make our home like one day(what a nerdy housewife I can be at times), and some things I already have, next to the plate combo. I made my little proposal, and I totally got his approval(which means he will pitch in half, haha!). Score.
So the bed thing is kinda like the bed I wanna make(except mine will make a full canopy), the blue cups are the color blue of my margarita glasses(though not NEARLY as rotund and squat), the owl teapot is the teapot ryan got me for xmas, and the other stuff is just pretty whimsically rustic things I had collected from the internet. I photoshopped the pics of the plates online into the corner and paired them up with each other,lol.
Nerd I am.
I know this seems a tad lame, but I just get excited about housing items. I like to nest. perhaps I should have a place of my own first, but... WHO KNOWS IF THE PLATES GET DISCONTINUED BEFORE THAT. One cannot wait on good deals...
|
|
|
[29 Jan 2009|09:07am] |
Things are getting better. I feel less anxious today. I got my new stop motion book in the mail and have been trying to make myself happier with thoughts on silicone molding and latex buildups.
This video make sme happy too. Saw it this morning
|
|
| Life, today, was pwnd by me. |
[18 Jan 2009|02:54am] |
Today rocked my socks off.
To start it out, I saw my fellow Nessa. She was not supposed to be here, but alas she is. It was an utter surprise on her part and I had no clue until she answered the door of some house I thought belonged to a prop guy ryan works with. Though her reason for being here(her mom's health is degrading) was bad, I can't help but being happy to see my Nessa. I missed her so much.
By the time we got to the beach, after getting Nessa to the hospital to see her mom and attempting to get into a Jewish Cemetery on a Saturday(which means it was closed) to see her dad, it was already sunset. We ate sandwiches and shared an eclair and watched the HUGE waves as it got dark. A whole mess of dolphins were doing their little dive thing up and down in the water not far off the beach. Nessa ran into the freezing cold water in all her clothes like a mad man. Seagulls begged for food. penises were drawn in the sand(of course).The water looked so beautiful. I looked for sandcrabs and failed, but it's ok because I saw dolphins :)
We drove through Topanga Canyon to the lookout point above the valley and took a bunch of fun long exposure photos. Ryan blasted "White and Nerdy" by Weird Al to compete with a bunch of dudes in a rattling ghetto car that was parked blasting their own respective rap music.
Ate dinner at del Taco. Sang Karaoke at Sardo's. I sang my first Solo song(black horse and a cherry tree- Kt Tunstall, yes) and I think I did damn well. Ryan and Nessa both did songs too. We were all each other's back up dancers. A group of men sang and danced to Nsync's Bye Bye Bye as well as "Man I feel like a woman". Spent a good 4 hours there and loved every minute of it.
Got a bunch of really nice comments/e-mails from people who read my account of the 1994 earthquake that I had posted on the LA MEtblogs comment section. People wanna read more of my stuff.
Got a really lucrative e-mail from the head of the band for this stop motion music video freelance job I bid on. The bidding ends in 1 and a half days, but he e-mailed me personally saying how much he loved my work, and how my stop motion style is EXACTLY what he is looking for. He chatted about his fav artists and sent me the exact songs he was trying to choose between to see if I had a preference. This is a very good sign. I could really use an extra 6,500 bucks to do something I love doing.
Basically, today was a really big shining star in a series of weeks that have had me on the edge of mild insanity. Things are looking up. Yes. Yes they are. Oh so many pictures will be up soon.
|
|
| a little something |
[17 Jan 2009|08:58am] |
15 years ago today was the 94' Northridge Earthquake... So I thought I might share a little something I wrote in my creative non-fiction class last year that is relevant
Merridy Street
Walking back from the Liquor store on the corner of Dupont and Topanga, with Red Vine Licorice in one hand, and a Cactus Cooler in the other, my four year old brother Frankie and I pass by the same quaint, one story houses that we pass by everyday on the way home from school. At some point, my brother will pick up a snail or two, we will stop to pet two Doberman’s through palm-sized holes in a chain link fence, steal a lemon from our neighbor’s front lawn, and cross the street to avoid the violent Chow on the corner of our block, who will no doubt smash his round face against his side yard gate in a frothing mess of slobber to try and bite us.
Our neighborhood is a Pleasantville of non-offensive, vitamin colored houses, the same four or five house plans flipped and repeated over and over to make up a neighborhood of family-friendly cul-de sacs and short blocks. With the exception of the dogs, my brother and I are, undoubtedly, the only ones out and about. All the neighbors are safe inside their homes, the drapes drawn shut. The pale stucco of every house reflects the acid trip sunset in the western sky like a mood ring, unnaturally stunning hot pinks and eggplant purples, amplified by the thick smoggy haze that blankets the Valley. It’s this same smog layer ― creating the most surreal, ethereal sunsets, worthy of postcards sold in liquor stores all around the Los Angeles area ― that soaks up all the city lights in it’s thickness and makes the night sky glow a milky lavender, like a fresh bruise, blocking out the constellations and tucking the Valley in for the night, giving us the comforting illusion that we rest inside our own impenetrable bubble of suburban harmonium. Throughout night, the dull and constant rumble in the background throughout most of the day submits to the soothing hoos of mourning doves. Sometimes, as I lay in my bed, staring at the glow-in-the-dark, constellation stickers hanging on to the cottage-cheese ceiling, trying to get back to sleep after waking up from the cat jumping on my chest, or my bladder being full, or a nightmare about dinosaurs eating my brother… I can hear the doves, much too soft to be heard during the day, as they peck the freshly laid grass seeds by the shed where the Opossums sleep, nestled against garbage bags full of stale clothes.
* * *
At 4:30 a.m., on January 17, 1994, I wake up, not from my bladder or by dreams of dinosaurs eating my brother, or by my cats selfish need to trample on my stomach, but by every single dog in the whole neighborhood yelping and hollering. I imagine the massive, orangutan orange Chow on the street corner, pressing his swollen, cotton ball fur through the holes in the chain-link fence while his speckled black and purple tongue coats the wires in his saliva. The Golden Retriever two doors down, hopping like a kangaroo to peek over the pointed tops of the sunlight stained, picket wall. The two gentle Doberman’s by the Liquor store, standing on their slender back legs as they howl in unison toward the violet sky.
At 4:31 another noise joins the dogs, the sound of beds creaking and windows shaking in their loose panes, ceramic plates breaking on orange and brown linoleum floors – making dents in the 70’s inspired Mushroom pattern, aquariums shattering onto brown carpet as the fish scatter like marbles throughout the house to be discovered as one discovers a squished grape under one’s bare foot, and beneath it all, a low rumbling like the rumbling of an empty belly that was hooked up to a megaphone and shoved into your ear.
They always taught us in school that when these things happen, it is best to stand in a doorway, which will supposedly remain standing as everything else collapses. Whoever thought this was a good idea clearly hadn’t tried it out in a real circumstance, like the people who tell you to get up and walk when you have a cramp in your calf. No -I just lay there in my bed, cottage cheese chunks landing in the creases of my eyes and nose and mouth. And when the house stops moving, it’s like I have been shut in a closet, suffocating on air filled with all the sluffed off skin and lint and dust that has been resting for years in the deepest nooks of the carpet and beneath the baseboards and under the bed. I can’t see the corners of the room, or even the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling, it is blacker than desert nights in Joshua Tree, where at least the moon can draw the outlines of your own hand in front of your face.
I slide my feet onto the carpet, every step a ballet dance of tentatively tapping toes, testing for broken glass or sharp knickknacks flung from shelves. By my doorway, the floor is soaked in over ten gallons of water from the fish tank at the end of the hall. Teal and magenta gravel wedges itself between my toes, marinated in slimy fish-water. In front of my door, I can see a little metallic body reflecting what little light is left in the house. Sharky, my black tipped Silver Shark Fish, barely the size of my thumb, is laying on his side, nestled in the brown carpet. He is gasping for water, his little bloated fishy-lips opening and closing mechanically. In the living room, my turtle, Sam, is lying on the linoleum, his stumpy little feet clawing in slow motion at the air.
* * *
Small, silhouetted lumps of families bundled under blankets, like a sea of bag ladies, begin to hobble outside of their houses to an orchestra of varying car alarms and fire squads, police sirens, and honking horns and still barking dogs, which are now running loose down the streets in every possible direction. In the weeks to come, walking to and from the liquor store to buy clean water, we will find some of these dogs; many are hit by cars, left on the side of the road for days before being removed or identified by their owners. Tomorrow, carrying home a box full of glazed doughnuts(the only food place open for miles), I will discover one on my own, a black and white pit bull, on the sidewalk - impaled by a parking sign in front of the baseball card shop, one of his eyes popping out of its socket. I will walk home the rest of the way with my eyes glued to my feet because one of our cats ran away, and she hasn’t come back, and I don’t want to know why.
* * *
Sitting on our front lawns, we wait for the sun to rise. Everyone is in their front yard, for once making use of their perfectly coiffed lawns, unable to go back inside for fear of aftershocks or gas leaks. Notably though, no one is in their backyard, as if to say in the only way they know how, to neighbors they never introduced themselves to before now, that they are ok, and that they wanted to know that we were ok too. We all quietly take roll with our passive glances up and down the street.
On our own front lawn (not nearly as well kept as our neighbors, notorious for it’s dirt patches and dandelion growth), my brother sits upright in his purple and gold Aladdin hoodie. My mom is picking glass from inside the cotton hood - little shards of “special occasion” glass and dinnerware from the China cabinet in the living room, and not from the window in his bedroom, which had shattered all over my brother’s bed. At 4 in the morning, my brother had woken up with the dog, gotten himself dressed, woke my mom up to have her tie his shoes (which she, probably half asleep, didn’t question), and started to watch The Great Mouse Detective on the brown leather couch in the living room – which was beneath the China cabinet. He just sits here quietly with his nose gently resting against his favorite balloon printed blanket, his “Dee”, not even realizing how lucky he is that he had an urge to leave his room to watch a movie before his bed became a pool of glass. I sit quietly next to him, wrapped in my own blanket, with a fisher-price picnic basket at my side - my turtle, Sam, scratching at the frictionless plastic in vain to try and climb out.
* * *
Sometime before 6:58 AM, when the sun would rise on January 17, 1994, you could see every face on Merridy St. looking not downward, at the cracked street, zigzagging like asphalt lightning over the sidewalk and through the road, or at the uprooted trees toppled over like dominoes onto cars crushed like aluminum soda cans, but upwards, at the sky normally flattened out into its dull lavender, where little white twinkles of light were shining crisp and purposeful like they do in the desert - a connect-the-dots of warriors and serpents and giant spoons made up of planets and galaxies so far away that they look like specks of glowing dust scattered on a placid lake. For the first and only time in my life in that place, I saw stars.
|
|
| I am gonna make this public again |
[13 Jan 2009|09:32am] |
I don't want my entries to be private anymore unless they are extremely personal. So damn it, I am opened back up(s if it really makes a difference,lol- what.. like 4 people read this?)
Some quick points of note, because I am superbly lazy...
1. I had a great time at the Jesca Hoop Concert. I EVEN BRUSHED ARMS WITH HER as she walked by to go to the stage. Wah! I wouldn't have even known about it if Chris hadn't found it so short notice. This is inspiring me to make a small list of my favorite new artists I found out about in the last month or so.
1. Jesca Hoop (Seed of Wonder Acoustic is magic)
2. Beirut(listen to Elephant Gun- great song)
3. Ray Lamontagne (Jolene, and Empty)
2. We went back to Sardo's on Saturday. I sang my first and second karaoke songs this week!!! Granted they were all duets, but Rome wasn't built in a day, and I have some killer stage fright. I had a good fun time. And maybe next time. Maybe I will be able to do a song Solo. I like the groove I am getting back into here, seeing friends, doing things outside of the house...
3. I still feel extremely antsy and anxious. Although starting this freelance side project is helping me not flip out about my future so much... I am still freaking out about my future. I get this nervous twittery feeling in my chest. I just flip out about whether I am talented enough to be doing what I want to do. I wonder if there is something else I should be doing that I would be more qualified for. This makes me sad because I love animation. And I want to work in it so badly. Everyone else seems to be employed. And I am not.
4. I feel cramped. I need more space to myself. Sharing this one puny room in ryan's parent's room is not enough. I can't paint or build things. I can't just lay out in the backyard because that damn dog has peed and shat all over it.
5. I miss something I can't put my finger on. I miss having an apartment and having the option to invite friends over for hanging out and random debauchery.
6. I haven't gone to the beach in a very long time. I miss it. And I need to go soon.
7. Buying these suede boots was the best purchase I've made in a while. I just want to WALK all over in them. Seriously. These boots WERE made for walking. When I was at Hollywood and Highland, they just made me wanna walk all the way to griffith park. And my feet didn't hurt. I love these shoes. I am already fearing their demise through overuse.
8. I think I must take at least 50 pictures a day. Everyday. sometimes closer to 200. I am more aware of this now since my camera is much larger and heftier. Ryan and my cat are probly the most well documented beings on earth.
9. been trying to think of what I want to call my website. It is difficult because it will be a hodgepodge of photography, illustration, animation, and creative nonfiction writing. I have been brainstorming for days and trying to think of something witty and meaningful... but I am not very good with coming up with things witty or meaningful. I just end up making lists of my favorite sounding words. Like Cocoon. I like the word cocoon. I like how it looks and how it sounds. So warm, so inviting. So round. But I can't find a way to make the word cocoon at all relevant to what my website will be about. Just ike I couldn't make Spoon work. I just like these words. they mean nothing. Bother
hum dum dum
4. I
|
|
|
[14 Aug 2006|11:55pm] |
By the way, I'm friends only now, been so for a couple months. forgot to mention it officially.
I know there are a couple of you out there who don't have accounts, so if you really wanna read and look at pictures and such, get an acount and friend me :)
I will pretty much friend anyone I know so feel free to ask for and add!
|
|
|
[01 Jun 2006|08:08am] |
Back from IReland.
Ireland was great.
The food in IReland was not so great.
HOrses and ponies galore, oh my.
GOt a new job offer when I got back.
I will be working at a creative arts and crafts pottery painting place.
The camp didn't work out because of finals week conflicts.
The lady hired me even though she never hires seasonal workers, that makes me feel good.
Nessa's chinchilla died last night at about 3 am of what we think was a stroke.
We are very distressed and confused and upset...
He was so young.. there was apossibility he was sick when we got him.
We did all we could for suggestions of emergency stroke relief...
I am severely jet lagged and tired... but alas I must go to school to load film and be Assistent camera tested.
And to develop film.
We got our film reel and tape back. They frightened us by saying there were torn perfs and emulsion rips and scratching.. but other than the last minute or so(which we didnt really need), it was stunningly gorgeous. *puff of pride goes here*.
Pictures of IReland and wedding coming soon
|
|
|
[25 May 2006|06:38pm] |
Ummmm... me + tomorrow = Ireland? HUH? JIGGA WHUH? no really.. is this really happening? am I so frickin busy that I don't even comprehend where I am going tomorrow???
nope, I don't. All I can think about is this friggin paper I have to write tonight.
Nessa got a chinchilla!!! it's so cute. and oh so soft.
|
|
|
[23 May 2006|08:15am] |
SO I have a job, and an apartment(not the one I mentioned before. They wouldnt allow 3 people in a two bedroom, fuckers).
It all happened yesterday, and it was really hectic. I have been so busy and worried this week that last nght I got up twice in the middle of the night from bad dreams about my life that made me so sick to my stomach I felt like throwing up. I would be dreaming about the things that happened yesterday day and eveyrhting I have to accomplish before friday and all of a sudden that throw up heaving sick feeling would come about. I hate feeling so worried and stressed.
BTW- I got a job as a camp councelor for an arts camp in the digital media/moviemaking half day camp. Sounds fun and all - just starts early in the morning.
And our apartment in on the 18th floor by lincoln park and the lake in lower lakeview. It has a sky deck that looks over chicago on the 23rd floor. its fuckin beautiful and my bedroom is absolutely gigantic with huge windows. Its a corner unit, so the living room windows rap around two walls. Yesssss.
Unfortunatley I have to shell out 250 bucks more because the pet deposit is 500 dollars. Jeebus.
AHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
So much to do today. No money in my account. Have to get a ticket to fly out to california for a court date with Casey in September(remember him? that bastard? Remember when he sued my grandma and me for over 30,000 dollars? well finally its got a court date)
BAH
|
|
|
[20 May 2006|08:32pm] |
I think we have an apartment.
And by "I think", I mean we put down first months rent are are just waiting to see if they accept us. I think we find out on Monday or so...
It is absolutely prescious. It's actually in Lincoln Park, not Lakeview... but it's near a great deep dish pizza place, right next to the EL, a wonderful little park(And still close enough to lincoln park zoo and such)and has a real great feel to it. It has this weird bar type thing next to the kitchedn that's between the living room and the kitchen that has this odd indoor roof with shingles on it.. it kinda makes the bar look like an outdoor tiki loungy thing.... it's pretty frickin awesome. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it.. it's a little bizarre but it fits.
And the fireplace is a huge gigantic double sided brick wall type thing(you know me and exposed brick...). It just felt like home. IT was really cozy and on a grand little tree lined street. Let's cross our fingers folks.
I am shooting my final cinematography project tomorrow. Arriflex Bl 16 on 16mm film. yes. Sexy, I know.
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
bananamoo's journal