Meditate.9

An extra Meditate in February, for an extra day in the year. Happy leap year, everyone.

Week 9 . Meditate Project

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Dreams

Thanks for playing along yesterday. And today. It is nice to hear what you all do in your free time, or your not so free time. It’s nice to hear it on the fly.

I had a dream last night that I began planting things in the garden. And then I remembered that it is still February. Much too cold for planting anything. Not to mention frozen. But in my dream, it didn’t seem to matter, and I wasn’t worried.

I’m ready for life. For green. For that smell of the earth rejuvenating itself. For crocuses. Right now, these are just dreams. But soon. They will be spring.

Today

I realize that according to regular programming, I post at night, and most of you read the next day. But let’s just play along, yeah?

Today I am working on a label for a package of tea, or trying to, at least, and eating warm peanut butter cookies. And pondering life and its challenges.

What are you doing today?

The Rise Of Intelligence

Have I ever told you that a standard tub shower curtain liner is not long enough for a stall sized shower opening? This may seem like common sense, but when you are The Husband and I, apparently it is not. And you get all excited about your new shower curtain, which is glass block patterned, to match the actual glass block in your awesome new bathroom, so that when you finally get motivated to put it up, you get no less than halfway through installation before you notice that the bottom of it is suspended two feet above the threshold of the shower. And then you continue to put it on the rest of the hooks, and move the tension shower curtain rod down two feet to try to reconcile your embarassment, until, after sitting on the edge of the bathtub together, gazing upon the silliest looking, lamest excuse for a shower curtain ever to be hung in someone’s bathroom, blinking in sheer disillusionment, trying to talk yourselves into believing that noone will notice how ridiculous it looks, you resign yourself to taking it down, and putting the old one back up in defeat. Smart?

I finished this illustration the other day, which visually represents the word, “Smart.” At least that was the goal. Yeah, that’s a brain balloon.

My concepting process was loooong for this project. It was my first project for this instructor, who knows nothing about if I have a style or what it is, my work habits, my viewpoint. This is always a hard place to start, especially with an instructor who is a strong personality. After my first round of thumbnails, I gave him some ideas for approval. Once he approved one, a “Smart Bomb,” I created a sketch for that idea incorporating a missile with a brain with some stylized clouds, which, when he saw it, he decided he wasn’t feeling it and sent me back to the drawing board. That was when I began to feel dreadful and frustrated and dreadfully frustrated. And like I was going to be quagmired in this class, constantly running in circles, investing myself in an image to later have to start over. Back to the drawing board I went. Thumbnails, sketches, approval, and the brain balloon is what resulted.

I did the entire piece in Photoshop, using my scanned sketches and drawings, and painting in areas beneath the line art. I have to admit, I haven’t been all that crazy about this concept from the beginning. But I threw my style at it, gave it lots of hours, and produced a piece that I am more pleased with than I’d anticipated.

Downs And Ups

Saturday was tumultuous, just like my personality sometimes. There was some really bad news, then a pretty disappointing experience at a normally very fun outdoor festival intended to celebrate the year’s release of Capitol brewery’s blonde doppelbock, at which after over 90 minutes of waiting, we still had not been served any beer whatsoever, and subsequently we gave up and left. I emailed my aunt and uncle today, whom we met there for toasting and revelry that turned out to be fictional, to see how long they stayed, and they replied, “Still in line!” Ridiculous. At least, finally, there was some good news that evening. I’ll share the good news, since it’s more fun to talk about

Remember how I volunteered at the judging for the local ADDY Awards last month? Well, this weekend we dressed up all business-like and headed over to schmooze at the awards presentation, held at the newly renovated Capitol Theater in the Overture Center downtown. It lived up to its expectations, as there was easily attainable alcohol, which was already better than the day’s prior function, and lots of yummy appetizers. The show was grand, with announcements of all of the winners and display of their work, and now I can tell you that I won two Silver ADDY Awards this year, for my Amaretti stationary set and logo. This year they published a book of all of the award winning work, so I have a bound record of my awards and reference of all of the other work. Now they will go on to the district competition to be judged.

So, there you have it. At least that was fun.

I also finished the much anticipated {by me} redesign of my graphic design portfolio website. Right now I am in the process of thinking about graphic design internships for the summer and/or fall, and I needed to be able to point potential employers to my website and be proud of it. My old site has been sitting for awhile, patiently waiting for new work and a simpler design, and finally I have given it what it has been yearning. And the new design is much easier to make changes to, since it doesn’t have thumbnails for the work anymore, which I am sure will be happening as I march toward the end of my degree program.

I have a few things coming up to show you, and a couple of things that I forgot to show you when I finished them, and a few things I’m working on that I hope to show you soon. Here’s to hoping I get around to showing all of that to you in a timely manner!

Meditate.8

Week 8 . Meditate Project

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Shadow

Although there have been three lunar events this year, or so I’ve heard, it has been quite awhile since it has been clear enough or I have remembered to go outside and lay my eyes on one. So, after a long day yesterday, both of us attacked by the grumpies, we stood out in the cold for a little while to watch the lunar eclipse. I contemplated trying to take a picture, but I’m sure it would have been flooded by the light of the streetlamp, and there was no way I was going anywhere else that night, so I just stood and enjoyed it for 15 minutes, shivering, watching the shadow creep slowly slowly to cover the glow. “It’s almost there!” I’d say every few minutes, the little kid in me coming out. We joked, pointing to the heavens and grunting, pretending we were cavemen seeing something odd and different like this in the sky, wondering what they’d thought.

Somewhere in that span of time, a shooting star danced in the same stretch of sky. I forgot to make a wish, so I’ll make one now. And even though we are both still grumpy, and tired, and busy, and all that stuff that you hate to be but just can’t help sometimes, that small, quiet, magical moment made it ok for a little while.

Under The Sink

Feeling a little overwhelmed this week, and I am a bit quiet. This is The Husband under the sink.

Keeping Warm

Two blocks is about my limit, tonight. My limit for how far I’m able to walk outside on yet another subzero evening. Luckily, that is how far away the polling place is from our house.

I voted tonight. I voted on an empty stomach. But I think it worked out. And even though I knew who I was going to cast my ballot for before I walked into the building, unlike so many people, who I hear make their decision while they are looking at their ballot, I still stood there for a few moments. Inspiration breeds hope, hope springs eternal, and hope makes things happen. Some change is already here, and I hope some more is coming. I want to believe that. I am lucky, though. And then, I filled in the arrow, sent it whizzing through the machine, and walked the two blocks back to my warm house and made dinner. And that’s that.

Winter, You Left An Impression On Me

It was really quite the weekend. After a week of feeling blase and creatively smushed, I bounced back on Saturday. I sure hope it sticks around for awhile.

While I was housebound due to the winter rain and muck, I finished a rather major undertaking, but there will be more about that later, because this post is about something else.

I got motivated to finally put out that giant sisal rug that we bought when we moved in, and which has been lounging its days since then wrapped snugly it its plastic. No more, I said! And of course, it only took about 15 minutes for us to move some of the boxes out of the dining room, shuttle the dining table out of the way, unwrap that charcoal colored bad boy and arrange it in equidistant proportions in the room. Not only that, but we also narrowed down our collection of boxes which currently reside in our living spaces to a smaller number, moving some of the less necessary ones to the basement, where they will surely have debaucherous parties with all of our other stuff that never sees the light of day, but with which we cannot part. Party on, stuff.

And I started, praytell, even finished, my gocco prints for Clothpaperstring’s Mid Winter Gocco Swap. Which had a deadline of last Monday, by the way. Only a week late. Yeah, I procrastinated the heck out of that baby, and then when it came down to the wire, I got caught with a cold to beat all colds, and I didn’t get it done on time. I am not proud. Procrastination has unfortunately become a bit commonplace for me of late, although it wasn’t always like that, but it makes me supremely sad to miss a deadline. I am so ashamed to be late, even when I know I am not the only one. So to all you swappers who will receive my package in your mailboxes a week later than the mass influx you experienced last week, I apologize. I hope you will find it worth the wait.

My contribution to the swap is an edition of three-color winter inspired art prints. We have gotten more snow in Madison this season than any other on record, so I felt it appropriate to be inspired by it. Snow and trees, that is this winter, for me. The bare tree branches are so beautiful as I look skyward, and the evergreens are a soft reminder of green life, with organic little balls of snow drifting over everything, always. I printed these on white linen textured heavyweight paper, which seems to be one that I favor lately, and experimented a bit with some charcoal linen paper as well. Since printing on dark stock was an experiment, I didn’t print as many as I did on white, so these will go into my etsy shop for sale in the next couple of weeks. I was able to maximize my printable area a bit more by printing these with three screens. I wanted to print them on even larger paper, but I still need to purchase some larger shipping envelopes, so I opted to go as large as I could and still fit them into the envelopes that I had on hand.

This swap was so great to participate in. It was awesome to see how each swapper interpreted the theme. I sure hope I can play along with the next one. Oh, there will be a next one, right?