Day 22/365: Birthday.

Today, we have a fun, lighthearted little colorization of a Beatles picture.

This is one of my favorite Beatles pictures.

Obviously, I don't own this picture, or any one of the Beatles (wish though I may, lol). I notice now that I left part of the handles of a couple of the umbrellas colored, but our other computer is having issues. Our laser mouse is acting up, and for some reason, the ctrl key doesn't work. Which made copy/pasting and undoing really irritating. And I can't remember the last time the mouse's scroll button worked properly. We've had that computer as it is since 2004. So... it's bound to have shit wrong with it.

I apologize for not having a drawing for you, but I've been concentrating most of my energy into brainstorming a picture to do in honor of Japan. It's just a stupid pixel drawing, but it's taking me ages. I'm not good at drawing with a mouse. And I don't have much patience with pixel drawing. It requires a level of exactness that I like pretending doesn't exist. So we'll see how it goes. If the pixel thingy doesn't turn out well, I may just draw it on paper and scan it.

Tomorrow's theme is "big events", and I have no fucking idea what I'm going to do for that, but I suppose I'll worry about that tomorrow.

I'm off to overdose on pepto bismol (I has indigestion from the fish and chips I had at Applebees). See you tomorrow.

Day 21/365: Bent

Today, I can actually say that I'm posting a picture that I've never posted anywhere before.

It's a shadow cast by a bent piece of wire on a fire hydrant.

I personally think it's pretty nifty. Course, it's nowhere near my favorite, but it's good.

I really apologize for letting this blog slide the past few days. I haven't felt like myself. Which comes with the territory this week. I hope to give it more time and not just throw something together because I don't feel well.

Tomorrow's theme is birthday, and I may have to do something Beatles related for that. I'm not sure exactly what, but I guarantee you it will be something new. I'm going to try not to recycle anything from my deviantart again, but I can't guarantee that I'll never recycle anything. Maybe I'll find something I've already done fits a day's theme perfectly. But I can promise you that I will be doing that a lot less often in the future.

Anyway, I haven't written my food blog yet, so I'm off to do that. Also, I'll be around facebook if you need to drop me a line. XD

See you tomorrow. I leave you now with a catchy oldies song. Pay no attention to the actual video. Just listen. Lol

Day 20/365: Beach

Today, I'm going to post a very old picture. It was taken in 2004, way back when I was just first started to get into photography. I actually didn't even have my own camera yet.

It was taken on our vacation to Catalina Island.

Seeing as that I sometimes have problems thinking I've made progress with anything, I think I prove myself wrong when I look at my old picture. And my old artwork. Day to day, it doesn't feel like I improve much, or at all, but when I go back and look at a picture that's this old, I can tell I've improved.

I really apologize for the downtime as far as super new content goes. The drawing I was working on today just didn't look right, then I went and fucked it up when I was trying to outline it.

Still. All the talk of improving artwise? The opposite can be said about me. I was still probably wearing size 16 clothing on that vacation.

Now I'm in size 20-22, depending on the brand. I fit into most size 20 jeans I have. Still. There are so many other areas I've improved in since then. I don't know. Depends on how you look at things.

Well I'm going to watch a movie with the family. Tomorrow, I'm not telling you what theme is for tomorrow, so it'll be a surprise, but I WILL post something new.

Day 19/365: Beautiful.

I apologize. I promised to give you something new, but I spent most of my day today feeling like shit due to cramps. I had no energy today. It took a really huge effort just for me to do a little laundry and do a few loads of dishes.
It's only 8:30 in the evening, so if the drawing I'm working on turns out, I might post that, and then all this will be mute because I'll have something original for you, but for now I'm posting this collage I made, in honor of earth day last year.

All made from scraps of free giveaway magazines from the public library.

I really enjoy doing this sort of collage. I first got started on it back in college, for a 2D design assignment.

You'll have to forgive me. This was done back in 2006, when I had a strange obsession with running every picture through the Soft Focus filter in Paint Shop Pro 8

In turn, that picture spawned me to do this one on my own, two years later.

Looking at it now, I think it represents an improvement in my work.

I did this a year later, in honor of Michael Jackson.

I planned out, drew, and finished this in one sitting. Given the amount of time these things take to do, that's quite the accomplishment. Forgive the bad scan and cropping job.

Tomorrow's theme is "beach" and once again, that might be something that lends itself better to a picture I've already taken, but I will try my hardest to make something new. Or at least, submit a picture I haven't submitted before. I might even make more word art, like I did for "all the small things".

Anyway, I'm off to do facebooky, MSN things.

Day 18/365: Barren.

You will have to forgive me once again, faithful readers, but I'm using a picture I took last winter as today's picture. My mind was too closely adhering to today's theme, and was therefor barren of any ideas. How so I draw a concept like barren when most of my drawings look like this:

 Or this?:

Not exactly a drawing style that lends itself well to a minimalistic concept like "barren".

No matter. It's my blog, I make my own rules, and my rules say that I can use pictures I've already taken, if they relate to that particular day's theme. Which today's picture does. This is today's picture.

As I said, I took it last winter. It was on a really foggy day, and the world just looked like it ended where the lake should be.

This is really the closest thing to "barren" I've done, really, except for maybe this picture:

Except I'd call this minimalistic. Moreso than the image I get when I think "barren". Whatever. Maybe I'm just weird.

Today just didn't go as I planned. I was thinking of trying to make a drawing, but I just felt lethargic and crappy all day. Mother Nature decided to stop by  with my gift a tad early, so that didn't help.

Plus I had a ton of laundry and dishes to do. And, I had to squeeze in some exercise. I'm trying to get myself back into bike riding shape, so I'm riding our exercise bike, gradually increasing my time by five minutes. I started like, three days ago. First day I did 10 I think. Next, I did 15. Yesterday, I walked to the library and thusly didn't ride the exercise bike. Today I rode it for 20 minutes. If I get a chance to next week, I'll keep it to 20 minutes the first day, and then start tacking on five minutes each day.

I say if I get a chance, because Spring Break is next week. My mom (who works as a teacher/librarian at a HS) and my brother (at college) have the same Spring Break. So we're basically going to spend it at home. My brother and I spoke of having a nerd fest game day where we play games like Star Wars monopoly and Star Wars trivial pursuit. Although, it's been ages since I've seen the movies, or read any of the Star Wars books. And I get a fair amount of this trivial SW knowledge from them. Timothy Zahn=WIN. Big nerdy authory WIN. And as far as SW Trivial Pursuit goes, my brother and I are the only ones in this house who can play that game and actually have any idea what we're talking about.

My parents have both seen all the movies, but they never got as fanatic about it as my brother and I did. Plus...  I'm pretty sure the first time my mom or dad owned a VCR was when they got married. So, they didn't really have a chance to watch these movies over and over again. 

Okay, ramble over. Tomorrow's theme is Beautiful, and thankfully it's a pretty vague theme, so I should probably be able to actually produce a drawing for you. Instead of taking the easier way out and taking a picture. Or using a previously taken picture. I'm off to throw together my food journal blog. Which I don't normally say, because that's the one I usually update first. 

Anyhoo, stay tuned for tomorrow's entry. Not that anybody reads this at all. XD Whatever.

Day 17/365: Bargains.

Hello, and welcome to today's blog entry.

Today was an okay day, I guess. It was snowing when I woke up, though. That I could have done without. I was going thinking of going to the library, but decided not to in the morning. I thought it was going to be snowy and crappy out all day, so I thought I wasn't going to go.

Mom hasn't been feeling well. She's got a cold, runny nose, sore throat, all that fun stuff. If you didn't know, she teaches freshman English at the HS part time, and works in the library the rest of the day. She came home after her classes, so she was home around noon. Dad was off at a doctor's appointment and picking up medications, so he was still not home.

I decided to go to the library at 1 or so, after seeing that it wasn't too cold out.
Although. I made the mistake of wearing my combat boots, that each have a small hole in the bottom. And it was all slushy out. I'm letting the boots dry, then I'm taping up the insides of those fuckers with duct tape. I can't afford new combat boots, so I'm going to keep wearing this pair until they literally disintegrate off my feet. XD

I walked to the library to pick up the dvd of Red, which I had put on hold for me. I also checked out Spirited Away, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I am 24 years old and regularly watch animated movies. I don't care what the fuck you think of that. :)

Anyway, I am kind of rambling, so let's get on with today's picture.

I took a picture of my who mug because of the song of theirs called "Bargain", if you were wondering.

As with most of the things I post here, unless you have an LCD flatstreen in which everything appears lighter than it does on a normal computer screen, this is going to look a teensy bit darker than I intended.

This isn't perhaps the best picture ever, but I do like it. I had originally intended to make a sort of price tag and tie it to the handle of the mug, but that didn't work. I had also intended to take the picture in broad daylight, but didn't get a chance to.

Tomorrow's theme is "barren", and I honestly don't have the slightest idea what I'm going to do with that. Most of my drawings are anything but barren; full of weird patterns and acid trippy colors and whatnot. Although I suppose I could do another picture like this one:

That could count as barren, I suppose.

I don't know. I don't often go for the minimalistic look in my art. It's usually not my scene, really, but I could churn something out for this blog. I suppose that's part of the reason I'm doing this project, actually. To perhaps be driven to make some art and take some pictures that I might never have thought to do on my own.

Well kids, I'm off to ingest some caffeine to ensure I can stay awake for my show at 9 (Off the Map). It's seriously a great show. Although you may not get everything if you haven't been watching from the beginning, it's still a really good show that I think you'll enjoy.

Anyway, stay tuned for tomorrow's entry. :)

Day 16/365: Baked goods.

I had a nifty plan for today that unfortunately didn't work.

I decided to make lemon bars to take pictures of for today's entry, but... I've never made lemon bars before. To make a long story short, the custardy topping never fully set. In fact, when I went to cut myself a bar, liquid came rushing out of the top and filled the newly vacated square.

The good news is, the goopy mixture tastes really good, but it's super rich. I probably only had the equivalent of two bars, but my stomach is now paying for it by being upset. Boooo.

Anyway, I resorted to using a picture that you've probably already seen, because it was the only picture I found of something I actually baked. I am not good about taking pictures of all the stuff I bake. Mainly because the pictures never come out. *needs a lesson in food photography*

ANYWAY. The picture.

This was a pain in the ass. It's a homemade chocolate cupcake, with homemade buttercream frosting, and a homemade fondant heart on top. In a teacup.

The reason I say that was a pain in the ass requires a backstory. Which I will tell you now.

See, I had an epic idea for cupcakes. My brother was coming home from college for the weekend, and I wanted to make epic cupcakes to send back to college with him.

They were going to be homemade chocolate cupcakes, with either raspberry jam or orange marmalade in the middle. This was before I knew that you just put the blob of jam on top of the cupcake batter, and it will sink in. The jam sank to the bottoms, and none of the cupcakes came out of the pan like they were supposed to.

I freaked out. So, I took off all the tops (because they were still good) and crumbled the goop that was the bottom of each cupcake, and mixed it with muffin batter. The only thing is, I didn't put less flour in the muffin batter to compensate. The mixture was so thick that our hand mixer couldn't handle it. I had to stir it by hand. It was like cement. It still baked up nice though.

The buttercream was easy. The fondant was another story. I was going to put fondant bows on top of each cupcake, but the fondant wouldn't stand up to being molded into anything. I thought it would turn out like a sort of dough I could mold into different shapes, but it was hard enough to get it to stay in those flat cutout heart shapes.

Buuut that backstory is already longer than I wanted, so let's move on. Tomorrow's theme is "bargains" and I plan on doing something The Who related. Because of their song called "Bargain". May be a picture (I have a who coffee mug, and a vinyl of the movie sountrack of Tommy). May be a drawing. May even be a Who collage wallpaper. I'm not sure yet. But I promise promise promise that it WILL be a new piece of art. Not damage control because my baking doesn't turn out the way I want. LOL.

Anyway, I'm off to do facebooky things and watch Eddie Izzard on youtube.