Finally saw The Incredibles last night. It was, well, incredible! I will agree with Jaster that Syndrome looks surprisingly similar to Checkerboard Nightmare, perhaps with a little Freakazoid thrown in.
Anyway, I’m going to blow glass today for the first time since the spring! I’m super excited, although I’ll probably just make some cups to get back into the swing of things.
A little tinkering here and there, and a theme is coming to be, still a major work in progress, though.
I found a place to blow glass up here! I’m soooooo excited, as I’ve really really missed being in the studio. It’s a guy who does production work on his own, and the best part is, he’s going to let me have FREE studio time if I help him teach beginner workshops!! That’s very cool, because normally it costs at least $30 an hour to rent time.
Still work to come on this new journal, but most of it is just making it pretty.
Tonight I went to Long Wharf’s “Season Kick-off” cookout. It was pretty fun, I got to mingle and get to know my co-workers a little better. There was a pie contest (not pie-eating, just who makes the awesomest pie).
I also met Dr. McAllister’s long lost twin, by my theories. Not only does he LOOK just like M.C. Allister, but he also has that constant smile that never ever ever goes away. His voice is different, and he’s an English/Classics sort of person instead of a Mathy sort, but otherwise, it’s definatley his long lost twin. Very bizarre.
Anyway, been making some new artstuffs. Playing with pastels. All fun and good.
Next week is the last week before the late-night pre-tech days at work begin, so we’ll see how well I like my job after that 😉
EDIT: Brendan is my hero
Back from the Con! I posted a review over on the Gather Journal if anyone’s interested. It was fun times, I met cool people and had fun. Art sales were very slow this year all across the board, and not much went to auction at all. It was disappointing, but oh well, I did sell a few things (my sculpey dragons and mask) and I got lots of compliments and “bring this to the show next year when I have money and I’ll totally buy it” comments, so oh well. Hopefully things will bounce back next year.
I also met a guy (well, re-met, he’s been at that con every year) and found out he did glassblowing at Illinois State in Che Rhodes’ program, small world and all that.
I also get to now reveal the commission I’d been working on this summer, which I had to keep secret because it was commissioned to give to one of the guests at the Con as a gift: https://www.wertle.com/gallery/d/62-2/fenton.jpg
It’s a long story, but I’m proud of the drawing. It’s watercolor, colored pencil, ink and a bit of acrylic.
Anyway, I only have like a week before I leave for Connecticut, it’s getting exciting and scary. I now have such mundane goals as getting my room clean and packing, both of which will be considerable chores in their own right.
Point of order #1: Things that were really funny when they happened that I totally forgot about and then was suddenly reminded of. Specifically, “Science is so cool, we’re replacing the word ‘cool’ with ‘science’!” I’m going to miss going to SETC with the Centre kids next year.
Point of order #2: And I apologize in advance for this, but, I MISS MY BOYFRIEND *sob*
Point of order #3: Artstuffs, selling artstuffs, and commissions. So far I’ve only ever done 2 commissions (3 if you count the T-shirt design I did for CentrePeace), both special cases for one person, who was a friend, which helped in working out how to go about doing a commission. I’m half-wondering if it’d be a good idea to take commissions now and again. I know the basic “bewares”, such as not taking on a bunch at the same time and getting burnt out, and getting payment things worked out and such. I dunno if I should do commission auctions, or just have flat rates for particular mediums, or what. I’ve done pretty well auctioning off the occasional piece of glass on ebay, and this year will be the first year at Conglomeration that I have 2D art so we’ll see how that goes. Just pondering over whether it’d be a worthwhile thing to try out or not.
I bought the Triplettes of Belville yesterday on a whim, I think everyone is entitled to an impulse buy now and again.
This weekend we (my family) are going over to Virginia to help my aunt move into her new home. Her husband is in the army, so they and my two cousins have played the move-everywhere-across-the-world game for quite some time now, starting out in Germany, then New York, then Houston, then back to Germany again. They are finally finished and coming back to the States for good now, much to everyone’s excitement (the entirety of my mom’s side of the family lives here in Louisville, so it’s been somewhat of a strain on them to have a family member so far away all the time. Granted, Virginia isn’t exactly down the street, but it’s closest so far!).
My mom went up there with my aunt earlier this week to help paint, so today I am clean clean cleaning so that when we come back my mom won’t freak out at how dirty I let the house get, hehe! It’s also for myself, though. As much as I hate to admit it, the dirtier and more cluttered my room gets, the less inspired I am to do work. My work on my puppet and new painting have dwindled this week because of how much stuff is strewn across my room. I guess it’s not a terrible thing, at least it will inspire me to clean a bit more often.
Whenever my room is freshly cleaned I am inspired not only to work on current projects, but to start like 10 new ones (I suppose it’s some entropy-driven urge to dirty up the room again). Maybe next week I’ll start building another mask to sell at the con, or maybe some little sculpey dragons.
I really hope I can finish this new painting I started for Conglomeration, because I think it will be a nice one. We’ll see, I guess.
I have now constructed a dragon puppet head that opens its mouth and blinks. I am in the process of building flapping wings for its body. I would take pictures, but it looks like a mutilated cyborg right now, due to being mostly upholstery foam, wood, fishing wire, coathangers, and electrical tape (don’t worry, I’ll take a photo once I get his head all prettied up).
It’s ended up being a lot bigger than I was planning on, but that’s okay. Hopefully I’ll have it finished by Conglomeration, so I can carry it about and have it steal baby carrots from the Con Suite. Woo!
In other news, the squirrels have realized that my cats can’t get them through the window, so they have taken to running right up to the window sill and teasing my cats on the other side, saying things like “Oh oh, lookit me! You could totally swipe me if that glass weren’t there, but it IS, and you CAN’T. HAHAHAHAHAHHA!” Silly squirrels.
The summer has been going exquisitely, in spite of some sleeping problems I had after Carleton left on his trip, but I think I’ve gotten a handle on that now.
It is wonderful, I have so much inspiration to do art! I’m working steadily on that painting of Fish, as well as a commission I am doing for Scott. I also finished up some gift art that I started for Flamestryke two years ago, but stopped when we lost communication. I decided to start over and finish it up, after I regained contact with him this spring. It was another vector-coloring experiment, to counter balance the oil painting and watercolor/colored pencil pieces I’m working on.
I also have an inkling to try batiking (or to make a batik…is it a noun or a verb?) I tried it once in high school with so-so results, but I had an idea of a door hanging that I would love to make, I just need to go buy supplies for it.
Last night I went to a tapas bar in town with Jaime, Becca, and Laura, and it was reeeeeeeeeally yummy! I had always wanted to try a Spanish tortilla, I’m glad I got a chance. Tapas are tasty!
I keep having dreams about the Science Center, which I am taking as a sign that I need to go there. I need to visit it at least once before I leave Kentucky for the year.
Other tidbits: I’ve picked Kempo back up full swing (it’s great to see everybody again), I’ve been making regular trips to the library, I am secretly writing a story…in secret, Dave (
So today, I was preparing a list of things I plan to sell at Conglomeration this summer, thinking about my boyfriend as he flies to Russia, and noticing my small collection of matryoshka, you know, those Russian nested wooden dolls?. I suddenly thought, “How awesome would it be to make a set of those!” and visualized a dragon-themed set.
Unfortunately, I am far from a master woodworker, or even an amateur woodworker, or even a woodworker at all, so fashioning my own set of dolls is out of the question. Making dolls out of some other material wouldn’t feel right.
I’m still feeling awfully inspired, though, and perhaps I’d be able to hunt down a set of “blank” dolls to paint, if only to have a set just for myself.
Sorry for the two brief updates in one day, but if anyone has been to my website recently, they will notice some renovations have occurred.
The biggest of which is that I got my spring databases course final project, my online portfolio and image archive, up and semi-running:
https://www.wertle.com/portfolio
This is especially for all you guys who have asked me “Hey, do you still have that picture of that thing you drew two years ago?” and those of you who have prodded to see all those Life Anthropomorphized comics again.
There are still some large images that escaped my uploads, and not all my old images have been uploaded yet, so there’s a large gap between like 2002 and now, and the Search features in the archive will probably get expanded in the future, but for now, I hope you enjoy it!
