P r e t t y S k e t c h y

Well How About That

It seems that as soon as I gave up on blogging I suddenly had extra time to blog and lots of things to blog about, go figure. I think I just needed to indulge in a bit of wallowing in the name of self-preservation. Things are looking up and the wallowing is over for the moment. So I'll update you a bit on what I've been up to over the last month in the form of a few lists.

 

Discoveries I've made this month:

1. Colin Firth is still hot.

2. Organic cantaloupe is WAAAAY better than non-organic.

3. Justin Bieber is awesome. Yeah that's right, you heard me. To be fair I actually just like a Glee version of a Bieber song but it's still pretty terrible. Bethany and I feel in love with it together so I made her this...

4. This site. Hours of distraction at your fingertips.

5. One of my special skills seems to be redrafting texts so they are still grammatically correct but fit within the character limit.

6. I'm not fooling anyone. Americans ALWAYS notice my Canadian accent.

7. I totally found a big pile of old gas station numbers on a garbage pile in a sign lot by my house and promptly took half of them home. I now have plexiglass letters in every possible place I can fit them including a number three in my shower. They're super awesome!

8. This music video. Holy crap, how could I never have seen this before? I love the wigs in the Jesus scene and the fact that Michael's hair is not a wig. Also it gets surprisingly graphic towards the end, eesh.

9. This blog, via Jill Bartel. The girl is from Edmonton but I've never heard of her, anyone know her? If I still lived there I would try and force a friendship between us.

10. Parks & Rec is FINALLY back on! I was beyond excited when I found out.

 

Future projects:

1. Compiling a list of every book I've ever read. I think it would be interesting to have them all in a big list and see how many there are. Right now I couldn't venture a guess. I know that inevitbly I will leave a bunch out due to my poor memory and the fact that when I was working at the bookstores I burned through a lot of random books I barely remember.

2. Working on new/more pieces to hang in the Anthropologie in downtown Seattle, hollah! I had an interview with the display coordinator today and I'm in. Not sure which month yet though.

3. Painting my bathroom (this weekend maybe).

4. Reading Great Expectations again as well as Cannery Row for the first time (I've been loving Steinbeck).

5. Changing jobs (more on this later).

6. An illustration for Edmonton's Avenue magazine.

7. Letter writing, I am waaaay behind.

 

Completed Projects:

1. Reading 'The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, which is considered to be one of the first mystery novels ever. Admittedly I bought it because it was a classic and I liked the cover, but I really enjoyed it.

2. Drawings and typography for Bethany and Joel's wedding invitations including possibly the best ampersand ever drawn. I am exceedingly proud of this cause ampersands are super hard to draw.

3. Painting my round, kind of ugly, wood veneered table with black chalkboard paint. It's super cute (and fun) now.

4. Rearranging my entire studio at 2am. I need to take pictures....

5. Spray painting my horribly ugly dark wood thrift-store rocking chair white. I'm still waiting for my Mom to make new cushion covers so I can actually use it; I'll photograph it then.

6. Making some amazing granola with my friend Melissa.

 

Things I've been hating:

1. The new Starbucks logo.

Explanation: the logo is it's too big in relation to the size of the cup. It's also kind of a yucky green color when there's no black to temper it and they've removed all the typography, agh! I think I'd be a little more on board if they'd done the logo in sort of a cardboard brown colour or more like the original cup color, and don't even get me started on the new sleeves. I am currently plotting to get a hold of one of the old signs before they start being switched up. Additionally how much money did they waste on this change? If it's not broken, don't fix it.

2. Being broke.

3. The necessity of waiting in between coats of paint, agh.

4. My increasingly lethargic camera and my inability to buy a new one at this point in time.

 

More later, I want to give you all ample time to tell me how much you missed me.

Coming clean and everything else...

I know, I know, I'm the worst blogger ever. I suppose it's time to come clean with you peeps. There has been a bit of boy drama in my life over the last few months. It was both wonderful and a little too full of drama and now it is over and I am a little brokenhearted but definitely in recovery. He was/is a very wonderful man so boy-bashing comments, however well intended, are un-welcome. You have to excuse me for my lack of writing now though, right? A broken heart is the ultimate excuse.

I think this post will be of the epically long nature so here we go... some things:

Thing 1: I spent my morning at the gym listening to 'Lonelily' by Damien Rice and it is soothing my soul. Oh, also I joined a gym! I kind of love it, I am super hooked on running even if it does make my knees mad at me. The gym I joined is super close to my place and it's kind of ghetto, ha, I love it. It reminds me of 'Average Joe's' gym from the movie Dodgeball. You know what I'm talking about right? It's all old peeps who wear sweatbands and say hi to me in the locker room when they're completely nude, awkward...

Thing 2: I've adopted a few little junior high gals to hang out with that are super lovely. I'd been really missing the whole youth leader thing and since my new church doesn't have a youth group I just scooped a few girls whose parents I am tight with and decided to chill out with them on a regular basis. We are going thrifting in search of typewriters today. Some pics from our Starbucks river valley walk last week.

Pretty adorable right?

Thing 3: On Monday I finally cooked my first real meal since living at my house for a month: curried yam soup and garlic bread. That means it's officially fall and it launches the season where I exclusively eat soup. Well, soup and eggs on toast, eggs on toast is my current favorite food.

Thing 4: My current favorite top three on-repeat songs are:

1. Sparks by Coldplay. Man peeps this one sure has staying power. It started this summer and we're still going strong, it's play count in my i-tunes is 262 times compared to the rest of them that average around 8-25. I am currently learning it on guitar.

2. Rain by Patty Griffin. So where I'm at right now, so beautifully depressing. I listened to it for about three hours yesterday.

3. Lonelily by Damien Rice. Such a lovely song, I have it on repeat right now.

Thing 5: I finally got my guitar back from my sister. Honestly I haven't played guitar for about 6 months and it feels so good to play again (well actually it feels painful because my guitar calluses are woefully inadequate for John Mayer songs).

Thing 6: I took a weekend break from the studio and went to camp to volunteer & visit some of my peeps. I don't think I actually took any camp pictures cause my camera stayed in my purse in Kerry's house most of the weekend but I did take some road trip pictures.

On Friday when Meg and I rolled into camp we met Sid and Jen. Jen was about to leave to drop the kids off in Rosetown, Saskatchewan and drive right back. Sid asked me to go with her and I was down so we drove 6 hours, slept for 5 and then drove the 6 back. Ridiculous. What is even more ridiculous is that there is not one Starbucks from Sundre to Rosetown, agh. After 5 hours of sleep no Starbucks?! We had to settle with Tim Hortons and were majorly disgusted with the results. Why? I'll tell you:

a) The cups; not only are they ugly, but they don't have sleeves and you can't hold them without burning your hands. Our attempts...

b) The lids. yes they are engineered to pull open (really fun to do when you're trying to drive) and snap into the lid but at least 50% of the time it doesn't work. Note Jen's lid. Garbage.

c) The non-black-coffee drinks are all sooo sickeningly-sweet, and gross, I hate Tim Hortons, hate.

Incredulous at the crappyness. As a side-note, I also hate Saskatchewan so it was a good mix.

Seriously a year living in SK is the longest I ever want to spend there. Jen stopped at the border on the way back and told me she wouldn't drive again until I said something nice about Saskatchewan. It took me a really long time to think of something and even then it wasn't too convincing. We laughed a lot.

Thing 7: I have been in the studio over the last while working quite a bit. My current project...

This is a huge canvas, like $1200 huge, hours and hours and hours of work huge. I need more time in my life.

And a few from last week...

I really need to scan these before they go but at the moment I was too lazy to take them out of the frames. You get the idea. There are actually four of them but the fourth photo was too bad to post, considering these that really says something. Photographing through glass is bad news.

And a little piece of a completed canvas, the full sized shot was bad news. I showed you the start of this one back here.

Thing 8: The last painting is the result of this corner of my studio where the Starbucks cups seem to be multiplying. I'm just not sure how that is happening...

Thing 9: My roommate Jill is OUT-OF-CONTROL amazing. I can't even handle it. I found this on my camera when I was uploading pictures today.

Thing 10: I think I am going to do a giveaway post soon. It's been a while so stay tuned.

This is a very ADD disjointed post but it's where I'm at so you get to deal with it and like it, ha. Things are on the up and up and I will slowly come back from my funk to the blog world. Also, you should comment, I like comments.

Today I...

biked down to Edmonds.

sat on the beach with a chai-latte and read Shampoo Planet by Douglas Coupland for about 4 hours.

picked up Starburst wrappers that someone had left in the sand and felt incredulous that anyone could bear to litter on a beach.

visited a freaking adorable vintage shop.

bought a lovely ring at said antique shop. It has three colors of pearls and I'm pretty in love with it. I really love pearls. And FYI, I don't plan to wear it on my weddingy finger, it was just easier to take a picture of it with my right hand than left.

ate the most amazing burrito I've ever had in my life alone in a sit-down restaurant where the server called me 'senorita'.

spent the evening watching Season 2 of Flight of the Conchords.

felt neglected by my best friend who has been (and continues to be) a flaky e-mailer.

found a place to live when I get back (more on that later).

ate a York Peppermint Pattie (these are quickly becoming a favorite of mine).

thought about starting a new painting.

bought fine grit sandpaper to that end.

The Things I Do in A Day

1. Go for walks.

2. Scout good trees.

3. Photograph said trees.

4. Rescue children from torture...

Walking down the street I see four kids running through the big front yard of a condo complex, no parents in sight. Three of the kids are obviously teasing and being mean to the smallest girl, throwing her shoe back and forth between them while she, on the verge of tears runs in between them trying to get it back. I think they were all related, it seemed that way.

Me: (Stopping and talking to the oldest girl who just caught the shoe from one of the boys) You know what? When you're doing that and she's upset you're not playing with her you're being mean, so you need to give that back. (Spoken in my best kind-but-firm teacher voice).

Girl: (looking guilty and sheepish hands back the sandal)

Me: (In a slightly more upbeat voice) You knew that right? 

Girl: (continues to look sheepish)

Me: (walks on laughing to myself and feeling self-satisfied)

Oh man, I'm such a hero.

5. Wander around the amazing University of Washington bookstore.

6. Buy a new sketchbook and more pens at said art store (I know, I know, like I need more pens).

7. Scout cardigans.

8. Buy said cardigans... picture swiped from American Apparel.

9. Take pictures of myself. It's a fine art and I am alone a lot so who else would do it? Ha.

 

10. Avoid doing laundry.

11. Pick blackberries. They're in season right now and are growing wild everywhere.

12. Share clothes with my 81 year old Granny. She's going on a cruise in a few weeks and was looking for a blouse to wear for the formal night and having no luck. Sooo, I volunteered one of mine and it was perfect, ha. Also she liked the cardigan I bought at American Apparel today so we're going there tomorrow.

Bi-polar Blogger's 10 Things

So Nathan says I've been really up and down emotionally in my blogging. It's true, I have, but why shouldn't I be? It's the way I am feeling. At least I've been blogging, unlike others (you know who you are).

What I've been up to...

1. Computering. I'm continuing my graphic design work for my site overhaul. It's slow work but I kinda like it.

2. Letter writing, I wasn't feeling so hot one day last week so I spent the entire day on the couch vegging out and writing letters. Note the stack of mail to be posted beside Oliver.

3. Being a creep. I took the following picture  yesterday when I was walking home from a sketching session at Starbucks. I took it with Travis in mind because we both share a love for tall, skinny hipster/nerd boys with good glasses and tight pants. I had to take a picture so Travis could see him, this may have been his soul mate.

 

I actually took three pictures to make sure I got a good one and he didn't even notice, ha. Sartorialist here I come.

4. Reading Microserfs by Douglas Coupland. I bought a whole bunch of used Coupland books off of Amazon for $25 a few months back and life got a little too busy to get them all read. I didn't realize before I started Microserfs that the story takes place in Seattle, go figure. I think this is my third or fourth Coupland book and I really like him a lot.

5. Scouting art stores. I finally bought some canvases so I can start on work for my show this winter.

They were on sale so I ended up spending $185 dollars on canvases but I'm set for a while.

6. Breaking in my room. I've been trying to de-Granny it a bit so it feels more me-ish, ha.

7. Buying a feather necklace. Cute right? $8, yesss. The postcard is from Beth, I blurred my address so you don't stalk me.

8. Picking lavender. It grows everywhere here and I picked a stem and threw it in my sketchbook the other day and it made it smell A-MAZ-ING. So I picked some for my room.

9. Rediscovering sun dresses. I've been reading outside a lot and am trying to erase my Bolivia tan lines from over a year ago. Sorry about the blurry photo.

10. Talking to Nathan on Skype. We both have super good computers so the video chat was actually kind of awesome. We talked for a while and then had this idea that we should watch a movie together so we both popped in the first Harry Potter movie, synchronized the timing and watched while making smart-ass comments (as we tend to do). I worked on a painting while we watched and he ate chips and crunched them into the speaker really loudly so I could hear.

It was nice. The thing with it being a video thing though is that Nathan felt the need to perform for the camera so there was some plays involving airplanes and paper robots as well as some of this...

yes, this is Nathan dancing to 'Stacy's mom'. Note the Britney headset.

So yeah, Nathan and I hung out last night and watched a movie, and I'm an emotional roller-coaster. Deal with it, ha.

Happy Kerry?

I have gotten some 'you're not posting enough' complaints lately and I need you guys to know that the reason I am not blogging is because I am literally only painting right now. As in wake up, don't shower, don't go to work, stumble into the living room, fold myself up under a canvas and continue to paint in the little tiny spaces between branches with electric turquoise (a pastel form) until 2am, go to bed and do it all over again. That is why I am blogging the painting process, there is no other news. Well I suppose that's not entirely true, here's some point form news:

1. I am moving on Saturday, to that end I took a brief painting break and spent yesterday morning packing my kitchen and listening to DC Talk 'Free At Last' in it's entirety, followed by Destiny's Child #1's.

2. Megan got me a going away present, remember this little owl juicer?

 Mine, yessss. I plan to use it for jewelry though, not juice.

3. My car is fixed and ready for some road tripping after $1600 worth of work, eeep!

4. I am having a 'hang-out with Natasha open house moving extravaganza' on Sunday, if we like each other you should come. 

5. My slip I ordered off the internet came, it is perfect.

6. I am on season 6 of Dawson's Creek, I've been watching it while I paint and it has saved me.

7. I have consumed what could be described as an alarming amount of coke zero this week.

8. Because I grind my teeth when I sleep but don't have a dental plan to cover the several hundred dollars it would cost me to get a proper mouth guard, I bought one off the internet. I have been wearing it to bed for a week now and it is fabulous. It cost $12, including shipping.

9. My sister called off her wedding and I now have a $300 bridesmaid dress that fits me perfectly with no occasion to wear it. My lovely seamstress is adding cute little pockets to the front of it at my request in an attempt to make it more wearable. FYI- The wedding call-off is a good thing, totally hard, but good.

10. As of 8 o' clock this evening the background on said painting is done. I have to re-ink a bit and then on to the tree houses. Pictures to follow.