And a sunset couldn't save me now.

I love baobabs. So, since the beginning, I've imagined them as a part of this saga.

Scale is important!

Someone important...

Fanfare for the common dress.

I am going to a performance of Copland's Third Symphony in a little more than a week. I have literally waited a year for this. Really, though, I've wanted to attend such a performance for five years. So I thrifted a dress for the event, which I like. But as the date draws nearer, it really does not seem sufficient. I want to make a dress just for the occasion.

Right now I'm arranging pieces and trying to figure out how to make it work. Flowy salmon-colored polyester with a lovely black sash that will be sewn into the waistline. The teal thread was actually what my aunt happened to have in her serger, which I was toying with. So I'll take the extra little "surprise!" burst of color. It's a set of modern colors for a great modern classical composer.

Oh, Aaron. I love you so.

If you hear someone sobbing loudly from the mezzanine, it's me.

Animating! Using a reference video I shot myself, I sketched up a color-coded skeleton - red for front legs, green for rear - and tested it in Photoshop. Looks excellent. The weight is distributed and the legs move in the proper phases, alternating with their partner(s). I did an earlier walking yak, but its legs looked rubbery because I was just shooting from the hip (har?) and the main joints were hidden under all the fur. So, animation tests are good.

Video game goals.

I have mentioned to friends that my last therapy session was actually very enlightening on an artistic level. (I've gotten a lot of insight into my art through my regular therapy sessions, so there you go. They're good for coaching and bouncing ideas off of.) We talked about the parallels between fantasy and real life - overlaps as well as the need for a "safe" realization of wishes and desires. So when I dream up a video game where you ride a yak around, pitch a tent, weave your own clothes, and work in the fields, I think that's some concept of a life I envision working out pretty well for me.

One thing that always bothers me about fantasy video games is how you can often carry 99 small glass bottles of potions, as well as several cabins, swords, suits of armor, etc... and still see a character wearing scantily clothes with nothing on their back. Where is all of this STUFF? Don't get me wrong - I find those 99 Cure2 potions infinitely useful, but it takes away so much of the worldwide travel feel of the game when there's no positive or negative consequences for the act of taking basic necessities with you. (I've enjoyed/hated Earthbound for the relatively small inventory slots, where you carry things like bubblegum, baseball caps, and sandwiches.) The horse/horse analog is always an upgrade but does nothing much but make you pass up monsters and satisfy the estrogen levels people like me, who squee at every mount like a 7th grade girl.

So, as I [pretend to] learn to code some Python and draw up sprites, I want to keep in mind the romanticism of lightweight travel - the intimacy of the goods you carry with you. How everything has a place, it gets unpacked, it sits in your campsite. I've spent some time studying nomadic lifestyles, specifically of north and east Africa - the sticks, reeds, and hides atop camels as people move from place to place. I love it. Your possessions become sacred to you, being repaired and re-used, and they are a comforting constant in an otherwise changing landscape.

Home base.

All packed up and ready to go!

My little green babies.

I am totally shocked that I haven't killed my starter seeds. In fact, I have at least one of everything sprouting after 9 days. These are vivacious, eager lemon cucumbers, which I will try for the first time out of my own garden. I'm also sprouting snap peas, lettuce, zucchini, yellow squash, cantaloupe, lime basil, lemon balm, and stevia. For later in the summer I'll be planting pattypan squash, kale, and a gorgeous red specialty lettuce. All this is going in a 12 x 12' plot graciously allotted by my landlady. This is really big, except for when you're standing inside it and wondering how you're going to fit your dream garden in this tiny speck of earth. Moar. MOAR!

Why is this in my art blog? Because... it's an art? Ha? Ha? I don't know. 'Cause I'm totally gleeful every time a sprout pops up and have to SHARE THE LOVE.

Horsies!

Doodle.

Some more pixel art!

Mae'houn and a few of her friends, complete with thumb-sucking little children. Again, I tell myself it's for fun, but I would love to have a classic 8/16-bit RPG of it. One glorious day, perhaps.