Sinise. In. Spaaaace!

Playing around with Gary Sinise as my model. Because he is awesome. Without saying too much, I might be on board as a story developer/concept artist for a video game. Potentially a pixel artist, too, but  you know my tendency to hop right into stuff without having a firm grasp on responsibilities. I need some time to really mull it over and figure out if I have what it takes.

For now: whee!

Dreamy McDreamboat.

Mouth practice.

Just playing around with different mouths.

R-o-c-k U-S-A?

To sate my raging biological clock, I thought I'd try some quintessential "mom" crafts. Just to keep me distracted and shut up my damned ovaries already. So I thought, hey, what's more mom-ish than a quilt!? So here was my thought process.

1) There is no way in hell I am cutting out 3,000 tiny triangles; appliqué it is!
2) When I was a kid, I loved blankets, posters, etc. that had tons of cool patterns and details to look at and interpret.
3) I like maps.

Yup. It will be all 50 U.S. states, in quilt form, using different representative fabrics. Some of them are my own personal associations (bicycles for Oregon) or general cultural contexts (Idaho = potatoes). And then some are going to be input from friends, or something that reminds me of a friend that lives in a given state. (Because, honestly, I don't know anything about Virginia.) And then some of those little tiny states on the east coast are going to get whatever scrap fabric I have lying around, because screw them. Sorry, Maryland, I would make you out of crabs, but no one would actually know they're crabs, and I'm not about to buy a fat quarter for that buzzkill.

Anyway, this is going super well, which surprises me. No, it's not 100% geographically accurate, but you know what? Simplification keeps my sanity intact. Also, while I have a reference grid and actual-size guide, the rest I am totally winging. That's where I tend to have the best success. I'll deal with problems as they arise and just work my way across the country.

Late night digital painting.

Little sketch!

Drawin'.

Now, there are lots of really impressive DrawSomething artists out there. The official Facebook page is proof of this. But what I am lacking is a huge iPad, and a stylus. So I like to think that what I do is pretty impressive, considering that it is just my sausage fingers on a little Galaxy Nexus (which I guess might now be in violation of a copyright? Anyhow).

Stop the war on women.

The radical "pro life" crowd is now fighting for control in my state of Michigan. The irony of the ban on abortion at 20 weeks, regardless of medical danger - even imminent death - to the mother, is apparently lost on a lot of people. Plus, beyond 8 weeks, a woman will be required by law to discard fetal remains the same as adults - burial, cremation, etc. (punishable by a felony and 3 years imprisonment otherwise). What is the point of that? Besides "creating jobs" for undertakers, perhaps?

After dropping the earned income tax credit for people with kids, and trying to cut off food benefits and other services for low-income families, the gender and class warfare is coming out into the open as exactly what it is. Republicans are now shutting up women in the democratic party from speaking on the floor in the capitol, for saying words like "vagina" and trying to gain permission to speak.

Apparently, fetuses > anything and everything else. Beyond that, you're on your own, though. ALL HAIL THE FETUS.

The irony, illustrated:

Please join me in the fight to bring some humanity and basic rights back to the women in this country.

Leftovers.

A fine performance, sir. Fine performance indeed.

Piñata!

For my birthday last year, I decided to get myself a piñata and beat it with a dowel in my backyard. I mean, I invited friends. It was actually a lot of fun - so I wanted to repeat it this year, except do it without those 1) crappy piñatas you get at a hispanic grocery that's made of a balloon covered in party hats with Justin Bieber's picture or something, and 2) piñatas they sell at the big box stores that are made of solid cardboard and require a systematic decapitation with a police nightstick (true story; he was an officer stopping by the convenience store next door, sympathetic to our plight as violent candy-seekers).

So I made my own for my birthday this year! Naturally, it is a yak.

It was made with three balloons, some phone book pages, maybe about two and a half cups of flour and water, a few tablespoons of acrylic paint, and three rolls of crepe paper. Actually... probably at least 8 hours of work spread out over 3-4 days. But it was good, fun work that didn't feel like work.


I love celebrating my birthday. It's the one get-together I can organize that implies people will actually show up, and I can arrange all kinds of random stuff I would never think of doing for any other holiday (read: things I couldn't get away with). For example, this weekend I am going to force my husband to sit through 6 hours of Star Wars movies with me. Why? BECAUSE IT'S MY BIRTHDAY.


An awesome resource for piñata making is pinataboy.com - so if you've got the urge, I say go for it. It's awesome. And while it's natural to feel sad about breaking such a cute little yak, pinataboy says "Remember, piñatas LOVE to get whacked and smashed!  It's the most fun a piñata can ever have!"

DrawSomething... again!

Um... I guess I went a bit askew with this one. My partner didn't guess it.

Sorry, Chris Martin.