the wave, realized

I posted this on Facebook, and forgot to post it here- Ethan as the wave, come to life! I am days away from Christmas break, and can't wait to chase some of the creative projects I haven't been able to get to because of school. The mantis with dragon armor has a destiny in Sculpey! I haven't worked in Sculpey since the Disney days, when we got to do figure sculpting in our down time, but I've heard that there's a great tutorial on Conceptart.org.

I found a mantis in the garden last week when I was cleaning up for the party, but it had gotten cold and he was dying. After a brief couple of hours trying to revive him under my desk lamp, I realized he was too far gone, and put him back to die in the fresh air as any wild thing should.

Oooh. Downer. Sorry. I hope everyone has a great holiday, whatever you celebrate. Stay tuned for Surfside Girls website, which will be appearing this break, and mantis sculpture updates...

collaboration

Collaboration. It's been the word of the day with me for about six months now, as I see the graduation light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel. In an animation studio, you get to drive to work and see a bunch of arty friends every day. The downside was I couldn't work on my own stuff. Oh, and I literally worked every day (the garden looked really bad in those days.) So, wanting my cake and to eat it too, I have decided I need to a. secure a really cool studio space, which I think I have in a really cool applied arts district in Long Beach, and b. convince my illustrator friends to stop working in various garages and coffee tables and actually help me pay for the space. The upside is we all get to hang out everyday, like in school, and the whole street has cool arty types on it. Plus, they have a rockin' street-wide Christmas party every year. The curatorial grad students on campus have figured this out already, and have formed the studio group Six Pack. They hung a great show last night on the Promenade in Long Beach.

So I have finished Surf Tip 5. These will get bound into a bitty book for my Illustration Special Studies class. Over Christmas break they will become part of the Surfside Girls website (or online experience, if I can learn Dreamweaver that well.)

magic day

It was really a cool day today. In the midst of the muddle that is thesis edits and end-of-semester wind-down, I got a scholarship, and a good one at that. There was a really cool lunch, and I got lots of hugs from my CSUF family. Happy happy day.

I finished up Surf Tip 6, though I haven't finished 5 yet. That's tomorrow's project. I had to rebel against linear thought... I think it's all that critical reasoning. After they're all done, I'm binding them into a How to Surf book for the end-of-class leave behind. The concept looks cool in my sketchpad- I can pull it off if I get thesis done (final final done.)

wish for St. Nick

I have a week and a half to finish my thesis (just got my edits,) two more Surf Tips, a sketchbook for class, and get the house ready for our massive, awesome Christmas party. So what happens? Along comes the opportunity to make Ethan another costume (for the "Walk Through California" fourth grade history thing.) Squirrel! Just like in "Up," give me something to distract me and off I go. I am making him a geographical feature of California, a wave. The drawings I made had me laughing out loud, though I know I'm easy to please. I hope you like them.

I'm also posting Surf Tip 4. I have decided that all I want for Christmas from "St. Nick" is a book deal. Keep your fingers crossed, folks.