Late Night Adventures in Snow, Painting

Okay, so I had a pretty busy day today. First I had class which I croaked my way through (this damn cold just won't leave!) until 2:15. Then I was starting work today at 2:30 like, eight blocks away. I was going to take the bus, but it was leaving just as I got outside of the Architecture building so I had to walk and I didn't wind up getting there until 2:45 because I am slow and I had to go to the bathroom. Anyway, the first day went well, the atmosphere is really causal, and I learned how to rip out and rebind books. I fixed two! It was pretty exciting. I think this job will be a very good learning experience and will provide a lot of practice for when I make my own hardcover book in several months time.

I worked until 6 and then took a nap and woke up at 8 but suddenly realized that I had to have dinner and that there was an episode of 30 Rock I'd not seen yet so I lolled around until 9:30 when I finally got my ass over to studio at which time I stepped outside and was like, why the hell is it snowing???? Dammit I want spring already. Then I didn't even work and Vivian and I went to get coffee but her car, who was wearing a spare tire because she'd gotten a flat, suddenly started making weird noises so then we checked it out in the Dunkin' Doughnuts parking lot only to find that her freaking spare was now flat. So we drove back to her apartment and watched half an episode of Project Runway while she was on hold with AAA, who said they don't bring tires to people which I totally think they should. I mean, come on! Get a deal with a specific tire place and sell the tires to people who really need them. She's going to have to have her freaking car towed tomorrow. Man, I have to learn how to change a tire and the oil and so much stuff when I get a car. Anyway, we called Saferides and they brought us back to studio and then I wound up working until 2 am. I actually really like working late. There's just something about late night that makes me want to produce.

So. What I've been working on? I'm building up a background for this Joan of Arc painting I'm doing. Kelly's posing for me tomorrow. She says her middle name is Joan after Joan of Arc so she's perfect for it. Here it is process wise:



Layer 2



Layer 4

These are pretty horrible pictures. I need to get some clamp lights. I'm pretty psyched about this painting. I'm working on a whole post that talks about what I'm doing with the icons and my whole thought process on this thing.

Finally, really cool book artist/painter I found: Ghada Jamal.










She works in many different and very interesting styles. It kind of makes me want to produce some poems that go together and make a little beautiful book for them. Maybe I'll do that this summer. I don't know. So much to do, so little time!

Agnes Ma makes my life

Quote of the day: "I must say, my last few lungs have been quite pleasing to the eye."

Yay Agnes! I'm so excited for you!

Also of note: Today I got a real job with real hours! I will be working at the Oak St. Library Facility fixing up and rebinding torn, wet, and mistreated books from the libraries around campus. Supposedly UIUC has the largest library in the United States aside from Harvard. They recently acquired their 10 millionth book. They have amazing facilities and I'm really excited. Thanks to Christine who helped get me the job. I start Tuesday.

I have a headache

Also? Liquin kicks Galkyd's ass. Layer two of the architectural space painting for Ros' adv. painting class. It's not done by my normal standards, but I won't get reamed in crit tomorrow, either? A) it's hella bigger than everyone elses and B) it's evident that I put more time into it than a lot of people did. Hopefully it will be dry tomorrow morning so I work on it a bit more before the class at 1.

Production

The view of the nuclear power plant outside of my apartment.

The last couple of days have been odd to say the least. First I found out that the writer's strike is done with and that many shows will be returning in a couple of months. That was good. Then I get a call from Maddi about the horror at NIU. Fortunately, my father is all right, but it was really scary, especially when I found out that the shooting happened in a geology lecture. And then there is the fact that the gunman was a grad student at here, at UIUC. It's horrifying. I thought then, well I guess I'm safer because I'm not and won't be taking any more huge lecture courses. But I shouldn't have to think about that. Something needs to change.

Then I found out my brother is getting married! Obviously I'm happy, but it's really weird, too. I mean, he's only three years older than me and I haven't even met his girlfriend, Laura, yet because 99% of their relationship has taken place in foreign countries. I think I started hyperventilating a little when I found out. Evidently it's going to happen this summer. I've started an engagement present for them:

It's Nick's favorite mythological character, Bacchus, drinking and pissing at the same time. It obviously isn't finished yet, but I'll probably get it done today. They can have a nice decoration for their foyer and Laura can see what her future will be like at the same time.

Also being worked on:



An imagined architectural space for Ros' advanced painting class. First layer. Hopefully it will dry by Sunday so I can do another layer in time for it to dry by Tuesday so I can get at least three layers in. We didn't get nearly enough time to work on it. I think part of the problem is that Ros works with Galkyd which dries sometimes in the same die. I have discovered a real distaste for Galkyd because it's too thick and it often dries into a gross gloop in the bottle once you've opened it so I work with Eco-House Citrus Cleaner (a turpentine substitute), refined linseed oil, and stand oil. These all take a lot more time to dry. Oh well. It doesn't matter too much.

Also, Friday morning we went to visit another artist studio. It was Steve Hudson. I really liked his use of color and technique. He used a lot of impasto and it was very old master-y. It reminded me a lot of Rembrandt and Odd Nerdrum, but with more saturated colors. He was really funny, too. Quite dorky in an adorable sort of way. He said he used Winton for underpainting, Windsor & Newton's student brand that Ros spent about ten years telling us not to use the class before. I thought a vein was going to pop in her head. It was funny because he just seemed really unaware of what materials he used though it was really obvious that he knew how to use them. Unfortunately, he hasn't got a website. The three paintings on his Parkland aren't what I saw in his studio, but I couldn't find any other images. It's really frustrating when you want to look up an artist but can't find any of their work online. Artists, get good websites! That's what I'm going to do this summer. I'm pretty sure no one else has claimed SophieLoubere.com.

listening to: Belle & Sebastian--The Boy with the Arab Strap

New Semester, New Projects

Okay, so technically the semesters been on for about four weeks, but I've been doing loads. I'm quite caught up in several projects: one the illustrated book version of the short story I wrote last semester, My God, another a painting of Joan of Arc, and the last various paintings for Ros' advanced painting class.

Anyway, I came back from break and the girl next to me, Jess, had dropped so I moved things about and now I've got a huge studio. It's pretty exciting because now I've a space for oil painting and a space for watercolor. Here are some lovely pictures.





So I've got everything all nice and cleaned up and pretty. I've also made a new nametag for myself.



It's all ideal for creating. So about my first project, the book. I've basically decided to plan it all out like a good girl. Considering that I want it to look really professional (I'm aiming for it to look like a really cool hardcover children's book) I've set all the type in Indesign and Photoshop and am having my graphic design friends who have taken typography go over it and help me out with that. I'm also doing little watercolor studies for every page on computer paper. Examples for pages 1-2 and 3-4:



1-2



3-4

These are 8"x10", though the book is going to be 22"x30". I know it's nuts, I know it's huge, but if I do it well it should have the effect of making the person read it feel very small, like a child. This is the idea. Plus it gives me loads of room to paint.

I've been doing stuff for the cover, as well. As the protagonist's hero is Joan of Arc, I found an old engraving of her burning at the stake online. I put the image into the laser cutter we have here at school in the Art & Design building and it cut out an etch of it into plexiglass. Then I took it over to the press in Noble Hall. I mixed up two colors of ink: gold and grey. I wiped the plate down with the ink while my paper was floating in a water bath for about half an hour. Then I put the plate down on the press, put the wet paper on the plate, smoothed felt over them both, and rolled over them. There were only two that came out all right, though I did six.





I think I'm going to go with the gold and have the cover of the book (the fabric part) be that color grey. The stamping will be white. This paper will be the inside bit that's glued to the covers.



By the way, it's here that I'm going to send accolades to my good friends at The Paper Studio. They've got the greatest paper choices and they always send a lovely little hand letter pressed thank you postcard. They're a good example of a small company with great selection and service and they were a great find.

At any rate, that's what I've been up to. Still so much to do! I would go on about the Joan of Arc painting, but I've not really any images yet and that's for another post entirely.

Phew!

Also of note: exactly two months until I turn 21. Woohoo!

No Country For Old Men

So I finally saw this masterpiece. Kelly and I had planned to see Guillermo Del Toro's (Pan's Labyrinth) latest, The Orphanage, but it stopped playing this weekend so I was like, have you seen No Country For Old Men? She hadn't and it was exciting because I'd just about given up on seeing it in theatres.

Anyway, it was effing amazing. The Coen Brothers have made some of my favorite movies (Oh Brother Where Art Thou?, The Big Lebowski) and they keep getting better. Everyone keeps talking about how it's so violent, but honestly it's not much in comparison to say, a Tarantino flick in which the director obviously finds a great deal of beauty in violence. The most violent bit was at the beginning but after that the violence is relegated to either the discovery of what was a violent scene or shooting scenes. There are some scenes of cleaning of gunshot wounds as well.

Really what got me was the way the story was told. I'm sure a lot of this rests on the Cormac McCarthy novel it's based on, but it was just amazing the way it took all of these storytelling conventions and flipped them on their head. It's steeped in ideas of folklore, in western heroes and villains, and yet the way it handles these conventions and expectations makes the theme of changing times--at least in the view of the protagonists--all the more potent and evident. It was somewhat meta. Not as nearly in self aware a way Atonement, but it was still there.

Also, this guy?


Awesomely creepy.

Go see it. Now.

Reading: On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan