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15 December
18 December
9 January
16 January
23 January
5 February
14 February
17 March
9 April
27 April
All the worst bits of my life seem to clump up around this time of year. (I guess April is actually a moderately long way off, still, but those days were particularly bad, and I'm dreading the anniversaries of them.) It's cold, it's dark, and people are eternally disappointing. I spent most of this morning in an utterly wretched state, remembering things I wish I could forget.
The afternoon was better, and I did some surprisingly successful experiments in photo-etching. Talking to people in the class about various things they're working on also cheered me up a bit. It's somehow both flattering and depressing to discover that certain parties are so impressed or annoyed by the things I'm doing that they decide I should have my hand cut off and replaced by a hook or clamp, as a sort of handicap. Heh. I think it says a lot about my past couple of years that an afternoon full of threats of dismemberment is a great improvement.
It occurs to me that it would probably be a useful exercise to try and make note of any particularly good days I have, so that I can remember those, instead of endlessly re-living the bad ones. Good days from the past are useless for this purpose, because too many of them revolved around people who were later responsible for the bad days, but if I start now, maybe I can accumulate a few.
( Here is a photo-etch test )
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All over town today: up Capitol Hill and down again, to school, a two-hour time-killing circuit of downtown, back to school, another hour and a half in the sculpture lab, and finally home. I spent an awfully long time painstakingly removing clay from a plaster casting, and about halfway through I realized it wasn't even mine. It seemed like it might be bad to leave it half-done, so I finished it and then did my own. On mine the clay came off easily, in almost a single slab. Tomorrow I'll have to ask the teacher why the one was easy to remove and the other was impossibly difficult.
( Bottles and lumps )
Presumably tomorrow we're also going to be removing the plastic bottles from around the plaster they're filled with. It will be interesting to see how that works out.
In the course of my travels today, I wandered into a store selling fly-fishing equipment. It turns out that such places have wire in a glorious array of colors. I bought a small spool of brilliant chartreuse, and have plans to do some small fiddly things with it.
My feet are astoundingly tired. I think I probably walked about eight miles today.State of Mind:  exhausted |
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The Zombie Gnome
Distressed (With Vest)
The Thing from the Asylum
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Also, there were many small hexagons.
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Is delicious.
 State of Mind:  full |
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As the day and night divide the light from the darkness, so does the careful cutting of the pizza divide the onion from the non-onion. And as the Solstice means that the light will increase, so does the presence of Aunty Deluvian mean that the next pizza will have a vastly increased quantity of onions.
I have so far failed to attempt the baking of a Yule log. I have the recipes, I have the parchment paper, I think I even have most of the ingredients. Tomorrow, I say to myself, tomorrow.
( Here also are the Professor and a quantity of cats )State of Mind:  tired |
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I spent the weekend alternately printing and doing nothing. There was quite a lot of both, now that I think about it. I think I've finished the necessary dozen prints for the print exchange, and I've done some tinkering with another shaped plate. I'm hoping to do a proper edition of it before the final class. Hm, will need to consider how I want to do those, and on what size of paper.
Miraculously, I think the scary list of stuff that needs to get done in the next week is getting slightly smaller.
( Some pictures )
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I slept through my alarm again this morning, flung some coffee down my throat, and rushed across town in the twenty-degree cold snap, only to find the school closed due to inclement weather. It was as though a giant booming voice out of the sky had said "YOUR WISH IS GRANTED."
I walked back home and took a really hot bath and finished drinking the rest of the coffee. Then I went shopping downtown, in the huge horrible retail stores, and soaked myself a bit in Christmas ambiance. I knew I wasn't planning on buying anything, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to start acclimating myself to the idea of buying things, since the instant the semester is over I'm going to have to figure out what to give everybody. However, I weakened, and ended up getting myself a new down vest which fits much better than my old one. So when I came home I put it on and was warm.
Then I spent a long time cooking pasties for dinner, and downloading music full of tubas. Prince's Band is a riot, and the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project is an incredible resource.
Finally, after all these pleasant distractions, I finished putting together a chart sort of thing for my numbers class. ( It looks like this )
And in addition to all that, a quiz which I got from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) sweet_tea79.
( It has a giant picture )
Altogether, it's been a much more restful vacation than any part of Thanksgiving break.State of Mind:  sleepy |
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Printmaking went well today, which cheered me up considerably. I've finally managed to produce a photo-etched plate that looks a lot like I intended it to look. My teacher was skeptical when he looked at it, telling me that the etch wasn't deep enough, the aquatint coverage possibly inadequate. But when I proofed it, it looked good. Ha.
I'm thinking maybe I'll use it to do the required dozen prints for the print exchange, since it's easier to ink than the wave-shaped plate, and the image looks generally better. Man, I'm dreading this dozen prints. Between the ink and the Thanksgiving grapefruit my hands are very sore again. Stupid deadly citrus fruit. Stupid allergy to protective gloves. Grr. Ow.
Anyway, the print:
( Curls and stripes )
I still don't know about my propaganda project. I did finally do the obvious thing tonight, and asked the Professor for help. (Why didn't I do that before, when I would have had some vacation time to actually work on it? Well, probably because I wasn't in any shape do do anything with help even if I got some.) At any rate, I talked to him on the phone for a very long time tonight, and some of the things he said have maybe pointed me in a better direction. Whether I'll be able to turn these vague ideas into anything solid by the end of the semester remains to be seen, but I am feeling very slightly less doomed than I was yesterday.
Now if only the nightmares would leave me alone. Grr, and of course going to class tomorrow is likely to shut my brain down completely, since it always does. Still, today was a little better, and that has to count for something.
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This makes more sense if you know what my school's logo looks like.
Slightly more appetizing (I hope) pictures of dinner and dessert are on Flickr. And I did indeed end up as stuffed as my roasted bird, having eaten way too much of everything. I have a ridiculous quantity of pie.
It's fun knowing that I can cook such a traditionally elaborate meal for myself, if I want to, but I miss having my family around to help. I'm looking forward to next year, when the Professor and I will finally have a chance to do it all properly, in our own household. Maybe we can even persuade some of the friends and relations to come and visit us.State of Mind: full |
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Back to the print studio today to work on my other edition of three. It turned into an edition of five, so I could make sure I ended up with three that were more or less the same. However, I think they're probably all similar enough to count. I'm still not entirely happy with the wretched thing, but it's done enough for class credit, so now I can concentrate on making a new plate and getting it to do what I want.
( Now with extra-terrestrial body )
So once I was done printing I started a new leaf-based plate, this time done the way I should have done the original in the first place. I don't know what it will end up being, but already it seems better. I'll find out in class tomorrow, I suppose. If it goes well I may think of doing a pressed-botanical series or something.State of Mind:  accomplished |
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Sometimes, I think I should cut off all my hair, so it's really short and choppy, and sticks out randomly in clumps in every direction. Sometimes I think I should also start wearing festively-striped socks. But then I remember that I'd need to go buy some kind of hair product for it to tousle properly, and that no one ever sees my socks anyway. Then I give up and go back to my homework instead.
I've been making proofs of various etched plates. None of them is quite there yet. The one is so completely screwed up that I'd really like to just get a whole new plate and start over, but I'm not sure if I have enough time or copper left to do that. I suppose I'll probably spend part of tomorrow trying to salvage it.
( Two proofs )
At least my letterpress color sample project seems to be going reasonably well.State of Mind:  grindgrindgrind |
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The plan is to eventually add shading using aquatint, but I like them a lot just the way they are. I may have to make a bunch of prints before I do anything more to the plates. Then I can aquatint them and do another series.
My printmaking teacher keeps talking about all the cool things that are going to happen in Printmaking II, in the spring. I think I need to sign up for that as well. The difficulty is the question of whether or not it overlaps with my core classes for the design department. The obvious solution: transfer to the Art department, where printmaking is a core class. Hmm.State of Mind:  hmmmmm |
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 State of Mind:  grumbly |
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It's been a long day, after a long week. I spent most of the morning messing with gold pigments and transparent bases, trying to get the effect I wanted, and ended up just dusting metallic powder onto the wet ink after it was printed. Then I came home and spent way too much time working on a silly poster, instead of doing any of my accumulated homework. So it goes.
( Now with decorative gold bits )
I think the thing I like best about this is that I managed to cram in that many colors with just two passes through the press.State of Mind: sleepy |
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Drypoint print on Rives BFK white paper. 6" x 4". This is the best of the three tests I did today.
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( On hand )
And so, my dear Professor, astrologus, Kid Lightning, watcher of the moon and of the sub-atomic particles, Hooty Man and steam-pipe, patient friend and ally, I thank you. Though you may, at times, be writ down an ass, in this you have done very well. Über sternen muß er wohnen, mein Freund.State of Mind: illuminated |
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Today we went to ( Mount Rainier )
( where we each behaved exactly as we always do )
My boots are very dusty, my legs are very sore. I have some more pictures which I will probably upload tomorrow, and a couple of rolls of Holga film which I need to have developed.State of Mind: tired |
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I went completely off on a tangent today. I'd been talking to the Professor about pendulums last night, and looking around my apartment at all my various kinds of ink and paint, and so this afternoon I combined them.
The contraption was ultimately assembled from a hacked-up yogurt container, the dropper from an old bottle of ink, some string, wire, and ball-chain, with a roll of masking tape orbiting it as extra weight. I hung the whole business from my tripod, and used it to dribble ink onto paper. Why do I do these things? I really don't know. Just to see what happens, I guess. Just because I can.
Anyway, the results looked like this:
( Lissajous vs. Pollock )
Later, I did a bit of research, and discovered that I'd re-invented the harmonograph.State of Mind: ink-stained |
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