Saw Janna this past week because it was her birthday:




And this past Friday, i went & investigated a nice little coffee shop in the Towson Public Library:

And i bought this handsome sketchbook at Plaza:

It's roughly about 8x5" large & fairly thick. It's obviously modeled after Moleskines (as i think quite a few note-/sketchbooks are nowadays, like the cheap Piccadillies Borders at least used to have), but the cover is cloth(?), & the ribbon that marks pages is orange. It also has more pages that a Moleskine sketchbook of the same size, &, as i have found upon opening it, the pages are thick & have a nice texture to them (the wrap-around on the book says, "Contains 128 pages of heavyweight buff drawing paper with a good tooth"). It too has a pocket/envelope in the very back, only its is see-through. Originally, the price was $15.99 (ridiculous, & yet still about a dollar cheaper than a Moleskine of the same size), but with the 50% off coupon, all told, it was $8.47. Besides the mocha i got earlier, it was the only thing i bought.

Anyway, a few more pages from the sketchbook in use now:






Based off of this song, as well as the fact that this weekend marks one year since the "elections" in Iran, & rise of the Green Movement in Iran.

Saw Fritz Lang's Metropolis at The Senator-- with missing footage reinserted & everything. I really liked it, & i definitely think that it still has relevance nowadays. Afterwards, i looked through a book of Anh Duong's self-portraits (bought for much less than its list price), & her lines made me want to draw, so i tried to draw Gayle & Amy while they talked about reality TV & Prince lyrics with a guy whose name i don't remember (oops).

i keep forgetting

these were my last two paintings for this past spring semester:



close ups:






also, drew this on 5/31:

and some more

I'd also like to mention that this sketchbook may look like a Moleskine, but it's actually a Piccadilly book. They at least used to always have them very well-priced at Borders, though the past few times they haven't had any but some lined ones/the grid ones. (I've developed a bad (bad?) habit of collecting blank books. I have quite a fair few lurking in a bag under my bed, waiting to be used.)

Anyways, just a few more from ye olde sketchbooke:







Also! Who else has heard of the Sketchbook Project? You can sign up for the upcoming one up until the end of October for $20 (which pays for the fees of the sketchbooks going on tour), & you either choose a theme from their list or you let them randomly pick one for you. Then they send you a sketchbook in the mail, you fill it up, & send it back before January 2011. After the sketchbook (& all its friends) go on tour, it stays in Brooklyn, which may feel a little weird, but you can choose to have it digitized for $25 more so that you can at least see it.

I just signed up for it; it seems like a good way of putting something out there & hoping someone will see it. I tried to do an earlier Sketchbook Project & failed miserably, so. Here's hoping this one doesn't suck, i guess? (I'm also trying to convince myself that the $45 ($20 for signing up; $25 to get it digitized after the tour) is well-spent, i suppose. I'm part cheap Scot; what do you want? I dislike spending money!) After much waffling, i also decided to let them randomly pick a theme for me, & i got "Trading forever."

To be honest, the first thing it made me think of was trading Pokemon cards in fifth grade. Hoping i'll be able to think of something more than that. :I

oh, blog.

teaching me to think backwards & take my time.
these are a little old, as there is more in this sketchbook now, but i haven't got those pictures on my computer yet.

i was wishing a little bit that there was a blog or something that would post new, exciting art every day or something like that. there are a few sites that do that, of course, but i'm looking for some specific kind of art. i can't quite describe it, but despite the huge amount of sites i have bookmarked under "art," nothing seems to be catching my eye much lately. (maybe i'm just tired of being online so much.) except, perhaps, for something like this.

so anyway, i'm not exactly my own stuff's fan, but i figured i would just put these up because, really, why not, right? i might even pay attention to this page more often. gasp.

i have not slept at all, & just drank a cup of coffee a short while ago. i'll probably be crashing come 9 or 10 o'clock.

Okay, seriously

Blogger is being really aggravating.

If i put images in a post the way i usually do, they get cut off by the HTML, & i can't figure out how to fix it. If i try to do the "Add image" bit by uploading to Blogger, it constantly puts things at the very top, so you have to think backwards if you want to show things in order. And the dragging around bit barely works, & the entry box is too small to accommodate it.

So yeah. Blogger is causing a constant headache right about now.