JOURNAL/ILLUSTRATION: PEOPLE IN APRIL

This is what happens when I'm sitting next to my boyfriend while drawing in my notebook:

Cut off in this picture is the caption, "What happens when you become a star." 
I thought that was a great joke.

I wrote the speech bubble by the worm, "We're good friends," thinking this was such an adorable, sweet friendship and he made the bat respond with, "Yeah! Now I'ma eat you!" which sparked the debate that encircles the original sketch. This was after he requested I draw a worm hole so I drew a worm, he requested a Batarang which I guess is the name for Batman's throwing star/bats so I drew a bat,  he said the bat should have a superman shield emblem so I drew a CTR emblem.

JOURNAL: A GROWING NEED

I'M MORE
COMFORTABLE
THAN EVER
WITH MYSELF
BUT
ALL I WANT
TO DO
IS PRETEND
TO BE
OTHER PEOPLE.

JOURNAL: DEALING WITH THE IRREGULARLITY OF BUSES

The bus is regularly 20-40 minutes late, not on my way to work, happily, but the buses to take me home. It's going to keep happening and I really don't like being mad. It's fruitless and frustrating. There must be a good reason the bus is late, right? Just because I don't see any traffic and all the other buses seem to be running just fine doesn't mean there's not a valid reason. I just have to make one up.

My first thought was that maybe there's some sort of sparkly rainbow cat that holds the bus up and demands the driver and passengers dance around to annoying pop music until it's thoroughly amused before it let's them pass. It would be a traumatic experience for all involved so when the middle-aged, tired-faced bus driver greats me as I board I should give him a reassuring smile.

 

After thinking of that story the bus pulled up, I gave the driver a reassuring smile, and I gave up imagining reasons for why it was late.

 

This week I've completely fallen under the spell of Stromae, a Belgian human of pop amazingness. He's really popular in Europe so I heard him all the time last year and thought, "Oh yeah, this guy's pretty good but let's listen to some Bob Dylan." But this week I've been obsessed. Last night on my bus ride home (that was only ten minutes late) I watched this music video over and over and over, you should too. All of you. To give you a brief synopsis, one of the lines in the song translates to: "Everybody knows how to make babies but nobody knows how to make dads." (Which isn't true, I must say, I can't keep quiet on that. Some people do know how to be dads. I know some excellent fathers including my own marvelous Dad.) Now keeping that in mind listen to the music and watch the video and wonder at the layers of what is going on here. And even though you may not understand the lyrics, rest assured he's exceedingly clever at playing on words (at least according to this French novice who's typing this up) to say what he wants.



And in closing, I need to work on my bacon cooking skills.  

ILLUSTRATION: FLYING HIPPO

I had a really great idea! Flying hippos! Wouldn't that be the best?

In other news, I think my New Year's Resolution for 2015 will be to draw a hippo every day because I could sure use some practice.

bark and barometrics

Drove across the Golden Gate Bridge.
And realized a childhood dream.
I went to a forest with really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really tall trees.

Redwoods.
Palo Colorado.

THE FUTURE WILL BRING
SOME OF LES PHOTOS.
probably.

They were like the trees in my dinosaur book. But I could not find any triceratops. I pretended to be a brontosaurus, Yanka was a giraffe.
They were like the trees I read about in elementary school science books, the books that spurred excitement and wonder. It was in third grade science that I set my sights on a trip to the redwoods.

Science
is
amazing.

When I was nine my mom and I found instructions on how to make a barometer. With just the simple bits we had around the house we put together a homemade atmospheric pressure telling gadget. That was the coolest thing ever.



Drove back over the Golden Gate Bridge.

pear

with bff in CA.
ran past lemon trees.
ran past orange trees.
couldn't believe my eyes.
last night as I was drifting off to sleep thought: "if I could lay down music notes like paint, I would musician for you."
and
"archetype
arch type et al
ark typical
arc
thrift
bit
sore."

did Hollywood kill vintage creativity?

or in other words, Persistence of Vision.
(and my answer is no)

"I address you all tonight as you truly are: wizards, mermaids, travelers, adventurers, and magicians. You are the true dreamers."1

I read a book where Georges Méliès2 told me that Prometheus was set free, Prometheus who gave fire to man and gave us light to project our films.

In another book I read, "At the heart of cinema are machines that, in essence, pull a strip of sensitive plastic past a light."3

In my favorite book we honored the growers of turnips.4


I no longer droop from weariness/wariness of my dreams. I have a secret bad dream journal where all my nightmares go. The little booklet hides deep in a recess where no one can find it. When I write my dreams into it they lose their power. There's nothing better than taking power from the nasty night frights. A doctor I went to for heart burn told reminded me that I should have a bedtime ritual. I've started drawing a picture every night before I go to bed, I make it something whimsical and as I tuck the covers under my chin I imagine dreaming about my whimsical drawing. It hasn't happened yet but my imagination is coming to life.

Will you dream with me, please? This year can we imagine the fantastical, the wondrous, the unstoppable? Can we dance with Godzilla in the New York City streets, can we march through the hills, and craft houses like wild things? Can we speak beaded words and braid documentary tales and watch watch watch whales?

YES!

Everything,
EVERYTHING
is possible.


1. The Invention of Hugot Cabret by Brian Selznick, page 506.

2. Georges Méliès was a magician who quickly realized the magic of film. He is most famous for his 1902 film "A Trip to the Moon" which you might have seen revisited in the Smashing Pumpkins' Tonight, Tonight music video.

3. Page three of my very first film textbook, Film Art an Introduction 7th Edition by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson.

4. The last in the Chronicles of Prydain series.