A Taste Of What I'm Painting.

What I've been painting:

A collage that is supposed to somewhat represent me... NOT even close to being finished yet but it's getting there.

Tightening up a bunny still life...

Glazing my fruit & veg with color...

Fixed the vase axis on this still life...

Finished the egg & background on this still life.

Also made great strides in my final project, which is a triptych. Photos will appear when I'm further along...

Not Even A Picture.

Once again spent almost the WHOLE DAY cooped up in the garage oil painting.

To top it off, my art instructor stopped by my house to check on my progress. She seemed pleased but my anxiety was at level ELEVEN.

I have SO MUCH to finish in this last 2 weeks or so!

School + Work + LIFE + the holidays = KILLING ME SLOWLY.

Tired And Uninspired.

I habe spent today shunning the idiocy of Black Friday. It is an embarrassing Americanism. I wish it would STOP. I like a good sale as much as everyone else, but I'm not about to lose a full night's sleep and my dignity for saving a few bucks. It is TRASHY, folks. If you did actually whore youreslf out to the retailers today and sell your soul, then just don't admit it to anyone.

I instead spent the day OIL PAINTING and dying a teeny bit as I sucked in the Gamsol fumes; here is a lame picture to sum up my tired lame ass:



It's from Balloon Fiesta last month. It is a COOL picture because a balloon landed practically in my driveway, but it is LAME because Shane didn't realize that the lens-cover dealy sticks on my suck-ass camera, so the little black shadows in the corners are a gentle reminder of this. Also, I am in my jammies which are not exactly va-va-voom, but HEY I am still a momma and I need to be able to dash out my front door at a moments notice.

Guess what I'll be doing all day tomorrow? YES more oil painting.

Le sigh.

My Sculpture Garden

The peeps in the Intro To Art class that I work with had the task/assignment to make clear plastic installation sculpture - it was a REALLY great project, and everyone worked hard on them...

This one was the 'judge's choice' - (we had the dean & a couple of vice presidents of the school come out to jury them):


They had over $8 in change in the guitar case by the end of the day!

A couple of great dudes made this one:


Birds bursting from his chest!

I always love the monkeys:


Some piggy banks (notice the one smashed with a hammer at the end):


The class instructor, art tech and I worked on one, too:


It's called "Mother Nature Blames YOU."

I love this artsy-fartsy world I live in :)

Puppy Sucka

Last night when my husband was coming to bed, he said in a sweet voice "Come on, baby!" as he scooped up Tallulah into our bed. HE DOESN'T EVEN CALL ME BABY! Argh.

I find this an absolutely GENIUS Halloween costume.


Might steal the idea someday.

More unusual things I have found necessary to save to my hard-drive over the past couple of years:


Dalai Lama paper dolls!!


With extra outfits!

This is so cliche:


But I appreciate it. Especially after spending all summer long printmaking.

And this is SUGARY SWEET GOODNESS!


I went and met my girl Jen for our usual Wednesday morning coffee at a local coffee joint in ABQ and this man in line was going BAT-SHIAT-CRAZY over the price he was quoted for his breakfast burrito and it was horrendous and he was so evil-angry and I cannot believe there are people in this world who will abuse a poor coffee barrista over a dollar off his burrito which was a sale that had ended yesterday. YUCKY MAN! YOU SUCK!

I gave the counter-dude some sympathy as I picked up my coffee and he sighed and said that working in coffee shops is one baby-step away from being a drug dealer because to some people, coffee is their CRACK! Makes sense.

I gave 'em a good tip in their tip jar today. Happy F*cking Thanksgiving, Mr. Angry-Breakfast-Burrito-Coffee-Shop-Guy.

Threadless Thrills

A rundown of my purchase at Threadless.

I have wanted this tee forever. It's a reprint of an old design and I seriously LOVE IT:


It's by an artist named Roberto Galvez and I like ALL of his designs.

Next I needed another bear:


It's not THRILLING but I just love his face.

This next shirt made the cut because I needed a navy-colored tee and it was my fav out of the navy-blues:


Awww, mermaid cuteness!

This one is another shirt that I have lusted after. It helps that I love white t-shirts, and the whole clown/carnie weirdness is a plus in my book:



AAAaaand this one is a no-brainer; it's a Tim Biskup tee!



And that concludes this episode of "What Did Valency Order From Threadless.com."

Bacon Chocolate Bars.

I got the above candle on sale from Sundance (you can use the code 'FRIENDS' to get an extra $5 off!!) as a Christmas present for my husband; it will hopefully replace the STOOPID skull that Shane has on his nightstand.


I have tried to put it away with the Halloween decorations, and I've even tried to just flat out hide it. No luck. He keeps finding it.


He bought it for like 2 bucks at Michael's when I dragged him in there a while ago and now I realize BIG MISTAKE to take your Halloween-loving husband into Michael's when they have all of their Halloween shizzle in stock. Ugh.

In more exciting news, MY BOOTS CAME TODAY!!


They are beyond gorgeous. They look a little brown in that picture because of the crap indoor lighting - I'll take a picture of them outside tomorrow.

And just when I thought I couldn't love them any more?? Look at the sole of the shoe:


ZOMG!!! A little dainty delicious fabulous KEYHOLE!


They are dreamy. Simply swoon-worthy. And they smelly like the best leather yummy awesome-ness and I just want to bite them.

But I promise I won't.

So I'm totally excited for Thanksgiving and I have bunches of people coming over that I will force-feed and we will play Apples to Apples for hours on end.

AND I will be making everyone taste-test THIS:


YES I bought a Mo's Bacon Bar which is a chocolate bar WITH BACON and I will dutifully record everyone's reaction to tasting it. I have always said that everything is better with bacon, and I am SO CURIOUS about how this might taste but I am holding back til Thanksgiving.

You can be Thankful this Thanksgiving that you're not at my house being forced to eat bacon-chocolate bars.

Threadless is having a GREAT sale right now with tons of tees for as little as $5. I bought myself 5 great tees and I will show you which ones tomorrow.

OH and one last mention, Valency has awesome powers of persuasion; I talked my Art History II/Modern Art teacher into making class on Wednesday NOT MANDATORY so we can SKIP IT and dear GOD I need the day off - I can't wait! She is such a sweet teacher - I've persuaded her to change the test dates for all 4 tests we've had so far as well. I shoulda been a politician, I tell you.

And believe you me, my classmates are very happy with me right now... Woot for Valency!

My Hovel, My Nest.

Here is where I've been spending back-breaking hours:


I made a paint-nest in the garage which is FREEZING cold, but Shane bought me that little oil-radiator-thingy and I crank it up and paint paint paint.


I half-watched movies today while I painted: Tropic Thunder, Wall-E, and Kinsey were alllll-good. What a weird movie variety. Hmmm.


I seriously surprised myself with how well this painting turned out:


But now I have to 'colorize' it with super-thin glazes... I'll prolly find a way to fuck it up somehow.

Shane got the Christmas lights on the house this weekend so ALL IS WONDERFUL at our Casa. I have been seriously eyeballing a retarded round blow-up Santa yard decoration at Wal-Mart, though. $35 bucks. Not bad. Shane has nixed the idea thus far, but I'm working on him... it's cute as hell.

Purchase Power.

I went to a 'Silpada' party tonight. Like Tupperware or Pampered Chef but jewelry. I bought these earrings:


But what I am MOST excited about is my purchase of these:



Gorgeous yummy supple red leather riding boots from Anthro. It's the most I've ever shelled out for a pair of boots, and they will arrive at my house some time next week... SWOOON.

I've been painting all day and inhaling fumes as usual so another dull & boring post...

Drained.

Is it wrong that I really really want this for my teeny fabulous dog?


Shane says that this is NOT NEEDED.

Well, then howz about this one?


DUDE, it's on sale.

I have so many random images on my computer.


This is just the tip of the iceberg.


I can't just delete these treasures!


Everything is better with bacon, that's what I always say!

NOT In The Mood

Was trying to make a collage in Photoshop that needs to be painted in class tomorrow and Photoshop had been giving me low disk space warnings that I have been semi-ignoring - AND so right as I completed my masterpiece collage without saving it once as I went along it just BLIP disappeared. Fuckity.

I DID buy an external hard drive, and I dumped all of my space-stealing pictures on it...

But I didn't trust it.

I need a second one or something before I can delete all of the vavillion pictures off of my stupid laptop hard drive. I just peeked at my picture folder and HELLO THERE I have over 35 GB of pictures festering there.

UGH.

I'll try again tomorrow. Can't deal tonight.

Je suis...

This is Tallulah's sexxxy look, n'est pas?


That little Capuchine has me speaking French and shiz.

Mon mari est tres awesome sometimes...


I got my worst grade yet on an art exam today. Freakin' 94%. Bugs the crap out of me that it wasn't better, but I made some stupid mistakes on it. OH WELL. Gotta get over it.

C'est la vie!

;)

More Capuchine-Oh!

I am just obsessed with this glorious child...


Too much candy from Capucha on Vimeo

I actually think the 'outtakes' are even better:


"Too much candy" II-The bonus scenes ! from Capucha on Vimeo

Other genius: Sexy People, which is both hilarious and alarming, all rolled into one (alarming because I own pictures of myself that are worthy of this website. UGH)

And I also worship the genius of American McGee, even though his newest game 'Grimm' doesn't work on my unworthy laptop.

Bummer. Seriously.

He Loves His Horn

I am so jealous of Tully and his French Horn. I went to private Catholic schools my whole life, which never had the money for things like band or orchestra...


Tully has requested a string of battery-powered lights for his horn. So he'll look festive for the Holiday Concert. AWWWWWW! My heart bursts.



I've been basically marathon-painting this semester, but thank god that I finally took Photoshop... I can manipulate my images like a sonofabitch now.


Pfffft... scumbling? I've got it in spades now...

Atomic Artistry

I had the privilege of meeting Tara Zalewsky last month, who is a local artist here in Albuquerque. She is FABULOUS - articulate and adorable.

She gave a small group from my painting class a private showing of her work and it simply blew me AWAY. She gave us all sorts of secrets and insights and was just wonderful... Tara earned her MFA in 2006 at the University of New Mexico; she gives me hope that I can one day kick-ass like she does!

She had some of her work from a series she did called "Thursday Night Portraits" which were images of the creatively-costumed swing dancers at the Atomic Cantina.

This is a taste of those portraits (what I could find on the web):


She uses really loose brushwork, but it is effective and gorgeous in person.

Tara also makes these wicked Muppet-esque bird sculptures from found objects:


BUT WAIT! Then she dramatically lights the sculptures and paints portraits of them - these paintings are HUGE- immense & absolutely monumental:


Seeing the work so small in a photograph just doesn't do them justice. They are like five feet tall and they look like they could animate themselves at any moment.


LOVEloveLOVEloveLOVE.

I would buy one in a heartbeat, but they run about $1500-$2000. Out of my meager budget right now. But if I had the cash, obtaining one of these would be worth every penny.


She had these two smaller works behind where I was sitting. They made me giggle and I love them, too:


Graaargh! Ima gonna eats you! NOM NOM NOM.


People like this inspire me endlessly. I wish that there were more quirky fabulous artist people in the world.

Or at least in my neighborhood...

Walking in the Bosque

Took the doggies for a walk in the Bosque... it's about a block from our house (Bosque=Low-lying area near rivers, densely forested with cottonwoods and other deciduous trees) and it's absolutely beautiful right now...


Ibis & Henry are quite well-behaved when I walk them. I am the dog trainer in our family.


But where is Tallulah?


Oh, there she is!


Who is walking Tallulah?


I'll give you just one guess.


That is not a girly hand holding that water bottle...

NO PICTURES!

Blogger is being an ass right now and won't upload my picture - I've tried 3 times and I'm too tired and the husband is taking me out to dinner at The Fat Squirrel in a few minutes anyway so I'm OUT OF TIME!

I have a headache which is a rare occurence with me. Tylenol and Motrin 800 have had no effect. I think it was inhailing the fumes from oil paint & Galkyd & Gamsol all day loooong.

Howz about a link then? Heidi Kenney is FABULOUS and has 2 sweet sons and a tattoo-artist husband and is vegan (I'm not but I admire it) and is successful and wonderful and endearing.
Read her blog HERE!

Random Fillers

Shane and I just got done watching Carnivale Season One on DVD and it was SO AMAZING but also really wierd and trippy and awesome.


Season Two is not supposed to be as good, but we're going to watch it anyway because we care about the carnies like that.

Random leftover Halloween pictures:


Funny how I seem to be the only one excited about Halloween??


I wish they didn't have to grow up.

At least I still have my kitties! I can always fall back on my fallback plan, i.e. become CRAZY CAT LADY!!


Dear Lucky, you melt my heart when you squish yourself into small places where you really don't fit. I heart you.


And Dear Bijou, I just love you endlessly. Especially when you lay amongst the stuffed animals in Tallulah's dog bed.



And I ALMOST NEVER post videos, but dear god, I've watched this one a babillion times today. This is officially the cutest, smartest, most fabulous little girl that ever lived:


Once upon a time... from Capucha on Vimeo.

More Favorites, More Puppy.

I regularly feed my inner NERD with Dinosaurs and Robots. The man has the most exquisite taste in all things vintage, goes garage sale-ing and thrift shopping like nobody's business, and is intelligent as hell to boot. Swwooon.

And to further my cutting edge nerd-tastic-ness, good old Boing Boing keeps me from being an un-informed dork. Boing Boing makes me a cutting edge dork. Nice.

If you are sick of seeing my puppy, well, then get over it, or go elsewhere. I'm too busy to do much else. Can I has 5 fucking minutes to myself?

Tallulah says NYET!



My dog is so much cuter than your dog.

Valency Vanitas

We have a upcoming project in my Painting I class; there is a couple of different ways to approach it, but I'm hoping to make a Vanitas type of painting...




Those are a bit oldschool, but I like 'em. Also along the lines of Memento Mori. My favorite old sculpture:

BADASS!

In my mind, I'm seeing some sort of Audrey Flack painting, with Valency 'things.'

AUDREY!!














Now I have to create an amazing colorful pile of Valency crap, and paint a picture of it...

My Real-Life Tom & Jerry Cartoon.

A Couple of Places I Lurk.

So right now Cake Wrecks is at the top of my enjoyability charts. SO incredibly entertaining, and it helps that many many moons ago, I worked at a grocery store bakery in Spokane, Washington, and this bakery had a high turnover with its cake decorators, so I WOULD HAVE TO FILL IN quite often and I'm sure I created a few 'Wrecks' way back when.

And the always awesome Passive-Aggressive Notes which makes me happy that I'm not the only person in the world who is occasionally passive-aggressive. Good shizzle, it is!

I just finished a few more Photoshop projects for my class. Here is a slightly lame Haunted House I made out of my own house:


Aaaand here is my original pretty house:


I also had to create 2 advertisements (with a slew of rules & requirements that make my head hurt) and here is the silliness I churned out:




I don't think I'm going to be getting any phone calls from Starbuck's ad agency any time soon... ;)

Hello, My Name Is Shane, And I Steal Dogs.

More evidence.






He loves the hell outta that dog.

You'd Steal Her, Too.

Awwwwwwwww!







I need to take current ones with the mug, now that she's bigger... Too tired tonight. Fridays exhaust me. Painting class makes me emo.

The Lost Hast Been Foundeth.

I am admitting that I took pictures of Tallulah when we first got her sitting inside of a mug. Because she is a TEACUP CHIHUAHUA. Get it?

When I went to download the pictures, they were GONE. I asked everybody if they had downloaded them onto their computer (YES WE HAVE 4 COMPUTERS) and EVERYONE SAID NO and I raked my children over the coals and then became devastated.

They were the BEST pictures (well, the best to ME) because you could really see her teeniness when contrasted with the mug.

Tonight my husband was in bed next to me, putzing with his laptop, and he says, "Look at these - !" and I glance over at his computer screen and

THERE IS MY DOG SITTING IN A STARBUCKS MUG ON HIS STUPID STUPIDFACE COMPUTER FOR STUPIDPEOPLE.

This has been brewing for a while. Tallulah was supposed to be MY BABY CREEPY SUBSTITUTE FOR THE DAUGHTER I NEVER HAD. But she has been STOLEN. By my HUSBAND.



I'm downloading the pictures from his computer. I will post more evidence tomorrow.

Official Psychological Testing.

So I'll try and change it up a little today with a recommended read; it's a blog called Morbid Anatomy and it's grotesque and creepy and fabulous and I love it.

The husband came home from his counselling gig the other night with this doodle-paper thing.


He had me fill it out. 'Twas super-corny, as I knew it would be, but bear with me. It gets super-mildly entertaining, I swear.

You had to 'complete' the doodle in each box, and each box had a special meaning (you don't get to know the meanings until you've finished your doodles).
These are Shane's completed doodles, along with their 'meaning' that he wrote in for future reference:


Shane's assessment?
1. He views himself as a pirate.
2. His relationship with others is a tunnel in a mountain.
3. His religion is a Jack-o-Lantern.
4. How he looks at death is a V-22 landing on an X (It's tiny, in the lower rt.).
5. His relationship with his family is a cute little house.
6. Love is a Rotor Blade. (I personally see a baseball bat).
7. His sexuality is a jagged mountain.
8. The environment he lives in is a screaming angry face.
9. Life is jumping on a trampoline.
10. What he desires in life right now is a road.
11. What he needs to be happy is a creepy clown-man.
12. His 'thinking process' is an upside-down Christmas tree.

Now for mine:



1. I view myself as a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. Um, what?
2. My relationship with others is a cupcake. YES.
3. My religion is a teeter-totter. OH HELL YES.
4. How I look at death is 2 fish kissing underwater. Hmmm...
5. My relationship with my family is a jack-in-the-box. Duh!
6. Love is a UFO! YES!
7. My sexuality is a vase of wilting flowers. WAY too cliche.
8. The environment I live in is duckies on a sunny pond. Awwwww...
9. Life is a present. Awwww...
10. What I desire in life right now is a growly monster face. Absolutely?
11. What I need to be happy is a kitty!
12. My 'thinking process' is a tilted painting. Hmmmm...

I think the one that made me giggle the most was the little alien in the UFO that represented LOVE to me, while his idea of love was either a baseball bat, or a rotor blade as he claims, which doesn't really make it better.



There are more good side by side comparisons that really serve to show how strange our relationship is, but HEY, we've been married for almost 17 years, and we've been together for 19 years. SOMETHING must be working!!!

My Boudoir Lanterns.

STILL no time for major, in-depth blogging; I'm cramming for an Art History II exam while watching election results...

I found these rad hanging glass lanterns at World Market the other day... and they look perfect in my bedroom!





I love them. That is all!

Even More Insanity.

Been working with more clay. Because it is NOT homework, and I am all about avoiding homework right now...


Yeay big noses! And yes, I know, they look a little Klingon in the forehead region. Hopefully when I glaze them, it will be less so...


Dude on the right lost his horn. Dammit. He still looks decent, though.


Yeay crazy noses! I had way too much fun.



I think I might try to integrate these with my Painting final project. It has to be 3 painted works, but you have pretty broad choice as to subject, additional elements, etc. It just has to be painted. NICE.

Trudging On.

I will be faithful to Namblopomo. I will. It really should be year-long. I always hope it will light a fire under my ass, but, you know, LIFE HAPPENS.

Here is my current slew of crappy pictures; the first contains my 'award-winning' pumpkin I carved at school. I arrived to work at 9 and my boss asked me to carve one for our college's contest. I went for the tried and true Jack Skellington - he's there on the right -

I must admit that I knew full well that people (especially college-aged ones) would vote for my pumpkin for their love of Tim Burton as much as for my carving skills. But HEY I won FIRST PRIZE over-all, so, you know, WHATEVER WORKS.

Shane's pumpkin is in the middle, Tully's pumpkin is on the left, and Stone's pumpkin is un-carved, sitting on my dining room table with some indian corn I bought today, looking festively Thanksgiving-ish.

Here is Tully, dressed as a pirate, with Shane's annoying fog machine cranking out fog by his feet-


I swear I couldn't breathe all night because Shane kept that thing spewing all night. Blech. But much thanks to Ariane for finding a brand-new $40 Target fog machine for only $6 at Goodwill! You've made my husband's dream of exterminating his family through slow suffication come true!

And here is Stone's bizarre get-up:


He's wearing a crazy giant purple hat he found at Birdland and begged me to buy for him, along with a vintage green velvet coat that belonged to his grandmother, and to top it off, he added a black crushed velvet cape. So he was some sort of nightmarish Mad Hatter/Pimp/Meth Addict. I dunno...

It is REQUIRED that even if you don't want to actually trick-or-treat, you must still dress up and go along with dad & your little brother. Why? Because I said so, and I'm your mother.


And judging by this picture, I'm just a wee bit insane.

Yes, Yes, I'm Doing It AGAIN!

Nablopomo is starting again... and I will DO IT.

Not much today because we're out the door, but here's a picture of the husband's pumpkin, with me & Tallulah:



And yes, there are baby gates all over my house for the chihuahua. I am supernerd.