ACEO! ACEO! ACEO!

I discovered the wide world of art trading cards, little pieces of art.

Just My Size:
I was bopping about the wilds of Etsy and came across This little guy by DeadPanAlley. At first I thought to myself that it was a cute little painting, but I realized that I never really investigated the term ACEO (Art Cards, editions and originals) which are the bought and sold versions of artist trading cards (rather than the traded between artist versions). The more I thought about it, the more I enjoyed the idea of tiny little works. I very often like to work in tiny, so I finally found myself a piece of paper to cut up and tried my hand using my usual medium, pen and ink.




You can see my lovely pictures taken on top of the ancient laptop I am using. The first attempt featuring Squidbot and a jellyfish is a bit disjointed... I didn't really have a plan going in.

The second attempt entitled "What's this doing here?!" is for a friend's birthday and is a much more solid work.

The third piece called "Don't Sink Your Boat," after the Flogging Molly song (not usually a big fan, but I love this song) is a little rough on the left, but is overall what I imagined.

Finally, the last piece, and my favorite is called "My Heart Sinks Like a Stone..." after the line in the Airborn Toxic Event song ("and my heart sinks like a stone, a stone, a stone"). I've envisioned this picture just about every time I've listened to the song, but never had the courage or fortitude to draw it. That's why these little art cards are so awesome. I don't have to commit to a whole piece and have it go south after hours of work, and yet it is still a valid piece of art. Having done these smaller versions successfully, I might go on to make some bigger ones, but for the moment, I'm having fun making little guys :D






In Other News:
My car insurance wasn't as messed up as I thought it was Yay! I didn't have to drive to Capitola. Instead, I got sick! Very sick. I had a fever and a swollen throat and aching ears. I feel better now, though still crappy XP

In Still Other News, From the TV:
Mens short program in figure skating was pretty cool. There were still a lot of tumbles, but I felt that they were less numerous than in pairs and more often because someone was trying to be too tricky. One of the issues I have with how skating is judged is the point system which puts an over emphasis on doing tricks instead of doing everything. In the pairs, it felt like if the skaters did enough tricks, they could still flub a great deal and get high placings. I think the men's competition is a little more balanced, but still skewed with the second place skater, America's Lysacek, barely behind the Russian skater, Plushenko. Plushenko did a quad jump. Lysacek didn't, but outskated Plushenko in all other aspects... is a quad really worth that much?

I'd also like to make mention of Johnny Weir. A bit of an odd duck to be sure, but an awesome skater. He has the habit of not starting his jumps how the judges think skaters should, so he's only in sixth (is it really that important?) despite a very well done routine. I think he deserves higher standing. I also enjoyed the two Japanese skaters, especially the younger one, Oda, and the Swiss skater, Lambiel, who did an awesome version of the William Tell Overture (classic XD). Unfortunately he missed some of his jumps, so he's probably not going to medal XP

In other news Lindsey Vonn kicked ass in women's downhill. She impressed me by crossing the finish line basically on one ski. She had injured herself previously and apparently had a great deal of pain though she still won gold. Nice.

Finally, I watched Shaun White on the halfpipe for the first time today. My goodness that man can fly. Those people are crazy @.@

What's All This Then?

I haven't been posting as much lately because I've had much more to do away from the computer, and when I'm not being busy, I've been watching the Olympics! This has resulted in a great deal of crochet o=


The Busy:
As you know, I've been volunteering at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. This last Sunday was my second day in training. It's going well, but it is pretty tiring (for someone who's been sitting on their butt most of the winter anyway XP). It didn't help that this last weekend was a holiday, and the annual Pebble Beach golf tournament (a star studded event) was also going on. It took me over two hours to drive home, usually 45 minute to an hour, gah! D:

In addition to the volunteering, I signed up for the ceramics class at community college. I've been taking classes out of this lab on and off for the last ten years, so the teacher knows me pretty well, and I get to work on a lot of my own projects. I want to start getting more serious about my ceramics as I am considering going back to college to get an MFA. Also, the Aquarium's Guide Class (to become a real guide instead of an apprentice) is starting this next week, so Monday through Wednesday, I'll be spending my evenings at one class or the other.

Finally, I find myself driving to Capitola tomorrow to pay the insurance on my car. Apparently, it lapsed almost a month ago... long story, and totally not my fault :D
XP


The Olympics:
I wasn't going to watch too much of the Olympics this year. I almost totally tuned out the summer games two years ago. I do really enjoy the winter games however, and find myself staring at the TV with everyone else. I thought the opening ceremonies were pretty cool. Their projector doohickeys and special effects were neat, and I'm especially impressed that they had a slam poet, but I was disappointed that a lot (if not all) of the singing and tap dancing noises were obviously dubbed. Not cool. Also, there's a giant raptor fence surrounding the Olympic Flame, so people can't get up close, or even take a nice picture. Not cool. And let's not get into the Luge track...

I enjoy the snowboard cross. I like snowboards, and it is my dream to some day be on one (this is a monetary and distance issue). In the meantime, I just watch the cross :B
Most things that are racing oriented are interesting to me. I like the long track speed skating and have been watching some skiing. I like the one with all the bumps and jumps and flips (you know with the funny name... Moguls).

Finally, I started watching Ice Skating again. I stopped for a while because I found so much of it to be un-compelling. It has been more about doing tricks than artistry in recent years, and the way they have the points set up, a lot of the scoring seem nonsensical. Also, it seems like many of the new skaters are less skilled than they were in the past. I feel like a big fumble used to be relatively rare, but most of the top ten pairs all had big fumbles tonight. Did it used to be like this? Am I suffering from selective memory? I durno :S

I was totally prepared to be against the top two Chinese pairs, but I found them to be very good (and pretty adorable), and the Germans were also very good despite their problems. The two American pairs didn't place highly, but I liked them both, particularly Evora and Ladwig. Overall, I think a lot of the artistry, the dance, that I have been missing is coming back, so it is becoming interesting again. But please Olympics, can we get rid of the skate grabbing thing?

:P

Camera Crazy

Among other things...


It was a lovely sunny day here in the Land of Gilroy. So nice that I decided to synthesize some vitamin D. It may be February, but there are definately touches of springtime in the air.




My first picture is of Nessie, a large ceramic sculpture I made many years ago, with the shadows cast by Love in the Mist seed pods (appropriate for the month eh?).







Spring is often marked by Dandelions. I hope they'll last til April!


















I love how they look when the sun shines through the petals :)













There were some clouds left over from last nights rain. One parked itself here for a time. I feel like this is my Sistine chapel shot :B






















Lichen that presently grows along our set of walnut trees. As you can probably guess, these trees aren't doing too well, but they are covered with some great lookin' lichen! You can tell that the fungus half (lichen = algae + fungus) is some sort of Ascomycota or cup fungus :3

I find the second picture interesting. It shows the yellow/orange lichen and a second color set of white/burgundy. I don't know if the white/burgundy is just straight fungus or the lichen after it has died, or some other such thing, but it's cool.




I found this guy crawling in between our solar powered lights and the Alyssum. It's a Hemipteran of some sort with red eyes o=










Recently PG&E came and cut down the Eucalyptus trees we had growing under the power lines (who thought that was a good idea?). As you can see, the wood is a nice orange-red color. As you can also see by the width of the inner rings, these trees grow really fast. They're basically giant weeds. Once you got 'em, good luck getting rid of them D:

Eucalyptus fun fact: Firefighters often refer to Eucalyptus as "Gasoline Trees" because the high oil content of bark and leaves burn so readily, yay :D






















Ninja Chickens! Some of our young black Minorca and red New Hampshire chickens tried to sneak up on me. Later, everyone followed me to the back gate. Silly chickens!
















Your humble narrator :B

My Monkey

Do you know who Jonathan Coulton is?
If not, you life has been deprived (or depraved) of one of the contemporary musical greats. He is the writer of the song Still Alive featured at the end credits for the game Portal (have you heard of him now?) as well as many other classics such as Re: Your Brains, Code Monkey, and Skullcrusher Mountain to name some. He's probably got a song which appeals to just about everyone. Check him out at his website or on Youtube. You won't be sorry :3


Arts!
In other news, I have submitted some work for the Anti-Valentine Auction at Works/San Jose. The auction will take place this Friday (Feb. 5th) during San Jose's First Friday Art Walk from 12-10pm where you can place a bid, buy a piece right away, or just eat the food and ogle the art. I'll see you there, provided I haven't died from the plague I've recently contracted.


Sale!
I'm having a week long sale on my cards at the BugsAndMonsters shop. Cards are one of the few things I can have on sale without breaking the bank (so to speak), so take advantage of it. Get them before Valentine's Day!