My Stupid Life

WhatYouSeeGalore Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 03:23:00 +0000

Been very very busy the last few days, so much so I almost forgot to post about a new art show!

Autobody Fine Art: http://www.myspace.com/1517artprojects

"WHATYOUSEE! GALORE II" STIMULATES SENSORY OVERLOAD IN ALAMEDA

Who: A collaboration of Bay Area artists, fashion designers
and musicians.

Featured artists include: Brett Amory, Davie Crockett, Robyn Engel, Adam Friedman, Daniel Healey, Helena Hseih, Raymie Iadevaia, Monika Jones, Mary Anne Kluth, Elise Mahan, Christine Monohan, Claudia Morales, Ernesto Ortiz, Eddie Ross, Task1, Noel Taylor, Bryan Von Reuter, Peter Walker, Annie Wong and Jaci Zacamy.

Fashion Designers: miss velvet cream featuring Jean Therapy, SPRFKR and more.

Music: Brian Von Reuter and Dj Davu

What: The second annual "WhatYouSee Galore" spectacle fusing visual arts and sound for your sensory enjoyment.

When: Saturday, August 23, 2008 at 7:00 p.m.

Where: Autobody Fine Art Gallery
1517 Park Street
Alameda, CA 9401

Why: Alameda—On August 23, 2008 a collaboration of Bay Area artists and fashion designers reveal art as both a creative medium and a stimulating experience. Through installation, painting, video, printmaking, sculpture, fashion, live music performance, and more, the influences of Funk, Figurative, and Mission School artists are traced and celebrated by the opulent variety of work emerging on both sides of the Bay Bridge and beyond. "WhatYouSee Galore" brings together Bay Area artists to display the wide range of creativity to the community of Alameda as an art form in and of itself.

More from the FasTrack show at Lobot Gallery

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 04:11:00 +0000

I really enjoyed seeing the work of Liz Maher and Martha Sue Harris at last night's show. Both use a variety of materials in making organic looking sculptures, nice colors and fun to look at.

Martha Sue Harris (I forgot the names of these pieces):

I like how the colors and materials she uses makes these objects/creatures seem like delicate toys and at the same time something you could find in a natural history museum.

Liz Maher's Giving Tree:

This piece contains many things that fall under the category of Things Annie Likes: Bright/neutral color combination, kiddie things (fruity pebbles and m&m's), drippy stuff, tactility (though you weren't supposed to touch it), and boobies/penises/vaginas depicted in funny ways.

Actually, that last shot reminds me of this:

Too bad I have no idea where this photo came from. But I wish I did! Agh, the internet's lack of context can be so frustrating!

And now it's time for bed.

I actually went out to see art last night. woah.

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 18:35:00 +0000

I'm usually pretty terrible about going out to art openings, um...and leaving the apartment in general, but I did go out last night to check out a show called FasTrack at the Lobot Gallery in Oakland. I'm glad I did, there were some pretty interesting things there.

Firstly, there is this ginormous painting by my buddy, the always ever-so talented Nancy Chan.

The girl on the upper right is one of the organizers of the show, also a buddy of mine, Mary Anne Kluth. And hey...who's that girl in the striped sweater...hm???? Eh heh heh HEH.
I love tooting the horns of my talented friends, (does that sound inappropriate?) go click on their names and check out their websites.

Agh, there are a couple more artists I will post about, but now I have to go to work. Stay tuned!

Hot Brownies

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 03:46:00 +0000

Haven't had much time to post lately, trying to get a painting ready for an upcoming art show, lots of work to do at the day job, getting super excited about next year's Watchmen movie...

But I did have time to make brownies. And here's a color pallete based on Trader Joe's Ready to Bake Brownies box.

Color by COLOURlovers

Stuffed Animal Roadkill photos

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:32:00 +0000

Puggy:

and Bunny:

Mario and Luigi

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 10:46:00 +0000

Mario and Luigi, originally uploaded by headexplodie.

It's the Headexplodie weirdified version of my two favorite brothers.

Pulchritudinous

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:32:00 +0000

I'm a little bit in love with drawing girls with zits right now. Maybe it's because I love popping them so much. I drew this girl on the plane ride from Texas to California. She has a lovely mucocele cyst like the one I used to have.

Pulchritude. Isn't that a great word? Such an ugly word for such a pretty thing.

A yummy gummy in my tummy.

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:22:00 +0000

My sister gave me some of her Kasugai Straberry gummys for the bus trip from San Antonio to Mission, TX. They were delicious.

OH yay, I found it. My XBOX gamer card.

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 13:14:00 +0000

Flamepig

Now friend me!

My wrist is killing me. KILLING MEEEEEEE.

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 12:33:00 +0000

Got back into town last night. Did a little bit of work on my website while I was on vacation and I think I strained my wrist doing so. Today was the last official day of a concrete sculpture class I am taking, so I think I killed my wrist even more by hand mixing a bunch of concrete. It's like kneading dough.

Finally, to top it all off, I have the greatest urge these days to play ROCK BAND. Today I started a band by myself, creating two characters that look like me, one does vocals and one does guitar. Our/My band is called "This one's for Michael." Anyway, more destruction of the wrist through playing guitar in this game.

I finally discovered how to play the online multiplayer feature and have been enjoying the tug of war and score duel games. I'm been really slow with this XBox live thing, but I guess when I figure out how to post my information here, I will, so anyone that reads my blog can play with me! Oh wait, silly me, no one reads this! Do you?????

While I was on vacation, I made this sketch. Let's see if anyone can guess who this is supposed to be:

and on an entirely different note, I shall leave you with this image to ponder:

Yeah, yeah, since you've been gone...

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 06:33:00 +0000

I've been on vacation this past couple of weeks, so not a whole lot of posting going on. But here is a sketch and a tablecloth doodle for you.

My favorite ice cream:

Drawn before eating a tasty spaghetti dinner:

Buhhhh...tired.

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 07:19:00 +0000

Worked outside for much of the day, in the hot hot sun. Then I had a concrete sculpture class to go to in the evening. When I came home, I tried to finish much of the food we have in our fridge, since we're going to Texas tomorrow, so I wolfed down some salad, ramen, and ice cream while watching this week's American Gladiators. SUCH A GREAT SHOW!

So as usual, I hope to make lots of art on my vacation, and maybe get some more of these Mario paintings made.

Photography is fun.

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 02:37:00 +0000

I purchased a Pentax ZX-M off of ebay about a month ago, and plan on gifting it to my younger sister, and teaching her the joys of photography. In the meantime, I tested it out at home and at work, and was quite delighted by the results. Makes me want to get one for myself!

Apple Tree?

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:51:00 +0000

Made a new ColourLovers palette this morning.

Man, it's too early. I'm tired. You probably think I'm lame for thinking 7:52 am is too early for me. :P

Stop Here.

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Mon, 19 May 2008 07:01:00 +0000

It's been a very busy month, seems like last time I cleaned my work area I messed it up immediately with a puppet building project. After that was over I cleared my table and stacked on some small canvases and wood dolls to work on.

Things occupying my brainspace as of late:

Clearing my iPhoto library and ordering photobooks. When I stopped using film cameras a couple of years ago my photo albums got dusty, sad, and unfilled. I missed being able to flip through pages of memories with my hands, so I'm in the process of ordering photobooks and filling them with about 2 years of digital photos.

Just finished scenery for a puppet show called Perez and Mondinga, coming to a birthday party near you! If you live in the Bay Area, that is.
T'was Michael's birthday last week. Spent it a wonderful place called Zen Springs, saw this cool doll by Debra Schoch in a shop next door, and had yummy spaghetti while doodling on the tablecover.
This is what a squirrel looks like in 100 degree weather. I can totally sympathize.

Peanut Butter Cookie Love

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 19:50:00 +0000

I made these Trader Joe's Peanut Butter Cookies this week, and even though the cookies came out semi-ok, I mostly fell in love with the packaging for the cookies, and made a COLOURlover palette based on it.

Anywhoot, the COLOURlovers website is pretty neat-o, and me thinks I'll be playing around with it more in the near future. Check me out on COLORlovers here!

Now I'm off to eat my eggs and avocado.

just say "AHHHHHHH!!!!"

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 02:53:00 +0000

Should I do it, should I do it?!

Sick with allergies today. Did a search for "neti pot" on youtube...

Blawgs, table drawings, muxtapes

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 07:27:00 +0000

A delightful surprise! The wonderful Heidi of My Paper Crane mentioned my blog in a post of hers about...blogs! I'm truly honored, since I subscribe to her blog and admire her photo-filled craftackular posts. Thanks, Heidi!

Earlier this week we went to our favorite Italian Restaurant, I've probably mentioned it before, Italian Colors. It's one of those places that let you do drawings on the paper tabletop covering. Here's the mess we made.

That unfortunate Wario drawing is mine, and the unfortunate victim caught in his fart cloud is named "Pochi."

I tried drawing Pochi from memory on the right. Michael invented this character when he was in the 2nd or 3rd grade. According to him, he's always looked pretty much the same, so he was quite shocked at how my memory butchered the image of his childhood creation. Then Michael drew his Pochi on the left, see how he is scratching his head in confusion at my Pochi?
Oh well, it made for a good laugh.

My good pal, Chrisclean updated his website recently, and one of the last few times we chatted, he told me about this awesome website, Muxtape.com, where you can make your own online mixtape! It took me forever to make mine, and even when I finally finished I had a couple of last minute changes occur due to bugs, but it was an interesting experiment.

Here's my first mix. Maybe when I have more energy I'll make another one with a real theme, for now it's just some songs I've been liking a lot lately.

Hibernation.

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:36:00 +0000

After an exhausting day at work yesterday, I came home and intended on taking a short nap. Instead I ended up hibernating for about 10 hours. I didn't really know what to do with myself when I got up, because it was that weird, not quite night time, not quite day time. Should I eat dinner, should I eat breakfast? I microwaved some oatmeal and then forgot about it, I think it's because I don't actually LIKE oatmeal that much. I would make a terrible hobbit. I played Super Smash Bros. Brawl for about half an hour, read for a bit, then turned on the news. Now the sun's finally out and I feel a sense of relief like I can finally get on with the day, even though before my hibernation I was happy that my day was over.

Yesterday we visited our dear friend Lewis, and gave him this gift. It's a portrait of him with his initials on the cover of a Moleskine watercolor sketchbook.

Hmm...guess I should make myself a 2nd breakfast now.

I'm happy that there are other people on the internet that find the second breakfast scene as amusing as I do. I love watching terrible quality re-enactments of movie scenes. LOVE IT.

I'll be lovin' you forever.

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 07:39:00 +0000

I cleaned my work area a couple of weeks ago.

Of course, it didn't stay clean for very long. I'm working on some more scenery for The Puppet Company's show, Perez and Mondinga.

In the window of the house, are my newly acquired gnomes from Target, which I heart dearly.

Also acquired yesterday, three very awesome records from the thrift store. I really wanted to get more, but Michael was dying from allergies so we had to leave.

This last one simply called "Mother Goose Album" was a 3 record set of children's songs! And there is a board game inside, with more wacky illustrations. SO COOL. Didn't come with the game pieces though.

What else is new? Not much, just eagerly anticipating seeing the following musical act live this year...

a mess i made (in my sketchbook)

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 07:23:00 +0000

Process pictures.

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 02:11:00 +0000

Here are photos of Cinderella mural #5 being painted.

and an animation!

Garhgh.

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 09:39:00 +0000

I feel bad for not posting anything this month. Not much to say right now, I've just been trying to get organized and do my taxes. Bleh. So...here are some pictures...

It was my birthday this month, and here is my tasty birthday dinner dessert.

It was also the 6th anniversary of Flamepig and Michael Bulldog. I made us rings for the occasion.

I asked Michael to draw a tattoo on me, and this is what he came up with. I would seriously get this tattooed on me, if I was into that sort of thing.

Now to do some more taxes, and sleep.

Cinderella and Ramblin' Rambo

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 06:46:00 +0000

It was pretty easy finding something to submit for this week's Illustration Friday challenge- Tales and Legends, since I work in a storybook theme park. This is #5 in a series of 7 murals I'm painting for the Cinderella Party Area of Children's Fairyland. It's still in progress, and I hope to be done with it this week, I've got some changes I want to make to the prince and some more mice, some more magic sparkle, that kind of thing. It's about 90% done, I think.

I saw Rambo 4 tonight. It was SO not my kind of movie. I absolutely hate how the teaser trailer for this glorifies war violence and seems like an army ad. So messed up. Because that's not at all the tone of the movie. I suppose I can't expect much from movie trailers anyway but I'm so tired of the lowest common denominator manipulation crap.

It is pretty much a war movie, and I generally do not make the choice to go out and view so much grotesque violence on screen. For me personally, I just don't feel a NEED to see that kind of thing, and certainly don't need to see it Hollywood-ed up. But I genuinely enjoyed Rambo 1, never saw the 2nd or 3rd, and somewhat enjoyed watching the Rambo character development in the 4th movie.

I saw a small boy leaving with his caretakers when the credits began to roll, and at first I thought, WHY WHY WHY would you take a kid to see this movie?! Which by the way, I equate the experience of watching the first 40-something minutes of this movie to having your face shoved in poop for 40-something minutes. But you know, I saw lots of messed up movies as a kid (as I'm sure we all have, right? Right?) and I don't actually remember them much nor did it ruin my brain, at least I don't think it did.

I wonder what the R. on the "R. Rambo" mailbox stood for in the movie. Ricky Rambo? Rambo Rambo? Rocky Rambo? Ramblin' Rambo. Whatever. Stalone is a giant man, and I think it would be cool to see him re-match against Hulk Hogan.

Ok, I've never seen all of Rocky 3, but really, why do I need to now that I've seen the above clip???? IT'S ALL I NEED TO SEE!

Alice in Wonderland - Off with their heads!

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 07:36:00 +0000

Alice in Wonderland - Off with their heads!, originally uploaded by headexplodie.

I have no new news to blog about today, so here's a super cool photo of two of my favorite dudes from the last puppet show we did at Fairyland- the soon to be beheaded card painters. They only appeared on stage for less than a minute, but they still rocked. Puppets designed by Lewis Mahlmann.