Dr. Sketchy's at M Bar

On this beautiful Sunday afternoon, Kristen, Josh and I traversed to M Bar on Fountain and Vine for an afternoon of Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School. You reserve a table and bring your paper and drawing gear, and enjoy 2 & 1/2 hours of live model drawing - your model being a cute naughty Burlesque Pinup girl. The model was Angela Ryan, and here's a photo from her site. I'll post up my drawings tonight when I get home. Ta!

Malibu Hike

We finally got another hike in today, in the Santa Monica Mountins. We started out on a pth called Yearling Trail, which branched into several other directions which revealed an unexpected lake further down. We estimate our hike to be about 4 - 4.5 miles, and it was filled with tiny hoppity bunnies. We saw three deer, wich was exciting for us too, and a ka-jillion lizzards and lovely wildflowers. After we got home, I took a three hour nap, followed by a relaxing hour of shiatsu at the Massage Garage. I felt brand new and lovely after all this nature, rest and relaxation in one beautiful sunny Saturday.

Aganetha Dyck

Check out her wonderful bee art - sculptures and drawings and photos!!

While initially working with a range of sculptural media, including wool, buttons, and cigarettes, since 1991 Dyck has concentrated exclusively on placing ordinary objects in the apiary and allowing the bees to create wax and honeycomb encrusted sculptures. For Gallery One One One, Dyck extended her "collaborations" with the bees by focusing on inter-species communication. While scientists have learned that bees actually communicate through a kind of dance, in Dyck's sculpture the honeycomb depicts a visual form of their language. The honeycomb works both as an art object, and as a means of conveying information. This installation represents Dyck's effort to translate human language into a language of "nature."

http://members.shaw.ca/ahtenaga/home.html

Drawrings

I am excited to say I'll be attending Dr. Sketchy's Art Night at M Bar this Sunday. you get to go and have a little table, and do live figure drawing of a sexy burlesque show girl. I have not done drawing from life for a super long time, and when I think about it, I don't do much real drawing anymore period. This is a travesty! I went hunting for my latests drawings, and they were a while ago, February I guess. Here they are, a creepy picture of Elwood, which is from life, and an eskimo drawing from not-life.

New Books

I've had a book making creativity spurt the last couple of days. I've completed 3 new journals and listed them on Etsy. Here they are:



bonefolder.etsy.com

Zakka my new facination...

I got interested in Zakka through the Japanese craft books I found, sparse - beautiful - charming - design of everyday objects. Then, looking up the meaning of the word, I am digging a little deeper into the ideology behind it. I wish I could read Japanese, as I'm finding little in English to further my search, and so much is lost in translaton. I am so intrigued.

What is Zakka?

For once, the Japanese word for a fashion phenomenon sounds as hip as it deserves to be: zakka. It's the term for everything and anything that spruces up your home, life and outlook. Zakka is the art of seeing the savvy in the ordinary and mundane.


On one level the zakka boom is just another in a series of consumer fads, but on another it's plugged into something spiritual.

Cute is not enough. To qualify as a zakka, a product must be attractive, sensitive, laden with subtexts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakka

Arctic Tale

Sounds way to good to be true....

From National Geographic Films, the producers that brought you MARCH OF THE PENGUINS and Paramount Vantage, the studio that brought you AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, ARCTIC TALE is an epic adventure that explores the vast world of the Great North. The film follows the walrus, Seela and the polar bear, Nanu, on their journey from birth to adolescence to maturity and parenthood in the frozen Arctic wilderness. Once a perpetual winter wonderland of snow and ice, the walrus and the polar bear are losing their beautiful icebound world as it melts from underneath them. Narrated by Queen Latifah, the film features music from Cat Stevens, Ben Harper, Aimee Mann, and The Shins.

Sore muscles!

I finally dragged myself into the gym after a long hiatus, and tried to break myself back in. I ran until I could run no more, and then went down to do some little arm wight machines. I feel it this morning in my arms and back and it's nice to know I was using my muscles a little. I had lovely sleep last night, after a nice excercise and lovely dinner of roasted chicken, asperagus, lemons and potatoes all cooking happily together. I wake to Elwood streaching out his belly right by my face and flexing his tiny paws in the air, wanting his tummy rubbed. Lovely life.

Weekend Sleepies

So on Sunday we went to The Coffee Company near the airport for the first time in a long time, and I basically slept on the couch for the rest of the day. The evening concluded joining David and Heather at the movies to see Hot Fuzz, which was really funny.

Casa de kitty

Last night was a relaxing evening at JR's, where we had a celebrity sighting of John Carroll Lynch. I did not know his name, but immediately reconized him, he plays the killer in Zodiac, and Drew Carey's brother on the Drew Carey show, plus a million other things. He's in season 2 of Carnival I think. Anyway, he was hanging out with 2 other guys with the same build and baldness, and a kid we predicted would grow into the same mold. I never see famous people, and this was very random. We came home for more Venture Brothers, and I made a good bye card for Lisa in the shape of a purse. I cut it out of paper and sewed on some orange fabric to the front and back, and stitched on a "zipper pull" from a bag of crafty goodies Christine nabbed me from her work. Lisa's moving to Shanghai next week, and I'm really going to miss her lots at work :( David and Elwood cuddle in the flower blanket and try to keep warm. I took Elwood to the fancy ear specialist vet in Malibu - practically out to Zuma beach. This is very sad, but as his ear refused to heal and keeps becoming infected after his polyp surgery, he is now going to have the whole inner part of the ear removed. This means he'll be deaf in one year, and while he'll still have his "ear" there won't be a hole, it will be smooth sewn up skin. I am pretty freaked out by it, but there's nothing else to be done about it. The poor baby has no idea, and I just feel awful.I have set up a space now in the workroom for my sewing machine and craft stuff, and am happy with it. It's nice to have a place to keep the craft mess, and keep it out of the rest of the house. I like my table up by the window and I have a little view of the front porch, green shrubs and the glimmering sparkle of the auto auction decorations.I forgot to mention that i finished my little green pillow with the embroidered iron on transfer of a happy pitcher full of strawberries. I appliqued on roses from an old teeshirt that I decided to recycle here. it's a nice little pillow and I like to hug it white watching movies.Hopefully tomorrow doesn't bring rain, and we can go on a hike at last.

Miriam Art!

I went on thumbtack press today and bought this print of one of my friends paintings! Miriam just got her new website up, check her paintings out at: http://elcamposanto.com/

Buy awesome art prints at: http://www.thumbtackpress.com

Go Team Venture

Yesterday David bought Season 2 of The Venture Brothers, and we spend the evening cozy couching and laughing ourselves silly. We are planning a long postponed hike for this Sunday, but I fear there may be rain. My hope is to get up early and get in a hike before drizzling weather descends. Other weekend plans? Kitty goes to the Vet on Saturday to see an ear specialist in Malibu, and Josh's 28th birthday bash at The Red Lion that same night. Sunday = hiking, napping, possibly a little crafting.

Hats Galore

Here are more: from a wonderful hat creator, Monica Burnette. See more of Monica's wonderful head gear at: http://www.monicaburnetthats.com/



H

Crochet + Knit wonders

Today I pay homage to Ana Voog, artist extrodinare. Her freeform crochet is so inspring. I've posted some of her creations and other finds from her string theory blog that delight me everso.
http://www.anacam.com/hats/

Our new table

Behold the new dining room table. Elwood admires it greatly here. I feel like a little kid sitting at a grown up table, the chairs are big and super heavy.

Are cellphones killing bee colonies?

This article was found by David on boingboing this weekend for me. All the explanations for the dissapearing bees have been on pesticides so far, and this is very interesting:

The world's bee colonies are dying mysteriously, and a study from Landau University suggests that mobile phones may be to blame. The colonies are subject to "Colony Collapse Disorder," (science-ese for "we don't know where all these bees have gone") and the disorder accounts for the death of anywhere from 50-70 percent of bee colonies. Since bees pollinate most crops, flowers and fruiting trees, the end of bees is seriously bad news for the world's food supply.
It's been long understood that bees respond to electromagnetic radiation. Dr Jochen Kuhn at Germany's Landau University has shown that bees don't return to their hives when cellphones are present. The study doesn't prove that cellphones are responsible for CCD, but it does provide evidence that mobile phones are implicated in the death of hives.

The alarm was first sounded last autumn, but has now hit half of all American states. The West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast.
CCD has since spread to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. And last week John Chapple, one of London's biggest bee-keepers, announced that 23 of his 40 hives have been abruptly abandoned.

Other apiarists have recorded losses in Scotland, Wales and north-west England, but the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs insisted: "There is absolutely no evidence of CCD in the UK."

The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world's crops depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, "man would have only four years of life left".

additonal news link: http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2449968.ece

Placemats

Here is the result of my crippled foot weekend. I made a set of 4 placemats and started making a quilted pillow with a iron-on embroidery transfer of a happy pot full of strawberries. This weekend was very non-mobile for me, I mostly hopped around the house and went to bed early. Sunday we went out and got a new dining room table & chairs, and then I'll be able to move the little ikea table we have now into the work room so I can set up my sewing machine and fabric mess in there. The Dark Crystal journal from my Etsy shop sold, and I used the Etsy labs method of upcycling an old envelope to mail it. Here's a cool tutorial on that: http://etsylabs.blogspot.com/2007/04/recycled-shipping-options-week-1.html

Sleepy weekend

This weekend I played with my Japanese craft book, making patchwork placemats while Elwood enjoyed a long sit in the window. He is yawning there, but looks quite ferocious in this amazing photo. Friday night, a blister on my foot took a turn for the worse, and the foot is swollen and painful and I can't walk on it very well, so I am confined to my craft table or the couch. David gets to watch me hop from room to room like a dork.

Yes! Asia

Goodness, someone stop me! I searched online for a while and finally discovered the magic of Yesasia.com - the only place I've found to order more japanese crafting books with an english language webpage. It's hard to search on there, but if you find one thing you're looking for, it will reccomend similar items, so I searched around that way til I found some I wanted. They are not that expensive, and cheaper than on Etsy. Maybe it won't be so bad when Asia takes over the world and eats the US up. At least everything will be clever and crafty and beautiful and oh so cute. I ordered these additional yummy books.

Eeep! Clever Japanese crafters!

My recent Etsy order of the book Machine Made Patchworks 02 came in the mail today and I'm ever so delighted by it! I feel like a little kid again, drooling over all the pictures of girls in patchwork altered clothes and purses and doilys and pillows etc, pictured against lovely blue flower wall paper. All the project instructions are in Japanese, but seem like I could figure them out from looking at the diagrams. I just want to eat it up it's so cute and fresh and clever. Oh you smarty smart cute and clever Japanese crafters, how you enchant me! I'm drying to get my hands on the first volume, but the only bookseller I could find was sold out.

American Doll Posse

I am excited about Tori Amos and her newest album. It's called American Doll Posse, and it's loaded with politics about our current messed up situation with GW and Iraq - of course translated by Tori and her new Greek Goddess personalities. Also really cool, is that each personality has it's own blog you can link too from her website. So far only 2 are created, but more will be posted soon.

Clyde: clydespeaks.blogspot.com
Isabel: www.tagworld.com/isabeldocuments

You can also listen to a couple tracks from the new album, I particularily like Yo George where she wonders asks "Is this just the maddness of King George? You've got the whole nation on all fours."

Back to the Garden

I've finished the outline of Kristen's flower tattoo. I have to work on the color portion now, wich seems harder somehow. If she gets it, I want to go and watch. I can't even imagine someone having something on their body that I made, forever. It's a really nice feeling.

Tagged

These are some tags from old shopping trips to the Beverly Center. Oh beautiful tags, I love you so. I am such a sucker for them now since working for Guess. I like looking for tags almost more than looking for clothes. You don't have to be dissapointed in the dressing room.