Monday, July 20, 2009

A Librivoxateer!

I have officially spent all the money on myself that I'm going to for the whole summer. That is, on stuff other than food and housing. I really have. This is the last For My Own Amusement And Enjoyment purchase I will make for the next six weeks.

Really.

Right now, I'm going to push the buttons that will buy me a basic, not-fancy microphone for this computer. So I can be a real librivoxateer.

Here goes.


....


Ok, I did it.

I'm pretty excited about it, I'm not gonna lie. Reading audiobooks has been a sort of vagueish dream of mine for quite awhile. Mom says she thinks she can find the recording I started of The Phantom Tollbooth from about fifth grade. I'm really interested to hear it... I don't really remember if I did well. In my head, my memory of it sounds good (The lines I remember being "You're... in... the Dooooooldrums" and "My, my, my, my, my, my, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome To the Land of Expectations, To the Land of Expectations, to the Land of Expectations. I'm the Whether Man, do you think it will rain?), but if she finds the casettes I'll be curious to hear how well I read then. My roommies assure me that I read very well now.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Experiments in Gouache

What have you been doing for your July Fourth? I've had mine mostly to myself, since most of the roommies are out with family, to do whatever I want. I decided to spend a bit of time getting a little better acquainted with Gouache.

Ok, so for the first experiment I used very thin paint on smooth white board. The Lovely Anne was the model for this piece--I went through all the picures from the day of Calebs baby blessing and just grabbed a couple that I kind of liked. Though I've learned that it isn't really very good, I don't think I'll ever learn to stop loving pictures with the sharp contrasts you get in very bright sunlight. I wish I had a better way than a cameraphone to show these to you--the colors are in reality a bit brighter than they look here.

anne

anne


For the next experiment, I used dry paint on very rough black paper. I've had this fancy black paper since my first semester when I had to get a huge sheet of it for my 2D class and didn't use it all. Its not really made for painting on, but as I said this is all experimental anyway. Because of its great texture, It was very easy to get the paint to break--the hard part, in fact, was getting it wet enough to fill in the gaps without becoming too thin to see.

dry bush girl

cutegirl3

Friday, July 3, 2009

Life couldn't possibly, not even probably, life couldn't possibly better be!

The Last Week-or-so--in bullet points!

-The trip to California was great and relaxing. I got to read The Scarlet Pimpernel to my mom and siblings (see book blog) on the drive and they enjoyed it. (Of course. Sir Percy is Made Of Awesome.)
-visiting cousins is fun. Its great to be back with my roommates though. We have Good Times.
-When I did laundry after getting home from CA I made a discovery. My Art Nerd tee-shirt officially has a big smudge of Thalo Blue on the back. I figure, it was only a matter of time. It was going to happen sooner or later. I'm just not quite sure how it did happen.
-The Book Slump continues, but thank goodness for Librivox.org, Karen Savage and the Awesomest Job Ever.
-I think that Conspiracy of Kings should come out sooner. Or that I should get an ARC. I should probably work on that...
-A cleaning check on FRIDAY? Fortunately it was a light one and I woke up early enough that I got all my cleaning done, and they didn't look too closely.
-I think this is the first year in several that I will NOT be participating in any parades. Have fun with that, guys!
-I love the Court Jester. It is an awesome movie.
-little babies are fun to sketch.
-ANNILYN CAME TO VISIT. AFTER SHE SAID WE WOULDN'T SEE HER UNTIL AUGUST. WE SCARED HER FAMILY WITH OUR DELIGHTED SCREAMS. ANNILYN, DON'T STAY AWAY SO LONG EVER AGAIN.
-made Rolo cookies for the first time today. Yum.
-a weekend to do whatever I want. I've done some baking, watched a movie with the roomies.... reading, painting, and more of the same will follow I'm sure.
-I still need to take reference photos for Noah's Ark.... mom, if you could upload the ones that we manages to get that would be MARVELLOUS.
-I love Tonks and Sunny. One day, I will have my own house. In it, there will be birds, books, a studio, a kitchen, and a dance floor. And maybe somewhere to sleep.