Art 46

So now I've joined tumblr, pinterest, and twitter. Is that all of them? Is there anything I'm forgetting? Not entirely sure why - mostly just a terrible urge to not Miss Out. Oh well. Feel free to add me on whatever - extrantice, as usual (hooray for made up words!).

I've been working fairly steadily on the cryptomnesia piece (nearly, neearrly, etc) since my last art post, so there isn't really much to report as far as my own stuff goes. I did possibly finish making a pair of goggles in Second Life, but I'm not very happy with them, so i neglected to take any snapshots.

So, that leaves me to find something else to write about. Thankfully there is, of course, a huge amount of art all over the damn place. The South West Survey* was on again this month. Neither my sister nor i entered, or attended the opening thing (circumstances rather overtook us on the night in question, unfortunately - we both would've liked to go), but we're making tentative plans to see the exhibition later this week. Quite looking forward to it. I wish you were allowed to take photos in the gallery, then I could show everyone my favourite pieces. Might be brave and ask about it specially - i don't have a huge gamut of followers, though, so the gallery might not look at it as publicity, or something. i dunno.
*South West Times Survey? South West Art Survey? South West Times Art Survey? South West Times Regional Art Survey?

Elsewhere in town (or possibly connected to the gallery, I'm not sure), there is an art event called... I must look that up. It was in one of last week's papers, I think...
Ah, here it is. Walk Your Art Out. It's about young people (from 16 to 25) making art and putting it in the windows of various local businesses in the central business district. Here is the facebook page: Walk Your Art Out.
Looks like fun, to enter (alas, I'm already 29), and to see. I have a fancy new diary (cat themed. Oh yes.), will definitely be writing in the dates for this.

Meanwhile, here is a webcomic i'm reading: A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible. The link shows the page i'm currently up to (i go slow with webcomics - there are so very many of them, all being read at once). Liking the art. Kind of messy, but still definitely clear enough to show what's happening. Colourific, too. The story seems to be about various, one-page adventures of two friends, the writer and artist of the comic. Surreal adventures, on the whole. Yayo.

Hot

I was set to write something interesting about something interesting tonight, but the heat has made me sluggish and not-thinkingish. So instead, here's a picture of my cat:

Taken with my fancy phone.

As you can see, he's snuggling with his teddy, on a hand-knitted blanket. Hand-knitted by myself, in fact. You can tell because it's slowly falling apart.

Isn't he cuuuute! Take that, summer lethargy.

Art 45

It's 1:35AM, the temperature* is 30° Celsius, and I'm listening to Michael Hurley. And wearing sunglasses. No. Given how long writing these usually takes me, I thought I'd put the time right at the start. The conjunction of that particular time with that particular temperature is a little startling.
*according to the little computer gadget thingy.

2012! A New Year. Hooray! A bit late for a solar celebration, I know, but the lunar new year was only a couple days ago at least. So now it's the year of the dragon. I like chinese dragons, much friendlier than their european contemporaries. The past few years the Australian Post Office have been releasing stamps to celebrate the lunar new year. I have some for the year of the rat and the year of the rabbit, and now this year's issue.

Taken from the Australia Post website.

I didn't get a chance to make an xmas post - ran out of broadband credit. Woe, woe. This... blogging application, or whatever it's termed, doesn't work very well over a dial-up connection. I should probably investigate the capabilities of my fancy new smart* phone. Meh.
*S-M-R-T! I mean S-M-A-R-T!

Xmas went well. New years' celebrations went well. I stayed home, which I like doing. I tried to get roaringly drunk, something unusual for me, but it didn't work, because a) I didn't drink enough, and b) I drank sensibly, with water between each drink, and plenty of food. Bonus - no hangover.

Well then, on to important stuff! At the moment I'm working on the cryptomnesia piece - I have nearly nearly neeeeearly finished sorting all the snippets according to colour, and will soon have to come up with some sort of picture to arrange them into. What represents cryptomnesia? Here is a dictionary definition, from the Merriam-Webster site:

cryp·tom·ne·sia

  noun \ˌkrip-ˌtäm-ˈnē-zhə\

Definition of CRYPTOMNESIA

: the appearance in consciousness of memory images which are not recognized as such but which appear as original creations

—cryp·tom·ne·sic  adjective

Something involving thought-bubbles seems appropriate. However, I've decided to go all artsy and whatnot with it, and put together a sort of mélange of things I've come into contact with lately. So far that means references to Twin Peaks, and mirrors (from rereading Witches Abroad, by Terry Pratchett).

Yes, Twin Peaks... I've been really getting into it lately. Up to episode 14. I already know whodunnit (thanks to various family members), but it hasn't at all detracted from my enjoyment of - and horror at - the show. There's this sense of menace underlying even the most ordinary events within it. Now, is this because I basically know what happened, or is it something about the production itself?

Who killed her?
Pic taken from here.

In other news, I recently made a sketch of my latest role-play character.

For the Mutants and Masterminds table-top rpg. She's known as Ion, and she's a super intelligent cloud of invisible gas. This is her costume. I used a diving suit as a starting point for this. Now I'm tidying it up on the computer - fixing the left foot, for eg. Like all the work I do on the computer, it may well take some time...

That is all for now. I'll try to post something relatively soon about the intriguing stuff I've seen online lately. Which reminds me, I really ought to check my deviantart page... So many online things to do, and I just wanna read webcomics.

Art 44

Discovered some new (new to me) music - Fever Ray. Brilliantine, shadowy, somehow air and earth at the same time. Contradictory, I guess. And cool. The few accompanying video clips I've seen so far are amazing, too. This one is Stranger Than Kindness:



I love the feeling that it's a piece of story, that there's a beginning and an end - an explanation - somewhere we can't see.


Meanwhile... I finally got around to doing a little more work on a texture I've been making for Second Life. The octopus one, remember? As referenced in this post. Quite pleased with how it's turning out.

Look, i figured out where to put the trident!

I'm also trying* to finish something in time for Xmas. I've planned two different things - a slightly creepy picture, and a sort of slick, modish one. Both digital photo-collages. Have made progress on the slightly creepy one so far. Creepy... actually, I find it amusing. It's called Christmas Is Coming To Get you, and features a kind of Xmas golem.
*-sort of. It's possible I'm a little lazy and/or distracted.

The snow-covered pines are sourced from morguefile, a lovely free photo reference place.
I haven't started the slick, modish one yet, which is a little unfortunate, given that i was planning to use it as xmas cards this year.

That's it for now. I'll try to post again before Xmas!