Makeshift bedroom studio

Back home in Long Beach, I have a whole garage to use as a studio. I usually leave all my supplies sprawled out in a fit of creative mess. Unfortunately, visiting Micah usually means sharing his 100 sq. ft. bedroom.

Here's my set-up:

Yay natural day-light! I have my sketchbook or tablet on the bed and a small table in front. Under the laptop is a printer-scanner. To the right on the floor is a tub of all my sketchbook and art supplies. I keep my pens and brushes in a tin so I just reach down for them as needed.

Here is my studio in a tub:

Contents of tub from top to bottom:

1. Paper sacks full of finished comic pages sandwiched between cardboard (for safekeeping.)
2. Pad of 9x12 watercolor paper
3. Pad of 9x12 bristol paper
4. Packs of cardstock paper. White, purple, green and blue (used for mini-comic covers.)
5. Sketchbooks (5 total)
6. Business ledger
7. Packing tape
8. Tin of watercolor pencils, watercolor tube paints and ink
9. Stapler
10. Tin of brushes, pencils, pens, markers etc
11. Can of fixative spray
12. Plastic pallettes

On the left:
1. Paint rag
2. Watercolor pan

On the right:
1. Envelopes, bubble mailers, boxes etc. For shipping orders.
2. Ruler
3. Travel-sized watercolor kit (from April Nash!)
4. Pencil box full of wires, xacto knife, box-cutter, pliers, scissors.


And here's it all put away! I tried to be as compact as possible otherwise there's barely any room to walk through:

Read me!

I've been really plowing through my book list lately, and dragged Micah along as well. He's been searching for a bookmark so I decided to make use of some scrap cardboard I had lying around.

I hadn't realized how quickly I'd be going through my reading list. It really helped that the library had so many of them! I didn't realize how I'd severely under-estimated their collection.

Studio projects of the week:
- Script next week's comics
- Pencil & ink
- Thumbnail Crab & Manatee
- Thumbnail 'Ruthy ride her bike'
- Edit test files for prints

Quick shots: My best friend

 

28: Frustrations and a new haircut

I'm not ready for school to start on Monday. I feel like I've absolutely wasted this entire summer. I wasn't able to do any of the fun things I had planned, neither was I able to plan anything new. (Except for RENT. No way was I going to miss a chance of a lifetime.) I wasn't able to go shopping for school supplies, either.

Mostly, I'm terrified about applying for art school. This has been something I've had planned for a long time but now...I dunno. The bills have started coming in for the accident and although my parents have promised to pay for my education, I am terrified they won't be able to afford it. We are nowhere near rich and finances have been very strained since the deaths of my grandfather and aunt last year.

I haven't been able to work on my application portfolio at all. I was hoping to take my time off for summer to work on it. Now I'm faced with the possibility of having to drop this entire semester if my arm keeps hurting. I really want more than anything to transfer at least by Spring 2011 but that's starting to seem unrealistic.

I'm incredibly frustrated. After high school, I had a solid 4 year plan for college. Within the first semester, I picked up the wrong friends, skipped classes and basically wasted time and money. I spent 3 years taking classes I didn't need and failing the ones I did. A year and a half ago, I finally get my act together and I'm so so so very close to finishing up my core classes. I feel like I work so hard for a year and a half and get so much accomplished...but in the space of just one summer, I'm falling behind again.

Keeping motivated is hard. Its really easy to slip into a loathing, self-entitled depression. I feel like I've been such a burden to Micah and my own family. I hate having to ask for help for simple shit like making food or even getting into the shower.

At least my leg is healing a lot quicker now. It still gets swollen and throbs painfully, but I only need one crutch to walk for short distances. I seem to heal in spurts. I'll go a week or two with no improvement, then suddenly one day I wake up and I'm less swollen or I can put a little more pressure on it. Its those good days that keep me going.

To cheer myself up, I decided to get a new look for school. I was getting tired of the old shaggy cut and my roots had grown in horribly. Normally I dye it myself but I can't really do it one-handed. I came up with this look that everyone said was going to be a) impossible. b) horrendous. I think it turned out to be neither! Haha!

I went to the Mojave Barber College here in Victorville. I got a student barber, Joseph, who was incredibly attentive and tried really hard to make sense of my non-nonsensical ideas and vague descriptions. I felt bad for the poor guy. LOL After a lot of fussing and test runs and people coming over to give advice, we got the cut done. The instructor came over and offered to do an all-over rainbow dye job. Not an offer I can turn down!!!

I'm really excited about the new hair. The best part was all the people freaking out, thinking the barber was messing up. Then there were the people asking why the hell I was doing this to myself. Haha! I've never been to attached to my hair. No matter what I do to it, it grows back. If it doesn't, I can get wigs...or sport a bald look. LOL

My favorite were the children. There were 4-5 kids playing around, staring at me whenever they thought I wasn't looking. At one point, this little girl shyly came up to me and said "You look cute." Put a smile right on my face.

26: Sketches and mustaches

An exhausting day but one I needed. Met up with some friends in town I haven't seen in a long time. I have the bad habit of waiting till the last minute to do so.

Howard and Micah at Seattle's Best

Mustaches!

And I got my very first mini-comic printed!

19: Ranting aka. The Sad Post

As promised, here is the Emo Sheika contained in one blog post. Feel free to skip this one.

I've been really depressed lately. Being around Micah keeps me from getting too desperately lonely though, so no extreme episodes like the one a few weeks ago. (See post) I guess I'm still really bummed out from my plans falling through.

I think now, its hard because I feel like I can't even make any new plans. I want to meet up with friends while I'm in town, when we go to see RENT I want to eat somewhere nice and maybe catch a few art galleries in the area, I have a friend that wants to take me to the Laugh Factory for my birthday. But I can't make any plans at all because I simply do not know what condition I'll be in on any given day.

3 weeks ago, I had assumed I'd be well enough to go see RENT and hang out with my friends. Well, I'm going to see it anyway but I'm definitely not as healed as I thought I'd be. I'm still unable to put too much pressure on my left foot and my arm doesn't seem to be getting better at all. It's going to be a serious pain going to see RENT, but I know I'm going to absolutely regret it if I don't go. Who knows when it will be back in town?!

Every day I keep thinking "Just 1 more week and I'll be better" but that week comes and goes and it still hurts when I wake up in the morning and I can't write/draw/paint for more than 5-10 minute blocks of time. Walking anywhere is a pain and leaving the house even for a little bit is absolutely exhausting.

My biggest concern right now is that school starts in 3 weeks (August 16.) I'm really really really hoping that I'll be better by then or else I don't really know how I'm going to do it. The campus is relatively large and my classes are all over the place, not to mention the total of 4 bus rides to and from school. The worst part is I'm taking 4 studio art classes at 3-hour-sessions each! Unless I magically become left-handed, I really don't know how I'm going to pull this off.

My Doctor is more than willing to give me a school excuse note, and I know my parents wouldn't mind if I take the first few weeks off...but that's not the point at all. I'm so close to transferring to a school I actually want to be in. I only have two semesters left. I worry that if I take so much time off the beginning of the semester, I won't be able to catch up and will have to spend another entire year at LBCC.

*sigh*

I feel really bad for Micah. I really worried him the other day. We had gone to the movies for my birthday and was walking through the parking lot to get to the theater. I still have really bad anxiety whenever there's a running car around but I went into a full-fledged panic attack this time. We were almost to our car when a car turned the corner and was driving towards us. It was a parking lot so it was going really slow...but...I dunno. The logical part of my head was thinking that obviously the car sees me, there's two of us, it was brightly lit and it was going slow. I dunno...I couldn't help it. It was like my mind shut down and everything went fuzzy, I couldn't breathe or move. I just kept thinking "I don't want this to happen again." I kept seeing over and over again the very last image before the car hit me and I flew in the air. I kept seeing the headlights and the bumper, how the grill was so shiny and reflective. I just kept seeing it over and over and over and I couldn't breathe. I kept thinking that I needed to move but I couldn't. Micah finally pushed/carried me across to the car.

I was pretty shaken after that and we went straight home. I haven't left the house since. I get to see a therapist soon (4 days) so maybe I can figure out how to deal with this stuff. I'm already pretty anxious about that, though, since it means getting in the car and driving out to the place. Ugh. I'm seriously sick of this.

10: More silly songs

So it seems I've been a little too eager about getting better. I am now able to put some weight on my leg and because of this have been rather active, walking around the house and sitting up a lot. This resulted in my leg and foot swelling up massively last night. So now, I'm confined to the bed again...or to at least prop my leg up when I sit.

 My left leg looks like an overstuffed sausage!

I can't wait for tomorrow. We're heading back to Victorville, just for a few days, but at least I get to see Micah! It's been a while and I miss him a ton (even though I'm usually cranky whenever he's around...)

Anywho, another silly song I made for a friend, Deb. You can watch it here or check it out on Facebook.

The URL as promised: http://OnCupcakeMoon.blogspot.com

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I spent this morning bawling my eyes out. A friend linked me to a website containing Jamie Livingston's Photo of the Day project. If you've never heard of it, Jamie took a picture every day of his life from when he was 18 in 1979 to his death in 1997 of cancer at age 41. It is heart-wrenchingly beautiful and funny and sad, a collection of memories.

When people take pictures, often its because something "worthwhile" is happening....a wedding, birthdays, a special occasion in lifetime of "ordinary." Jamie's pictures are of those ordinary everyday moments that we often forget are so absolutely beautiful in their simplicity.

I think that is often the reason I falter in my own auto-bio comics. Every few months I'll resolve to do it daily, I stick to it for a few days and come up with comics that are funny or interesting or visually appealing. Then I run out of steam because "nothing important happened today. What do I comic about?" I'd like to try and re-evaluate how I view my life and the things going on around me.

See Jamie Livingston's photo project here: http://photooftheday.hughcrawford.com/

When I got near the end of the project, where Jamie is visibly weakening and succumbing to cancer, I started getting freaked out. We all know we're going to die, that's inevitable. But we, or at least I, often have this mentality that...I'm immortal until the day I die. I start taking for granted that I'll be awake tomorrow, that I'll have time tomorrow to do all the things I want to so I can just waste today. When I read about people dying young, I think "that could happen to me...but it probably wont."

Like getting hit by a car. Its one of those things I just never thought would happen to me. The cops and Dr.'s kept saying how lucky I was to be alive, that there is an 80% chance of death when hit by a car going faster than 30mph (the car was going 40-45 ish). If I hadn't been able to take a step back at the last minute, I'd be badly injured if not worse.

I'm just....freaked out. The reassurances I tell myself when I read about bad things happening to people...just don't work anymore. "That would probably never happen to me." Yeah...it happened to me. How do I know I won't get hit by lightning? That the house won't be swallowed up in an earthquake? That I won't get stabbed to death in a mugging? That I won't contract a rare deadly disease? It sounds absolutely ludicrous but it *is* possible (if not probable.) I dunno. I'm not sure how to deal with this.

9: Some thoughts...

So, I'm still hurting but its mostly in the leg. My arm still hurts when I stretch it out straight all the way but I've got a bit of a grip now! Enough to hold a pencil and write/draw lightly. I'm pretty happy about that. I'm going to try drawing with a brush today because I can make dark lines without applying any pressure that way.

I have to call up the Dr. too to see about those x-rays. I'm hoping they come out normal....she said something about a high risk for blood clots, possible pinched nerves and hairline fractures. *gulp*

The hardest thing right now is stopping myself from picking at the scabs on my contusions. They just sit there....itching for me to poke and peel them. That really just makes it worse. LOL I'm hoping they don't scar.

I am a little bummed today. Habib (my Gallery and Design teacher from last Semester who runs his own art gallery) keeps sending me the schedule for this month's 30 days of one-night art shows. I had planned on going to see all 30 of them since the gallery is so close to where I live. From pictures I'm seeing, they look so great. I hate that this summer is pretty much all fucked up.

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Whenever I get sad, I like to dream up what my perfect studio-space would be like. I like to go as wild and crazy because....hey...dreams don't cost a thing!

I'd rent one of those huge abandoned and converted warehouses in the industrial downtown Los Angeles areas. There are tons of them being used as collective artist studios. I rent/buy one and have it set up inside so there would be a bunch of loft-style studios with an open central lobby. This lobby I'd use as an Art Gallery space to show local independent artists who would normally not be given the time of day by bigger Galleries.

I'd rent out the other studio-spaces (or share the rent) to other artists....maybe even some of my friends! Each space would have a large open area with huge windows, cement floors and brick walls so we can make a mess without having to worry about it. Then there would be a ladder/stairs leading to an upper loft-style area which would be carpeted or covered in rugs. This could be a sleeping area for those who wanted to live where they worked or just a storage space.

As far as kitchens and plumbing, preferably each space would have their own but the ones I've seen typically have a shared kitchen and bathroom. Maybe its the only way to do it in this type of building? I really wouldn't mind, though. I'd have a mini-fridge in my loft for my stuff and just cook it in the kitchen.

I just think it would be so cool to live around other working artists, to be able to talk and share ideas, hang out around people who are doing and creating. Hmmm...I wonder if Micah would be up for living like this?

8: SIlly songs, gifts and a connection!

I wasn't able to update yesterday. Waaaaay too tired out by the whole x-ray and going out in public thing. Pretty much spent it asleep. Anywho, here's the picture I promised of the gifts Micah got me! He also came by yesterday and brought me ice ream. Yummmm!

Awesome lace gloves and huge purple butterfly earrings!

Another development, I have a new phone! My sad old dinosaur of a phone (I couldn't even get pictures in text! It was all black and white, no color!) has been retired and I have myself a fancy new smart-phone. I think its my mom's way of saying "Here's a nice new phone for your birthday and to make up for you getting hit by a car." LOL

I made up a song for Micah on a guitar app I downloaded (Yes, I'm dorky like that) and its called "Your Love is Like Bacon." You can watch/listen to it on facebook or right here:

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Oh and guess who I talked to today? April Nash of Introducing April! She's a fellow auto bio comic blogger who is also working on a graphic novel -- a re-telling of Oz. We've commented on each others' work many times before and been friends on Facebook but we've never had a conversation in real-time.

It was very different. Even though we're a million miles away and in separate countries, it felt like a real connection with a friend. She's always been one of my favorite bloggers and is super duper nice. It was just so great to talk to her. I don't know how she feels about me...I hope I didn't scare her away. LOL

All in all, this is quite a happy blog post! I need more of days like this. My leg is feeling so much better and my hand has stopped twitching so often. My Dr. prescribed some anti-inflammatory meds which is probably why I'm doing so good. Hope this goes on for a while