2008

I can't believe there are only three more days left in the year. Of course this blog only got updated 11 times this year. 2008 was good, despite the unexpected lay off and the declining economy. I now have a new job that I love and enjoy, and this country will have a new president in about three weeks.

David came down from SF to hang out for the holidays and I think we did our fair share of partying. He brought some awesome Christmas gifts- "Little Big Planet" and "The Last Remnant"! LBP is super cute but I need to up my gaming skills because the simplest movements are so hard for me.

Yesterday I got to go to Joshua Tree for the first time although it was rather brief and COLD! It was beautiful out there though, and I had fun watching William and Angeline ride this crazy bike that Kio and Alan made and shot for their film.

Autumn

Last summer I made a few posts about gardening. My lavenders are still doing ok, but the potted plants have long gone. My yard as seen in this post was overgrown, but imagine another year had gone by without any maintenance. Yes, it was out of control. My landlord finally said something about it, and so I made yet another attempt to improve the situation.

It's literally back-breaking work dragging over 60 palm fronds that are between 15-20ft long with hard spikes on them. I was out in the yard again today trying to clear out the back end of the yard (which I rarely visit) and found this.



It's hard to tell from the photo but I think it's slightly larger than a cat. ...But a skull? What is going on in my own backyard??

Smena Symbol

I'm not a that good of a photographer but I own a lot of cameras. Off the top of my head, I can count 9 cameras. More then half of them are Lomography cameras that I've collected over the years. I also have a nice SLR that I barely ever use. I use my Lomo LC-A the most, but lately I've been trying to use my Smena Symbol more.

I'm always excited to see what kind of images I get, and I was especially pleased with the results from my last roll of film. I've gotten a couple of double exposures here and there, but this time the entire roll was double exposed. I love the accidental combination of images.

Silk screening: step two, attempt two

I realized that after cleaning the screen, I blew out some of the detail of the image. I wouldn't be able to get a nice crisp print like the original painting I did with the drawing fluid. Regardless, I wanted to make the best of what I had left, and I think I managed to get one decent print. My standards have become pretty low at this point...







The lesson I have learned from all of this is as follows:

- choose a design without thin lines in between

- use enough screen filler (I didn't, and I ended up having to coat the screen more than once which is not recommended)

- be careful when washing out the drawing fluid or cleaning the screen so as not to blow out the image

- don't give up


I definitely want to try this again. Despite the mess, I had fun.

Silk screening: step two

I was starting to think that silk screening was easy.
For over 4 years I watched guys at work screen printing shirts. Piece of cake. I knew all about it too. "It's smudging. The screen needs to be cleaned." "The image isn't coming out. The ink dried up and it's clogging the mesh."
Then I tried doing it myself for the first time in like 6 years or possibly more. Yeah, now I remember... I suck at this.

I think I've been seeing all these beautiful prints online and elsewhere, I began to believe that it was going to be just as easy and beautiful for me as well. I went to an art opening on Saturday at Little Bird Gallery that featured prints by various designers/artists. Of course all the work was beautiful and flawless. The show is called "OFF-REGISTER" but the prints I saw were pretty much well registered, not to mentions there were no smudges in sight.

Anyway, here is my first attempt at these prints.





Disastrous. Talk about smudges. I decided to clean the screen and start over. Once again, I'm waiting for my screen to dry so I can attempt this again. I know I can do this... I hope.

Silk screening: step one

I bought this book Printing by Hand by Lena Corwin a few weeks ago at a store in Silver Lake called Reform School. Since then I've been itching to make some prints. The book introduces a good variety of printing techniques- some I was familiar with, and some I was not. I've done some silk screening when I was in school and I've worked for a screen printer, so this technique is not new to me. But I was surprised to learn that there are more ways to print with the screen than to just make the stencil by burning the film onto the emulsion coated screen.

I have a screen that I'd bought years ago in college that I have never used. I decided to use one of the techniques shown in the book to make my first ever print with my very own screen. I bought some screen drawing fluid and started painting directly on the screen. I am letting it dry right now. Later I will coat the screen with screen filler and after that's dry, wash out the part I painted with drawing fluid. Then I'll finally be able to print. It's a lot of drying and waiting for now...

Ants on a Log

William started this diet this week, and part of it requires him to eat celery with peanut butter. First he chose Jiff, then later realized that it needed to be organic peanut butter. Watching him eat this snack made me want one myself, so I decided to make one out of Jiff and another out of Trader Joe's organic peanut butter. I added some raisins to complete the nostalgic snack "Ants on a Log".

The Jiff is to the right, and the organic peanut butter is the shinier runnier looking one.

Jiff: Eating it with the celery made me realize how sweet the peanut butter was. I could taste the sugar. Not so much the peanuts.

TJ's organic peanut butter: No sweetness here, but I could really taste the peanuts. Very rich flavor.

I added more raisins to the organic peanut butter and it was perfect. When I first encountered ants on a log (they do not have these in Japan) I thought it was the strangest thing. But then again I thought PB&J was weird.

giant spider

This spider has been building and rebuilding its web for over a week now. Part of the web relies on the lid of the trash can that sits outside our house, so every time the lid is opened, the web is destroyed. I try to use the other trash can when I can, but even then it gets destroyed every other day. Nonetheless the spider keeps coming back for that same spot. I hadn't seen the spider until today, but William has told me how big it was. And it was. There was no web this morning, but he rebuilt it beautifully. I wonder how long it takes?

caramelized pear & toasted pecan ice cream

When I was in Pavilion's the other day, I wandered over to the ice cream section (as I often do) and found this. I couldn't imagine what it would taste like at the time, but it just sounded good. I scooped a spoonful as soon as I got home, and was instantly glad I made this choice. It's so good!! Basically it tastes like pears. With pecans mixed in. The pear is refreshing while the pecan and the creamy ice cream is rich. I've never seen this flavor before but I guess it's not that new.

Haagen-Dazs has a new flavor called "Vanilla Honey Bee", which donates the proceeds to support the research to protect honey bees. They're disappearing and nobody knows why! Visit their special website for more info.

New Face

I decided to finally add a banner for this blog. I think I'll start posting more, and I want to include more of my art and other findings... Here is a drawing I did in my sketchbook recently to start.

NabuTHIS is it

Almost a year later, I am back playing FFXII. AGAIN. STILL. I think the last time In posted, I played for a while but then stopped again. I got busy. Something like that. But a few weeks ago, things happened and I along with 9 other employees got let go from our job. Yeah, it sucked. It was a management thing so there was nothing we could do about it. But as I recovered from my state of shock (which was surprisingly brief) I began to think about all the possibilities... I can go to that farmers market they have in my town on Thursdays! I can finally work on my web site that has been close to being abandoned! I can... I can finally FINISH FINAL FANTASY XII...!!!

Unfortunately William has little tolerance for watching FFXII so I have to sneak around at night or when he's not around to play. Last night I was up until 3 am doing a hunt. What I've realized is that the graphics aren't that hot now that I'm used to seeing PS3 games. I'm looking forward to FFXIII. Who knows how long that will take me to finish. I'm probably the only person still blogging about FFXII in real time. But despite the time it's taken me to get this far, I think I can do it. This is my chance. I think I can beat this game! I'm going to be sad though, so I think I'm going to hang around a bit longer doing hunts and other nonesense.