I spent most of my workday writing some scraping and parsing software (hello, boring) but I also did a little work on a painting for a friend that I've been trying to get to a state where I'm happy with it for a very long time now. I had a nice time swimming a few underwater lengths of Phils's pool this morning with him and Roo, but I don't know if it made me too tired because I went to the gym afterwards and I don't think I was performing at my best. But it may also have been residual effects from a very painful fall, and/or whatever brain scrambling happened yesterday.
I think Phil and I are about to head down and drop the $3,000 deposit (ack!) for the space since we've sold enough tickets to start paying the bills, but first I wanted to post an updated picture of Rookaiju because now you can actually see where I'm going with it (and how it's based on Roo). You can click for a closer view but it's a little blurry.
A bunch of people have asked me for things like prints so I think I might get a PayPal account or something to cover the costs of doing all that and see if people were just flattering me or if there's really an interest in my goofy stuff.
I started working on a kid's book today. The blurred out part of the picture below is the story outline. Most modern kids books are truly terrible and I'm pretty sure I could do a better job… And I hope that it would be something that Nefarious would value when it arrives in the mail at Rachel's place in Los Angeles (not that I even know her address!). The doodle has nothing to do with the book. It was just to amuse myself while Nefarious was eating breakfast.
The funny face on the right was drawn by her — I asked her why he was screaming and she said,
“He's upset because his driver's license was taken away — he was sitting backwards and driving with his feet!”
I liked that explanation a lot.
Other than that, I got a robot today and my basement is suddenly not so insanely messy… I had a Roomba in the past and really liked it but Rachel's dog wrecked the old one. I've been working on (very slowly, I admit) getting this place cleaned up and a bit better organized. Ironic given that I'll probably move over the summer.
I had a really nice day today… For the morning I played with Nefarious and we did some outdoor painting (have to get her prepped for graffiti!) and so on, and then I went out with a friend for lunch while Jon taught Nefarious how to cast (as in fishing) and I went book shopping (mostly stuff on atypical home construction), and watched the Survivor finale. Crazy pain these days — I'm going to try and get in at a pain clinic because if not I'm going to snap and chop off my leg with an axe and I think that would be premature — but other than that I'm feeling pretty good.
Of course, I am muting the pain today with 175 proof Rum, care of Clive.
Anyway, here's some of the painting that Nefarious and I did today.
I'll try and post some pictures of my new painting tomorrow. I really want to try and get enough material put together by the end of the summer to do a gallery show. Part of me thinks I'm ready, and part of me thinks I just want to do it before I die (not that I'm dying, but death is always around the corner you know), but really, it's something I want to do and I think I've finally got the confidence to do…
PS. My friend and trainer Daniel just joined IAM! He's who helped me drop, oh, about sixty pounds of fat in the last half year and put on lots of muscle. He's a really nice guy with a good overall sense for body modification both aesthetically and functionally… So if any of you are looking for a date to ModProm, message him, because he's new here!
Oh, I woke up with the worst headache this morning! My knee was killing me last night so I had some opiates and a pitcher of beer. No knee pain for the rest of the evening, but I'm not convinced it was a good trade, haha… Still, five hours of sleep is very nice to get. So this morning I ate (ok, juiced) about fifteen apples with breakfast and that made the headache go away.
I put the next layer of undercoating on “Rookaiju” (I think that's what I'm going to call that painting). When it dries I'll draw the detail on with magic marker or something and paint the actual painting. It's insanely textured — the bumps and ridges are around an inch high so it's a difficult backing to work with.
Well, after a bit of playing princess dress-up I think I'll see if Saira and Michael are awake… I want to build a big playset in the backyard here, but since I'm likely moving soon, I'd like to move it to their place in the summer so I have to talk to them about it… And I have to see how the storyboard for the movie turned out. And then maybe off to a BBQ for supper.
And yes, I have a very messy full house.
So I have that red and black canvas that's got the crazy gesso I made out of dirt and cigarettes pretty much planned. I was originally going to do a [realistic] portrait of Roo because they're his cigarettes, but then when I saw the big kaiju painting all framed I thought I'd shift it there. So Roo gets to be Manda (oops, where are his arms?) because his tattoos just look great on snakey Chinese-dragon bodies… I was going to make an Oodaka Phil but I couldn't really figure out a simple way to “ID” him so you'll have to pretend you recognize him by the suspension scars or something.
It's a little silly and simple, but that's what I am too. I'll probably sketch it on with chalk, prep a new basecoat, and then paint it… we'll see how it goes. It'll most likely change a lot still.
Other than that, I told Saira earlier this week that if she storyboarded a movie we could shoot it this weekend. I thought it wouldn't happen, but there's a storyboard, so it looks like a busy weekend because I was thinking about going out of town one of the days as well.
