Halloween try-outs

Goblin 2.0

Rowa-gator

Goblin Eats Gator

Row-gator moves to retaliate.

Kiki of the long blonde hair.

Kiki as an 80's club-goer.

Scott's guitar goes to 11.

Korean Venus?

Goblin 1.0

Kiki's got her own site

I'm posting kiki pictures at:

kiransue.blogspot.com

.

Huh? It's 2009? Where've I been?

A Pretty Good Sunday

A Sunday that started very slow. Lurching for my coffee. Sitting in the same chair for four hours. Then something happened.

Mid-afternoon, after the very mentally soothing activity of cataloging my music collection, I got inspired somehow to do a quickie painting exercise.

It started well.


Then something overtook me.


And I should have walked away, but didn't. (That's yarn imbedded on it.)



And before I knew it, I had to leave to go see GIRLYMAN. Yay!!!


Then backstage to get my CD signed!


They were awesome!

Sweater. No name, nothing more to say.

My "seamless" sweater from start:


To Almost Finish (minus buttons)

Kool

A few weeks ago, I was on the hunt for sugarless Kool-aid powder. Kool-aid, it turns out, is a really easy (and relatively non-toxic) way of dyeing yarn or any other kind of animal fiber (including your own hair, by the way).

However, after much hunting in bodegas and supermarkets, it's nowhere to be found near Park Slope, Brooklyn. So I went onto my knitting forums and found a woman willing to give me her stash of Kool-aid that she didn't need anymore. (She bought them out of the state.)

Lovely woman that she was, she also threw in a couple of skeins of undyed yarn and a mass of unspun, undyed fiber (white). This last weekend, I finally got around to dyeing the fleece with so-so success:



The red dyed fleece became this:

2008: Year of the Sweater

I've decided to set a challenge to myself:
- make mostly adult sweaters this year
- use only yarn I already have
- improvise the pattern for all (or at least heavily modify existing template)

So far, I've completed two:



But I'm having a little trouble getting going on my next one. The thing with yarns is that regardless of what YOU want it to do, it will do only what is in its nature to do. Or so I've learned.

Aborted idea #1: Summer sweater, kimono-style sleeves, empire waist using existing cotton/rayon green yarn. And it started off looking promising:



But I think the fabric will be too stiff for a light summer sweater. I'm going to have to use a different needle size to make the fabric more flowy. So this one is hibernating in my WiP pile.

Next. Aborted idea #2: Aran saddle-sleeve cabled cardigan using yarn given to me by a friend.

Initial test patches looked good, but as I started knitting the actual piece, the delicacy of the yarn started to both me. If you give the yarn a good tug, it breaks in two. That's not good for a sweater that's made up of lots and lots of twists and cables, all of which pull and tug this way and that.

In the end, I decided to pull the stitches out and start over with a less strained stitch. Only thing is that I think it's kind of boring and I'm not that excited about making it. I think maybe I need to put it down and move onto the next idea. That would make this boring stitch "Aborted idea #3".

Branching Out

It was only a matter of time. I decided to try my hand at making my own yarn.

The Russians

On Sunday, Scott and I went to Brighton Beach for the hell of it. We figured it was a good way to experience a little bit of Russia via the subway.

We had lunch on the boardwalk and then walked the promenade along with the rest of the Russian retirement community.

I noticed something curious. People here seemed to favor the wearing of tissues or candy-wrappers on their faces, kind of like zinc oxide. Here and there, we'd see old ladies in their fur coats and wraparound sunglasses sunning themselves on benches and wearing shiny candy wrappers on their noses. Or wearing a kleenex tucked into the rim of their fur hats, sort of as a visor. I would have taken a picture, but we were trying to blend in.

Stashbusters!

I'm finally done with the cardigan project using the yarn I bought in New Orleans 5 years ago! What a relief to get all that yarn out of my trunk!!! And I really love this sweater, even though the fit is mostly fudged on the inside. But from the outside, it looks great.

I just need to add buttons and possibly make front pockets, which will be tricky as they are after-the-fact.

Working Away

I was talking to M on the phone this weekend, laughing about how I ended up penning myself in with my illustrations. In trying to maintain continuity of style and color, I found it helpful to spread everything, everything out in front of me in a ring. I would do all skin tones first, then hop between this pic and that doing the rest of the colors. She thought this would make a great picture! So here it is:





The funny thing about being the artist is that, at least for me, I feel entitled to walk on top of my drawings if I feel like it. And this weekend, with my precious floor space given to drawing paper, it was sort of a necessity. Actually, I get kind of a kick out of walking on them. Like -- You're not the boss of me!

After the day of drawing was done, I felt like playing around a bit and whipped this drawing of Scott. Pretty good resemblance, if I do say so myself:

Wonky and wobbly

It's been something like 12 years since I really did any illustration, and even then, it was always for fun, never for an actual client. Recently, I've been working on an illustration project with a real-live client for a mother-daughter seminar about girls and puberty. My illustrations would be a big part of the slide presentation that the audience is focused on, a la Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth.

Doing these practice illustrations has been a really interesting experience. I've had to tweak my usual style to suit their tastes, since they want cartoony and appealing to pre-teens. I've also had to find ways to be fast since the dealine is crazy short -- something I've never managed to be when doing my super-detailed children's book illustrations. The experience has been like working a muscle that's never really been challenged before, and it feels good. I'm still feeling awkward, especially around color and painting, but it's feeling better with each try.

Here are a couple of new pieces. You can see how the style is evolving to be looser and more cartoony. The rest are up on my new blog (jinapaikillustrations.blogspot.com).

Sportsgirls


Getting Teary

New Blog

I have taken the first step towards my new life as a freelance whatever. A new blog specifically for my illustrations. I only uploaded what was at hand and a few random sketches for a possible project.

http://jinapaikillustrations.blogspot.com


It's a start.

Playing Around

.

Random Finished & Ongoing Projects

It's 8:30, and i'm still in the office. I don't want to go home. It doesn't feel like home right now. It feels foreign. S and I had a huge fight, the same one that feels unresolveable, and now I wonder if I made a mistake in marrying him. Not so much about the subject of the fight but about how he fights. Ugly, dirty and vindictive. To the point where I pull back and try to be calm and reasonable, but all that means is that I'm taking all my anger, fear, sadness and shoving it deep down inside. And my body is starting to ache from the strain. Not to mention how tired I feel emotionally.

Directions

One one of our first nights of our honeymoon in Turkey, we arrived in the middle of the night in a little, hilltop village. We dropped off our bags at our hotel, which was at the top of the hill, and walked around to explore by moonlight. As a way of finding our way back, since who knew how hard it was in the dark, I laid a trail of breadcrumbs with my digital camera. At every juncture, I took a picture of my hand pointing in the correct direction.

Shaky as these pictures are, I love them for their cleverness, practicality, and excitement. I see the joy of exploration, a mix of fear and exhilaration. And it's like the string that brings me back home.

Wouldn't it be amazing if we had this kind of internal pointer for everyday life. Make a left after college and a sharp u-turn after your first job. Don't head down that dark alleyway of corporate America but take the squiggly path of artistic expression. If you had this, you could actually take in what's around you instead of worrying about which path.

Peace of Mind

:

Now that this year is starting to come to an end, it feels like a good time to bow farewell and prepare for a new beginning.

This weekend, I set up a creative space for myself in the apartment. I've been talking about it for a while but never got around to it..with the wedding and everything else that's happened this year. I've been complaining about how I don't feel settled in this apartment, even after all these years. That I don't feel connected to the space. So when I come home from work, I can never just relax, let go, and just center myself. The shared spaces that S and I have don't work to center me, and neither did any of the various little corners that I tried to tuck into now and again. Finally, I hope this one does it. (I know S hopes, so, too, since he has to move his stuff around everytime I need room.)

So now I have the biggest room in the house, the best lighting, and the most seclusion. It's like i have a mini-studio apartment to myself again. I almost don't feel like I deserve this and I'm pretty gentle in the space still. Like what I do doesn't matter enough to be so greedy. Strange, my moments of low self esteem. It's been growing these days. Again, strange. And dangerous. I have to pick myself up or it'll get ugly.

But this space is so precious to me. With a corner for my art, a comfy chair for knitting or reading, a futon for spreading out with books, a tv, and plants, plants, plants. Oh, and my electric kettle to make tea.

Tra-la-la

Getting that tired feeling again like I need a retreat. After the whirlwind of this last year, it's time to regroup and re-energize. Renewal, revival, re-emerge.

Action, action. Because I'm all about too much thoughts swirling and that's the path to anxiety and worry. So action.

1- set up my artist space.
2- ummm.....

Well, at least I know what step 1 is.

To the ends of the earth and back

Since my last post:

June - Decided to get finally marry Scott after 8 years.

July - Went BACK to Montana after Scott's father had a full-blown heart attack and was expected to die. He didn't. But met a whole bunch of family from Scott's side.

July - Scott lost his consulting gig because of leaving for Montana.

July - Found a bun in the oven.

July - Fast-tracked the wedding & began planning.

August - Lost the bun.

August - Went ahead and planned the wedding anyway.

September - Started talking to my musical collaborator about doing a documentary together.

September - Found out that I was going to be replaced at work because they found out I was looking around. Have til the end of the year, after that I'm downgraded to part-time, then out. (I guess that's nice of them.)

September - Got married. Nice wedding, but should have eloped.

September - Went on two week honeymoon to Turkey.

October - I'm back. Big sigh. Now what.