Message in a Bottle?

I thought I'd show my progress and how I decompose (as Pete Steel would put it) a still life painting. First is the sketch. After that, I fill in base colors & shadows...

About halfway done.

And it's done! I didn't do a very good job on the label. There's a good number of other things wrong with it, but that's okay, I don't hate it too much right now.

Reworked Instruments

This is a first for me. I said I was going to redo something on my assignment and I actually did. I made the reflection of the pipe more subtle and "into" the ukelele's body, and I filled in the harmonica's reflection. I think it looks better now.

Peanutch

For those of you who aren't familiar with musical instruments and might be a little confused my the sizing of these, I'll explain:

The pan flute is sitting in front of ukelele. The ukelele is sitting behind a chromatic harmonica.

Everyone by now knows how crazy I am about my ukelele (well, Isabella's ukelele, but I tune it and play it). Chromatic harmonicas are bigger than diatonic, and will not fit into the palm of your hand like a diatonic would. What many of you might not be aware of, however, is that I can't play a single note of that stupid pan flute. I don't have a flautist's lips, apparently.

Anyway, I meant to post a few days ago, but our internet was acting up. I fixed it by getting rid of my Spycatcher & Spysweeper programs. That's right, programs that are designed to make your internet work without pop-ups and suspicious file transfers that can affect connectivity made my internet not work and cut off my connectivity. Apparently my connection to the outside world was potentially dangerous to my basement computer, while my laptop was living it up with a connection through my router. Stupid technology.

That's also why I wasn't able to get this painting out sooner.

Anyway, for St Patty's Day, Karissa and I went to Fargo to see my Uncle Mark's concert (read a post or two down). Karissa and I got a suite at the Travelodge in Moorhead, which was a very nice room and cheap as hell (employee discount, April knows how sweet that is).

We had quite a bit of time Saturday, so we checked out what Moorhead had to offer for antique stores. The first one we hit looked like a huge shop full of junk hoarded over the years until someone finally decided to put price tags on some of it. I found a great little wooden Spanish ship for the bathroom, and a light fixture with a small bronze statuette of a naked lady which I wanted badly but didn't get (a little expensive for my tastes). I kept thinking that this is one of those buildings Bill Wray would go crazy for. Not very old, but comes with tons of junk in front.

After that, we found an antique mall that had tons of shit in it. On the one hand, I don't like antique malls, because when you leave, you're stuck with the realization that you felt like you only looked at one store, even when you really looked through 4 or 5. On the other hand, in some antique malls, you get lost, or at least are fooled by how much there really is to the store that you didn't originally see. Any store you can get lost in or find hidden rooms in is a store I wanted to keep coming back to. The coolest thing in that place was an old German WWII helmet which cost $350.

Mark's concert was awesome. My mom gave me her camera and had me take pictures while the band was playing. It's a film camera, though, so you'll have to wait until I can get them from her and scan them. After the camera was done, I just stayed up by the stage and got the best view in the house of the whole concert. Sweet Paulie T and the Blues Blasters opened, that was awesome, too. The drummer looked a little like Bill Mosely when he played Rufus Firefly in House of 1,000 Corpses, and I was given a whole new respect for trumpeters after seeing how fast and hard the one in this band played.
I also got to see John "Honeyboy" Hoover doing his harmonica thing up close. I'm not even a smoker, and I have trouble maintaining breath when playing a harmonica, this guy had a cigarette in his hand while he was playing. That's fuckin blues.
It sucks we can't see Mark play again for a while, but I'm excited to see where this new management takes him.
Well, I think I'm gonna go enjoy my Spring Break. I didn't know when it got here, it doesn't affect my work or study schedules in the slightest, but hey--it's officially spring, and that's cause for a little hoohaa.
--Just found out that Dennis Flynn, an old social studies teacher and wrestling coach for Devils Lake, did the other day. Wierd. Oh well. Not to make light of someone dying, but he was a dick and I won't waste my time missing him.
Quick note: Some issues with uploading the new Golden Brown comic. If you can't open the page off the internet, try saving it to your desktop then opening it. I don't know if that'll work, but some people (myself included) have found they couldn't enlarge it. Sorry!

I finally watched Uprising. Karissa & I rented it and it took us a couple days, but I did it. It was made in 2001, and is about the Jewish uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. It's one of the few stories/movies that actually made me want to get up and jump the bad guys in the tv (United 93 had the same effect on me).

By the way, if any of you can figure out what movie the title of this post is from, you're probably pretty fucked up for knowing it. It's one of the funniest, wierdest, stupidest movies I have EVER seen. I don't think I have ever laughed at a movie while at the same time feeling just a little disturbed. It's earned a place in my "Doug's greatest movies" list, right up there with 6-String Samurai. I will talk about this movie later, after Jason has seen it. I'm think I might be going for the title. So be warned.

Vlad Digitally Drawn

I had to switch the color thingy from CMYK to RGB, otherwise it would have come out all blue and stuff. I'm obviously not a digital illustrator. I also don't have a wacom tablet or intuo pen, so this was all done with a mouse. Oh, well.

Got Dem Type O Blues

I got the new Type O Negative CD in the mail today!! Karissa wouldn't give it to me for like 10 minutes, god she's mean. It is a kickass CD, though--it's got a shot pf Rasputin on the front and is called "Dead Again". I noticed some of the songs have a little Russian bounce to them also, I wonder if they meant it sounf coincide with the imagery, or if that was just me making connections that weren't there.
I love it! There is a lot of old Type O style in it, fast and screaming along with complete melodic changes midsong, but it also has some different sounding stuff, too. "September Sun" sounds melancholy in a different way than Type O usually sounds, but kicks into classic Type O after ways in. Songs like "Tripping a Blind Man", "Prophet of Doom", and "These Three Things" sound like Type O's older stuff. Halloween in Heaven sounds like a Misfits cover, but still bery cool. When Type O plays a punk-style song, it doesn't sound very punk, but it does sound cool.
Jason, I got us a room with two beds, so don't go pulling that "I-got-scared-can-come-sleep-with-you" bit, I'm starting to believe you aren't really that scared. Gross. I'm not sure of the amount yet, about $60-ish.
On a slightly related note (and also pertaining to the last comment LP left on my previous post), my uncle Mark is having a ShuffleCats reunion. The ShuffleCats had been together for quite a few years until their breakup about 5(?) years ago. Since then, Mark's been involved in a couple other bands like Cold Front and Mark Anthony's Storm Project. He's played with a ton of big names and was one of the Northern Blues bands that helped kids like Johnny Lang and Shannon Curfman get into the music scene that lead to their big breaks.
The ShuffleCats are playing at Playmaker's House of Rock in Fargo, ND on 3/17. Here's a link with a litte more info:
http://www.playmakersfargo.com/index.jsp?mode=events&id=178
Enjoy!

You'll Never Get Me, Copper!

I was really nervous about taking on a reflective metal. Even though the flask worked out, it was still pretty simply done. This copper coffee percolator, however, was much more complicated. About an hour into it, I REALLY thought the whole thing would go the way of my glass assignment. But lo and behold, I did it! I did copper! I even got the clear percolator thingy at the top to look pretty good. I messed up the elipses a little at the bottom and the cigs look a little funky, but overall I'm very pleased with myself that I got it to look good.

My Kind of Action Movie!

I had to throw that image in, because we got back a little bit ago from the theater, where we watched 300. I don't want to get into specifics, but it's basically based on Farnk Miller's take on the historical battle at Thermopylae between the Massive Persian army of Xerxes, and the few hundred (it's never exactly 300, despite the title) highly trained Spartan warriors. It's a fucking good movie. I love the fact that this is a straight-up action movie, but not the kind that caters to stupid people. Sorry, I shouldn't say stupid, but this isn't Steven Seagall, Van Damme, or Jackie Chan (that's right, I think Jackie Chan movies are shallow and their popularity derives solely from his self-executed stunts which are quite frankly getting old).

One major point I would like to make. I shouldn't have to, but I read it in USA Today and a couple of magazines, now, and it needs to be re-addressed. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT start comparing this with current events going on between the U.S. and middle East. I don't know how one reviewer started comparing this to the U.S. war on "terror", but the two are NOTHING alike. The Spartans were fighting for their own freedom. The U.S. is fighting for the freedom of...of, uhhhh...Iraq, no, most of those people don't even want to leave their own homes...well, hell, that word comes up a lot, you'd think I could affix it to a country. Their culture was entirely different from modern-day U.S. culture, and there is nothing really to relate them to us culturally except whatever known artifacts kept in use today. Leonidas is not George W. Bush, just because both leaders made decisions against the wishes of their political counterparts.

Our war is what it is, and the story 300 is based on is what it is. The two are entirely different, and I don't know where the reviewers got the insane idea that the movie bears "striking similarities." It DOESN'T.

Anyway, I didn't mean to go off on such a long tangent, but it was an awesome movie. And this is coming from a critic of overly CGI movies, not to mention I get nervous anytime a comic book movie comes out, because there are quite a few that suck ass (Like Fantastic Four!). If I didn't want so badly to do it myself, I'd love to see Frank Miller take on a historical Dracula novel.

That's about it for tonight. If you didn't already look, I got a new page of Golden Brown out. I was extremely proud of my Fried Rich Nietschicken joke from the last one, I may keep that bucket around and put it somewhere else in the comic. It's probably the one gag I'll remember out of the entire comic once it's done. Chicken, all too Chicken.

One Good, One Bad...

I'm finally done with my homework assignment. It doesn't look too bad, I could easily tell you the spots where I could have improved, but I fucked up enough with the painting below that I don't really feel like raggin on myself anymore about it. My flask actually turned out pretty well, and I even got the warped reflection of the cigarette pack on it okay.
Either way, I'm just happy to be done with these two, now I can concentrate on getting my paintings packed up to send away for grading.

I don't really like it. My glass is horribly uneven, and the only part of it that looks okay is the base. My book looks a little larger on one side than the other. At least my shadows ain't so bad.

Vlad III, Prisoner

This is the picture I chose to do a value drawing of. It's Prince Vlad III (Dracula), sitting in a Turkish prison, solemnly ruminating. A major part of the "movie" would surround his imprisonment and the Turkish influence on his life, good and bad.

Art, Music, and Moving Large Things...

We didn't think we were going to make it to Devils Lake this weekend, but luckily the weather wasn't quite as bad as the weather gods made it out to be. There were some nasty spots, but it wasn't a problem so long as you slowed down every now and then.
We got Butto's stuff moved out finally--only a week late, not bad given the weather problems. He told me Dane Garcia, an old classmate of mine, committed suicide a little over a week ago. That was weird, too, because I was just wondering about that time what he was doing now. I hadn't talked to him in years. In high school we weren't best buds or anything, but we got a long pretty well, though we made fun of eachother quite a bit. It's still kind of weird to think he killed himself.
Kevin would have come with, but they found out Aiden had RSV--refer to April's blog for details. I'm pretty sure he got it from Isabella, but as catchy as it is, I guess that would have been inevitable. Hopefully he's doing better now.
I'm feeling a little stressed about having to do a painting assignment with clear glass. It might not be too bad, but the actual starting part gets me anxious every time, and this time the glass part just adds to the stress. I know the basics about distorting the image seen through the back accordingly, less is more on the edges & highlights, that kind of thing, but I lost a little confidence with that coffee cup/book fiasco. I did get my concept art done for my Digital Imaging class--the pencil stage of it anyway. This week we have to do it up on the computer. I'll post the drawing a little later.
We've got kind of a busy month ahead of us. Well, not so much busy as every weekend being themed by an event. Next weekend is a bg movie weekend. Fank Miller's 300 comes out, and I'm going to it, come hell or high water (that would actually be funny if I were still living in Devils Lake). Plus, that night, Rob Zombie's TCM Underground is back after a month break (stupid Oscars).
The weekend after, my uncle Mark is doing a Shuffle Cats reunion concert at Playmakers in Fargo. My sister said it's gonna be his last for a while because he's basically under new management. I think that means he's getting to do some recording again, which would be awesome. Tickets are available at the front door for anyone interested.
The next two weekends are actually free, but Karissa and I were thinking of getting up to Grafton to visit my Grandma on one of those weekends. Finally, on Easter weekend, we go back to Devils Lake, where Isabella might get to go on an egg hunt my sister puts on at her house.
April 10th, nobody bother me. I'm making a pilgrimage to Minneapolis to see one of the few bands I never thought I'd be able to see: Type O Negative! I'm riding Jas like a pack mule to get his ticket, some other friends are on board as well. When I told Butto about he practically had sex with me. That means he really wants to go.
I think that's about all the news I got right now. Besides, I had to get up at noon to play parent for an hour til Isabella's nap. Karissa had to go watch Aiden for a bit so April could get some sleep. She and Kevin had been up like the whole weekend with this whole RSV thing, they need a little break.