Archive for September, 2007

starting the renovations

Nothing ever goes exactly as planned, of course, even with a boat load of lists, research, notes, and double checking. I called the utility company too late in the week, and with the weekend and holiday coming up they were unable to turn on the electricity or water until Tuesday for the bulk of our renovation. This didn’t stop us though, and thankfully the weather was mild enough so that we didn’t die working without air conditioning.

I took some quick photos of the place before we started.

I pulled some of the wallpaper off to see how easy it would be to take the whole thing off. It wasn’t as hard as I feared it might be.

Look, they left us some flower pots! There are also a couple of flower pots and a birdbath left for us in the front yard.

This weekend we finished removing all of the popcorn off the ceilings. Before starting this, I kept reading that popcorn is an easy thing to remove. All you would have to do is spray a little water and it turns into a mud that you can easily scrape off. Apparently this method does not work as well if the popcorn has been PAINTED TWICE!

It was rough, but with our muscles burning, our bodies bruised, and three days of nonstop physical labor we scrapped every piece of devil popcorn out of the entire house. We also sanded the ceilings, filled all holes and damaged drywall, and took off the wallpaper in the dining area.

There is a lot of clean up to do this week. After everything is spotless we will prime and paint. The cleaning, priming, and painting, hopefully, will not be as difficult as the popcorn turned out to be.

On the plus side, I am developing giant guns.

momentum

This painting was part of a series which also included the same girl looking into an indoor carnival then later ending her adventure masked. These paintings started as a dream of the indoor carnival scene when I was a child. I later developed the dream into a series where I continued the adventure that my dream did not finish. I love pieces that tell a story.

underestimating renovations

Did you know that older houses require a lot of work? Apparently, I put this fact out of my head until now, thinking that I could do a huge chuck of the renovations in just a few weekends. Without any prior experience, and without knowledgeable carpenters at my disposal. YOU TRICKED ME, HGTV! YOU MADE IT LOOK SO EFFORTLESS!

My dad and Andrea (plus Cookie, and Bella) came to help on Sunday. My dad and his multiple power tools helped with many projects that we could not have done easily, anytime soon. We replaced some drywall, replaced and placed new baseboards, removed a cabinet in the guest bath, removed vinyl tiles, and I did a lot of caulking around everything.

If you take a close look at this photo, notice on either side of the glass door the baseboard is not on the floor. Instead they had placed a strip of carpet on the walls with the baseboard on top of the carpet strip. This took many hours to correct, but my dad mastered it all.

In the guest bathroom, there was a cabinet on the top right wall directly in front of you as you walked in. We took this out and now the bathroom looks three times larger.

There is still much more to be done.

even cats are nerds

I watched the extended version of Dune tonight, with David. It was fantastic, of course, and made me want to reread the books and actually finish reading the original series. Two years ago I left off and didn’t finish reading God Emperor of Dune. I became too busy writing my thesis and working to complete my illustration thesis. I read eleven books (none of them for school) my senior year of college, I think it kept me sane and collected through all the hard work.

Dune cat totally knows what I am talking about.

design growth

Recently I joined the AIGA Austin chapter to become more involved in the design community and to push myself to grow in the communication design field. Working as an in house designer has placed me in a slump of one sided thinking when it comes to design. Since I mostly work with one look and feel for my company I feel my creativity has slowly taken a backseat in my career.

I could be practicing and exercising my creative design skills in my free time, but seriously, who has any free time now days to do extra work. Have you guys joined the AIGA? How do you deal with design stagnation in your work?

spot

A while ago, while in college, I created five illustrations for Tint Magazine’s 3rd issue. Tint is a small publication that has national expose and covers women’s issues on a multi cultural platform. I created the illustrations pro bono to help the publication, but unfortunately never saw them in person once printed.

currently on the brain

Freaking out about:

• House painting completion currently at 15%
• Movers coming this Sunday
• Unfinished freelance work

Not freaking out about:

• The paint color chosen for the walls (milestone), ceilings (gentle rain), doors/trim (white) –

• Having a good boyfriend
• The cat showing me affection for once (of course, only when said boyfriend wasn’t home)
• Finally going on a real vacation after years of being too busy

pimp my photoshop filters and plugins

You should know by now how much I love free stuff, especially free stuff that I can use to expand my favorite tool of the trade, the glorious and mighty Photoshop of power.

Sometimes a good plugin or filter can save you a lot of time during tight deadlines, or just free you up to create more awesome work. BUT, I do like to give this warning out everyone, the same warning I gave when I was teaching Photoshop to art school freshmen, do not just slap on a generic Photoshop filter and call it quits.

1. People will always be able to tell when you use a filter.
2. It is considered a cop-out.
3. You are better than that amature crap.

I have not tested these, I do not know which versions of Photoshop they will work with, but I’ll let you figure that out. As always, make sure you read and obey copyright laws and usage rights for everything.

Free plugins, filters, and presets:

• 720 Free Photoshop Plugins and Filters
• The Plugin Site
• Tutorial Blog
• Extreme Tech
• Tele Graphics
• CG-India
• Photoshop Tutorials Blog
• Free Photoshop

I’m keeping this list short because a lot of those link include links to several other similar sites with the same plugins.

marbles and memories

This is the cover to my favorite sketchbook. I painted it over a year ago, and I think this cover helped inspire me to draw, paint, and sketch to fill the pages of the book in a way I never had before. I should scan some of the pages in and show you guys. One thing, I wish the texture of the canvas background was not as prominent, it takes away from the delicacies of the color pencil work.

i can has glasses?

I have been talking about getting new glasses for several months now. I didn’t end up getting the ones in my drawing from March, but I did end up getting the same brand (Vogue, ooh la la).

I also got some new contacts for my mild astigmatism and now I can see clearly when I drive. Woohoo, no need to fear for your lives anymore, people! I’m just kidding, there was never a need to worry, I always drove with glasses or contacts on. It’s just that my prescription had changed a tiny bit, enough to annoy me.

So, I opted for the astigmatism contacts even though I didn’t need to. But having good vision is pretty important to me, because you know, I need my eyes to see, to do my art, and TO LIVE!

More photos to come soon, with me actually in the glasses, once I get them back from the eye people.

pre mexico freakout

Freaking out about:

• House painting completion currently at 85%, and the last 15% being the most time consuming part
• Movers damaged a wall in my apartment, now I have something else to take care of this week
  

  The awesome boyfriend, David, took care of this, and the apartment management will not charge us for the damage

• NOT HAVING INTERNET OR PRECIOUS TELEVISION AT HOME, also no refrigerator until Thursday
  

  Internet and TV are up and running now, and fridge comes tomorrow

• Not having internet in Mexico for a week, but hopefully I’ll be able to forget about it and enjoy the water (by the way, I’ll try to schedule posts ahead of time so that you guys won’t forget about me while I’m gone)
• Gas company and cable company coming to the house today, so I have to drive back and forth from work to home in between my meetings
  

  All done

• Having to unpack and organize

Not freaking out about:

• Being completely moved into the house
• Our house starting to look like it really belongs in the year 2007 instead of 1980
• My shorter commute to and from work
• Buying new furniture and decorating
• David and I planning our portrait studio business (I am very excited about this, I’ll tell you guys more about it later)
• Having wonderful family that is always willing to lend a hand

I am so thankful to have such a great family. My mom drove to Austin on three different weekends to help with the renovations, packing, moving, and unpacking. I am constantly amazed at her energy and strength. She helped pack up our apartment Speed Racer style, without stopping and while ignoring my continuous freak out moments when I didn’t know what to pack where and what to do next. She also primed and painted more than anyone else. I do not know how she doesn’t get tired and how she stays so motivated. I am determined to find out her secrets. My aunt and cousin Mike, also came to help one day getting a big chunk of the painting and kitchen/closets organization out of the way.

My dad, very-soon-to-be-step-mom-Andrea, and her brother came over this passed weekend and painted like mad too. David and I could never have gotten this far so quickly without all of their help (and the help of the initial crew of friends who helped with the de-popcorning). This house ordeal has driven home the importance of family and the fact that David and I made the best decision moving back to Texas and being so close to all of them.

eloquence

Out of the depths of my happy heart wells a great tide of love and prayer for this priceless treasure that is confided to my life-long keeping.

You cannot see its intangible waves as they flow towards you, darling, but in these lines you will hear, as it were, the distant beating of the surf.

-Mark Twain

painting the master bedroom

This is the current painted state of our master bedroom. There is still blue painters tape on the walls because we have a tiny bit of edge work to complete where the ceiling color meets the wall color. Then later we will finish painting all doors and trim white, including that center beam which is now primed white.

We’ve moved furniture in and have it set up so that we can actually use the bedroom now. At least nothing is too heavy to move out of the way when we want to paint. It is frustrating to see all the little unfinished spots and areas that still need touch up paint. I feel like we will be spending every single weekend working on this place for the next two years.

hair woes

Thank you miss hair stylist for this gorgeous cut and style. I really love it, and it is one of the best hair styles I have ever had. But, please, next time, don’t make it look so easy when creating loose waves, like these, with just a straightening iron. I realize that you have had years of experience and that hair is your middle name. But those of us who don’t spend hours a day learning new tools and methods to do things with our hair are lost once we leave your skilled hands.

I was home a few days later, trying to mimic your methods, when I realized that no matter how I twisted, turned it, and wrapped it around, my straightening iron only STRAIGHTENED my hair. I went out and bought another straightening iron, thinking that the one I had was too wide. The second straightening iron was no different. The only time I have been able to get remotely close to this style, by myself, is while using a large barrel curling iron. I also have large Velcro rollers which can achieve a similar look, but I really wanted to be able to have one versatile tool, one magical straightening iron that also curled my hair and made it look wavy and pretty like Victoria’s Secret models.