I DON'T WANNA WORK. I just wanna draw with my pen all day

that's right! and furthermore! i'm sick of WRITIN and TALKIN about art...but not gettin to MAKE art myself.

Here's a drawing i did with that new marker i was so excited about:



joyce carol oates

and, random sightings:



p.s. i liked the girl's skirt, not her butt. but i never got around to drawing the skirt.

last of all, here's a thought-sketch about beard disguises:




Yours in song,

Lane Jernchen

Big Giant Head

Salutations for the Big Giant Head, ruler of back yards, protector of the garage.
(The second picture is before the shading with washes).

short reply

I want to see more of that pen! (And screen shots of your face while you draw with it). You should get a flip-book and make little flip-book animations when you're commuting or just bored (if there is ever a boring moment in Jenna's life). They are really easy to make!

here is an historical photos I found. this is a shot of my work-table from 2004, I was working on an illustration for a "sci fi illustration" class I was taking:




With love,
Kerjo Enniky

allow me to introduce myself

i've been reading some edward gorey lately, and was thinkin about his use of anagrams for pen names...i.e.



My new pen name is "Jane Chernnel." Hi, my name's Jane. And you?

(whoa, p.s. did you ever visit gorey's house??)

civil war before bed

i've taken to watching ken burn's civil war documentary before bed. the civil war is a surprisingly good sleep-aid...

i bought a new marker today that i got really excited about



the tip is really flexible, much like a real brush. i loved it at first, but now i'm wondering if it isn't TOO flexible/wimpy. you can't get very agressive without, it just kind of falls over itself.

anyhow, i've been working with copic markers a lot:





the above is a narrative in which i was driving, and then decided to turn right. end of story... i want to do a wordless comic--a "day in the life" comic that's told just with the actions of my hands.

i don't think i mentioned this to you, but at this new journal that i'm going to start writing for, the editor said she "loves my illustration work", and was asking if there's any way i could bring it into my reviews (!). i didn't think i had illustrations, or an illustration style, i've just thought of everything as sketches. but maybe i could pull something out of them that would be worthwhile to include to flesh out a review. i'm going to practice this weekend.

btw you are so damned good at storyboarding. just that little punctuation of color with your hat, creates such a nice rhythm. i should start listening to the smiths again too

about your comment, on how all the work is about 'loss'...dunno if that's true of your stuff. but mine definitely is about that sort of thing--i am a one trick pony. even when i was doing experimental drawings, in laura's class, she remarked at how much the stuff i made seemed to be about loss, retrieval, etc. as for it being a "beautiful sad" thing...i wonder if that's a Romantic/beautiful/sad thing? and i always have to stop and think, what does the word "beautiful" mean.

i'm teaching a portraiture class on March 1 -- glances at inter-species friendship calendar-- holy shit that's next Thursday. any suggestions for books to use/exercises for my students to do?

final update: I'm lookin forward to taking my little friend to the portland art museum tomorrow. it's free fourth friday.

Wednesday

Can you tell me the name of this magic ideas coffee that you have been drinking?
Amazing ideas! Maybe there could be a Charlie matryoshka that makes burping noises when you open it?
can you make these in a folk-art style? like wood-carved? like the wooden dolls you painted.

I love all your ideas. I think we are getting all about lost things or missed things... It's kinda beautiful in a sad way Or sad in a beautiful way.
Your toys idea reminded me of a short story I tried to write in my senior year of undergrad about a wind-up toy that sits and waits for someone to wind him, and he gets upset that he always gets so excited and happy when he is wound, and laments his dependency on only becoming alive when given attention. never quite figured out where to go with that. the descriptions of him slowly rusting while waiting to be would up was turning into a bad Dostoyevsky gone-bad novel with no point.

speaking of angst and loneliness, I have been listening to "You are the Quarry" by Morrissey. Even after listening to it a million times before, I still enjoy it immensely.

True story:

seascapes: a new and separate post.

Other thing I've decided to start doing: collect photos of (presumably) oregon seascapes. i like them because it's usually overcast and rainy, which makes the sky blown out, and helps abstract the photos. two i found yesterday:



in the first photo there's a spot circled with a pen. on the back is written "encircled is a sea lion"...but i'm thinking it's a sea woman. the photo's blurry, so you never know. and look, if you turn one on its side, it looks like a monotone barnett newman:

some ideas i had recently

Ahem!:



1. a matroyshka doll of willy wonka characters. The biggest matroyshka would be Violet Beauregard, after she has eaten the candy and blown up like a giant balloon (naturally). The smallest matroyshka would be the cowboy kid, who shrinks himself. charlie, the oompa loompas, and willy would also be featured. maybe a big chocolate bar too.

2. make a blog graveyard...a blog-yard if you will. It would be a website whose interface looked like a graveyard, with headstones, and on the headstones would be the name, and active dates of the website, and a link to it. to start out, it would be blogs (even websites) that I (and you?) have made and abandoned. if i found a master coder, it could be made so the public could openly add headstones and their own dead websites. (does this make sense? i had a cup of coffee the other day and came up with this--the coffee has delusory effects on me i've noticed)

3. collect the names of the animals on missing cat/dog posters (since it's hard to carry your camera everywhere--and who wants to manage 100s of missing kitty photos anyways). call it "digital prayer: a moment of silence for the lost and the missing". Look, I've already started:

El Duderino
Evee (aka Monster)
Blue
King Otis
Mr. Binky

4. get a twitter account

5. a small artist's books with drawings of soldiers that were in the civil war. why do all of the soldiers sort of look the same in these 19th c. photos? furthermore: why do i find them all so vaguely attractive?

6. catalogue the toys i had as a child. call it a "taxonomy of toys." i think it may reveal some telling things about (my) child psychology. the chart would be shaped like a pyramid, with the most desirable playmates at the top, and the more boring, less-played-with toys at the bottom.

--

I've been thinking about what you said when i was visiting you back in january, how you said you would go for walks in boston, and watch people and do quick sketches, working on getting quick impressions of people, and pushing away from representational work. i was sitting in a cafe the other day, working on my typography (i'm teaching a class on handlettering/typography in march...eep!), and i sketched this guy:



and then i did this woman later, who i saw at the john cage event, and have seen at other art shows. she's always by herself; i really like her.

help meeeee

pick a profile picture for this new journal i'm going to be writing for. i hate picking these profile photos for things--it makes me feel weird. a few options (they'll crop it so it's wide and short, like these here)


old grainy photo of me


a photo where you can see my visage (and me in my natural habitat--on the interwebs)


a pretty oregon photo.


help!
___________

Jenna:

hmmm.... I like them all! maybe the first? I like the colors. the last one is pretty, but we can't see you too well. The second one is a nice profile too, and we can see some of your inspirational things.

I HAVE A FEW GOOD ONES OF YOU TOO:


In this one, you are a connoisseur of the arts, at a David Hockney exhibition.



In this one, you are eating an ice cream sandwich. This shows that you are not an elitist, that you are just like regular folks.


In this one you are picking out a map. you are a woman of the world, aware of global events, a patron of local independent book stores, a well-rounded artist/intellectual.


In this one you are fondling a mailbox. But also patronizing hip, fashionable local stores. a sign of good taste.


In this one- you don't want to be a beeeetle anymoah!

'as we go along, an idea may occur'

i went to this john cage event yesterday. it was celebrating his 100th birthday. i saw the piece below. watch some harpists, twinkling their harps, and scratching them with things (combs, i think)



Also in Yesterday news, I found another sculpture, on my way to work!:



i think i want to make a book with all of these sculpture/photos, and include some drawings of mine, plus photos i've found. kind of like that hannah hoch book.

And today was my first day of teaching. I made them do five value scales, all made with different kinds of marks. This bag filled with drawing books made me feel like an official teacher. It's so teacherly. It even has my name embroidered on it! (it was a bridesmaid gift from my sister)

Dear Diary

Here are two occasions this week that almost made me cry:



And here's some random unfinished idea for.. something?

a day of accidental sculptures

i found these things today, while on a walk. The second one is a missing cat poster, that ripped up in a nice way. The cat's name was El Duderino. The top one is also a missing animal poster, that looked nice on the post, with the numbers and graffiti coming together.

inspirations, of the art variety

I'm going to start passing off art inspirations on here, 'stead of on Facebook. It might be cool to have a log of it.

Are you coming to our party this weekend?!!?

I really liked this show. I just discovered that Italian/English magazine. It's a hybrid of sculpture/painting/photography.

I really like this Joseph Montgomery fellow.







In related news, I finally splurged and bought this Richard Tuttle book! AND, your doll is 75% done. Yayy, now I just gotta send it.



Let's see some more costumes!