vac

So I’m waaaaaaay behind on this blog!  Ever since it heated up in the lovely heart of the valley where I live, I don’t want to sit in front of my computer any longer than possible!  I work there all day, and I’m just… done… when I clock out.

That being said, I’ve been thinking about what I want to post for a while, and I do have lots of pictures to show you!  FYI: the title of this post, vac, is a Britishism, short for vacation. Usage: “I’m going to Paree for the vac next summer!” “Not bloody likely! You haint got two brass shillings ter rub t’gether!” “Cor, a gel can dream, cawn’t she?” “Gaaarn! You? In Paree? I sez it once, an’ I’ll say it agin—not bloody likely!” Although it’s unlikely two such would work at a job that offered any vacation at all! Before you ask, My Fair Lady was one of the two plays I saw in Ashland this year! Hence the low-class cant.

[No picture exists as yet; my bad!]

We got an über-Leo award the judges call the “Family Leo,” awarded to us for our kinetic spirit and for completing the entire course without assistance!  It’s a one-time thing, so we’ll need to talk the whole situation over again next time we race (probably 2015).

I’ve been working on some illustrations for work, as well as more staged product photos 🙂  This project is currently on hold in favor of the more pressing needs of the new website!  These are for showing the different uses people can put the waterproof iPod shuffle that Underwater Audio sells!

I also recently took employee photos for official badges. The above sketches were inspiration for people who didn’t immediately know what to do when they picked up an iPod to “interact with in some way”, as I put it. “Official badges”, in my book, turned into the following sequence: go to OfficeMax and buy some printable badges, then format the images yourself, print them at Kinko’s/FedEx on executive stock, free of charge since it’s only 2 sheets, cut them out yourself, and put them in the holders.  They turned out quite well 🙂  I will do more (one for each employee!!), but that will require another session (or several) of photographs.  The last sketch is not inspiration, merely a doodle when I was bored… 😀

   

I went with my family to the port of Crescent City, California, where it was (typically for the Oregon coast) foggy and chill.  We had fun regardless!  Mum and I went on a short run our first morning there (or maybe the second?).  FYI: That VW did not look like a VW from behind, so it was a big surprise when mum and I walked past and realized the make!  The item I’m holding is a holder for knitting  markers, and I really want to make one! (Maybe from an old onesie earring?)  The restaurant whose marquee you see is excellent, and conveniently situated right next to the Best Western we always stay in (dad, Ellie, and I hopped the fence several times to get over there, but I never hopped it back, seeing as there were no convenient things to step on for height on the far side). Amazing garlic bread!

   

Mum, dad, and I visited a fascinating historical museum, which included a HUGE lighthouse reflector and fabulous native basketry and apparel, and which forbid photographs. Mum took a few anyway (but only of REALLY cool things!), but I have no idea if she’ll post them anywhere!  The two waste bins were outside it, and I loved the art on them.  Check out the adorable painted tire planters!  This car we actually found on the way down (parked at a Dairy Queen we stopped at for desperately needed sustenance), and the sign, for those who can’t read the faint letters, says “ADULT NOVELTIES SOLD HERE” on letter-sized paper taped to the window. And yes, that is a child’s pink dress in the next window, and, yes, it is the same shop, apparently family apparel with other… apparel and accessories? We didn’t go in, as it was closed, but I’m curious to see how the dichotomy displayed itself.

      

   

 

All four of us spent some time walking the Trees of Mystery trail and riding its sky gondolas. Mom and I ended up hiking down, as we were pretty dizzy from the stop-start ride up, so different from the smooth transit of the ride when we came down with Ellie in non-tourist season.  Turns out they followed us down the steep, intermittently rope-railed trail for “advanced hikers” who should “check with the attendant” before attempting it!  Really, it wasn’t that difficult… I went most of the way down carrying three walking sticks (mum and I brought one each, and we picked up some others had left behind), but I was glad to hand them all off to Dad when they caught (up with) us by surprise 🙂  Turns out walking sticks are like ski poles for me: in a word, superfluous. I never end up using them, but at least with ski poles I learned the lesson simply ages ago.  Clearly I should hike more?

    

Dad, Ellie, and I again visited the aquarium, Ocean World, where you can pet sharks, stick your tongue into a sea anemone, hold a sea urchin, applaud talented seals and sea lions (their names are Cora, Skully, Marina, and… heaven help me, I’ve forgotten not only the fourth name but also which is which kind of animal!) and be eaten by a shark (that last one is all special effects).  I bought an adorable little pendant (round sterling silver with a lowercase “e” stamped into it), and regret not buying a wooden-faced pocket knife 😦 Ahh, well… maybe next time!

 

Ellie and I attempted to hunt antiques, with dad acting as chauffeur, but, alas, only one out of the five places we tried to go to was open! It was the last one we tried, and I was so enthralled that I decided to stay longer than them and walk home.  Mum came over later (dropped off), got some lovely presents for friends, and walked back with me (only 2 or so miles, some along fast roads).  I got some excellent jewelry, a pair of knitting needles, and a tin rabbit-shaped cookie cutter for $19.

 

I’ve been crafting (playing) with Shrinky Dinks lately, and have made some fun projects. The fox ring (inspired by one on Etsy by SOMETHiNGMONUMENTAL), alas, is no more… he snapped as I put my hand in my pocket the second day of wearing him, and I have yet to make a modified version (probably less spread out, or locked together for support somehow). I heat all  such projects with a heat gun (if I had a toaster oven, I might use it, but heating an entire oven to bake one scrap of plastic seems rather excessive), but you could probably use a hair dryer if it got hot enough.

 

I went to Ashland, OR with my family to see my dad’s family!  Dang, that town is hot… The first night, we ate at my gramma’s new digs (much brighter than her old ones, and bigger!) and went for a walk in the sultry darkness (the dark picture contains 2 stags… I promise!) Saturday (first morning), we walked around Lithia Park some, checked out their Farmers Market (dilly beans not nearly as good as my mother’s, but adorable Oregon-shaped cutting boards I coveted intensely), and I wandered around an art/craft fair, chatting with vendors about art but not buying anything, of which fact I was very proud! I loved the display one woman had so much that I asked her if I could take a picture of it! I intend to make one like it, although mine might not rotate and do cool kinetic things…

   

We went out to dinner (Wiley’s World, where I took the above series of photos because my mother notoriously blinks during photos and apparently finds the results of keeping her eyes open hysterical; also El Casa del Pueblo) and breakfast (Brothers), and availed “ourselves” of the pool. Note the spurious quotation marks. As the pool was chlorinated, and as my last encounter with said chlorine left me itching madly enough to prompt my mum to drive me to the store to find anti-itch pills… I declined to use that particular entertainment.  I did sit out on the pool deck and sketch!

I got to see “The Taming of the Shrew” with my uncle, and then we all went to see “My Fair Lady” late one evening (8-11pm!).  “Shrew” was a wildly funny and surprisingly touching modernized production of the original Shakespeare script, set on a boardwalk in New Jersey in the 50s.  “Lady” was a fascinatingly overt staging of the musical, where the actors stayed on stage the entire time as they put on and changed costumes, moved set pieces, and performed all those tasks usually hidden by lowered curtains or darkened lights.  No photos in the theatre, of course, but I’ve included a few shots pulled from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s official site.

We switched internet providers, but the new service turns out to be incredibly slow (I didn’t have the patience to watch my gmail inbox’s progress bar inch across even halfway before turning off my computer, calling in an upgrade, and coming to my parents house to do work at the speed of real life).  The funny thing is, I spent the better part of Thursday on the new wireless (after getting said wireless configured, which was itself a pain), and it was fine!  Methinks they sneakily ran us higher for that first day, then pulled the plug afterwards (while I was gone on vac and disinclined to wrangle with the internet).  It will be back up to our Comcast level (3mbps) from the current snail’s trail (1.5mbps), and I only hope that the speed increase makes all the difference.

I would add more photos to Ashland, but I keep getting an upload error, so I guess I’ll stop here for now!

another

day, another dollar… ANOTHER POST: I’ve been putting this off becuase I work late lately… but now I’m very hungry, and my deal with myself is that I don’t get to eat until I post this, so… 😀

 

New necklace/earrings: Argenturquoise! Meaning: Argent (silver) and the obvious. Turquoise, silver tone spacers, clasp, earwires, wire, crimps, and focal (sterling? who knows?), firepolished faceted glass, tigerwire, turquoise Toho bugle beads, silvertone glass cylinder beads.  I’m still thinking of adding a LOT more of the bugle bead strands, but I… lack the patience to do so…

Corvallis shop sustainable reusable bag logo design: so my town, Corvallis, Oregon (please don’t stalk me! lol kidding), has banned stores from giving out plastic bags: now, we can pay 5¢ per paper bag, buy a reusable bag ($?), or get 6¢ credit for bringing our own bag.  The town wants to brand its own bag, and had this whole contest deal, which I entered at my mum’s urging… thank you, maman! This is the result: Oregon State’s Beaver, a bag, a heart-C (corvallis=cor vallis=heart of the valley=I don’t actually know latin that is just what a choir I was in is named; this is also the Beaver’s left foot), a recycle-O and evergreen-R, the silhouette of Mary’s Peak (VALLIS), the County Courthouse (I), and a slogan in my pidgin typeface (it was rounded, so I had to outline it again).  All done in Adobe Illustrator; sorry, I’ve not uploaded the initial sketches yet… and I’m really hungry… and my head aches massively from computer-staring for seven hours today… but yay for money!  Anyway, hope it wins!

 

new sketches: Irene and hands; Lindsay (attempts thereof) and Indie (that’s his front right paw, not his tail); umm… not-Irene and Irene (I was trying out a new brush pen and I made it bleed ink into a somewhat copious puddle, which I then had to use, of course!  And oh, how I love to use my fingers in art…); our living room AGAIN (note the “new” bookshelf—my mum’s done with it, and I nabbed it for dvds and cat storage. Yup. It’s self-storage, too!); and an OLD picture of Irene (end of last November! lol I just found it in a notebook).  Ahh, I think my roomies have resigned themselves to being sketched and blogged about… it’s what you get for living with an artist… who blogs… -_-

 

New ads! For V-day (the one in February)… aren’t they lovely? Aren’t they glorious? Yes, indeed, Mr. Hammond, the jeeps are… stripy? Wot. “What have they got in there—King Kong?” “I bring scientists, you bring a rockstar!” “QUIET!  ALL OF YOU!  They’re entering the tyrannosaur paddock!”

Yes. I just quoted those verbatim.  I’ve seen that movie too many times, and yet, somehow, it’s never enough…

 

 

 

 

Yup. Friggin’ excellent cinema, that is. Excellent book, too; although there are bits I would have loved to see in the movie (Ellie has some drama with jumping dinosaurs, and Hammond’s actually a huge jerk who gets eaten by the tiny green dinosaurs that always seem to kill people… well, I’m actually glad I don’t see that!)  Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern, Richard Attenborough, (Alfred Molina, for a few minutes), and “Robert Muldoon,” whose actual name I do not know, who plays the awesome Australian big-game expert.

“They should all be destroyed!”

jumbled

…is kind of how I’m feeling… I’ve had nasty headaches these last few days (due, no doubt, to staring at a computer for upwards of seven hours a day, yikes), and I’ve put off posting this because I don’t want to sit in front of said machine any more than is necessary!  BUT I’m not working as late today as I did yesterday, so:

 

Blind contour and regular sketch of Lindsay’s big cat, Buddy (he’s a chunky fluff!)

 

More Buddy!  I hope you don’t tire of him 😉 Also detail of the hole in our living room blinds… which, Lindsay says, predates her and Buddy… ?_?

  

 

Northeast corner of our living room ceiling… note that not all of that strand of lights actually works! Also Pepper, Irene’s cat (tiny, and crazy).

  

 

Lindsay’s profile is wonky… her nose has a small bump, and her forhead is not “caveman,” as she described it 😦 Sorry!  Ring design for my family birthstones 🙂 The front door window: yellow/red/orange stained glass.

 

Irene, your picture isn’t bigger because I love you more XD It’s bigger because the picture is less of a fail (my last portrait of Lindsay had too big a bump on her nose, and the one above has not enough of a bump… it will eventually be perfect!)

 

 

This is the view out the upstairs windows of the old (south) lodge at Hoodoo Ski Area, and is actually three separate sketches, which line up reasonably well 🙂 The “smoke” above the new (north) lodge was a complete accident (one errant line, the main bottom one shaped like a tilted 7), that I decided to ameliorate.  FYI: the pen for all of these sketches is a Pentel Pocket Brush Pen, which I LOVE! The pencil varies.

We (read me and sometimes Rachel) are posting more often on our facebook page! Which means I get to make pretty pictures in Adobe Illustrator more often 🙂

Also, I purchased a domain: http://www.designedbyemilyrose.com!  It’s under construction… When I checked back in 2009, emilyrosestudios.com was free, but now a photographer is using it… should have bought it then and sucked up the cost! Ah, well… this one is more interesting, methinks 🙂

That’s all for now 🙂 I need to eat DINNER! ❤

 

addendum

Here are my latest pieces of jewelry (count ’em: three), posed, shot, ‘shopped and cropped.  Production has been slow but I hope to ramp it back up again!

Hesperides: agate, glass, crystal, carnelian   •   Coral Ripple necklace and earrings: dyed coral, seed pearls, crocheted silvertone wire

I’ve also been doing illustrations and photos for my actual job as Head of Graphics at Underwater Audio, working on ads for St. Valentine’s Day!  I should have posted these sooner, but life intervened XD  Anyway, here they are!  Mmm, tasty… *covets chocolate*

My boss thought the original illustration (at left) was too busy (and I’d forgotten the water drops! /fail), so I made a simpler version.  The above transformation is an excellent example of the perils of NOT giving your boss some thumbnail sketches to decide the basic composition of what s/he wants!

Plus, lots of banner ads!  Each image has three texts (fitness, run, and swim), but I’ve just showed one for each 🙂  Our Ad manager tells me that the pink iPod on pink rectangle-size gets the most clicks 🙂

Yesterday I went to Goodwill (love that store!) and found a semi-fifties-ish dress in need of serious modifications before I rock it at our church Sock Hop this Saturday (time crunch, much?).  So I’ve been modifying a super-fun, swirly-skirt, deep electric blue dress, which I will show you when complete 🙂  So far it has involved ripping apart the side-seams (a chore due to the peculiar construction of the dress in which the liner is attached at each horizontal seam instead of floating free like a reverse dress shell) to take it in two inches, removing the sash, shortening the shoulder straps, and using the sash to add sleeves to the straps.  I’m hoping for win, and for an opportunity to finish the inside as well (it’s hanging open in tabs and general sadness until I’m motivated to whip-stitch it shut).  Details to follow ;D

lunacy

rollover an image for its title and click to see the full-size image in a new window/tab

It’s lunacy!  Well, you know my views!  Utter lunacy—but we daren’t refuse… not another chandelier…

When shooting the moon, at midnight, with a tripod, one would think I’d have turned the flash off!  But the effect is nice, and gives a good sense of scale (tiny moon!), so I’ve included that shot (well-cropped and noise-adjusted).  I shot lots of pics through the branches of our corkscrew willow (possibly with the tripod “balanced” on the trampoline).  I love the way the zoom attempts to split its focus between the branches and the moon, and continue to have great fun with light-bending effects such experimentation with aperture allows.  Some later shots are from the top of our North-South fence (east side of the yard), angled almost vertical to catch the moon, at full zoom (non-digital).

Ahh, such fun!  Night shots are bomb, and hilarity tends to ensue skipping between modes.  To wit: “auto” = flash, which is fail; “manual” = focus, hold the shutter halfway depressed, frame your shot, hold damn steady and pray hard; scene: “night” = frame shot, depress shutter, twiddle thumbs as the camera whirs and blinks away, and be awed by whatever it’s given you 😉  I think I have some night shots on the photography page… probably… *scratches head*

Not to change the subject entirely, but I should be hieing myself to bed!  Or at least posting, not puttering and reminiscing!

void

…is my credit card, now.  I got those pesky charges cancelled during lunch, but now I’ll have to memorize another number!  x_X  Probably my worst skill is remembering numbers, second only to the names of people who exist.  Characters in fiction, now, are a completely different… um… horse of a different color.  Also I must destroy my checks (that’s three and a half books’ worth, as I write checks about as frequently as I watch TV on a television, which is to say rarely).  Le sigh.  On the bright side, I can still withdraw cash with my debit card, so I am not limited to the cash I have on me (probably twenty bucks plus assorted small change), so I will not starve in the seven to ten business days it will take the new card to wend its way to me.  Overnight shipping cost about thirty bucks!  WTF.

But I bought gingerbread cake mix and whipping cream, and plan on making myself some gingerly goodness.  And tomorrow is working lunch, which means that 1) lunch is free and 2) lunch counts as work, meaning 3) I get to leave an hour early!  4:00 clock-out, look out!  Thinking of swinging by goodwill in search of costume-y goodness (I’m saving the Louis XIV dress for party time, not desk time).  Wish I’d had dad and Ellie bring down my light saber and jedi stuff now!

Oh, and my Vinyl FSM dominated!  Probably more due to the inherent awesome of his Noodliness than my PsExcellence, but hey, now I have a cute little black-with-lightningbolts Micky to dangle from my ID badge!  And now I also have time to actually make a Photoshopped pumpkin in addition to my real pumpkin! 😀  But not tonight; I think I’ll keep reading Time Enough for Love (Heinlein again; finished Job this morning at breakfast) until I go to bed.

Oh, and I did a survey for the Clark Honors College.  I got it on the 15th and was busy, but found it again cleaning out my inbox and responded.  Some of it is facetious; I leave the identification of such to your discretion.

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1.  Tell us about your path since graduation.  What have you done, what are you doing now, and what are you planning on doing?

After I finished my last class summer term, I applied for a job as an image specialist at Fire Mountain Gems and Beads, and was interviewed and hired!  I found an apartment and moved down to Grants Pass at the beginning of October, started work, and have since been happily clipping catalogue images for print and web use.  In the future, I’d love to get my own jewelry work featured in the magazine, but don’t think I’d enjoy the intense schedule the full-time jewelry designers must maintain; I prefer my creativity sans deadlines!

2.  Sometimes paths turn unexpectedly.  Are you studying or working in a field related to your major(s)?

Funnily enough, I am!  For this my older sis (anthropology major teaching English in Japan) gives me kudos, although it seems natural enough to me; art is second nature to me, and it follows that prospective employers can see that and seize upon it.  I was amazingly lucky to stumble upon so perfect a job offer at just the right time, but my qualifications are due to skill, not luck.

3.  Looking back on your CHC experience, what are some of the most useful skills you acquired?

I learned to be self-motivated, and to perform above and beyond what is required (as long as doing so does not prevent me from letting other requirements slip through the cracks).  I learned to speak up (and also sometimes to hold back and let others speak), and to make sure to find answers to any questions I have and not carry on in doubt or confusion.  I learned to invest myself fully in my work while keeping it in balance with my non-academic life (probably the toughest lesson for a high-achiever).  I learned to connect with people—students and professors both—and to keep these connections alive: not only for the sake of good character references, but also for friendship’s sake.  I learned that I can do more than I think I can, as long as I do it often and do it well.  I learned how to tactfully present a contrary idea or opinion in a way that facilitates discussion instead of dismissal.  I learned not to sell my course books (except for that darned Mort d’Artur, which I despise) because they are fascinating reading.  I also learned how many non-academic books I can read in addition to my full academic reading workload: about ten thick novels, cover to cover, plus all that fascinating unassigned reading.  But now I’m just rambling, and I thought I’d learned to overcome that habit!

4.  Also looking back, was there any part of your CHC experience that you found unsatisfactory?  Is there anything the CHC could have done better?

I wish I’d gone to more activities; I think especially as a freshman I’d have done better to go slightly lighter on the academia and get out more with fellow students.  I probably should have seen my advisor at least annually, but self-sufficiency and a poor experience with the IntroDUCKtion advising services left me disinclined to take advantage of that resource.  I also wish I’d had more explanation (read “warning”) of what the thesis project entails (I never managed to take thesis orientation, for one thing), and had been able to see more examples of projects for my major.

5.  How happy were you with the CHC library, lounge and kitchen, as well as the computer lab (plus printer)?  Did you regularly use any of these spaces?  The CHC is considering a renovation, and we want your feedback regarding the quality, usefulness, and social applications of these spaces.

I used the lab for printing mostly after all the free paper had expired, alas!  I was never sure when it was open, and didn’t want to bike across campus only to find it closed (did that once, and it sucked).  I loved the cheaper printing price, though!  Cheaper than AAA library, but (especially during that summer class) not always available.  I didn’t use the kitchen much, but found it adequate for my purpose when I did.  The lounge was nice: all those lovely soft chairs!  The whole building got hot from time to time, but the signs on the windows made me feel guilty cracking them open even as I sweated in my t-shirt—could that whole heating issue be solved?  Nobody likes to be an energy-waster, but nobody likes to swelter, either!  Coats are always an option for the cold ones, but nudity is not permitted on campus even in Eugene, as I understand the law, and we have no other recourse save annoyingly loud fans.

6.  We’re also considering making the CHC available to Honors College students 24/7.  What do you think of this proposal?  Would you have appreciated expanded access to the CHC facilities on this level?

I’m very much a home-body and like to work in my space, but knowing I could go to the lab and print something whenever would have been very welcome!

7.  Do you have any ideas about how the Clark Honors College can better reach out to recent alumni?  We welcome your creativity.

Send us chocolate.  I’m dead serious.

I do like this questionnaire idea!  Maybe a place online for profiles and contact info so we can see what others are up to?  This may already exist, for all I know, but it’d be fun.  And the chocolate.  I prefer Green and Black’s “Maya Gold,” at around $3.50 a bar, plus shipping and handling.

8.  Any other comments or suggestions?

Make sure Reuben Zahler stays with the CHC!  He is a wonderful professor and deserves tenure!  If another petition goes around, sign it!  Also the chocolate.  And possibly a check-out-able cookie sheet for the oven, although where you’ll find one small enough beats me.  And if possible, reinstate at least a few free pages of printing: I wish I’d used mine, or had a way to store them up for the future!

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malarkey

I made an outline of myself in Illustrator, and copied it and the image over to Photoshop to use the path as a mask.  Conclusions are twofold. Firstly, my hair is too darn fluffy!  Subtlety fail.  (It’s über-fail at high-resolution.)  Secondly, on the positive side of things, the vector mask itself makes a cool image.