Okay, so the lunar new year (or, to be less inclusive, 'Chinese New Year'... sorry Korean friends) isn't until next week, but I anticipate busy-ness and not much blogging time-- classes start up in just 2 days-- so here's to striking preemptively & wishing you all a happy one.

It's the year of the rabbit.
So, a rabbit! 

In other news, I tried to do some test prints this weekend. 
It was... a re-learning experience. Set up and clean up was quite a hassle, as expected. After getting my giant sheet of Stonehenge paper ripped down into smaller sheets-- which was a project in itself-- I got my ink and brayer and glass sheet out:

Rolled out some ink, got out the linoleum block Colin carved, inked it, printed it. See below:

I present to you, the final print (which is upside down from when it was initially created-- but we decided that it was better upside down!). 
Personally, I like it. Colin thinks I'm just humoring him when I say that, but I like it. It's, like, non-representational anti-aesthetic pure form imagery that, like, challenges our ideas of negative versus positive space, maaan. 

Some other test prints done that day:

None of which are perfect, but it's okay. It's a learning process. I didn't do too many prints because after each inking, the lino blocks were getting a lot of ink buildup... The ones done later turned out better than the first few ones though. It's just a matter of getting the hang of how to apply enough ink to the brayer and how to roll it on the block to cover it evenly. That was the main problem with the whole process-- getting too much ink on some parts of the block (where carved details were lost) and not enough ink, if any, on other parts. 

I have lots more paper and ink left, so I'll try inking again another day & see if they come out better. In the meanwhile, I have more drawings to carve as well: 

Lots to keep me busy with. 
Happy (early) year of the hare, everybody! 

So far, this year has kinda been off to a slow-ish start (though really, it’s only the 8th day in! So not many accomplished acts of productivity is a-okay). Today’s been a prime example of non-productivity, complete with sleeping in until 1PM and completely missing the morning.

Been following the story of the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords all day. Tragic event, paired with a lot of mind-numbingly depressing partisan bickering and bull. I realize that this in itself is quite partisan, but I just logged onto humanevents.com to see how the right is responding to the shooting, and the most recent reader comment in their article covering this news story is:

“She voted against Pelosi. There was a Republican Federal District Judge present who was the real target. Obama gets to put a Liberal District Judge who is Simpatico to the illegal Aliens in and send a message to his own not to cross him. This was a set up by the Obama Administration pure and simple. They will now spin this to make the Tea Party members and conservatives look like the bad guys; introduce new legislation to remove more of are freedoms. This to them is just another means to an end. The Liberal media will have a Hey day with this. They want the House back and will do anything to get it.”

Grammar aside—ugh. That was enough to make me stop reading further. Comments as extreme as that one make me hope that they must be satirical, but unfortunately I do know someone in real life (much to my extreme chagrin) who thinks the exact same way, and I can definitely imagine an identical-to-the-above sentiment coming out of his mouth.
It’s nothing but sad.
:
:

On a much more random tangent that has absolutely nothing to do with current events and politics whatsoever, the linoleum of my first cat&girl drawing is completely cut, and I'll think about printing some prints of it soon:

Actually making prints of this will be a messy process though. I have some printmaking ink (black) and a small brayer (acrylic, not rubber-- so I hope it works!). But I still need to get a sheet of glass or something to spread out and roll the ink on. Not to mention that I don't have any papers either to print on either. That'll require a trip out to the art supply store. 

I'm thinking of doing a series of linocuts of cat&girl. And giving them a proper name. I'm not opposed to cat&girl, but there's already the pretty-popular webcomic Cat and Girl out there. Then again, giving the "work" a name seems like I'm taking this series seriously as a "work", whereas I know that they're just pretty silly and not-art. Then again, I'd consider my whole recent body of work as not-art and embrace it as so.
It's okay, I like my comics and inks.

(everytime I think about what is art/what isn't art, I think of Lisa Turtle from Saved by the Bell and the quote, "What is art? Are we art? Is ART art?" Can't get any more low-brow than that. )

I was thinking about the girl and the cat on my train ride yesterday, and about possibly expanding them outside of linocuts since I do find them more potentially interesting than previous ideas... but I'm probably going to stick with the linocuts for the time being. The person-with-cat idea isn't particularly original, after all (aside from Cat and Girl, there's also Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes, among countless others that I'm currently forgetting, I'm sure).  

I'm growing fond of the girl and the cat though.

Here's the second linocut I'm currently working on:

The prints ::should:: (hopefully) look something like this, but mirror-imaged:

Also, Colin got me an easel for Christmas! I now FINALLY (at loooooong last) own an easel! I still have yet to put it to any use (shame), but will soon. He wins at gift-giving this year.

He's also currently digging his car out all by himself (insisted that I can stay indoors) so we can go catch a showing of "Black Swan" tonight. He's the best!

First off, happy birthday to my best friend Kat!!
(whose birthday happens to fall on NYE-- making the new year steal her thunder every single darn year)

If she is reading this blog entry and it is still the 31st, she HAS to close this out RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW since there is information regarding her birthday gift in this post. Ha.
If it is currently 2011 though, then read away, Kat!

In any case, a year in review-- I feel like I should be giving this entry more thought, but (alas) it is already the last day of the year and I'm pretty pressed for time, since right after work tonight I'll be going over to Kat's place for NYE/her birthday.

I haven't traveled quite enough this year, or had any other monumental life-event-type things. Being jaded is a side effect of growing old, I guess. All the traveling done this year have been local (east coast US), but I suppose I've really enjoyed visiting some new states and cities, like Baltimore and Washington DC.
Other than that... not too exciting of a year, though a quick one (seriously, how in the world is 2010 over already?). Continuing on with my studies-- I'm exactly halfway done with getting my MA, and continuing on with tinkering with my 'art' in my spare time. Spare time that I may not have very much of, since I'll be taking three courses next semester rather than my usual two (on top of working full-time).

With 2011 my resolutions are simple: keep schoolin', keep hobbying/art-ing.
I'm tinkering with the idea of setting up an etsy shop sometime in the future, but no concrete plan of action yet on that.     

My current pet project includes trying to do a linocut. Which is much harder than I remember. A few minutes of hunching over this thing, trying to cut this thing out, and I'm sore as hell (back, arms, hands-- I'm so out of shape). Plus, trying to not cut myself was proving difficult as well. I'll go slowly with this one. 




The drawing on the linoleum looks like:

And I hope for the final print (if I ever get to print this) to look something like:

Speaking about cutting stuff, for Kat's birthday, Sean and I chipped in on her birthday present, and got her a very very rare and old book (since she is a lover of old antique-y things). It's really old and

It cost a fortune.




Actually, no, just kidding. The book is a throwaway gift. It has a cut-a-way compartment: 

Which took ages to cut...
The gift is inside-- an external portable hard drive with a case (I also put a bunch of movies and tv shows she might like on the hard drive) :

Aside from cutting projects, I recently also tried to do a painting (I think I'm on a blue background-reddish positive space kick):

For size comparison (and truer colors)  :

Happy 2011, everyone!