It's been a while since I wrote a post about Sketchbooks, hasn't it? I figure I owe you a post about arty stuff, dear reader, after those last two ranty, only-obliquely-art-related posts.
Of course, there was a prompt for this one. I recently got this little fellow in the mail from the wonderful, if strangely-named, Dick Blick art supply catalog:
You may recall from a much earlier Sketchbook-related post that I first saw this brand of Sketchbook at the Massachusetts College of Art store. This is an Art Supply Enterprises Pen and Ink Watercolor Book (an Art Alternatives Watercolor Book according to the Blick catalog). As you can see, it looks like another lowfat Moleskine alternative, especially with it's rubber-band closure, it's (maybe) fake leather cover, and it's hilarious wrap-around dust jacket thingy:
"Embrace the Immediacy of Watercolor... and bathe your sketches in color!"
With the help of my handsome assistant*, you can see that this little book looks like a Watercolor Moleskine on the inside as well, and even sports a pocket. The only difference -and this is a bit of a disappointment for me- is that the pages are perforated. Maybe there are people out there who like the option of removing pages out of their Sketchbook, but I am not one of them.
* - My Oviraptor mascot needs a name!
So the only thing left to do is personalize this little fellow:
Obviously, this is the Sketchbook I'm taking to Florida with me in a few weeks. I usually go small when choosing a travel Sketchbook. It should be able to fit inside a fanny pack. This little guy could fit in a pocket if it had to!
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Now, I know making fun of Twilight is like shooting fish in a barrel at this point, but I recently got an issue of a magazine that had a special preview of the Twilight comic book. And as somebody who went through four years of art school, I can't let this pass without comment. (Illustrations by Young Kim. I can't find much about him online, so hopefully he was hampered by the source material -I know all too intimately what that's like- and this is not indicative of what he can do.)
Ladies and gentlemen, the many expressions of Mr. E. Cullen:
Bonus: Here is Bella scared out of her mind:
Yeah.
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Feederwatch Thursday!
Not much goin' on this week. To be fair, the rain/snow hadn't started yet really and I only had the suet feeder full.
Blue Jay 1
American Crow 2
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
House Sparrow 15
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Sketch of the Day!
I've been editing some more older pieces for DeviantArt this week, so I haven't had the time to upload anything new at the time of writing. Here are some dragons:
Yeah. So about those "How to Train Your Dragon" commercials that have so far been ubiquitous during the Winter Olympics.
1) I now no longer want to see this movie. Like, ever. Which is too bad, as I was genuinely intrigued when I read that Chris Sanders was involved.
2) I can tell the announcers hate having to segue from the biathalon or whatever to these commercials.
3) Open letter to Dreamworks. If I ever see a poster or watch a trailer where you remind us that you are the studio that made "Shrek" again, I will... do... *something* ludicrous. Point is, we get it. We know who you are; you can stop reminding us.
4) I read the book How to Train Your Dragon a while back. What the hell book did the writers of this movie read?
5) The dragon is cute. :/
Don't get me wrong; I've been more into the Winter Olympics this year than I have since "Skategate" (ask your mom. Or Wikipedia.) Indeed, most of the commercials they've premiered during the Games have been better than the Superbowl commercials. I love the Coke snowball fight ad.
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I seem to recall that Disney ran an ad or something saying that, if you've never seen "Lost" before, you'll still be able to follow the story. This writer has decided to take this statement on. The result is... it is truly a thing of beauty.
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Sketch Of The day! Yet more Great Backyard Bird Count cuteness!
Most of you have probably already seen these, but for those of you who haven't, here comes nightmare fuel.
I... have nothing that I could say that would make these things less horrifying. I can only repeat what I said about Moose Jesus: Imagine going over somebody's house and seeing this proudly on display.----
I'm getting ready for a family trip in a couple of weeks, so for now I'm doing a twice-weekly post schedule. Which means it's time for
Feederwatch -uh- Thursday!
Man, what a storm on Tuesday.
Rock Pigeon 2
Mourning Dove 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Black-capped Chickadee 2
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
House Sparrow 15
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Sketchotheday! Assuming we all need some brain bleach after the "Manillows", here is cuteness from the Great Backyard Bird Count!
Sunday, 2/14/10
9:19 AM - Happy Valiumtime's Day! I got up early enough to see the woodpecker "couple" again. Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww........
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2:30 PM - Well, I get to record one new species so far today. There's a fluffy Mourning Dove who's been chilling out in the pile of grass clippings, probably enjoying the heat.
The Nuthatches are starting to do this again:
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Monday, 2/15/10
1:00 PM - Went out to breakfast with my family. I can add thirty Starlings and six Herring Gulls to the big list. Man, I am going to forget that today is also a Feederwatch count day.
12:04 AM - Been a long, weird day. But I got to go into Boston a little and here's the final tally for the weekend:
Habitat(s):
deciduous woods
suburban
urban
freshwater
salt water
Species Count
Canada Goose 10
Herring Gull 25
Great Black-backed Gull 2
Rock Pigeon 15
Mourning Dove 1
Downy Woodpecker 2
Blue Jay 2
American Crow 18
Black-capped Chickadee 3
White-breasted Nuthatch 2
European Starling 18
Northern Cardinal 1
House Sparrow 25
The Great Backyard Bird Count is here! The (second or third) most wonderful time of the year! There's still time to join in (hence the really early post). I will pop in every so often this weekend to make note of what I've seen, maybe share some field sketches.
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Friday, 2/12/10 - Feederwatch Friday First:
Downy Woodpecker 1
American Crow 3
Black-capped Chickadee 2
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
European Starling 1
House Sparrow 15
Now for watching the feeders on Friday. Hopefully this isn't too confusing.
11:17 AM - Three Chickadees and a small flock of House Sparrows. I'm going to set up near the window that overlooks the feeders and finish some Photoshoppery today, so you will get to enjoy my lacking the ability to type understandably on a laptop when I come and check in.
1:42 PM - Set up near the window. Counted twenty sparrows, two nuthatches, two woodpeckers, and two pigeons. Heard a flock of crows but didn't see them; will count when they come home to roost.
3:00 PM - Haven't seen many birds since the last update, but I painted a baby dragon:
Awww...
4:00 PM - About to take a mental health break from painting. Starting to get dark out. No new birds. Painted another dragon though.
In the new adaptation of Michael Ende's "The Neverending Story", the part of Falkor will be played by Jeff Bridges. :)
6:00 PM - Final tally for today:
Three Black-capped Chickadees
Twenty House Sparrows
Two White-breasted Nuthatches
Two Downy Woodpeckers
Two Domestic Rock Doves (Pigeons, whatever)
Eighteen Crows! (Big flock that, as predicted, flew home to roost.)
Not bad biodiversity for just from my window. It's now dusk, so I'll pick this up tomorrow. There is still time to participate!
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2/13/10 - Saturday
11:25 AM - I can add two Blue Jays to my tally. Also, I saw the male and female woodpeckers feeding together at the suet. Awww...
1:45 PM - I might have spotted a Sharp-Shinned Hawk a minute ago but, sadly, it flew too fast for me to verify. Here's that Fairy Dragon all finished. Had some fun with different brushes.
7:00 PM - So the only new species I can record today are:
Two Blue Jays
One Cardinal
Aside from them, the same birds from yesterday showed up again. But in the meantime, look what I made (finally):
As this post is getting a little unreasonably long, I will start a new one for Sunday-Monday.
Well, this certainly wasn't what I was expecting but it was still a pretty interesting read.
I'm not sure if the "Crash Course" in the title is accurate though. Goldberg assumes you have *quite* a lot of prior knowledge. You know who Chuck Jones is, right? Well good because if you didn't I'd have to banish you from my sight. But do you know who Ken Harris and Gerry Chiniquy are? Because the author kinda assumes you do. You also better know how an exposure sheet works, otherwise this book is going to be very technical-looking for you.
And the book overall is technical almost to a fault. There's very little art in the book itself, although the art that is included is very good. I still have a hard time recommending this over, say, Preston Blair's classic Animation books.
"But Trish," you're thinking, "doesn't Goldberg's book come with a CD-ROM? What did you think of that?"
I have mixed feelings about books that include CD-ROMs. One of them is usually, "get with the times, dudes and dudettes; last time CD-ROMs were cool was that one facepalm-worthy line in 'Jurassic Park'." What I mean is that including a CD-ROM in with your book often feels too gimmicky; why isn't it in the book itself if it's worthy information?
But Goldberg's CD-ROM broke down my barrier here, because he uses it to demonstrate something important about the art in his book: it has to be seen in motion. Many pieces of animation from the book are made into Flash files which you can either watch at normal speed or frame by frame. It almost makes me wish he had produced an instructional DVD instead of a book. If anything, it would have given him the opportunity to give the reader/viewer more information, more film clips, and the whole thing would have been a lot less expensive (I feel a little buyer's remorse-by-proxy as this was a Christmas present.)
My verdict: borrow this from the library as it is an interesting read for sure.
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Sketchatheday! I have made more ACEOs for you!
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Bonus/Addendum: My already-"Jossed" crazy theory! Let me show you it!
Another batch of opinions, hastily posted by somebody who wasn't all that invested in the game. (Dammit, Bill!) This may not be the most coherent post in the world, since it's almost quarter of two in the morning now, but here goes:
"The Last Airbender" teaser - Uh... eh. I think I've made my opinions on the prospects of a live-action "Avatar: the Last Airbender" movie perfectly clear by now and this teaser didn't really change anything. What strikes me as odd is the fact that, had I tuned in a minute later I would have missed it entirely.
Boostmobile Shuffle - OK, this one got a laugh out of me. For those of you who are to young to get the reference, enjoy the very first time I realized that athletes should never sing. Ever.
Doritoes and Budweiser - Man, their commercials this year were either just plane weird or boring. Doritoes in particular; it looked like they were using the ideas from their contest a while back that came in a distant second.
"Robin Hood: Prince of Some Stuff" - "Gee, Homer, that's a good idea but I think they've already made movies based on A Christmas Carol." "Yeah, well, what about Robin Hood?"
On the other hand, I am hoping they make this movie into another "EXCITING cereal".
"Wolfman" - Team DelToro!!!
Monster.com Beaver - I like the puppetry, but this is a good example of an ad that is really elaborate but doesn't make any damn sense. The Budweiser Bridge ad was like this too. The ur-example of this kind of Superbowl ad comes from 1997. (Bonus: Two or three instantly-dated references for the price of one!)
GoDaddy.com - This may be the greatest and best web-hosting service in the entire Internet, and all most people associate them with are these "to hot for TV" ads. Good jarb ad execs.
Coke Simpsons - Yaaaay!!! I feel like I ought to comment more on this ad as it's the only memorable animated ad. It's wikkid late. I don't want to.
Career Builder and Dockers - To ads in a row with guys in their underwear. Good luck telling them apart.
Teleflora - Hey, I remember this from last year!
"Alice in Wonderland" and "Tru TV Groundhog Day" - I must have mentioned somewhere on this blog that the deepest depth of the Uncanny Valley is inhabited by those staples of Superbowl ads, CGI Babies Who Do Things Normal Babies Don't Do. Well, I was wrong. The real inhabitants are People With Giant CGI Heads (or Normal-Sized Heads On Little CGI Bodies, it's hard to tell).
Universal's Wizarding World of Harry Potter - And I've given so much attention to the history of the Disney/MGM or Hollywood or whatever they're calling it now Studios in Walt Disney World that I feel like I must have discussed the equally strange history of Universal Studios Florida as well. This ad reminds me of the seriously trippy ads used to introduce the park in the first place. I don't think Wizarding World will be open by the time I get to Florida next month (more on that later), but having visited the spot where I think it's going, it's a little hard to believe that this is going to be more elaborate than a retheming of the Lost Continent part of Islands of Adventure.
Dr. Pepper Little Kiss - Ugh. Just... ugh.
"Prince of Persia: the Color Orange!" - With the memory of what happened after "Pirates of the Caribbean" fresh in my head, let me say this: I don't want little girls and their moms suddenly saying they've "Always been a Jake Gyllenhaal fan!" You sit through "The Good Girl" and "The Day After Tomorrow" just for him and then maybe we'll let you in the fan club. Maybe.
HomeAway.com - Here's a depressing trend for you. Commercials for commercials. As in, you had to go online to watch the full version of this. Bah.
Dennys screaming chickens - And here's the most irritating and most impossible to like commercial this year.
"The Crazies" - Interesting and creepy ad for what appears to be an entirely unremarkable thriller. Funny thing is, I would have expected to see an "Iron Man 2" teaser instead.
Google Paris Romance - Awwwwww... See now, this is how you do it.
EDIT: Reviews of ads I have not mentioned can be found at the Onion AV Club. It's funny how the blatant misogyny and anti-intellectualism, especially of the Bud ads, didn't immediately register with me. Then again, I remember when every single beer ad felt like that Duff beer "down with sexism" ad from an early episode of "The Simpsons" (still brilliant but YouTube has sadly failed me).
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Sketch of the day!
I'm also selling a set of ACEOs on Ebay this week, just to see how they do.
