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My Life In Madness
Mar. 29th, 2010 12:38 pmHad a really excellent weekend. :)
Started it off Friday night by doing a really off-the-cuff art project.
I knew about an underground rave happening in the woods at midnight and usually when I go to these things, I try to take extra water and set it out near where people are dancing. Kinda part of my contribution to the event. Anyhow, in the past I've just taken flats of bottled water but the plastic bottles mean extra clean-up and I've been trying to reduce stuff. So I bought one of those square five-gallon collapsible water bottles, then decided it needed to be decorated.
So... I sewed a freakish cheshire cat cover for it with a huge grin. The spigot, of course, is in it's ass. I got several good laughs watching people look at the cat, slowly orbit it, notice the spigot below its tail and then laugh when they figured out what it was. :)
I finished the cat about 2 minutes before Paka showed up. We then spent about the next two hours driving. The rave was only about 20 miles from my house but the information checkpoint for the rave was about 20 miles in the opposite direction and the last 5 miles of the road to the rave was not a road one could go more than 5mph on. Dirt with ruts and tree branches across it. The location was very very remote.
I also brought some of my big art and put it up to give them more decoration for the party. I've done that with a couple of events lately and am finding it generally pretty good for my ego.
The first set of music wasn't that great but it got better later on and I danced much of the night, then drew for a while, then danced some more.
When morning came, Paka and I made our way back down to Ben Lomond, had breakfast at Ciao Bella in the blacklight room, then fixed the taillight on his car and drove down to the beach.
The weather was perfect. We saw a pod of pilot whales and then sat on the cliffs and meditated for about a half hour or so. When I opened my eyes, there were a dozen sea otters floating in the kelp just offshore. Never seen so many in one place before.
We walked down towards the lighthouse but Paka needed to head home so I told him I'd just take the bus back up to my house because I wanted to stay at the beach for a while. After he left, I went and checked out a kayaking event that was happening and looked at a bunch of really pretty kayaks and watched people out on the water for a while.
After that, I hiked down to the wharf, sat down in the shade of a large crane and drew for a long while. As it turns out, the wharf is probably one of the best places ever to do motion studies of people. You can sit facing the beach and there are lots of children playing and giving a really wide range of actions and depending on where you position yourself, you can get a more or less side-on view or a 3/4ths down view.
I spent several hours drawing and FINALLY identified a problem with my work that's been bugging me for a long time. When watching a subject, I can generally spot the line of action pretty quickly but when I try to draw the line of action, it comes out wrong. The problem? What I was drawing had two problems. The first was that it was more like the axial line of form in the subject. It's similar to the line of action but not the same as. The second is that line of action is vectored. Even if I understand the shape, drawing it right to left instead of left to right when the motion is left to right makes a difference in how I draw it because my hand is making a motion that should follow the line of motion. So I was hooking the curves a little different and not getting as solid a motion as I wanted. My action lines are feeling much more solid to me now.
After drawing for quite a while, I called Stacey and asked if she wanted to meet me in Santa Cruz and watch 'How to Train your Dragon'. She did, so I walked downtown to meet her.
Saw The Great Morgani He was sporting head to toe black spandex with neon patterns on it. I dropped him a dollar and then danced while he played accordion for a while. Goddess I've missed Santa Cruz!
Oh. I should mention that this whole morning I'd still been dressed for the rave and was wearing blue fuzzy leopard print pants and armlets, and a 16th century greatcoat made with a weird shell material and an inside that is blue and pink satin with glitter and sparkles. I had however switched from wearing a rubber tentacle ball on my head to a cat-eared hat made out of the same material as the pants. :)
After dancing for Morgani, I walked the rest of the way up to the theater and, on the side street right before the theater, there were dozens of people in loud 70's clothing sporting brightly colored afro wigs and a DJ blaring bad disco! :) I had stumbled upon a gathering of the Possibility Advocates and their bid to get in the Guinness Book for the largest collection of people wearing afro wigs in one place at one time. :)
So I hung out with them and drew pictures. Nearly died laughing when the Great Morgani walked past, still completely covered in spandex walked past with a huge fro on top of his spadex-covered head.
Stacey found me eventually and by then it was just about time for them to do the photo so she put on my rubber ball 'fro and I fluffled up my hair into a natural fro. Then we joined in the photo shoot. :) Meanwhile, a parade of art motorcycles with sculpted lion heads and things like that rolled past on Pacific.
After the photos, we had lunch, then went to the movie. The movie was great. I really really enjoyed it. :)
Then went home, crashed and slept for 17hrs, woke up, and made a really good quiche. Spinach and jarlesberg with a cornmeal crust. Spent most of Sunday slacking about and snuggling. Not a bad end to a weekend. :)
I'm so happy to be back in Santa Cruz. There is a lot to be said for NOT being the weirdest thing in the room.
Started it off Friday night by doing a really off-the-cuff art project.
I knew about an underground rave happening in the woods at midnight and usually when I go to these things, I try to take extra water and set it out near where people are dancing. Kinda part of my contribution to the event. Anyhow, in the past I've just taken flats of bottled water but the plastic bottles mean extra clean-up and I've been trying to reduce stuff. So I bought one of those square five-gallon collapsible water bottles, then decided it needed to be decorated.
So... I sewed a freakish cheshire cat cover for it with a huge grin. The spigot, of course, is in it's ass. I got several good laughs watching people look at the cat, slowly orbit it, notice the spigot below its tail and then laugh when they figured out what it was. :)
I finished the cat about 2 minutes before Paka showed up. We then spent about the next two hours driving. The rave was only about 20 miles from my house but the information checkpoint for the rave was about 20 miles in the opposite direction and the last 5 miles of the road to the rave was not a road one could go more than 5mph on. Dirt with ruts and tree branches across it. The location was very very remote.
I also brought some of my big art and put it up to give them more decoration for the party. I've done that with a couple of events lately and am finding it generally pretty good for my ego.
The first set of music wasn't that great but it got better later on and I danced much of the night, then drew for a while, then danced some more.
When morning came, Paka and I made our way back down to Ben Lomond, had breakfast at Ciao Bella in the blacklight room, then fixed the taillight on his car and drove down to the beach.
The weather was perfect. We saw a pod of pilot whales and then sat on the cliffs and meditated for about a half hour or so. When I opened my eyes, there were a dozen sea otters floating in the kelp just offshore. Never seen so many in one place before.
We walked down towards the lighthouse but Paka needed to head home so I told him I'd just take the bus back up to my house because I wanted to stay at the beach for a while. After he left, I went and checked out a kayaking event that was happening and looked at a bunch of really pretty kayaks and watched people out on the water for a while.
After that, I hiked down to the wharf, sat down in the shade of a large crane and drew for a long while. As it turns out, the wharf is probably one of the best places ever to do motion studies of people. You can sit facing the beach and there are lots of children playing and giving a really wide range of actions and depending on where you position yourself, you can get a more or less side-on view or a 3/4ths down view.
I spent several hours drawing and FINALLY identified a problem with my work that's been bugging me for a long time. When watching a subject, I can generally spot the line of action pretty quickly but when I try to draw the line of action, it comes out wrong. The problem? What I was drawing had two problems. The first was that it was more like the axial line of form in the subject. It's similar to the line of action but not the same as. The second is that line of action is vectored. Even if I understand the shape, drawing it right to left instead of left to right when the motion is left to right makes a difference in how I draw it because my hand is making a motion that should follow the line of motion. So I was hooking the curves a little different and not getting as solid a motion as I wanted. My action lines are feeling much more solid to me now.
After drawing for quite a while, I called Stacey and asked if she wanted to meet me in Santa Cruz and watch 'How to Train your Dragon'. She did, so I walked downtown to meet her.
Saw The Great Morgani He was sporting head to toe black spandex with neon patterns on it. I dropped him a dollar and then danced while he played accordion for a while. Goddess I've missed Santa Cruz!
Oh. I should mention that this whole morning I'd still been dressed for the rave and was wearing blue fuzzy leopard print pants and armlets, and a 16th century greatcoat made with a weird shell material and an inside that is blue and pink satin with glitter and sparkles. I had however switched from wearing a rubber tentacle ball on my head to a cat-eared hat made out of the same material as the pants. :)
After dancing for Morgani, I walked the rest of the way up to the theater and, on the side street right before the theater, there were dozens of people in loud 70's clothing sporting brightly colored afro wigs and a DJ blaring bad disco! :) I had stumbled upon a gathering of the Possibility Advocates and their bid to get in the Guinness Book for the largest collection of people wearing afro wigs in one place at one time. :)
So I hung out with them and drew pictures. Nearly died laughing when the Great Morgani walked past, still completely covered in spandex walked past with a huge fro on top of his spadex-covered head.
Stacey found me eventually and by then it was just about time for them to do the photo so she put on my rubber ball 'fro and I fluffled up my hair into a natural fro. Then we joined in the photo shoot. :) Meanwhile, a parade of art motorcycles with sculpted lion heads and things like that rolled past on Pacific.
After the photos, we had lunch, then went to the movie. The movie was great. I really really enjoyed it. :)
Then went home, crashed and slept for 17hrs, woke up, and made a really good quiche. Spinach and jarlesberg with a cornmeal crust. Spent most of Sunday slacking about and snuggling. Not a bad end to a weekend. :)
I'm so happy to be back in Santa Cruz. There is a lot to be said for NOT being the weirdest thing in the room.
