A new piece for my next series: “I Suck at Drawing Marilyn Manson”

Hey Everyone! I know I posted last week about a drawing series inspired by my inability to draw David Bowie, but this past week I’ve done a lot of thinking; Bowie is a complete hack. I mean, what kind of guy releases an album after 10 years?! And what a sell out: he did not even take a new picture for his album art. He’s probably just ashamed of his mismatched eyes. Laaaame. It became clear to me that Marilyn Manson was a much better choice for an art subject, so I’m revamping the series based on him. Sadly, I suck at drawing him, too, it seems. At the very least, here are a few more attempts that will probably please you far more than those Bowie drawings ever could!

PSYCH! Yeah, this was a super lame April Fool’s joke. I actually have been continuing the Bowie series. Here are a few more of those from last week…

Bowie and a kawaii Neko :3Bowie and a kawaii Neko :3

Disapproving Bowie does not like my attempt to draw him.

Throwback Thursday Style: look at that hair!

A Reality promo pic from 2003. Has it really been 10 years?!

For good measure, here is a little doodle that I came up with when I drew that Throwback Thursday one.  I was amused at least.

He is liek so sexi

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First in an ongoing series called “I suck at drawing David Bowie.” Black and white with grey marker, drawn in my current moleskine.

I admit it’s been too long since I have posted anything in this dang blog here.  Life kind of picked up around me the past few weeks, from my work as an intern on Parkland to my family road trip over spring break.  I have prioritized sleeping, goofing off, and playing around in favor of writing for this blog, but I need to remember writing for this blog can be another form of play; a form of practice play, and the same kind of play I am hoping to bring to my drawing practice.

Here is a little Bowie doodle that comes from a recent re-obsession with the living legend after the release of “The Next Day” (remember how one of my first posts was a review of that first single?  The weeks flew by!).  The album is pretty much absolutely excellent, and I want to write a detailed review of it soon.

As the title of this post and the accompanying art piece reveal, I suck at drawing David Bowie.  It’s a painful irony for one who both loves this man and loves to draw, but it’s an irony that I intend to make temporary.  Since Bowie is my obsession of the moment, I will be drawing him everyday (or working on a painting that is now months overdue!) and sharing the fruits of my labor here and on my art’s facebook page.

Let’s see how long this lasts.  Let’s see if I improve.  But above all, Let’s Dance!

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Andy needed a nice grey helmet that could pass for a mountain climber’s for a brief shot of a character.  Since this was a self produced endeavor, we had a tiny budget.  However, a little cleverness and creativity made it an easy enough task.  It helps that Andy is such a great guy and director!

So, Let’s begin the process!

Step One:  Assess your prop in its original format.  It’s an ugly, black thrift-store find with gunk and scratches.

It ain’t pretty yet.

Step Two: Clean and remove gunk!  Realize that you are going to have to get rid of some of that gunk.  I used my keys for this.  It was pretty easy to get most of the junk off with this method.  Sometimes, use of a blowdryer can also de-activate whatever the original adhesive was. Get rid of that junk!

Gunk junk

Step Three: Sand that thing!  Next, you gotta sand the plastic down a bit.  Since I chose to go with spray paint, I needed to make sure the plastic surface had a bit of grit to it so the paint could adhere to something.  I used this 3M Sanding block I found at a hardware store.  Got the job done, and can definitely be utilized for future projects.

Buff buff buff

Step Four: Separate the guts.  Or at least remove the styrofoam padding from the helmet shell.  You don’t want to get paint on it.  This photo also shows off the newly buffed surface of the plastic shell.

Gutted!

Step Five:  Tape face ties down and out of the way. Again, you want to remove and/or cover up parts of the piece that you don’t want to paint.  I used an eco-friendly (…it’s green anyway!) painter’s tape.  Painter’s tape, usually blue, is good for this kind of thing because it’s meant for temporary jobs.  If you go with something like duct tape, you will run into another sticky junk problem!

Earth friendly tape

Step Six: Safety first!  Obligatory, post-apocalyptic photo.  What this really is is protecting the eyes, noes and face from any spray paint fumes.  I took it outside for the spraying bit, but you can never be too safe!

Ready to brave the apocalypse

Step Seven: Spray that first layer. Make sure you are in a place where spraying is cool.  I did it outside of my front door, but on a block of cardboard.  You don’t want to upset your neighbors. 

First coat

Step Eight:  Admire your spray can, spray another layer. So, this was another shot to show you what the helmet looks like so far from afar, as well as the type of paint I used.  It’s a Krylon Dual spray paint that includes the primer!  Saves a step! 

Krylon!

The best photo of this series

Step Nine:  Allow to dry. Once you’ve made sure the paint job is even, give it about an hour to dry. 

Coat 2!

Step Ten:  Add the final matte coat. Once it’s dried a bit more, apply a finishing coat of acrylic.  This will seal in the paint.

Aaaand we’re done here.

And there you have it!  What did I learn from this process?  I have an urge to spray paint everything!  I also realized it didn’t take too much to make something cheap look much nicer.  The entire process was completed in a couple of hours.  Make sure to let any spray painted items dry for a full 24 hours before actually handling.

If you have any questions or need production design ideas, feel free to comment here and we can start a discussion!

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Get a load of those bananas!

Welcome to the first Vegan/Food Post of the blog! These entries will involve anything food or lifestyle related. From cooking, to restaurants, to product and book reviews, and finally, the occasional philosophical question, these Vegan posts will be all about things vegan. And they will mostly be about the best part of being vegan: Food!

For a little bit of background on my own Vegan-ness, I have been vegetarian for several years. I went vegetarian in high school after I learned about industrial food production. Considering I am 23.75 now, that would make it almost 8 years of being vegetarian (I cannot believe it’s been so long already!) , and I have enjoyed a great deal of it! Last year I made the switch to vegan as a new year’s resolution. Looking back, I regret considering it a “Resolution” because so often that mentality sets you up to fail. I am happy to say I haven’t quite failed yet. While I occasionally yearn for something cheese like and groan when I encounter restaurants or grocery stores with zero vegan friendly options, I am very happy with my decision to be vegan. It has promoted better health for me and has made me even more wary of industrial food production practices. True, though vegetable production can also be brutal and environmentally unfriendly, I still consider it significantly better than eating animals, which is far more ethnically troubling to me.

Enough history: let’s talk food!

Last weekend I shared a delicious Sunday brunch at one of the best vegan and raw-friendly places in Austin, Counter Culture, with one of the coolest artists I know, Katie Cowden.  All of the photos in this post are courtesy of her, and you should definitely check out her textile art and photography on her website when you’re done reading this!

Once a food cart situated in the hippest area of North Loop, clamorous Kickstarter support last fall moved Counter Culture to a physical location in yet another hip area of Austin: East Cesar Chavez.  The interior atmosphere of this repurposed brick building would be at home in a Tarantino film, as it manages to exude a 1970′s vibe, in spite of the modern turquoise color scheme and post-modern art on the walls and lamps.  I have only ever been during the day time, but they also tend to rely on natural light as much as possible, giving the restaurant a calmer ambience than I’ve experienced at most places.

Katie and I were there that day because we were in the middle of a photo shoot I had set up with her, and I hoped to fix my hair and make up in the bathroom.  While the lack of power outlet for my curling iron in the bathroom discouraged me, I was happy enough to sit and enjoy a meal with my friend while we were in the area.  Our server, who was a lovely lady I have been waited on by in the past, was kind and attentive during our whole visit, and very cool about us taking a few possible headshot pictures inside of the restaurant. Yay nice people!

Neither of us were hungry enough for individual meals, so we shared the French toast special of the day: An Elvis inspired dish featuring toast, cashew cream, date butter, peanut butter, bananas and bac’n bits.  Yes, this is a vegan restaurant.  Yes it was entirely vegetarian, too.  No eggs, no milk, and all amazing!  Counter Culture seems to employ some kind of alchemy to make these traditionally non-vegetarian and non-vegan friendly recipes work seamlessly.  And it also looks amazing.

Bac’n bits, bananas, and peanut butter drizzle. Try not to salivate.

I have had some of their other brunch dishes, some of which are raw if you care about your health even more than usual. They typically offer a scramble bowl with tofu scramble, biscuits and gravy, which I think is the best bang for your buck. They also have a different eggless “omelette” every weekend, and what I have had of those is great, too. For you raw-foodies, try the raw oatmeal banana split. Their online menu is a pretty helpful resource, but based on my experiences the specials of the day will dictate what flavors you’ll see on the menu’s template of options.

Me and My Mimosa!

Also offered during brunch are both orange and Texas grapefruit juice mimosas. Katie and I each enjoyed a glass of the orange juice mimosas, but I will make a point to try the Texas grapefruit next time.  While I am typically reluctant about ordering drinks, it was such a beautiful, sunny day outside; I was having a great time playing dress up for my photo shoot, so I felt inclined to treat myself and Katie.  It was well deserved!

So, I haven’t quite established a ratings system yet, but let’s just say on a scale of “Never going back.”  to “NEVER LEAVING,”  I’d say Counter Culture’s Elvis French Toast special falls along the lines of “Would eat many times over!”  …This ratings scale thing is a work in progress.  JUST ENJOY THE PRETTY PICTURES AND GO EAT AT COUNTER CULTURE SOMEDAY! And if you’re there on a Sunday between 10 and 2, you might pick up some yummy vegan groceries from the Rabbit Food Grocery Pop-up shop, too!

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Pretty. Strong. Fierce.

Welcome to my first post where I reflect on either on a political or feminist topic.  I was originally going to write something to give readers a better idea of where I come from politically and as a feminist.  However, I came across the new MAC Cosmetics Strength collection yesterday, and that inspired this post where I intend to explore it in terms of feminism, beauty, and power.

Yesterday I learned that Mac Cosmetics recently launched a new collection called Strength which features a muscly model in the centerpiece of its advertising material. Serbian born fitness model and competitor Jelena Abbou wears the bold, dark colors of the new collection on her face as well as a clingy, black dress in a lighting situation that emphasizes every exposed arm muscle on her body, giving them the focus they deserve.

I am fascinated by this campaign for multiple reasons. First, I personally love makeup and making things pretty, so anytime there is promise of pretty new things I get a little cheery. Secondly, as another lady who lifts weights, I commend MAC for choosing to use a female body builder to inspire their latest line. Finally, this strikes me as an interesting episode for women, and I want to think about this campaign in terms of feminism, beauty, and power.

As this campaign is still advertising a make-up product, the topic is inherently troublesome for anyone familiar with the beauty myth; Make-up is typically marketed to women, women feel bad about their natural looks in comparison to the model in the advertisement that embodies the often unattainable beauty standard, and ultimately women are exploited by their shame and attempt to attain that unattainable standard with the product.

And yet, by using a body builder as opposed to the typical straight-sized waif, MAC also defies the traditional myth its product supports: the woman of the western standard of beauty is often a toned, fit, but never muscular woman.  Samantha Escobar at Blisstree explains the contradictions expected of women in their article about this new collection:

There’s a peculiarly particular balance of so-called feminine qualities that our society tends to tolerate. Women are supposed to be lean but not muscular; athletic but not defined; soft but never squishy. It’s a balance few of us are completely capable of achieving, whether it’s because of ability or simply genetics.

I am personally happy to see a woman with obvious physical power depicted in a glamorous way.  I must admit my own preference for wearing makeup tints my opinion on this, and to be honest, my mood tends to influence just how offended I get about women believing they need makeup when they are already beautiful for different reasons.

But make no mistake: I always feel at least some offense over this perceived need.  Not because women are frivolous for wanting to look pretty, but because society has so strongly force fed us the notion that we need to look pretty or we are otherwise power-less or value-less.  In the patriarchal society of the beauty myth, we are value-less if men do not find us attractive, and you must also look attractive in terms of what media images dictate is beautiful.  In this way, the beauty standard can be understood as a means of stripping women of power, not to mention energy that gets spent trying to attain that image.

The Strength campaign complicates things, though, because our image in this advertisement is strong and beautiful.  MAC has a history of non-conventional muses, including drag queen characters, comic book heroines, and Disney villains (including male villains), so it is not completely out of left field for them to use someone out of the norm.  You have to give them credit for not only using her, but highlighting her strength, literally, with the lighting and photography.  I believe MAC does this both for shock value to entice potential customers, but also because our culture is beginning to embrace a wider range for what counts as beautiful.  Again, that is partially a marketing strategy on the part of MAC to get women to feel better about themselves, therefore more willing to trust the company and focus on the product without feeling shame.  If advertising wants to head in this direction, I would not complain too much.

It’s not difficult for the cynic in me to argue that the Strength collection still uses an otherwise conventionally beautiful woman for its advertising.  Sure, she is strong, but she is still thin, in shape, and has beautiful skin (even if we know these images have gone through several photoshop filters and airbrush editing).  Abbou is a model by profession.  And, strong as she may be, she is definitely still advertising make-up products, an integral part of the beauty myth described earlier.

However, I am optimistic about a campaign that is willing to make a strong woman the focus.  It’s a positive way to remind women that you actually can be both beautiful and powerful, and it’s up to you whether you decided to be either, both, or none.

I stopped purchasing products from MAC  after I learned Estee Lauder acquired the company, leading both to a decrease in product quality and an apparent increase in animal cruelty.  If at least the animal cruelty thing has changed, I would be happily convinced by the bodacious and buff Abbou images to buy a deep cherry lipstick.  For now, I will stick to Urban Decay.

What do you think?  I am half-tired while finishing this post, so some things may be off-base or inconherent.  Please challenge me on this and/or offer your perspective!

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I only have so many colors to put in one picture.

Tonight was David Bowie’s 66th birthday, so I ORIGINALLY PLANNED to simply pay tribute to the man’s career in this post as my first music related writing.  HOWEVER, to my absolute delight, Mr. David Robert Jones has beat me to the punch by releasing the new single “Where Are We Now” for the instantly anticipated album “The Next Day” this March.  Not only do we get a new song on the Duke’s birthday, but it was released with an excellent video.

A lot of people have already commented on the video and prospect of a new release with giddy excitement. Some have remarked that the new song reminds listeners of his Berlin Trilogy, which refers to the three albums Bowie recorded while living in Germany: Low (1977), Heroes (1977), and Lodger (1979). I will add that it also sounds like the reflective direction he began to take on Heathen (2002).

An interesting choice for a single, “Where Are We Now” is a slow ballad with reflective lyrics.  The minimalistic video features a simple visual effect of Bowie and artist Jacqueline Humphries’s (wife of the video’s director, Tony Oursler),  heads super imposed on little puppets in front of a screen projecting footage of the streets, often crosscutting to this footage during the video.  The camera also pans around the interior of the apartment the puppets are in, apparently the one Bowie lived in when he recorded the Berlin Trilogy.  The lyrics appear over the video as a strange, dreamy kinetic text in typography that would be at home on a Dave McKean Sandman cover.  Bowie’s performance is particularly poignant when his puppet is in focus and he looks somberly into the camera during the chorus of the song.

Producer Tony Visconti remarked in an interview with The BBC earlier today that this particular song on the album was an unexpected choice.

“I think it’s a very reflective track for David. He certainly is looking back on his Berlin period and it evokes this feeling… it’s very melancholy, I think. It’s the only track on the album that goes this much inward for him.”

It will be interesting to see what the rest of the album will sound like, as Visconti explains it is much more of a rock and roll album than this track would suggest.

What is even more exciting to learn from Visconti is the fact that this album has been in production for about two years now.  It’s anyone’s guess as to why Bowie spent so long on this album.  One obvious speculation would be concern for his health, as Visconti references in this interview, but given that Bowie has performed a few times since then it does not seem to be the likely cause in my mind.  Perhaps he chose to retire temporarily to focus on more acting roles.  It’s no secret that he made an incredible Nikola Tesla in The Prestige (2006).

Whatever the reason, it is undeniable that the world is happy that Bowie has come back to the music world.  I look forward to listening to the new album this March and hopefully witnessing the Man Who Fell To Earth live in concert for the first time.  Happy birthday, Mr. Bowie.

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Digital painting of Jack Frost

My first portfolio post of the year! A cheery Jack Frost illustration I made in photoshop. I am happy for the most part with the colors, although I want to improve my speed when it comes to this kind of thing. I also want to draw smoother lines. Even though I used the tablet, and I’ve had one for years now, I still struggle to get the curves that come easier on paper.

I still haven’t settled on a schedule for what days to post what, but I will probably write about music tomorrow, feminism on Wednesday, and food on Thursday.

Cheers!

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An outdated illustration of your hostess.

Welcome to Words, my umpteenth blog.  I’m your host, Laura.

For a few reasons, I’m ripping the bandaid off on the decision that may have stopped this project in its tracks: I’m writing with my real name and under the branding of my professional website.  I typically avoid this out of fear that my personal thoughts will sabotage my professional goals.   However, my blogs have never yet interfered with my professional life, and I doubt things will change very much in the future.  And if it does, maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world that I expose myself.

Let’s get this show on the road!

I am going to establish a better public writing habit.  I say public because I typically write time to time in a journal, but in recent years have slacked in writing publicly.  I want this to change because I feel the exposure will be pressure to develop, but can also be a better means of connecting with others.  I’ve tried this in the past, attempting to stick to a weekly habit, but I think I lacked structure.  This time I will structure my writing around topics that I find very interesting.  I haven’t decided the days to write which yet, but here are the topics I am thinking of:

• Politics and Gender
• Vegan life:  Recipes and Restaurant reviews
• Culture: Music and/or Film reviews
• Life: Career, academic, artistic, relationship, and ambition driven prose
• Portfolio post

To be fair, only the top four categories entail writing something new.  I will also use this blog to consolidate my previous art portfolios.  No meager task, but I will dedicate an upcoming weekend to importing some work from the past few years.  I won’t dedicate posts to those unless a given week is very slow and I have nothing new to contribute.  I do not intend on making a habit of that.

This particular post falls under the “Life” category.  Now, most people are clever and begin blogs on the first day of the year.  I’m not very clever sometimes, but I will blame my slightly late start due to a case of sinusitis that made my first days of 2013 less than fun.  I will begin a proper writing schedule on Monday of next week, but will throw in a post or two leading up to that first official day of programming.  I have also played with the idea of video entries, which is too easy for me to do with my mobile toys for me have any excuse not to (of course the excuse not to is “I don’t look good today!”).

This will be fun.

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