Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in cupric_ox's LiveJournal:

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Sunday, June 12th, 2005
11:26 pm	Pistoles_Press still in progress Okay, so in all honesty I'm not totally satisfied with this drawing and a redraw may be in order in the future but we'll see. High points? -Drawing and shading the press was a blast and it allowed me better understand the working mechanisms within the press so my brain did absorb something. Also, reworking and honing the facial structure of Pistol was rewarding. The initial mousy head gave way to a better weasel look. Did you know ferrets eye sockets are set in a similar fashion as whales? Their ears and nasal bridge are slightly different from wild weasels too. The Low Points? -I was pissed off the moment Pistol came out looking like a sable instead of a panda coat. Also, my laziness in lining up perspective planes for the ferret, press, and table is horrible. Yes, I did it. No, I was too damn lazy to fix it. You try drawing fifty billion barrings and bars for a C&P Pilot. Like I said....revision soon to come. Then I started stumbling over overworking the shading. Grrrr.... Cheap Tricks? -The wall patterning and the shading "washes" on the floor help to cover some mistakes a little bit. Oh, and the Black Border help whack things into place. Yay art school. Current Mood: discontent (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, May 30th, 2005
12:34 am	Pistoles_Press I'm for sure going to go blind but at least I'm going to have fun doing it. I finally just finished the sketch for my webpage. I don't have much to go on the website for right now but I figured I'd give people something to look at. Here is the beginnings of a pen and ink that's going up in lieu of a page. Current Mood: happy (Comment on this)
Sunday, May 15th, 2005
5:02 pm	Slowly starting back.... I'm slowly starting back with life and art and stuff. I didn't have any art stuff worth showing but all my flowers are coming into season so why not show them? First I took a picture of my hibiscus that has wildly flashy blooms the size of plates but only last a day... My verigated orchid has two blooms but more buds waiting to come. I doesn't have as strong a spike as my white phaelenopsis does... And here are my geishas.... My sleeping lion prefers to lounge beneath the buds... Current Mood: blank (Comment on this)
Thursday, May 5th, 2005
12:33 pm	Can;t escape my head.... LOL, this is going to be fun to check again. I can't see the computer screen and my eyes hurt nut I'm so bored it hurts. I guess this will be a good test of my typing skills. I'm sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo bored. Bored Bored Bored. I can't go anywhere or doi anything because I can't see. I can't play computer games or check email. I cn lsten to the radio orpet the cat. I can talk on the phone but not many people are available for day time conversation. Bleh...I can eat. LOL that's what I've been doing all week. So, this is my typig retard update. Der.. See you later. Current Mood: bored (Comment on this)
Friday, April 29th, 2005
11:09 am	Count down.... Okay, I'm waiting for mom to pick me up. The next eye is getting done around 1:00 pm today. Really nervous but I feel better about it now because the last one went well. This time I get to have an anti-nausea drug so no spinny pukey feeling. The down side is that since Lenscrafters didn't have a special tool to grind my lense with, I had to order the lense and it won't be here till next week :( so these glasses will be useless for a while. Something worth noting is my new friend Melvin. Melvin is the 10 pound black crow that landed on our dining room window sill and cawed and pecked the window till I got up for a show. He's since been back and forth between the nearby dogwood tree and the window about 5 times jabbering on about something. I threw a multigrain bread heel out for him in hopes that he'll be a regular fixture here but we'll see. There's a running joke now that Spencer and the local bird populus have bad blood. After the "turkey" incident, we're thinking maybe Melvin is the local mafia calling Spencer out. "Hey asshole! That's right, you cat! Get your ass out here so I can beat it!" And I think Melvin would give Spencer a run for his money too. I tried to take a picture but I couldn't find the camera. I snuck all the way from the bathroom right up to the window that Melvin was at and didn't scare him. Of course, everytime he looked my way I'd stop moving and also all my tropical plants were crowded into the window. It's the window that I took the snow picture of with the red hibiscus flowers and oranges. So, anyways, I'll be down for the count for a few days but in a week or two I'll be hopping and back to normal with loading up images of my fun stuff for all to see! Bye guys! Current Mood: okay (Comment on this)
Thursday, April 7th, 2005
1:48 pm	Yay going blind Bleh, tomorrow I go into UVA Hospital and have my left eye oporated on. Poop. Apparently, they are going to put a plastic disc/band around my eye to make the retina stick back to the wall of my eye. Then they are going to "seal it" with some sort of freezing procedure. In two to three weeks I go back and have the other one done. This = Suck. Hmmmm....at least I might get to watch the blossoms come out. I'm kinda scared though. Current Mood: scared (Comment on this)
Saturday, March 5th, 2005
10:24 pm	YAY!!! I have a new job! Yay, I got a new job...but more info later! Now, some blasts from the past. Here is a ferret cartoon from Carolyn my old roommate. Next, is an old illustration combining the phrases "Variety is the spice of life" and "A horse of a different color". Current Mood: excited (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 1st, 2005
11:52 pm	He's Done!!!!!! Yay!!!! I'm so excited!!! He's done! and I love him! Current Mood: excited (Comment on this)
Monday, February 28th, 2005
9:51 pm	Almost done So, here is a half finished Kirin. He'll really be striking and different when I'm done. I'm edging his scales in Alizeron Crimson and his mane tail and feathers will match. I think the wings will echo the same effect but with some seinna for change. I'm adding spots of gold to the middle of the scales to satiate my urge to illuminate. I'm just loving the verdantness so far. Everything outside is covered in snow but Kirin and I are walking through new bamboo shoots. Current Mood: tired (1 Comment |Comment on this)
4:49 pm	Copper Lung Yay! He's done! But I didn't think he'd turn out so pretty...Hmmm...not sure about the selling part now if he'd look attractive in my portfolio. At any rate, here is the before and after: Current Mood: giddy (Comment on this)
10:58 am	Oh the weather outside is frightful..... .....but I DON'T CARE!!!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!!!! Yay! Divine intervention says that I don't have to go to work today. So, I'm painting my dragon. Here are some neat shots... This is a black and white jpg of our snow laden pine tree. There is 7 inches of snow on the ground outside but I've got hibiscus flowers and oranges in here! Current Mood: grateful (Comment on this)
Sunday, February 27th, 2005
9:21 pm	Please, oh, Please, oh, PLEASE let it snow!!!! I'm trying to get back into painting. If it snows a crap load tonight and tomorrow, I may not be able to make it to work and then I can stay home and paint him! I like his pensive look. Perhaps he's contemplating how to catch a nearby bird as a snack? Perhaps his mate is rumbling off in the distance? There are many parts of this image that are attractive to me: his thick mane, the mesh of scales. My proudest achievement with him though is the foot. I'm almost tempted to call him bear foot. I was trying to capture the image of a massive paw the would support a heavy beast such as this. In most asian legend, the Lung is mentioned as having the foot of a tiger. I drew a paw flat on the ground but it came out looking stunted and stubby. Plus, since he was being pensive, I drew the paw with the claws inside the pads. It just didn't look right all around. Then I began to think of bears and how there claws are always out and how they have big leathery pads on their soles to cushion their weight. With this thinking and rememberance of an image I had scene of a panther sans skin (for an anatomy drawing) I crafted his foot. I think he likes it..... Current Mood: enthralled (Comment on this)
12:06 pm	Pumpkin Here is the pumpkin I made in photoshop for the sales tag... ugh, I need a shower... Current Mood: dirty (Comment on this)
10:19 am	Happy Happy Pasteries! This morning I made pumpkin scones with lemon icings. Yum! I even had to make my own recipe. I found a bunch of different ones on the internet and most of them were from Australia but they sounded more like pumpkin bread than scone. Other scone recipes called for only a little bit of pumpkin and other stuff like white chocolate and pecans but no pumpkin spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove). Personally, I think white chocolate can gag a maggot. So I mixed a few different things together to come up with a giant (and I mean GIANT) lump of scone dough. I hate using a "little" bit of something out of a can and then letting the rest of the can rot for eternity in the fridge or until it becomes reanimated as the undead. So, I used a whole can of pumpkin paste in the recipe which called for four cups of flour but now I know that it shoud be six. So, yeah, it was huge. But look! They look pretty with the icing! (This is only half the batch)... and here is my....uh....helper. He is definately not reanimated...more like "undead." LOL...and now he smells the scones baking.... "Did you want me to help you or something?" Current Mood: silly (Comment on this)
Saturday, February 26th, 2005
9:23 pm	*Bitter Sighs* I refuse to get back on Celexa. No matter how crazy I feel. I've been really.....moody....lately. I understand where my crankyness is eminating from so I don't feel the need to medicate it. I do feel that sometimes I fall apart and have a hard time putting myself back together again. Those are the times that I need Celexa. However, I already have a built in coping mechanism. These times are not unfamiliar to me and the reason I excelled in art is because it was an excellent coping mechanism. With that said, I made more card designs. I wanted to pull my hair out because I was trying to upload for the longest time. Pat was already downloading stuff and taking up a lot of the bandwidth but even after he was done, my upload would time out and all I got were broken jpgs. I wanted to scream. Then, today I went to check my email and Explorer dumped me twice. I rebooted and it still crapped out. I opened Safari and everything is running fine. Explorer, you let me down. Screw you. Current Mood: rejected (Comment on this)
Thursday, February 24th, 2005
3:44 pm	OMG, two in one day??? Oh the craziness!!! Holy crap! Another entry? Could I possibly...shhhhh!....?....have.....TIME ON MY HANDS?!?!?!?!? LOL. I had a snow day so I get to play in my studio. I rarely get to so I had a lot of fun. I bought these Avery business cards for my baked goods sale but then I got to thinking about a business card for myself. I wanted to have something indicitive of my style and some printmaking but my image files are bankrupt for some reason. Blah. Anyway, I was inspired by an old card Sarah Trumbauer had given me. I didn't want to copy her style but I ABSOLUTELY LOVE her whimsy. I also wanted to include some printmaking...but that's kind of hard to do when snowed in....Soooooooooooooooo, I drew my own card with colored pencils on drawing paper. I scanned it into photoshop and then played around for a while. I drew the ocean first. The lines are supposed to be indicitave of much of my water carving. A gentle rocking motion is apparent while negative and positive shapes are confused. The pallete is my one of my favorite print formats: Indigo ink on tan rives bfk. The koi are a personal favorite. I drew them seperate and then placed them into the waves. Current Mood: giggly (1 Comment |Comment on this)
1:25 pm	Pistoles Yep, that's my boy. Patrick sent me this from A Word A Day newsletter. Oh, btw, for those of you who care: Pistoles_Press.com is MINE!!!!!!!!! I reserved the domain and now I'm trying to learn html. (Thankyou SO much Sarah, I am reading the notebook you let me copy) Unfortunately, finding an anti-WYSIWYG html editor for mac, uh for free, is proving impossible. Oh well, anyways, about pistoles...... pistolero (pist-LAY-ro) noun A gunman; hired killer. [From Spanish, from pistola (pistol), via German from Czech pístala (pipe, fife).] "A pistolero wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt approached a 22-year-old pedestrian near the corner of Le Conte and Euclid avenues about 10:58 p.m. Thursday and relieved him of his cell phone and the contents of his wallet." Richard Brenneman; Police Blotter; Berkeley Daily Planet; Feb 11, 2005. "Like a menacing pistolero in a Clint Eastwood Western, Alvarado entered the Atlanta Sporting Club with his skilled palms itching and vengeance on his mind." Hank Hersch; Meet the Houdini of Handball; Sports Illustrated (New York); Oct 1, 1990. This week's theme: words borrowed from Spanish. Current Mood: geeky (Comment on this)
Saturday, February 19th, 2005
1:06 pm	New Lungs! Haha, new lungs. Anyways, I have one more block to carve before I'm ready to start printing the books...... Oh, comments welcome please. I'm not so sure about this block and I'm not above recarving it. I would like to know what people think before I embark on that endeavor. Current Mood: blank (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 8th, 2005
9:33 pm	one of the three friends of winter.... Now I know why Robert drew trees. They are the only things around here. Seriously though, in my effort to create a new portfolio of prints for the McGuffey Art Center's June jurying for associate membership, I've turned to my surroundings. I've always been mesmerized by the landscape that I grew up in. My love affair has especially been in moments by myself in the woods or the part of evening when the day and the night shake hands before trading the guard. Those are the times in which the reality and rationality of the present day are suspended and it would be feasible if a unicorn suddenly stepped out from behind a boulder in the woods or a ying-lung rubbed its belly against the clouds of a setting sun. I love the stained glass pattern that a myriad of leavless trees create against a firey sunset. I have a watercolour tablet that I'm going to record the ins and outs of cloud pattern with sunset and tree siloutte as well. This is the first of what I hope to be many. It is a prominent pine tree in our back yard. Current Mood: sleepy (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 6th, 2005
9:27 pm	Samples from the Illustrations in my new book So, finally I've pushed ahead to get some work done. My press is still out of commission but my thinking is that during this down time I should keep carving. I'm in the middle of a side project I started during the end of my senior year in college. I was idly surfing the net one night when I stumbled upon a fact and history page on Asian Dragons. As I read the chronology and development of the asian dragon thoughts of juxtaposing scientific fact popped into my head. Example is that the mother dragon lays her eggs in a nest and they incubate up to 500 years before hatching. The shells are so hard that the weak babies can't escape but when hatching time comes, both parents arrive at the nest to help. The father trumpets a great bellow that stirs up "a great violent wind." The mother trumpets a different bellow the "calms the great wind." The resulting conflict creates a clap of thunder that breaks the eggs open. I thought that was interesting because typhoons (hurricanes), as with any storm, are created by conflicting high and low pressure systems. Things that make you go hmmmmm...... Anyways, I had written out the text and paginated the images. I had carved the egg and snake and then packed them away for moving. I finished the winged-Lung image today and decided to take a sample print of them all to check out for image tightness and all. I used oil based in and my japanese baren. I was REALLY surprised at how they turned out. There is some lightness in the wings but I'm surprised they turned out at all. So, back to carving and fixing the press. Then setting type, then bookbinding, then selling, then............ Current Mood: chipper Current Music: reggae (Comment on this)