Putrid

Trying to teach grids to the graphic design students. I'm not sure why everybody wants to complicate things. A simple layout with white space works great.

This is Halloween, Everybody make a scene

Not as excited about Halloween this year. Went to see "Nightmare Before Christmas 3D" this afternoon, but that didn't even help. I have the DVD (and the VHS), so I've seen it a gazillion times before, but I just thought seeing it in the theater would really get me out of this melancholic haze.

Nope.

Issues

Having some issues with students. I feel like somebody needs to teach them how to be students before I should be expected to teach them how to be graphic designers.

Let's just say not a good day.

Lost and Found

Went running this morning and found two purses and the stuff that was inside scattered through a corn field just off the side of the road. I mean, driver's licenses, social security cards, credit cards, whole wallets. Everything that would be in a purse except for the money. Had to call the state cops, and found out the purses had been stolen a few days ago. I didn't turn things in for any kind of reward or anything, but a little more gratitude (like a "thanks") would have been reward enough for me.

A note to all you future wallet losers:
An unprompted "Thank you" goes a long way.

Up too long

Don't know if this had anything to do with the wine we had last night, but I woke up at 3 am and couldn't get back to sleep. Once that happens, then I'm up all day until it's time for bed that night. Finally made it there by 10.

Merlot

Finally figured out tonight that
I don't like Merlot.
I'm not a big wine fan as it is,
but the faces I made tonight
kind of cemented the Merlot
thing for me.

Give me Mountain Dew any day.

Four years, two months

Our anniversary.
Four years and two months.

Memento

Just watched that time-warping movie, "Memento."
Very postmodern. The scenes are all stitched together backwards, and there's lots of writing and polaroids involved.

Just watch it, and you'll understand.

High School Class Reunion

Frazier High School.

I went this time, believe it or not.

This was our school symbol.
They have a cast metal sculpture of this flame
at the front of the building.

Matt's 21st

Today would have been Matt's 21st birthday.
This one's for you, honey.

Love you more
than you'll ever know.

Spinach and feta

O.K. I know this doesn't look good, but we had pizza again tonight for dinner. This time it was spinach and feta at The Boulevard. Excellent.

A Day in the Life

It was another one of those not-enough-sleep kind of nights. So I spent three hours working on a syllabus. Got a run in. Got another postcard designed and ordered. Pizza and pretzels for dinner.

Biking to Confluence

Yesterday's drawing was so sucky, I'm not even going to post it. Trust me on this one. Anyway, we went biking from Ohiopyle to Confluence today. What a beautiful day! Breakfast at Brady's (we Rotted them) and lunch at River's Edge (Rotted them too).

Here's my gloves.

Raining buckets

I guess now we have to pay for the hazy, hot and humid.
Lost electricity twice this week.
Bailing water out of the sump by hand.

Hazy hot and humid

Dog days of summer here.

Mountain Dew

Okay. Some people drink coffee and beer.
I don't drink either.
I do the Dew.

Pirates!

Working on a new Rotty pirate painting for my next postcard.

T-shirt possibilities

So many things to put on a t-shirt, so little time.

Moving dirt

We're digging a spot in the yard to put the cement for the building we're going to put up to hold the stuff from the garage which we're turning into a studio. I get to be dirt leveler in the spot where the dirt gets moved.

Yellow highlighter

Spent some quality time getting ready for this fall's Graphic Design class. Highlighting things in the text I don't want to forget to talk about.

Change of heart

After several let-downs in house/studio hunting, we've come to the conclusion that what we already have is pretty darn good. We've decided to convert the garage into studio space.

House hunting analog

Today we went out looking at the houses we found. Six tries. Six "no's." Looking online again tonight.

House hunting digital

Looking for houses on the Internet. Need studio space. How did people possibly look before? Very slowly, I suppose.

String of pearls

Just a fun drawing to work on.
See how many different images you can get
from just a few simple lines and shapes.

Green dryer

Love the smell of clothes dried outside on the line.

Ucky drawing

Not such a great drawing today, but you'll have these things. It's not really a reflection of the day, just my inability to capture it.

• Out to lunch with my kids
• Sold a couple pieces of art (yay!)
• Bought two new sketchbooks

Sunday morning

Finally got a run in today.
Not a very good time, but I did it.
And I'm not racing anybody.

The Great Allegheny Passage

Biked today from Rockwood, PA to Meyersdale (and back, of course) with my hubby and two of our friends. The Salisbury Viaduct is a killer for people like me who inherited the fear-of-heights gene. Absolutely beautiful day for a ride!

Road trip to State College

Went to State College today to pick up two pieces I had in the Images 2007 show. One of them won the William D. Davis award in drawing (!). The winners are posted here.

Visual journal

My life as I see it.

Since I can't seem to keep up with writing what's happening,
I decided to start drawing it.

Where've I Been?

So if you've checked back here at all lately, you've probably noticed I haven't been around. So true. I've been (happily) busy working on a book which I finished a couple weeks ago. Amazon has it up for preorder here. I felt like I was grinding my wheels for so long before I got that phone call. But the people at Lark Books are great to work with which made up for the lull in action. Thanks Celia and Robin! When Celia called she said, "I've been collecting your postcards." What a fantastic feeling. Anyway, here's the image from the latest postcard.

Illustration Friday: I Spy...

Illustration Friday: Wired

I was asked to illustrate a story about one tech's experiences with technologically-challenged people who call in for support, and this is what I came up with. He had dealt with people who thought they had to physically aim the mouse toward the screen, and in one of the calls he took, the caller's computer wasn't even plugged in.

Alice & Ruthie

My mother used to tell a story about riding on the handlebars of her sister's bike, dredging up memories of braking and pavement; the "Aunt Emma incident". Although not verbatim, this image was inspired by my mother and her sister during the happier seconds before Aunt Emma ever became involved.

Spammers Suck

I'm so sick of spam you have no idea. At the end of January, someone decided it would be a great idea to use my studio domain name to send out spam emails. They didn't use my actual email address, they made up their own but used my domain name for the rest. I only know this because I have my email account set up to accept anything that comes in using my domain name regardless of the rest of the address, just in case somebody types something wrong or doesn't know the exact email. So I got about 250 emails in my "IN" box being returned to "sender" that I had to sift through to find the legitimate ones. I've also gotten emails from some of the people who have received the spam telling me they didn't want me to spam them anymore. I changed some settings on my server that hopefully will fix the problem of someone else using my domain name, but it's Feb. 24 and I'm still getting the returned spam! What kind of illegitimate business would try to sell something (they were pushing Adobe software products) by spam marketing? This stuff had to be illegal.

My second gripe about spam is filters. If someone spends the time setting up their email to filter out the nasty stuff they don't want in their "IN" box, does somebody else really think that the recipient will change their minds and open the spam when the subject line uses "@#^*" in the middle of words to bypass the filters?

Am I the only one here?