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| Fabulous like high-waisted booty-shorts. |
3.14.2012
Change Their Minds... And Change the World!
Do you remember how utterly fabulous the opening song for Wonder Woman was? I didn't, until I went and watched it to get a catchy title for this blog entry. Fabulous, I tell you.
Her arms are a bit scrawny for my personal Wonder Ideal, but hey- it was just a doodle, so I don't feel too bad. Her thighs are appropriately meaty, anyway...
3.13.2012
Is That Incense?
Initial colors, with no real shading beyond a bit of low/highlights on the metals. (And the hair, which I am not at all satisfied with.)
I did not intend to get this far in the process, and I should have been in bed about an hour and a half ago. Stupid motivational music... In case you're wondering, the pattern on the fabric is supposed to be irises, and the embroidered trim is persimmon flowers. And my choices have significance, I assure you.
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| She's not telling |
3.12.2012
Companion
I actually did two drawings of Inara Serra today, and this is the second (and more sketch-like). You'll see the first later, once I start laying in some color. One thing I wanted to point out is that you can see where I initially started to doodle another left-facing-person, then caught myself and started over to the right (see, I can change!)
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| I don't know what those hair-part-decorative-jewelry-things are called, but I kind of want one... |
3.11.2012
Happy Birthday Lil' Bro!
Yay! At last I can post the card I made for my brother's birthday!
And I'm glad that I have that for today, because the other bit of "art" I did is pretty much boring (converting an icon into a cross-stitch pattern). (The towels that result from the patterns will probably be worth sharing, but the scratchings on graph paper? Not so much...)
PS, in case you were curious, here's what "Mary" looks like
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| (Probably only funny to people who do Crossfit) |
PS, in case you were curious, here's what "Mary" looks like
3.10.2012
"...What's a 'Prowler'?"
That's what I asked Jack this morning when I looked at the WOD:
15 min
Prowler/Sled
Burpees
Pull-ups
A prowler, as it turns out, is an instrument of torture. We didn't do quite what the guy in the video is doing, however- we were to push it to one side of the gym, run back to the start point, and then use the heavy chain (that we'd been dragging behind it) to pull it back to the original side of the gym.
So we had three people, and three stations, and whoever was at the prowler station was in charge of time- once they'd gone down and back they'd call "switch!" and we'd all move to the next station- where we'd do either as many burpees or pushups as possible until the next person yelled "switch". I will say that knowing my poor fellow-crossfitters were doing burpees gave me the strength to really dig in harder on that damn pull. No one should be forced to do burpees for longer than necessary.
Oh, what's this? A little bit of stripping? Yeah, that's right- my workout got serious, because on about round three (of four) I had to stop and whip my shirt off. It was a major relief to be able to do so and know that I wasn't going to be oggled. No one goes to Crossfit to get their swerve on. (Not that I've witnessed, anyway.) Pretty much everyone is there to focus on kicking their own ass.
15 min
Prowler/Sled
Burpees
Pull-ups
A prowler, as it turns out, is an instrument of torture. We didn't do quite what the guy in the video is doing, however- we were to push it to one side of the gym, run back to the start point, and then use the heavy chain (that we'd been dragging behind it) to pull it back to the original side of the gym.
So we had three people, and three stations, and whoever was at the prowler station was in charge of time- once they'd gone down and back they'd call "switch!" and we'd all move to the next station- where we'd do either as many burpees or pushups as possible until the next person yelled "switch". I will say that knowing my poor fellow-crossfitters were doing burpees gave me the strength to really dig in harder on that damn pull. No one should be forced to do burpees for longer than necessary.
 |
| Except I didn't ACTUALLY strike a pose- I sort of flung my shirt haphazardly to one side and continued my (modified) pull-ups. |
3.09.2012
A Drawing for Chris
This one goes out to my buddy Chris, who sent me a note saying, "I've noticed that the majority of your drawings are facing left to right, unless they are under some type of emotional duress... Is it because you are right handed, and it is more natural to draw a face that way?"
Before I get to my response, I want to say this: I went through every last entry for this year, and 90% of the right-facing drawings are a) of me and moreover b) of me doing Crossfit. And so I say unto you, Chris, those expressions are not so much emotional duress as extreme physical duress, thankyouverymuch.
::cough::
Anyway, here's what I said in my actual email to him:
"My drawings tend to face left just because that's what naturally flows out of my pen. If I had to guess I'd say it's because I'm right-handed, which makes the curve to the left (like a C) easier than the curve to the right, and since that's the curve I use to start my profiles, that's the direction they end up. I do occasionally make an effort to draw the other direction, just to make sure I still can. Same reason I make myself draw men from time to time- I'm not as comfortable with it, so it requires more practice.
There's also the possibility that I draw them that way because we read from left-to-right, so by facing a character in that direction it's almost like I'm drawing your attention to their eyes, to make contact, whereas if I draw them facing right your eyes follow their eyes to whatever they're looking at. That IS something that I consciously take advantage of when I'm doing comics- remember the Valentine I made for Nathan? The character is facing to the right because I wanted your eye to move that way, from the girl to the baby. If I'd drawn it the other way it would have read baby to girl, and it wouldn't have made as much sense to your brain. It would have been stilted, because you'd be seeing the action backwards and trying to piece it together."*
So how's that for an art-school-y answer?
Anyway, as a result of this little exchange, I made it a point to draw Barbarian Princess (a character who's made appearances in my sketchbooks since 2003) facing to the right.
*I line-edited my response to post it here, because apparently I was have a particularly dim-witted day when I wrote him back, and blathered on about reading "right to left". Whoops.
Before I get to my response, I want to say this: I went through every last entry for this year, and 90% of the right-facing drawings are a) of me and moreover b) of me doing Crossfit. And so I say unto you, Chris, those expressions are not so much emotional duress as extreme physical duress, thankyouverymuch.
::cough::
Anyway, here's what I said in my actual email to him:
"My drawings tend to face left just because that's what naturally flows out of my pen. If I had to guess I'd say it's because I'm right-handed, which makes the curve to the left (like a C) easier than the curve to the right, and since that's the curve I use to start my profiles, that's the direction they end up. I do occasionally make an effort to draw the other direction, just to make sure I still can. Same reason I make myself draw men from time to time- I'm not as comfortable with it, so it requires more practice.
There's also the possibility that I draw them that way because we read from left-to-right, so by facing a character in that direction it's almost like I'm drawing your attention to their eyes, to make contact, whereas if I draw them facing right your eyes follow their eyes to whatever they're looking at. That IS something that I consciously take advantage of when I'm doing comics- remember the Valentine I made for Nathan? The character is facing to the right because I wanted your eye to move that way, from the girl to the baby. If I'd drawn it the other way it would have read baby to girl, and it wouldn't have made as much sense to your brain. It would have been stilted, because you'd be seeing the action backwards and trying to piece it together."*
So how's that for an art-school-y answer?
Anyway, as a result of this little exchange, I made it a point to draw Barbarian Princess (a character who's made appearances in my sketchbooks since 2003) facing to the right.
 |
| To really keep with the spirit of the challenge I should have drawn a man. Oh well. |
*I line-edited my response to post it here, because apparently I was have a particularly dim-witted day when I wrote him back, and blathered on about reading "right to left". Whoops.
3.08.2012
Do You Want to Touch My New Callus?
I'll admit- I've been in a funk these past couple of days. A lots-of-naughty-words kind of funk. But all that changed today, and I'm pretty sure I know the reason why.
"Reasons", I should say.
The first is that, after a week of eating not-so-clean, I've gotten things back on track these past couple of days. Also I got back into going to bed at a reasonable hour, which means that I've actually gotten full nights' sleep these past few nights. This morning I got up when the sun woke me, at 0645, which is what time I'm supposed to get up, but never do. So I had almost eight hours of sleep and felt fantastic, and I didn't have to rush out the door which meant I got my sun sals in, and even had time to drink a cup of tea with Nathan. I mean luxury.
Work was work, but my afternoon walk was glorious- it was warm enough that I didn't need my fleece. In fact it was so warm that after work I changed into my climbing clothes (t-shirt and a pair of yoga capris) and walked down to the gym that way.
I'd have to say, however, that climbing was definitely what pushed today over the top. I got there and had a friendly chat session with my favorite lady worker, then did a 5.9 on the auto-belay that had thwarted me last week. As I later explained to Nathan, doing it wasn't "easy", per se, but it felt right. I felt in control of myself and my movements, whereas last week I just sort of scrambled and flailed (and didn't make it to the top). So that was a really great way to start out my session. Once I got down I chatted with my friend again, this time about the women's technique clinic she's going to be teaching (and I'm going to be taking) and then a fellow climber (who'd admired one of my yoga poses earlier) came over and offered to be belay-partners with me. That was really nice, because he was much more advanced than I, and I was able to observe him and learn- plus he coached me some (after asking if I wanted it). So I got in quite a few climbs today, and felt like I made some real progress (although I really need to get to the gym more than once a week if I really want to improve). And then when Nathan came to pick me up he signed up for the belay class, because his birthday gift to me is learning to be my belay partner. Hooray! What an excellent husband!
On the drive home I was chattering about today's good experiences, and I said, "Look! I got a new callus on my pinkie today! Do you want to touch it? Go on, touch it!" (he did not want to touch it). C'mon: I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who gets stoked about new calluses (in fact I distinctly remember my fellow college crew teammates being super stoked about calluses).
Dinner was fabulous (thanks again to excellent husband), and afterwards we went down to REI to pick up my new hiking shoes for Ireland. That's right, Ireland: we're going in September. Hooray!
"Reasons", I should say.
The first is that, after a week of eating not-so-clean, I've gotten things back on track these past couple of days. Also I got back into going to bed at a reasonable hour, which means that I've actually gotten full nights' sleep these past few nights. This morning I got up when the sun woke me, at 0645, which is what time I'm supposed to get up, but never do. So I had almost eight hours of sleep and felt fantastic, and I didn't have to rush out the door which meant I got my sun sals in, and even had time to drink a cup of tea with Nathan. I mean luxury.
Work was work, but my afternoon walk was glorious- it was warm enough that I didn't need my fleece. In fact it was so warm that after work I changed into my climbing clothes (t-shirt and a pair of yoga capris) and walked down to the gym that way.
I'd have to say, however, that climbing was definitely what pushed today over the top. I got there and had a friendly chat session with my favorite lady worker, then did a 5.9 on the auto-belay that had thwarted me last week. As I later explained to Nathan, doing it wasn't "easy", per se, but it felt right. I felt in control of myself and my movements, whereas last week I just sort of scrambled and flailed (and didn't make it to the top). So that was a really great way to start out my session. Once I got down I chatted with my friend again, this time about the women's technique clinic she's going to be teaching (and I'm going to be taking) and then a fellow climber (who'd admired one of my yoga poses earlier) came over and offered to be belay-partners with me. That was really nice, because he was much more advanced than I, and I was able to observe him and learn- plus he coached me some (after asking if I wanted it). So I got in quite a few climbs today, and felt like I made some real progress (although I really need to get to the gym more than once a week if I really want to improve). And then when Nathan came to pick me up he signed up for the belay class, because his birthday gift to me is learning to be my belay partner. Hooray! What an excellent husband!
 |
| I did eventually give up on that 5.10 (for now), but not until I'd swung around on the rope for a great deal longer than my belay partner probably thought I would... |
Dinner was fabulous (thanks again to excellent husband), and afterwards we went down to REI to pick up my new hiking shoes for Ireland. That's right, Ireland: we're going in September. Hooray!
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