the other senioritis

Return of the pretty words posts! This was the opening line on a reply email my friend sent me the other day, and it just really stuck. Sorry there hasn't been nor won't be much lately, as the title suggests, for those who don't know, I'm in my final term at college and have over commitments, a full course load, and a graduating/not graduating defining gallery show in less than 2 months. Oh, and the whole find a job bit.

(while we're at it, want to mention The Company You Keep Drive is still going strong, and if you looked at it before, you probably "huh?"ed at the description..mix-up on some of the drive product descriptions, if you bid on something with my name in the title, you will get a comic of short to moderate length about whatever you want it to be about. And if you're not feeling that creative, you can just buy one of the last copies of Away)

negatives experiment #479

Okay, so there aren't 478 other posts on here about digital negative manipulation, but I feel the time I spend on it there might as well be, so this is one I did a little bit ago but felt was missing something, until I decided to try adding color in a very subtle way (yes VERY subtle, achieved via layering color gradients under the image at reduced opacity). And now I have a very nice desktop background that feels less cold-weather-despair (yes I am definitely of the stereotype of SoCal expats who want to shrivel up and die if it rains more than two days in a row...but I love snow, so go figure).

And yes, all of those who guessed "from LA+ferris wheel=that's of the Santa Monica Pier ferris wheel", you're right. Oh stereotypes.

new processes

Alright, so if you've been following this for awhile, you know that in addition to all my comics-ing I'm a photography student, and if you have the misfortune to having talked to me about this lately, you know all about my alternative film processes studies, and how much I geek out when saying phrases like "expanding what film, and ergo, the photographic image has the potential to be". So these are some prints made using Inkodye (made by the good folks at Lumi, I swear this is isn't a product plug, I'm just this excited about the possibilities this stuff offers). Fr those of you with a background in this sort of thing, it's easier to use, cheaper, colorful, liquid light. For the non darkroom-lurkers, it's a bottle of awesome UV-sensitive goo. These are my first prints with it, which will be part of something I'm putting together this weekend.

...Oh hey, you're still here? Cool. So what I did was make a transparency sheet sized negative, and then essentially a contact print. In the bottom print (of the first image) I smeared on a healthy dose of all three colors Inkodye comes in (did this in a safelighted room) but the stripes were a bit much, and I missed some spots...so on my second go, I focused on getting the whole thing completely coated lightly, which looked nice but there were still a lot of brushmarks going willy-nilly, which is a typical side effect of things like liquid light so I suppose I should just accept it, and it is my favorite (hence why it's the close-up picture too). On my third try, I wet the paper (using some scraps left over from the giant fancy printer, so very textured and thick paper essentially, although you can use Inkodye on all sorts of things) and then diluted the dye, so that the paper was saturated with a not-stripy coat...however, some of the dye just dripped right out, so it's too light. Will keep you posted as I figure out how to best apply this.

week-end

So I just finished up a somewhat larger piece for somewhere else (details soon), and this has just been a kind of stressful day, so obviously I sat in front of the computer for another hour to see if I could do an all digital drawing of how I felt. It looks a little shoddy, but I wasn't using a scan of a hand drawing as basis like I've always done before. And while you don't have to worry about me going missing, the comment on attire is 100% accurate.

and so, they called her, the runaway queen, because it seemed she'd walk out on most anything

Things never turn out quite like they do in your head, but this isn't all that shabby, big-picture wise.

carded

So I sat down, blasted a stream of seemingly unrelated music, and had a mini-drawfest (yes, I know you can tell how cool I am based on how I spend my Friday nights..) but here are two cards I made, along new comic to be posted tomorrow!

inside: a TARDIS and reads "We're so proud of all the work you've done. Enjoy all the adventures in time and space that your new degree takes you"

inside reads: All monkeying around aside, you're the best dad/grandpa

Buongiorno Pipstrello!

So here's the children's book I made for my illustration class. It could only be 6 pages (plus cover, which is the first page, except the print version had the title in a horrendously clashing font color and the wrong name..as in my name..it's only ten letters folks, not that hard!) and no words. Enjoy!

COVER:Buongiorno Pipistrello by Tori Holder

normal and neon

not much to say, just posting my latest silkscreen prints..

thingamajigs

So I'm not really a contest entering kind of person, despite the public laundry-airing that is this little chunk of internet, I'm actually a wee bit shy. So anyhow, I read about this contest, and sketched something up while I was waiting for a train last week:

and..well, here you go.

,  

As is obvious, it's for the upcoming shins album, which you really ought to check out, quite nifty sounding.So if you like the design you, can go vote for it here, or vote for someone else's, or submit your own . 

And yes, I've been doing a lot of digital edited stuff lately, and to be frank I'm sort of sick of it... looks nice, but too much clicking. But I've still got  a few things to finish up before I can get back on the analogue train again.

be patient with me..

I hadn't meant to spend so long without posting, but it isn't without justifiable cause. Last week I was fortunate enough to get some time off from my program and travel a little bit and see some lovely friends (picture post of that coming soon), but also, less lovely, my laptop seems to be either slowly dying or is just making a desperate plea for attention, but either way it looking like I'm going to have to either take in for repair or try to restore to square one myself when I get back to the states..and until then just bear with. I've been working on a lot of different projects though, some of which have sworn me to secrecy, but I can show you one little bit of something I'm working on for a course (remember when I posted about bats..well here's the next step in that saga).

texture study/tide over

Alright, so I got a good load of work done on new comics yesterday in a little cafe where either they had a very short playlist on loop or it was a legitimately 30minute long rap song with a very strange dubby breakdown halfway through (yes, I feel the need to destroy all your conceptions of a charmingly quaint classy Florence..furthermore I may have been semi-kicked out for bogarting a corner table for almost two hours while only buying one drink..) Anyway, I ended up drawing far past the time I could go scan something, so ya'll are going to have to wait. In the meantime, enjoy this doodle I did at the same time of different textures/organisms I've been messing around with a bit.

Ciao. Io devo studiare Italiano aora perche non parlo o scivo molto buono  perche non sono brava de ricordo lingua straneri e fa un esame domani. (I think I just said "bye, I have to study Italian now because I don't speak or write very well because I am not clever at remembering foreign languages and I have an exam tomorrow.)

accumulation

The illustration that has been eating up all my time these past 3 days. Click for detail. Enjoy. 

alternate take

So here is the same print from Monday (Did you miss it? Well, you wouldn't if you were subscribed! No bother, just click the link to view) except in a different four-color process. Think it really changes it, but can't decide which version I like better... Love it, hate it, want it? (No I'm serious, I don't want all of these and more importantly, I don't want to pay to get them home, so just keep checking back  for me to part with them after critiques or leave a comment and I'll let you know).

serigraphy, yo

Okay, so I'm going to let you in on a little secret: I am actually an idiot at art. Fancy terminology? Know none of it. Fancy supplies? Don't got 'em. Sense of decorum and/or shame? Never heard of it. Hence, when two of my program courses got cancelled and I need to pick new ones, I went with the biggest, fanciest term I could find in the course listing. Without having the slightest clue what it was. Turns out, it is just a fancy name for "a course on silkscreening". And yes, very art-smart people, I know, serigraphy is not only silkscreening, but all we're focusing on in the course is photoemulsion-based silkscreening, so that's that. Anyhow, here's the first color combo of the first print of some idiot (me). Not bad, eh?

Oh, and it's based off of here.