Initial observations about working-from-home.

1. You don't brush your teeth until 2:30 pm.
2. You don't get out of your pyjamas, ever.
3. Unless you are working wearing your bathing suit on your balcony.
4. Watching the 9-to-5ers go to and from work is both hilarious and depressing.
5. You tend to spend more money than you actually make.
6. You discover that mint in everything is delicious for summertime snacks.
   

More big news coming from the newly self-employed self-employee, coming soon.

Now, does the Sartorialist ever come to Toronto?

Click to enlarge:

{via The Pipeline}

No, really, we need something to bring him to our fair city. Toronto Fashion Week? I doubt it. Erm...beer? He doesn't seem like the beer type. Um, a giant tall tower that lights up in evolving colours?!?!? Now that's more like it.

Documentation of Artistic Reinvigoration: Phase 7

Finished! The practice round that is. 

Swirls of paint...

Working the pulls.

Corpses to be made.

A very good indication of things to come.

The mess.

Attention!

Yelp is my new crack. If you love your city, love trying new things, love writing, love food, love shopping, and aboveall, love ripping into that ostentatious bistro that gave you bad service in a way that counts - this is for you. Join us.

Mustafa Ahmed, 12: spoken word artist

Mmmmmm...Marion.

Sorry I'm Late But Stop-Motion Takes a While

Sorry I'm Late from Tomas Mankovsky on Vimeo.

In My Own Little All-Female Corner

I was just re-exploring my childhood fondness for Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals, and while humming "In My Own Little Corner" (fine, not humming, full out singing), came across this poster for the Japanese stage production of Cinderella featuring an all-female cast. Fascinating.

8 KILOMETRE

Stella Artois' Smoooooooth Originals. It's all about Old Hollywood, baby.

Lunchboxes are cool again.

I was one of those kids who carried a cooler to school for lunch everyday. Luckily for me I managed to turn it into one of those quirky 'things' about me, even when I had to put it on top of my new locker because it didn't fit on the inside.

However, now that I'm in my 20s, or because it's 2009, people are just a whole lot more judgemental. Luckily, it's all cahoots with OOTS!
This is my next "splurge" investment. With microwavable containers, machine-washable, and design to drool over, suddenly packed lunches become... amazing. I like to think of it as recession-chic.

"Sometimes it takes more than just one pull to get it all off."

DOCUMENTATION OF ARTISTIC REINVIGORATION - PHASE 6:

So I thought I would be banging out posters like a pro this class. You can presume I did not, though if I keep this up I'll have some wicked bikini arms come July. Two thirds through my "practice" round for my poster before mastering an edition of 30 on nicer, non-bristol board paper. As someone in my class best put it: "Whoa, that looks like something you could sell for like... fifty bucks!" I'll let the pictures below speak for themselves. Also, now taking orders.

But more importantly...

Quizno Torpedos are like weird sandwich Pogo sticks and a lot skinnier than what I'd imagine a torpedo might look like.

The Grammar Cheat Sheet

It's confirmed - double spaces are evil !

DOCUMENTATION OF ARTISTIC REINVIGORATION - PHASE 5:

The studio and my other, more productive, colleagues:

"Aites, this is how it is done!"

The brave go for the textiles. Risky move ladies, but I like it.

Drying rack full of our dreams and wishes waiting to be realised in paint.

Feels like spring.

An Exquisite Corpse or two.

DOCUMENTATION OF ARTISTIC REINVIGORATION - PHASE 4:

So here are the bare bones of what my final screenprint will look like. 

It's something of a more personal project, I suppose because my main hope for taking this course was to do something creative for myself, as opposed to always thinking about what might look best on a store shelf or best boost sales for bread. Admittedly, it was a little difficult to try and do something without thinking about how I might be able to make money from it, but once I realized what I wanted to do... yes, I think the challenge became entirely about sorting out which animals best represented my family. (Have you ever done that? Sheesh, the skeletons come tumbling out of the closet, I tell ya'). The result: My father, the safari-researcher (complete with convincing disguise), my mother the ostrich, my middle sister the lemur, my youngest sister the tortoise, and me, the elephant.

Despite being warned, I was stubborn enough to believe that SuperMe would be able to fly through this one critical step. So believe it, folks; the biggest pain-in-the-ass about screenprinting is building that friggin' screen (actually, trying to find a competent wooden frame to start with may also tie for that award). I should probably mention that I complicated things by resorting to old screenprinting frames from OCAD that just happened to be ginormous. Who even knows how to spell "ginormous" anyway. Thus, I spent my last class stretching, stapling, rinsing, and coating my two gargantuan friends ready-to-go for next class. Fingers crossed.

DOCUMENTATION OF ARTISTIC REINVIGORATION - PHASE 3:

"My Thesis" separated into layers.

3 layers - background, highlights, and outline.

Subject: my zoology family portrait.

Thoughts & Feelings: I think I made this more complicated than it had to be. trying to figure out the ideal background (top layer in the picture above) was the main doozie. In the end, it all boiled down to just throwing in some text. Excellent.

DOCUMENTATION OF ARTISTIC REINVIGORATION - PHASE 2

At Function 13 in Kensington this past weekend was the closing party of Halo Halo's 100 Ways to Live show - tons of art, a brilliant live auctioneer who was more punk than pomp, and 100 sticks. I made $2 donating two $1 works of art to the auction (get it, 100 cents?), one of which was a collabo with this guy. Speaking of which, that means I owe him 75 cents, at least. Here are our one-day, one dollar creations:

By freshly_snipes

By Wooden_Tofu

What can I say? "Art" brings out the best, and worst, in people.

And some shots from the show and 100 sticks.

Sticks by Jeff. Didn't have space in my apartment for this, but came very close to bidding on this and reconstructing it on my wall. Ah well, someone more deserving out there is building magical leprechaun bonfires in their kitchen with this.    

Step-by-Step, Ooo Baby.

DOCUMENTATION OF ARTISTIC REINVIGORATION - PHASE 1:

So as I had posted a few weeks back, I had decided to take up the 'Screenprinting for Illustrators' course put-on by Halo Halo, led by Jeff and Jan (who both happen to be super talented but also so unbelievably nice that it's hard to be embittered towards them for it). Despite being a titch nervous going in, asking myself, "Yo, are you sure you're ILLUSTRATOR enough?!", within the first 15 minutes I knew I was in good company.

First things first, perhaps it is just my longing for some sort of education in anything, but throughout this thing I can't stop referring to things in school project terms. Think "homework", "group projects", and "thesis", but stick "super-duper fun" at the beginning of all of that. And we even had a guest speaker. All to the sweet sounds of Live Free or Die Hard playing in the background. The result? A fun, bizarro group project called Exquisite Corpses to whet our appetite for dundundun: The Thesis.

Photos to come, if you can handle it.

*Note: I just keep calling it a Thesis, they mostly just laugh in my face when I formalize it like that.

Innit she adorable?

FOR A WANTED CRIMINAL MAYBE!

That's right folks - this is the most invigorating and realistically surreal story I've read about in a loooong time. And Gus van Sant (or Vice, to cut their losses) ought to make a movie out of this because our generation would flock to see this bad-ass hipster in action. Starring Michael Cera as Kari Ferrell.

Load up on those carbs.

Toast your own art onto bread and by default $1 goes towards Feeding America. Think outside of the "Virgin Mary/Jesus-on-toast" concept. God's already been there, done that.

{Thanks to Danni L. for this great link!)