Saturday, June 18, 2011

I will be gone for a week for my grandmother's funeral, and I'll try to get back to regular blogging after my return. Thanks to all who have the patience to still be watching this blog, and if you are, here's more filler art to tide you over.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

In between...

Sorry for yet another pause in posting. There's not so good family stuff going on, and I've been... distracted. Anyways, I did get this done, so have it as filler art until I get the next 365 project up...

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Day 41: Create a large version of something small

So I've been really struggling with this prompt, and even though I came up with a book to go with it, I just haven't had the energy to make something big. Yesterday involved running an outdoors table in 95-degree weather until seven at night, and by the time I came home I just wasn't even functional. I think Wednesdays I may have to give this blog a pass because I'm usually busy from the moment I get up until I'm so drained I just crash.
Today, I had less excuse. Thursday or Friday usually gets to be my goofing off day. So while I was thinking of the prompt, I didn't come up with an actual project...
There was a movie very loosely based off 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs', but I do mean very loosely. The original book comes off as an excuse, I think, to draw larger-than-life food showering down on townspeople. It's really about the illustrations, and what I've always remembered about it from my childhood was the last scene where there's a snowy hill with a setting sun that just might be mashed potatoes and butter sliding over the edge. I do own a copy of the book, we picked it up a few years ago at a yard sale or somewhere, because both I and my girlfriend remembered it from our childhood.
For a project, the only idea I came up with was to make a giant sushi roll or something, but I just don't have materials and time to make something that big, which I also just know I'd end up making complicated. What I did instead of working on a project was to have a friend over, watch 'Buckaroo Bonzai', and eat watermelon. We didn't just eat watermelon, though. We had an entire watermelon, given to us under protest by my girlfriend's father. We have no room in the fridge for an entire watermelon. It's big and unwieldy, and when our friend came over we offered it to him. He said he'd take it, but then somehow the conversation got around to cutting it open with a sword, and the next thing I knew he and my girlfriend were daring me to do it and wanted to film it.
I own several swords, including a claymore which is ridiculous because I'm not big enough to wield one effectively. I've taken a fair amount of fencing classes, although I stopped shy of expert level thanks to an unrelated-to-fencing knee injury. My friends and I used to spend a lot of time sword fighting with first wooden (not a good idea at all) and then PVC-pipe-and-foam boffer swords. I'm not an expert, but I'm relatively experienced with swords. I was open to the idea because I knew what I've got would go through a watermelon pretty easy, although apparently my girlfriend didn't realize that. So we overturned the garbage can out back, covered it with a clean garbage bag to keep the watermelon clean (which failed), and our friend took my camera. It was fun, and goofy, and we brushed the dirt off and ate watermelon after.
Tonight, while bemoaning my lack of a project, my girlfriend pointed out that cutting open a watermelon open with a sword probably counts as doing something in a much bigger than usual way, and with food even. I usually try to put more thought into my blog entries, but for tonight, I'm willing to call that good. Hope you enjoy watching it at least half as much as I enjoyed doing it.