Midweek fun

Lubok Cat from Sketchbook 2 2010, Q. Cassetti, sharpies.Making a slide show and decided during the image search to just start “riffing” like an illustrator and put things together that go together that communicate speed, internet, movement, connection, biology, micro biology, data, words….and its beginning to flow a bit better. The minute I stopped focusing on this and actually thinking versus feeling, this show starting moving and happening. Its just hard to let your brain go limp and go with the gut…but when it does, Wow. Am up to 80 slides and counting. I am at least feeling like I am not swimming in cement. So I have a flow, color, images, shapes. The next question is sound…Alex recommended LCD Soundsystem’s Beat Connection. I have a few alternatives (including the old Art of Noise Daft Album).

Nice meeting with the cuties in Yearbook. I am always surprised to see who is going to do something interesting, say something engaging or have an original idea. Our foreign exchange student from the Czech Republic is a sleeper as his mom is a  book designer and he already knows how to thumbnail a publication. Imagine!

Tomorrow, the boys have off. Rob may look for another dishwasher (ours cleans but everything is chalky and cakey when done…leaving the plates etc all kind of gross). Alex needs to do some planning around SATs and his tutorials. There is Christmas for me to finalize. And beds to make…and all that domestic stuff that is piling up. I feel so inadequate. So a little time this weekend to tape and tuck, box and bag, list and respond would be great. I am missing help on the house side of things along with my backstop here in the office. I need to do something as I am getting into a tailspin on all that is falling behind….

I need to get half of Thanksgiving in the freezer soon. This weekend, I think I will do some baking and buying. I am not going to be super proud but will rely on some frozen veggies and pre-prepping in advance…so Thursday doesn’t become horrific.

Tomorrow is the last day of the Pourhouse here in Tburg. As you know, we are great supporters and are so sad that this valuable institution will close but management needs to get her life at home in order (and as a mom, it’s really a non-returnable serve). The Pourhouse has provided us numerous wonderful evenings as the town center to meet friends, make new friends and connections, hear some wonderful music and be able to walk to and from home. How great is that? We will see the Pourhouse Team after the physical place has gone, but the conviviality of the moment will be gone…a sparkling moment in time and an inspiration to us all. A gift of community, a place for us to share, connect and meet up. The generosity of the owner and all that she has given us cannot be fully appreciated…the gift of time, people and a place where magic happens.

Pourhouse Week

Alex (and Bruce) at the Pourhouse, Q. Cassetti, 2010

Quiet Day yesterday. It was turkey stock, present wrapping, and a bit of drawing. Don’t know if I love the drawings, but the stock rocks. Rob worked on a great presentation about a possible new chapter for the Museum. We named an event (the same way we named 2300˚ which was fun…as Rob tells me stories and I write down words and then we hammer them out). We watched “The Abyss” which was great and trashy. Just what the doctor ordered.

Work to do on the Vet School stuff (to nail down as we have time this week). Time to think about the LSP valentine (foil stamped) and get to Mr. Sepi (Pioneer Printing). Need to finalize my mailing list for holiday cards (Barbara is reworking the mailing list…from a word doc to an Xcel doc). Need to add more names from all the new friends I have made over the course of the year.

Need to get the alumni thing going with the Hartford Illustration Blog. Versus me handing the whole thing, we are having class representatives handle their respective class materials. I will need to set up separate accounts…and resolve that. Speaking of  illustration, I will need to get the entryfee thing sorted out with Society of Illustrators LA as I have more stuff to enter. CA is taking entries already.  I am entering CA Illustration and CA Design this year too.

More later.

to a "T"

Redraw of the Farmers Market Weathervane, inspired by Durand Van Doren’s workBeautiful weather here. The Farmers Market Building moved yesterday from the fairgrounds to the Market Site. We got shots of Durand’s weathervane, and I asked him if I could generate a flat illustration from his work to make a shirt/graphic from. Here is my shot of the thing from his metal illustration. It was kind of cool as I took Rob’s photo of the weathervane against the sky, translated it via photoshop to a high contrast black and white image. I selected the darks and created a workpath that I imported to illustrator to work on. Cool. I think this will be converted into white on black for a teeshirt to give to the guys that worked on the creation of the bandstand during Grassroots. Need to price that one out. Alex’s shirts turned out nicely and inexpensively.

I was given next year’s Hangar’s productions (shhhh) and need to start mulling over what the images need to be for the posters/advertising etc. I would love to have this all in hand by the end of October/first of November. It would really give us the jump on getting in front of this for next year. I also committed to doing the graphics for next year’s Ithaca Triathlon. I didnt do this year as it was getting a bit tedious, so the break gives me a bit fresher look at the design/illustration problem. We will see. That too, has a near and dear expectation too.

Speaking of local projects, look what just arrived today! A tee for the Pourhouse! So, get yourself down toTburg’s very own funspot and get a shirt (guys or gals) to show your civic support. Limited edition.

Someone has posted a request for a Hangar Poster to frame. I am thinking that there might be something in having this stuff early to send out for prints. Also, the new thinking is the $2. gumball art thought. Which is, that people have no problem plunking down a buck or two for a button, a sticker, or a tattoo. They do not even need to think about it. NO problem whatsoever. So, what if I were to create a cool point of purchase, hippie display that gives the person a choice of buttons, stickers, postcards, tattoos…at a good price with the price getting better and better as one nears $10. and $20 a shot. This would be put in places that Q. has relationships with (Grassroots, The Hangar, a gallery, chez Camp, or any of the restaurants etc that I do gratis work for). Build the local brand in a very local way. Adding value  and allowing the individual to take a little bit (bitte ein bit) of Q home with them…priming the pump (?) for an incremental build of sales. That’s today’s thinking.

Just started reading The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo. Delicious summer readling! 

Vitamin D Day

A House You Can Eat, Q . Cassetti, 2010, pen and inkWhoa. Dreary. Right? Need to pop those Ds to keep the happy factor going.... What a weekend. Friday night was Pourhouse with the Yardvarks. Last night it was rocking with the Zydeco Trail Riders. They were very good with many in the room jumping up to dance with each other. Quite fun, quite convivial.

Today we stay home and celebrate Saint Patricks Day with the crew (all 6 of us) and the neighbors and their friends. So, 10 for dinner. We are boiling up slabs of corned beef with a Pizza Rustica for those that cannot fathom or stand the corned beef. I bought a cabbage and a bag of potatoes that are going into the pot after the meat stews. I have been blowing the fuse of the electric range (my Fridgidaire circa 1942, complete with the frightening Thermonizer (which, to the uninitiated is an integrated aluminum stock pot taking up the 4th burner on the top)--with great scary pops and lights. I am a bit frayed from that so I am writing you and planning my next attack. Additionally, I busted (sounds like I stripped the gears) of my Kitchen Aid mixer making bread, so I ordered a new powertool, a Viking 7 quart, 1000 watt machine. The bread baking continues as does making granola. Next trick is the granola bar as we spend a fortune on them and they seem to be predominantly corn syrup.

These gingerbread houses are running their course for now. I need to take them further with pix of the kids, the witch, the mom etc. but I am done with it. I have exhausted my sketchbook, so I am changing channels and going back to a smaller book with watercolor paper just for a break. The bees are on the horizon for the next few weeks. Then, per the 3x3 entries, I need to rap out a bunch of portraits as I am missing doing them and they get me a bunch of traction (or at least they have been). The key learning with the gingerbread houses is that in Adobe illustrator, (I was drawing the images in ink, scanning them and then reversing them in photoshop--and then bringing the image into illustrator to color them (new approach for me)-- I am using the multiply function to get the color in...laying on layers and layers of color. But the new thing is the sensational blob brush (shift+ B) as a drawing tool and also, that the eraser (shift+e) can be used to erase spots out of established objects or shapes. Small stuff, but very cool as a pair of tools go. Feeling charged with my new tricks.

Gotta make this short as there is amendment with the Hangar Theatre posters that needs to happen this p.m.Then on to finalizing the dinner.

Wiggle in the Snow

Silhouettes on the brain. Have been struck senseless by the funny papercuttings of Hans Christian Andersen and they sheer brutal wit. Plus there is the charmingly romantic work that Rob Ryan has with people wanting to do nothing more than spend time together and live. His messages and illustrations are about living in a state of comfortable being, not necessarily doing anything other than having the company of one's beloved, forever and ever. I have, as you know, been loving antique silhouettes and chinese/ and folkloric papercutting forever, so I am going to make some drawn papercuttings just to pretend I am part of the clan. This image is the first one. Another one is penciled in ( Verithin photo blue) and I am in a silhoutte induced haze...staring into space with black and white figures dancing in my mind. This is a fun diversion? No?

We had a good time last night at the Pourhouse with some funny good music. Mandy and her friend Lainie along with Dave and our whole gang gathered and laughed. Everyone came back to chez Camp to pick at the bread pudding I made the other day (leftover bread mistakes) and chat.

I am planning a dinner to celebrate Mary's birthday on Sunday.  There is the tribe (8) with Mary and Ron, two friends of theirs and a small family of friends (3).to plan for.  A group...! I am pulling out a huge pork roast, going to cut up some potatoes for roasted potatoes, salad, another veggie and a big chocolate layer cake (recipe on the Giradelli cocoa powder box). I may make a foccacia (a la Martha Stewart to round out the mix. Many of our tribe want to do something, so I have indicated that they can make a card or plan something to make Mary the centerpiece of the party. The plan for Sunday is to cook and prep while today we are taking a full Wonderbus up to Seneca Falls to go to Sauders, a big Mennonite grocery store I have been dying to go to.  We have Sauder's pros in the group, so we will have a tourguide to the wonderfulness.

Kitty got into Goucher College yesterday. So we have options with Arcadia, Goucher, Hartwick and Fredonia. There are the favorites outstanding. So, onward.

Gotta go as the day is getting away from me. There are lists to be made and people to be roused. It is warm for winter today with the icicles crashing down and the dogs leaping onto snowbanks for the daily wiggle in the cold. All in all--a perfect day.