May 2009

miscellany with hat box (sans hat)

I changed my blog layout. I looked at WordPress layouts until my eyes hurt, and I settled on this one. I like it a lot, though I’m still adjusting to it. I was getting sick of the dark background, and I’ve been craving change lately the way you’d normally crave sugar or salt or caffeine.

Also, I bought a hat box. Or rather, a hat box-esque piece of vintage luggage. I had been eyeing it for a couple weeks and thought of an extra good use for it, so I decided to go ahead and get it. Pictures when it arrives, of course. Though I really need to stop looking through vintage luggage on Etsy, my Etsy addiction was bad enough already.

My photopaintings started the week with promises that they would be done by Friday and they are lying liars. Mostly I’m just waffling over the best way to handle a certain aspect, and once I figure that out they won’t take long at all, but the days are going by and I am continuing to waffle. Ah well.

In other news, LOST is awesome beyond all awesomeness this season and Bucket has fallen in love with the foam lounge chair. These things are actually related as I had to kick Bucket off the chair to watch LOST last night. She was not pleased.

By erin, ago

thinky thoughts with henna

I forgot to update yesterday. So much for blogging every day in May. Almost every day in May, then? Every day I remember to? Mercury is going retrograde any minute now, so I was bound to get distracted or have technical difficulties anyway. We’ll see how the rest of the month goes.

I am henna-ing my hair today, which kind of impedes doing much else since my hair is wrapped in plastic wrap and towels and I can’t wear my glasses. And I think I mixed it a bit too watery, the henna is a bit on the drippy side so I have to keep an eye on it.

Photopaintings are sitting on the workbench while I figure out how best to detail them, there’s a kind of inlay on each one and I’m not sure what the best way to fill it in is. I can try different things, though, and see what works. But not today, since leaning over the table with my hair in its current state is not the best of ideas.

I was expecting to have a lazy, tea-filled afternoon but I unexpectedly had an idea for a new novel and I want to play in it for awhile and see if it has enough potential to work on seriously. I’m taking some notes and seeing where it wants to go, it might end up being this November’s NaNoWriMo novel, which gives me plenty of time to let it sit and simmer.

Speaking of writing, I am thinking of adopting a pen name. I like this idea a lot, for a multitude of reasons including that my current name is only a typo away from a pop singer, but I’m not sure how to best transition over to it. We’ll see, I guess. Am still pondering.

By erin, ago

monday

I have been absurdly productive today. Like, giddy-making productive. Being productive apparently makes me a happy puppy, I should do it more often.

Spent most of the morning working on this set of panoramic photo-based paintings. Got all the photos mounted on their respective boards and I’m leaving them to dry overnight before I start adding more layers. They’re likely going to have a lot of layers when they’re finished. But I am on schedule to finish them this week, so that’s happy. Here’s a peek at what my table looks like, with all the seasons piled on it:

And my brain did that weird thing it does sometimes when painting (or rather, pasting prints of photos) unlocks the writing bit of my brain and I figured out how to fix one of the scenes in the novel that I’d been working on, so I wrote about 600 words that can be edited and added, and I’m absurdly pleased about that.

I also took a shower, drank a lot of tea, exercised and read another 50 pages of Then We Came to the End, which I started and abandoned sometime last year and picked up again yesterday. Nearly halfway through and liking it better this time around.

I’ve set myself up for a busy week but I think it will be an enjoyable one.

By erin, ago

three things for may third

  • I just made a huge pot of lemon chicken soup with spinach and orzo and egg and it is really lovely, that perfect kind of “comforting bowl of soup on a chilly day” kind of soup.
  • I also baked chocolate hazelnut cookies. With Hershey’s kisses on top.
  • And I mended the tear in the seam of my Radiohead shirt. I am all kinds of domestic this weekend.
By erin, ago

blossoming

Went on a photo excursion today. I’m working on this little seasonal photograph-based art project and I had photos that worked for every season except spring, so we ran around graveyards and wandered around Salem to get some appropriately springy photos. I have one I can use for my project now, and a bunch of lovely other ones to spare.

Bunches more on my Flickr photostream. Beautiful day, happy blossom-filled spring with flowers and bumblebees and sunshine.

By erin, ago

beltane miscellany, with links

It’s May! It’s warm and blossomy and rainy and happy Springy goodness. I baked cookies today, which wasn’t terribly Springy but still fun. 

I won Jenny Rappaport’s blogiversary microfiction contest over on Lit Soup. I was totally surprised, I entered on a whim mostly because the challenge of a 140 character story appealed to my OCD tendencies and I liked the result I came up with too much not to enter. I’m still giddily happy about winning. It makes me feel better about the writer part of artist/writer, since I still lean heavily to the art side. Excited about getting new books. One can never have too many books.

I started a dreamwidth account, mostly because I could. I’m erinism over there. Have yet to decide what to do with that journal, exactly, but I’m oddly glad to have it. Art content may migrate over there, or maybe not. We’ll see how it goes. It’s shiny and new and I do have a penchant for shiny things.

Anyway. Have wine & cookies. Am going to try updating this blog every day in May and see how that goes. Topics & suggestions welcome. There will likely be lots of pictures of kittens

By erin, ago