Saturday 31 October 2009

Kind of like a Day of the Dead for me, as I don't really celebrate Hallowe'en as such, I am just conscious of it. Mostly I just drive to the family graves a day ahead to beat the road rush.

Drive was so pretty. Cold, but so clear and so scenic. This country is damn beautiful. When my dad was young and had this cool editor, the editor would ask all field reporters to take photos of all crossroads marks, crucifixes and suchlike.. The favorite entry of mine in my favorite book also talks of a similar man - a professor from the capital, who either chose or was sent to the countryside instead and there established a fire brigade, 'farm women' society, bee-keepers club, he documented all folk songs, dances, local rural customs, photographed all landmarks, and so forth... My kind of a man, certainly.

Driving, Piček and I fantasized about trips we'll be taking, driving around, taking photos, stopping in cool towns.. I could plot a whole Europe two-month road trip from the top of my head, for every day. My dad's village is in this quaint, very pretty area and we always stop at some relatives or friends or whatever they are and it's never a bother, because the lady of the house makes a killer strudel.

It was a lovely day. We're too lazy to make actual trips, although we have ample energy to conjure and plot them :p With bikes, hiking, driving, even with kites, lol. Summer, winter, epic, heroic, you name it :D

haha

Friday 30 October 2009

Ha, am almost out of debt. Almost, almost. No, okay, I still over loads to the printers and haven't enough to meet the next month's tax, but I paid off a major bill today and as far as I can tell, I won't be getting sued this week yet :p Parents put me in a stupid spot with sis, saying one thing to me and another to her regarding the same piece of finance - *always* the slippery slope - but they paid for the trip tomorrow and we'll have enough to fuel the car, change the oil and buy some of dad's favorite meat products from his favorite butcher. Wish more people would come along :( It's bound to be a lovely trip :)

My next commission ought to pay off next week, earning me a toner printer - just in time for me to be able to mail the exhibition invitations! Woot! :D

Off to help Piček fix the flood now. The TV we got is keeping him so bedazzled (Buttons! What is it about men and remotes?) that we managed to flood the bathroom meanwhile. Ah, well.. World's in balance, I suppose :p

Thursday 29 October 2009

Wishlist du jour

Things I really really need.

Well, no, okay, things I really really want, but to an egomaniac, that's not much of a difference..

A camera. Preferably a Mark.
Kindle. Not vital for my perseverance, but vital for my reading lately, as all the books I want to read are downloaded and I hate reading off the comp_screen.
A very good electrical drawing board.
A very good (versatile) drawing and photoshop program. Or at least the key for it, as I've downloaded about a dozen and cannot crack them. Hacker I am not. Though, hey, I nearly finished writing the code for my own blogger template. I wonder if it'll be the end of the world?
Maybe a gun. But not really. Maybe definitely the Maine Coon. :D


I think the reason I want some of these things is not so much to become their proud owner, but because they bring along a certain responsibility that changes their surroundings. Camera would make me take pictures again, full throttle, photoshop and drawing panel would teach me a whole new style of drawing, the cat would make me clean up my desk more often :P And what is more cushy than lying on a sofa, embraced with your  love, wrapped in a blanked like a falafel, watching evening news, and a wolverine purring on your thighs, demanding to be tickled behind the ear, cutting off your femural circulation... :D   In the end it all  comes down to how you go to bed in the eve. :P

Hellooouu. Hell, I've been so wild lately i think I've never been closer to a heart attack...
          Not really expecting it, I came into some money.. See, it's not MAKING money with art that would be an issue, because I do, it's that it's gone in an INSTANT. Luckily I'm not one of those authors who receive an up-front and block out, as there is more where this came from :) Not SO much, but enough to suddenly grab all the bill slips and pay for the past three months of debt, pay off a former room-mate AND (Grandma sold some of the cards - it's winter season, things are picking up....) buy some winter clothes for Piček and moi, hands shaking, so thrilled to be able to spend again. I was going to get myself a Kindle instantly, but then I thought this is not the time to stop wishing for it, so I arranged to buy Piček a TV instead. There's stuff he's been wanting, like a good gaming mouse and something he could watch all those pre-paid channels for (I've never been a TV creature, so I have no understanding for wanting it, but he seems to really do, so... And a mouse, for Pete's sakes. It's just a mouse. Sure, I couldn't afford to do it two days ago when I was crying how poor we are, and I am just as penniless today, but at least in the middle I could afford to buy my boyfriend a tiny gadget that'll make his game more fun. It does sound like a good idea to add fuel to the fire already burning than try and start a whole new one. He got me a smoothie maker for my birthday, knowing I really want one - the opportunity to give me a Kindle should remain his...

Which leaves us with my latest sadomasochistic fetish - browsing for the camera... When did I so unwittingly switch alliegence from Nikon to Canon?? I have seen Marks II (oddly reviewed better than the IIIs??) sell for 2000 eu and IIIs for 3000.. They are probably stolen, box and all, but, you know, fuck it. Who am I to be above thieving. Lens may prove to be another interesting investment, but... Ugh... browsing, seeing that  awesome machine, imagining its weight in my hand... I can almost SEE what it would be like looking through it...

By the time I can buy one, I'll have the whole concept for the book finished in my head. Gods know I have plenty *almost* finished books right here on this desk. ..

But you can't rush a good thing. If it's not ready, it's not ready. Rush it tomorrow.

Wednesday 28 October 2009

Oh My Fkng GoD?! KINDLE TURNED GLOBAL!!!!??!


:D


:D


:D
LOOOOL  Nathan Fillion's character in his latest show, the lovably obnoxious crime fic writer Castle dresses up in Mal Reynolds costume for Halloween :DDDD And his teenage daughter comments 'Didn't you wear this like five years ago?'  So cute! :D

Shows this week were surprisingly good. Some are still on trial period, so it's hard to decide if they're just warming up or if these are the last struggling gasps of an aged marathon runner (say, Stargate Universe), but some ( kmm kmm *Lie to Me* kmm) are very very good. I've gotten as far as 'Light' for SG-U and 'Grievous bodily harm' in Lie to me. I finished the True Blood's second season, turned on by the obvious choice of lusty interest, and showed Dogville, the fast-forward version + the finale to Piček, who has banned me from watching such cruel films until my nightmares stop and am now on a diet of Kung Fu Panda and Family Guy.
Maintenance day, so I'm turning myself on by browsing the current camera market... It's cold and it won't be light enough to draw (yes, I'm drawing again; I've managed to finish three card designs yestereve, though the third one is fickle and refuses to come out the way I want it. I want it clear and minimalistic and it seems dull but if I add anything, my basic idea is gone :D Fickle fickle fickle)


My skill and ambition have been upgraded, so I need a camera that'll keep up - in this case even lead a little. I don't just like the Mark III because of the way its name sounds, (same way my favorite gun is called CheyTac), but it's the Aphrodite of cameras to date - flawless by moral criteria. Of course by the time I can afford it there will be a Mark IX out and I'll be able to have cushy wishes all over again :D Wishing rulz!

I read about a lens - a small, cheap, plastic thing, the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II, practically useless for anything else, but ideal for studio portraiture. I've never cared for specific lenses before. One-size-serves-all was usually a way to go, as I was far more often on the field than indoors - and who the heck would carry around TWO lenses? Porky used to live in a sock.  


I think I'm starting to understand how DeviantArt hits work... Will get right on it :D

The Dollhouse episode about Priya/Sierra was kind of cool - just enough of the annoying lead and plenty of the odd Nepalese beauty - at the moment my favorite kind of beauty..

The other day we had a fight again, Piček and myself, about how no matter how much I do, we simply don't make any money (NOT actually true, but I was being a jerk, so.. In those moments I need to make things worse before I can start feeling better). Supposedly gran is bringing me quite some today, for selling the cards, but that's gypsy logic - she's bringing me more money than I gave her cards to sell. It's hard to decide what to do with it... Reasons against taking it are a) it'll be thrown in my face at some point, b) I'll put myself in the family money feud again, c) I don't want it and reasons for it are a) I need it, b) I miss gran and c) it will be less dramatic if I play along than if I refuse it... Drama.

An old colleage from the army duty days is offering me a few commissions - she wants call cards, a logo and a book... Call cards would pay for the printer toner, logo would pay for my 'manager offers' and the book.. well... if paid, the book will pay for the camera. Which is probably good enough proof it's too good to be true.

The 'manager offers' are a part of the argument - Piček and will each try two completely new ways of selling stuff.. So I've written this letter... Small, heartfelt, cutesy friendly letter about the greeting cards and coming X-mas season.. Traditions, cooked vine, scent of cinnamon in the air... I plan to make it look really original and send it to about a 100 big firm managers and suchlike - folk who are bound to need cards for the employees. You never know. It just might work...


Monday 26 October 2009


Yay, second season of True Blood downloaded just as I got up!... I love stories taking place in Louisiana, I love the colors, the trees, the clothes and of course that sexy black magic in the air. Always wanted to live there and if I ever come into money I'll build myself a house not entirely unlike that of here portrayed Maryann. Spacious, simplistic, full of art and a nice cooling garden that'll feel like it could be in Caribbean or Greece or Spain.. I'm fairly certain I'd fuss and be out of my mind thororgh the entire building process and Piček would just let me be, knowing I am never happier then when I creatively fuss :D

Uu, forgot to mention yesterday - my momma got such pretty porcelain coffee cups for her retirement, really posh stuff (it comes from the studio that offered a set to the English Queen when she was visiting, but I'm not saying this to drop names, I'm just saying it's really pretty, even in my jealous opinion :p) Only thing I hold against the couple that makes them, is they keep giving the sets such fancy French sounding names, as if they were embarrassed to be from around here. It turned my stomach when Trump's latest trophy wife did the same thing - denied her origins and made herself appear Austrain. Austrian, for the love of all that's gardened and yoddelly!



No idea when I turned so patriotic, lol, but my father will be very proud :) I never know whether to be happy when he's amazed at what nice things I am able to produce, or be upset that he's amazed I can make nice things. Slippery slope, that, fatherly love. :p

Sunday 25 October 2009

Hehe, I am being told I'm pushing my passion for blogs lately so far, in a month's time I'll be two hours short every day to update them all daily...  :P


- one for me
- one for the alternate me from my books
- one for evil me
- one for WoW me
and one for my projects.


But the templates are so puhhhdy! I could start four more just to use the templates I found!

On music, plastic cutlery and orange food.

Ahhh, Sundays... I can sleep in late ('till, like, seven!! :D), I get to molest Piček (who has three stages of waking up: the cushy, horny, funky stage, when he's super nice; the half awake stage in which he's super grumpy, and the almost fully awake stage, in which he's trying to make me go back to sleep :P), I make us milky coffee and cushy breakfast, I put the things to the washing machine and shower with my teeth clattering... So nice :D

I've thought about why I don't like music in rooms like these... I know some people who always have music playing, who wake up and turn the player on.. But I am far too into silence. Maybe noises from the street. Music takes the room, it dictates the certain mood. selecting it would be too much of a bother for me and then the room would be smaller and fuller. I like my rooms big and bright. Oddly enough, though, I far prefer falling asleep with the lights on and listening to Piček play WoW once he's downed 4 Red Bulls and still has a level to clear. He tucks me in, tickles my hair, kisses me and leaves me dissolved over a pillow like Edko over his favorite shoe, and the fastest way for me to go is with lights fully on and noises.

This is from my earlier adulthood. My sister used to live a much noisier life, there's be bangy sounds, loud movies, horrific band discographies booming way into the night and all my jobs usually involved getting up at 4. It made college dorm feel incredibly dull by comparison. Any later when I'd live with my parents, if someone was walking around at night, trying to do so soundlessly, I couldn't sleep at all. Talk loud, play TV or games, have a party next door and I'm well off. I could probably sleep like a baby on a Metallica concert.

A friend and I often compared phobias and other idiotic habits and tried to figure out why I do stuff compulsively. Like, I never eat orange food. I always leave the orange bits on the side of the plate. That one remains a mystery. Why I prefer plastic cutlery is because I have bad teeth and metal ones make me feel vulnerable. And why I always leave some food on the side of the plate, even if it's not orange - because I always ate opposite of my mum till I moved out and she is a tad spoiled and would always find something wrong with her meal and leave food aside (in her defense, she's got a great figure), so in my mind that's the way having a meal is done.

It's so fun being an artist. You can afford loads of weird things and people just shrug at you. "Sorry, I'm hard into a creative period, I cannot really function properly in the Real world..."
       

Saturday 24 October 2009

'Feeling better' Saturday

I love these autumn mornings, when everything is gray and oozy, rain isn't really rain but just something cold and wet dripping from every surface, melting the trees and posters and soil, getting everything rotten and ready for frost... There are no colors, no shadows; no music left from summer nights, no fragrance but smog and smoke, nothing alive is moving in the street but delivery trucks... I wish I had some good dreary pictures on the subject :D

But soon of course umbrellas come by and if Porky was alive I'd over-expose the shutter and you could see how umbrellas travel in this great riverbed that is my street... The street should change, it should be more like some neat French cafe avenue with quaint shops and cushy sit-out.. Unfortunately, no. In days like these it is a lonely street with seven bakeries and I still prefer to shop for bread in the mall.

Feeling much better today. My thighs are starting to ache again from having been in the same position for three days (I spend 8o% of my time awake sitting), but the whole techno pagan mode is on full throttle and I've already laid out 5 blogs AND did my fishing and cooking dailies :D For me this little ritual is like going to church. Some use Jesus as part of conversation, we use WoW.

Friday 23 October 2009

Friday. Still fasting: unable to paint, or do anything for more than a minute, really, I've spent the day watching True Blood (as tall, blonde and feminine as the Skarsgaard creature is, Sepp he is not.) My libido ought to have kicked in at the sight of someone so obviously aloof and, well, cold, but all I had was spend the morning feeling bad and crying over stupid stuff. Last night Piček got me in a wrestling position where I was completely helpless and the feeling of someone getting me so pinned down completely freaked me out. That's when I first started to cry. It got better towards lunch with Dromi and Mags (first lunch we prepared. Not that we can cook with what we've got to work with, we can just purchase great stuff), but I am just too sad about the loss of Porky. Finally gone, my loyal little camera has left me imagining all sorts of great photo shoots and approaches to narrative fashion portrait.. perhaps it is good I am deprived of the tools of my trade. It'll get me in a twist I need.

Some bureaucratic technicalities with our biggest contractor (so far not worth shit) and some of my payments bounced... I may or I may not get anything out of the panels.. I so fucking hate being poor...  It's not that I don't think we're not getting anywhere, because we are, wonderfully so, but it's going too damn fucking slow! I'm not having any illusions about deserving the Mark III just now, but I would love at least to be able to get myself SOMETHING.

Okay, I'm messing up everything in my head.. It better just be the period. Porky was just a machine, she should easily be replaced. I shouldn't hold such attachment to objects. And I should definitely get out more. If I stay in for a week, just me and my crazy creative process', I don't function too well once in the real world anymore. It still suits me way too much to be bordelrine agoraphobic - not in the sense that I fear going out, but in the sense that I don't really see why I would bother.

All in all not too pleasant day. Fuck it. There's got to be those, too, sometime.

Thursday 22 October 2009

After having tried out a new template (this one is just not *right*... But it's the closest so far. I need to figure out how Zhang Jingna is using the same sort, only wider..) and naturally messing up my whole layout, I think I finally got it back more-less.. Yesterday was NOT a day for electricity related subjects. I saw a really badly made movie, like, REALLY bad and felt almost sorry for Daryl Hannah, though I don't like her at all. LoL, Tarantino truly made her a disfavor, casting her as Elle - now every role she makes hence forward seems pathetic.
            Next was my absurd DC (disconnection) from WoW (and we're abandoning the realm of English now and entering Warcraft speech) in the midst of WG battle - the serves just failed to support that kind of onslaught under the influence of G.N.E.R.D.S......... Sorry, but I really can't explain what that is - if you're into WoW, you know, if not, it'll make no sense whatsoever.  >.<). During the screen-freeze and by the time I was able to log on again, I had achieved three BG dailies and a seasonal ach, dying and luckily thus being transported out of the fortress, which was by then under ally regime.. It would NOT be too pleasant to log back on and find yourself in the midst of celebrating alliance.. Gang rape fails to describe it.
           I am also still unable to draw, but I am passing time arranging photos, checking out other people's blogs and managing three of my own now... Go me! I'm starting to miss prose but by the time I get anything done, the painting will kick in again and I'll be left with another literus interruptus.
           
Uuu, but my plank samples arrived today! The samples of thingies the beehive panel designs will be printed on - sanded out and all rough and spruce smelling.. Very nice stuff. I am very pleased, as I had no ieda what to expect. We simply HAVE to do this right, even if none of us knows what we're doing. If we'll present these panels to mayors and bank managers and big newspaper editors, they need to be majestic!


Wednesday 21 October 2009



 

 
 

Nepal

I've been going through some potencial book photos and came across a few previously unnoticed good pics from Nepal... I posted some on the pickie sites... 
            It's soothing, going through old stuff, like having a nice tea with an old friend. Best thing about living a good life is that warm memories aren't regrets and nostalgia - they're just warm memories :)

 
 
 


Tuesday 20 October 2009

Page markers and coooolllldd cold mornings



I had to wash mum's jumper, it was making me sneeze like a kitten - NOT something you want while trying to be sexy... Of course hitting the bed passionately and then realizing we both have freezing feet and first need 20 minutes of thawing also isn't the official part of smoochy.
            I've made about 15 or so page markers - something I finished last night because my gamecard expired and nobody was really in the mood to go purchase new ones. Shouldn't slack, though, I need the darn Trick or treats! All Saints is coming up, my second favorite part of the year (right after midsummer) and hopefully the cards will sell. We're gonna go on with another batch off the printer, accumulating debt but also furthering our sell strategy... I hope. It also means I'm gonna have to drive to my father's birth village on the other side of the country to pay my respects and tend to the graves. We used to do that every year together, but now it's my duty. Kinda weird, that place... I know so many stories and do see the village as it once was, but these days its just a village, a tiny town or suburbs and grandfather Shandor's brick factory and my father's birth-house are near debris. I'll take pickies whilst there, you'll see what I mean.

I've tried using eye drops for my weary eyes last night (of course that was yet another dramatic scene, Piček pushing me down, trying to do what I asked him to do... My eyes really do put up a fight). Not sure if there was any effect. It bothers me, because if I nap after lunch, I am perfectly fit to stay up to burn the midnight oil, but then the eyes start to complain. Maybe I shouldn't try to take medicine, maybe I should try taking the hint..




These are some of the page markers. I'm publishing the lot on the NINOVELA blog site :p

Monday 19 October 2009

It is getting ridiculously cold... And by ridiculously cold I mean we haven't really got the doe to heat this place (downside of having a big studio - a bitch to cool in summer burn and a bitch to warm up in winter freeze), so I'm sitting fully dressed in triple socks, nursing a piggie (what we call a hot water bottle clad in a soft toy), drinking buckets of steaming tea and stuffing myself with chocolate. Calories rule!!! I found one of my mum's mega jumpers.. Wool 5 cm thick :D She was a tiny woman, she looked good in humungus outfits..

I've found such a cute template pallate that i'm doing another "web site" like blog just for the finished picks.. This one will be personal and utmost updated :P and the other will be kind of professional. Piček says he's told me so months ago, but I just need to come to things on my own terms...
      I'll have to make a decision today to allow someone else's comic book to become part of the projects... I need to decide on exactly how principled I intend to remain. I'm not signing up for anything Christian or pornographic or political. There's plenty delightful art out there for me to invite into my circle and steer clear of gruesome and cash-only. I'm not THAT cold yet.

I wanna be a painter... 'bout fucking time, too...

Gods, the world of net is so incredible... I get sucked in and the sensation washes over me like a heroin high (I imagine).. I see one gallery site of a young person somewhere in Brazil and it links to an amazing sketch artist in New York and straight into a young concept illustrator for animated film, with  a whole bunch of friends who do even cooler impressions of their lives.... I so need to expand my craft. Not because I wouldn't feel like I'm doing enough, but because there are so many artistic emotions out there! Every mood changes style, every style changes concept, every concept changes technique, every technique changes ambition, every ambition changes the person........

..................enough! Breathe..

Sunday 18 October 2009

Hah! Hallow's End began today!


What a pleasant surprise! I woke up from a nightmare of having baby mice (as if they were actually my babies), result of an unfortunate disclosure of a former's colleague's story - his baby girl died 8 days old - 8 days of a true fight. She was never really meant to live, nothing went right since she was still in the womb, but she still made a run for it and saw what this life is like and then went to Heaven.. As consciously I feel nothing on the subject, subconsciously I'm prepared for at least a week of weird dreams.
     ... but there I go, waking up in the dark (it was something past four am) and expecting nothing but new fishing and cooking dailies, and the whole explosion of Hallowe'en decor and air blows up in my screen! Pumpkins everywhere! :D

Course the first thing that went down was someone transformed me into a fat old seal...

        Last year I didn't pay much attention to achievements and most holidays passed me by in 9o% of tasks, but this year, since I'm 8o and don't do instances up to my rank, I live for achievements like these :D

Saturday 17 October 2009

Eeeeeedddkoooo

You'd have to meet him to believe the stories, but this is Edko in the furrrrr... :D

 


It's not that i'm the kind of an old lady who posts pictures of her cats on her blog , but Edko has the final word on 'cat'. This is the ... most ... heavy-boned... intellectually translucent... PIIIINCHHHthebitch!! ... cat ever. His staring at the particular bathroom tile... Or pushing plastic bags around the parquet... or falling 3o feet backwards after one of the fish he's been stalking makes a fast flip in the tank... Or his 'fetch' tricks... the noises he makes... the way he's beaten by his 1/5 of his weight mate.. his sleeping positions... 

... that is all stuff of legends.

One long Saturday

It's been ages since I've been to a posh restaurant!



Morning stared out pretty hectic.. there was some good diggydiggy and then instantly the haste of me showering and Piček getting junior.. And as soon as we collided, we rushed forth to sis's place to dismantle the front door lock. It needed changing. Gran refused to return the keys, so instead of living in constant dread, we decided to change all locks... Yes. Gran is THAT scary.



Piček easily handled the lock and we all drove uphill to give some exhibition opening texts to mum (she's a critic, so she passes time by opening exhibitions.. It's why as a child I have more quality hours in exhibitions than kindergarten. I always deemed them the ultimate events: you get the music, the food, the lesson in art and the art itself.... And of course the aloof sense of detachement from regular audience. Otherwise I might have felt threatened by some of the work.)




Next was the installation of the posher lock, the kind that stays in place even after the rest of the door's been blown out and it was kind of great driving around in this company: Piček at the wheel, sis riding shotgun, me at one window, Maggie at the other and junior in between... plotting where we could go X-mass shopping..  Vienna? Belgrade? What would be more wild and had better museums? :p



Finally Piček, junior and myself drove to a restaurant, meeting Piček''s birthday mum and the rest of the family. I think because of junior I felt completely a part of them, otherwise I might have felt a little bit like a guest on trial still.. The soup we began with was bad, so I was worried it may prove to be a mistake, but as it was pumpkin season, the marinated meat and veggies (pumpkins! :D) and gravy were amazing.. But nothing compared to deserts! Kids had mousse and adults had fruits-of-the-forest ice-cream in these delightful place/bowls and strong coffee so we didn't all pass out... It was SO good. Honestly, best out-door meal I've had in ages.. Worth the load of money lady paid.. 
Ultimately we drove back home, the boys did math homework and I transcripted some of Piček's work stuff. My wrist hurt. I haven't written by hand in too long.. Am getting Sepp illiterate, lol..
Bit of WoW and Ugly Betty later, and present bloggie, I am ready to bug my honey for some more diggydiggy.
But man does red Bull make me sleepy :S
:p


Friday 16 October 2009

Uh. Spent the last day running around; 'twas sunny and freezing my nuts off and I messed up the afternoon with my advocacy for life again.

             First I drove to the town with the super scary thermal power plant, where my exhibition will be in two weeks. Very cute setting, old town, delightful gallery, great place for getting started. Very nice woman who's setting me up, as well.
             Was so nervous I forgot most of what she gave me to help me arrange thing. I'm THAT whacked, yes. Off to the post office soon, to collect what she's mailed after me..
             Piček's mum had her birthday lunch and I ate till I could barely move - I notice I no longer have the absurd glutton's stamina, even though I seem to have the body of one. So not fair. A 5 year old out-ate me!
            Driving home, though, Piček mentioned he's going hunting next Sunday and although I swore to make an effort and not fuss about this one things he likes to do, it got into a nasty argument and I cried most of the rest of the day...
             I just can't think about him, in the company of men he dislikes, hunting poor foxes and the like, chasing them, frightening them and then shooting them, just so that they can brag and get drunk and think NOTHING of what they're doing. Righteous pricks. Yes, if there's an animal doing grave harm to nearby farms. Yes, if he really went for the serenity of a kill, alone, convinced.. But with these arrogant old beer-drinking, mean farts, just so that they can exterminate everything alive in the forest... Thinking themselves MEN for that, bragging with corpses, posing in bad photos in family albums.. I cannot stand that. This is the one subject we cannot agree upon. No matter how hard I try. I try to respect his passion and every time it comes up or I find myself near another 'hunter', I lose it.
             Then again he says he hasn't killed anything since we started dating in May 2008.
             So... Go me..

Tuesday 13 October 2009

First shop-window display!



My framed pickies are on display in the shop window of the gallery in the main street of our city! Of course they look kind of sad, dull and colorless to me now, that they are somebody else's booty, but hey, it's a move forward. All moves forward are okay. It just annoys me when they're as slows as the next average thing. Piček swears upon slow and steady and I like fireworks!
     .... I wonder if any will sell at all?  I need to find something colorfull and cool that everyone will like instantly... Uh, and I thought of a really cool title for a photography book - and so far I haven't got a SINGLE photo to fit it.. But I have the frame of mind. that's half the victory :D

Grandma on high voltage

Drama in the House of Grandma continues. The absurd thing is, in this family, there are so many truths, people will be able to swear upon anything what they believe is true. I am certain my gran thiks is 100% certain of what she's saying. It is not the first story I've had to try and untangle, that has it's own parallel Universe twin.
               Since pretty much everyone refuses to deal with her and somone is bound to report her to the police for extortion and forgery, I'm off to bargain repeatedly in the audience of yet another retirement home employee.. I hope it doesn't rain. I don't have a car, so I'm going to have to do it all on foot. Godsbless for fishing and cooking dailies in Dalaran, sometimes you needn't even leave the city... Real world has such big teeth.
              Truth is I feel sorry for grandma too much to take any side, even if she is utterly delusional (and I don't think she is, I have a sneaking suspicion they are ALL right). Her hysterical declarations have alienated most of her family and no amount of reasonable talk, professional help or legal certificates can convince her that NO, nobody just *tricks* another into a sale around here. It takes a few years and countless visits to the legal clerks to go through all details.. The clerks made sure of that, it's their cash camel. But the sticky bit is, it doesn't matter what I do, she won't be convinced. And if she didn't have the capability to take things waaay too far, this would all just be funny. I don't even know if I'll be able to solve anything today..I always go in ready to bully sombody but always get tired halfway through.

On a related subject, I watched Crank 2 yesternight and laughed out loud first time in eons! It takes a lot for a show or movie to make me chuckle. Kung Fu Hustle is perhaps one of the rare movies I laugh at all the time. The non-terminal violence comedy. Crank is shot in such an absurd camera, such an absurd story and such absurd performance (Bai Ling radioactive as ever :D), it's fantastic.. I'm amazed actors are willing to do things like that! I only made it up to that ludicrous sex scene on the horse track, but I've seen plenty. I'm making it officially this week's favorite movie :D

Isn't it something, to live your life on such fast forward? One wonders what is better - fast and furious or that of the Zen monks, so slow and uneventful that it feels 400 years going? A wiseass mate once told me something very clever about that, but I forgot what it was and the place on the wall where I wrote it down for posterity got painted over during a redecoration.. Such wisdom, lost to vanity of a smoochy place :p

Monday 12 October 2009

Juliard St. Claire.


Haha, I've been watching an old show (accidental download while checking out what the latest Stargate is supposed to be all about (so far it's mostly about Robert Carlyle and some triple-checked fool-proof human drama..)) and I came across a really cool character. I know JUST how she feels most of the time. :D

Basic plotline is, a team of scientists has to go to a completely alien location and since stuff's going wrong at home, they're a little bit pressed for preparations. The usual intro into most space adventures. There's something like 48 folks, some soldiers, scientists, reporters and so on, mostly volunteers. The lead is a young reporter and her soldier brother, and they have a friend who is like a nerd, but sort of brave. Again, nothing too annoyingly original. They kind of lead the line. BUT. Somewhere along the way some screenwriter had an interesting night out and some heavy hangover the next morning, and they came up with Dr. Juliard St. Claire.

In the very first scene when she's introduced, amidst all the rush, they explain to the lead trio in a hurry they need to make sure someone else is along, but she's on the base under unofficial circumstances - and heavily sedated. perish the thought she isn't sedated. She's a super kick-ass scientist slash explorer slash commando that was once, a long time ago sent to rescue someone in the orbit, but as they were long gone and communications were severed with her craft, she was left to drift out, till she managed to find a way and return on her own. Basically, the soldier chief admits, they left her in space for four years and now she's really, I mean REALLY pissed off.

Now, although Juliard is in her early thirties (this was from before every female in every show had to be 22 and an ex supermodel) she keeps her face very angry and very ugly all the time, sometimes even when she's sleeping. She really is chronically pissed off. Of course when the group arriveson the new location and starts arranging ad hoc living conditions, the meds eventually run out. She starts to comprehend that not onl ywas her return to Earth intercepted and she didn't even begin any psychological treatment, she is already once more shipped to another hell hole without her consent and everyone is treating her as if she is ungrateful. Funny thing is that at first she just goes around hitting people when they try to speak to her. As someone with by far the longest time in space, she is somewhat of an eminence, but she's really ill tempered.

Fast forward to several episodes in, when the show dares come near her again. (Usually she's just helping fix stuff, though usually for the first half of the episode she declares how she's perfectly happy watching everyone die painfully, but usually comes with the solution in the end and often doesn't even admit it was her who saved the day, the lead characters just suspect it..) The protagonists encounter their adversaries for the show's duration - a race of nasty soldierly conqueror types of humanoid, but not people. They basically steal technology and go around being jerks. Over time their ways have stolen what is useful around the solar system and have pushed those, who were more advanced and didn't really want to fight far away, so our fellas haven't really got anyone to rely on. What fun would it be otherwise?

Well, Juliard is nowhere near interested in being antagonized by someone who, as he puts it, has acquired their comes-with-the-uniform scowl in front of a ship's reflective surface, and she disables their machines and steals one of their crafts with one of their soldiers aboard. Torturing him with 'long speeches about just how bad an innocent astronaut's life can get and a little bit of liquid nitrogen', she returns after two days and organizes a whole defense against the bad guys. Her hostage is kept for further study, but during an attack later in the show he escapes and towards the end of the season returns just so that he could kill Dr. St. Claire.

So on and so forth, I've watched the entire season fast forward, mostly just skipping to reach scenes with her. I like her, because unlike others she's quite two-dimensional without having that held against her. Many other characters, even some of the extras, tend to go deep into personal drama and motives and histories and relationships, yadda yadda, whereas she is just - pissed off. Even though, she gets all the best kicks, best saves and even best sex. Her coming onto one of the bad alien's leaders (she's high at the time on home-made LSD) during their 'negotiations' is hilarious. "I don't care about those others, you can eat them for all that's worth to me, but they say you save one life, you save the day and if you and I could get back together later on and have some quality sexual engagement, you'd really be saving me," she conspires with him, while hanging from his shoulder in front of pretty much everyone in the show.

In the last episode everyone fights and good guys versus bad guys eventually win, highlighting some grave casualties, but Juliard's shuttle, after she's managed to contribute to the final save is attaceked and shot off the main ship and into the orbit of a passing planet. As they are unable to retrieve her, the cast mourns for her, but we see the closure on her story for the time being, as she climbs out of the broken shuttle in some arid wasteland, pissed off some more at her fate. (She knows they won't be able to come and get her. and is not the sort an individual just yet to linger on despair.) And yet, while she takes her time to hate her life before she sets off to fix things for herself (and probably everyone else) again, she realizes her shuttle was hit by another shuttle, even more destroyed, and another survivor crawls out of the debris: her old friend the tortured soldier alien (their subtly sexy hate-hate relationship was one of the grateful storylines.). She realizes she at least won't be bored (a line from a previous debate on the subject of the aliens "If you're wondering what kills you faster - heat, disease, falling from a height or them, you can stop asking yourself right now.") Her last words of disbelief and almost first joy seen on her face, to him, as he manages to climb his feet, but too hurt to launch and rip her apart (you have to understand that those aliens were something like uber fighters, more than humans, kinda like Predators from another franchise - only amore agreeable), are: "Oh.. You are SO fucked."

Thursday 8 October 2009

First framed batch

Yaaay! First framed bash just came in!
                       Man, they look so weird, now that they're no longer just my doodling ...  I'm not even sure I'd like them if I saw them done by someone else's hand.. I let the frame craftsman do the selections  of the frame himself, I trust him with what's what when it comes to woodwork.. But still, they look so... somebody else's things, off for sale....... O.o

The angle of the shots is a bit tilted, sorry about that. matted glass is a bitch for reflections :S








 

History part II.a2.0

Hah!

I found these three things while cleaning up my files, and I just couldn't go pass them. These three thingies mean a lot to me :D


It would probably require a whole lot of approval from peeps on the shot, but I just have to add it to my memoire :D Shot was taken was after 19 weeks of fuckwit training in the country's worst training centre - and by worst I mean it was the hottest place and instructors were a nightmare. I have never been so thin or so athletic in my whole life! I think I cried in the bathroom every Monday morning, knowing what pain and trial I will have to put up with the following week, but now that all that's forgotten, it was a really cool experience. It teaches you a lot, that kind of strain. Pity I never kept up with any of the girls from there. We were warrior queens, at least for those 19 weeks. They chose good ones, none of the whiney abused babes in the wood you see in the movies. Some were the kind that ate men for breakfast. Not me, of course. I was the chubby, mouthy, idiotic type that always came last to the finish line and wrote articles about warfare diplomacy to the barracks leaflet. Was popular, though. If anyone, folk in the unit is bound to admire someone who can shoot like that..
              Interesting closure, however, was when 4 years later, they sent me back to train for an officer status and I was suppose to undergo a similar training - but by then I already saw what becomes of female soldiers, what with watering the ficus and making coffee and cleaning ashtrays for some near-retired old fart in some god forsaken old warehouse.. The first time an instructor yelled at me to humiliate me as part of the training, I walked out. No fucking way I'm falling for the same propaganda twice.

The second thingie is a design for the cover of my book called The Necessary Bard

The design depicts me, standing in front of a see-through screen, covered in my thoughts, behind which is my bleak reality. On this side I'm a kick - ass bard. This was the first epic novel in my own language I have written in adult life - my attempt at actually adding a cool adventure novel to our literature.
Of course I never finished it - but I did get pretty far.
                The story takes place right after the War for Startracker - after all we had was destroyed and vast majority of my colleagues dead. I wasn't sure what I was, but I did wake up in a forlorn forest with some of my things and came to discover I was in a completely outlandish environment - it wasn't Earth, it wasn't modern, it had no books. It was something like Middle Ages France, but a bit fantastic. And I had nothing to bargain with. And winter was closing in. Slowly but surely, though, I managed to earn enough for bare necessities - a mule, for example, and began exploring the land, drawing a map and teaching people to write. Yes, I was a one-girl plague of literacy :) Thorough the tale, I acquired a few companions, most of which one way or another turned out to be my old colleagues, looking after me. There were some new ones, too, such as Tempa Medeidre and her demon, Behemut, which stayed on to date as a kind of my girlfriend.  This was a cool, cool book. I better finish it someday, now that I'm in just the right business ;D

 And this...




... is my favorite family photo of them all. This speaks so much about us, about my dad and our nature and the situations we put ourselves in.. It's simply monumental.
                 Long time ago, long before I had any say in it, there was a nasty earthquake in Skopje - a Yugoslavian city got leveled to pulp. Journalists from near and far all gravitated towards the ruin to lend a hand and write back home with reports. This is my dad, the young journalist tailor-made for the occasion. I think he even bicycled his way down to get there..
               See the press center? The smallest tent ever. The ground? Mud and silt. The tiny carpet to protect the tool of trade - an old newspaper under a huge type-writer. My dad, skanky, hairy and in tight shorts, his shirt buttoned the exact same way as he wears it still, and a pair of rubber boots by, for field effort...

Can anyone imagine still the old school journalism? Where you had to get your butt dirty?? These days we log on-line and wait for the press reports and what we get is half a tourist pamphlet of the location and half some political statement about the society. The mud, the fleas, the dead, the lack of instruments, that's beyond anyone's interest now.. And news of those kind would linger for a long time. Almost everyone around here remembers those days, those disasters. We, the latest slaves of the info onslaught, remember perhaps three of the worst per year, perhaps 3 years back. Two out of three of those are from USA, as they simply can't get enough of self-pity and drama. I always get the feeling, like with that dreadful tsunami that wiped out the eastern shores of Asia, that Americans *instantly* needed one of their own and as they lost part of a city, it simply needed to be a faaar worse tragedy than all of the eastern Asia combined. But then again I think most of the eastern Asia shore has recovered by now whereas poor Orleans is still dumbstruck.


Wednesday 7 October 2009





The fifth panel coming up... it's supposed to be the village seeing off the bull for slaughter, but we all know how that story really went :S

I like the part of the broken off bit, the part that in real world would be licked off by sun and rain..

Ha!  Am starting to grasp the magic of photo editing! 3 seconds to take the shot and 3 hours to make it look like nothing of the person and everything of a pretty thing.

This is what I would look like if I was 15 years younger, 15 pounds lighter and, well, not me.

Piček said if I ever airbrush my freckles out of my skin again, he'll beat me :p

Tuesday 6 October 2009

Deviations update ( :)) )

Starting day: 6. 10. 2009. - 67 / 15 / 76
Second day: 76 / 26 / 109

Zemotion reached 5 million in 6 years. I'd care to beat that in, say, 4.. :)

Third day (I won't do this every day anymore, I promise :p): 76 / 45 / 126
4. : 84 / 63 / 160

17.10.2009 - 85 / 85 / 205
21.10.2009 - 97 / 96 / 250
26.10.2009 - 98 / 134 / 300
5.11.2009 - 101 / 188 / 400
15.11.2009 - 101 / 260 / 500
22.11.2009 - 102 / 305 / 600
1.12.2009 - 103 / 409 / 700
17.12.2009 - 105 / 541 / 800
14. 1. 2010 - 116 / 642 / 1000
Photo shoot got delayed (can't say I am too disappointed, I kind of really didn't feel prepared... I seem to be in that stage of life where just throwing myself into a situation and seeing what I can make of it is no longer enough.. I want to be a little more in control. I want to be a lot more educated :) so I'm painting another panel.
             My dad told me these three stories he once wrote, calling them 'independence' stories - it's stuff he remembers from the IIWW and rural tales.. Great stuff, just very... hard core. I am not a fan of stuff with dead people in them and even less of people being mean. There was a story which I remembered altogether differently, about a bull that's sold for slaughter and the whole village sees it off as part of the communal ritual - a nice thing. It's not what the story turns out to be about, though - in truth (I called him last night and he told it to me again), the bull was maltreated by a jealous hand (bulls those days had all the fun when cows needed to be inseminated, now it's just a routine job for the vet's syringe). So the day when the pull was in the procession to be sold off for slaughter, he tore off of the chain and paid back to the hand for all the torture... Nothing was left much of the man. Dad was very specific about the entrails hanging off the bull's horns :S
             Ew..

I have four errands to run today, but I can't remember all. I swear, I am SO distracted... I seriously need an assistant, because I am capable of forgetting why there's an empty cup in my hands and I'm standing in the middle of the kitchen. Of course when it comes to painting, I can see what I must do it absurd detail. When it comes to my work, I am as sharp as a hatchet. 

Today is the 6th. I was supposed to have 5 by tomorrow and I already have five, but I will make another, in case on turns out to be unusable. Then it's the hard part time...

Ah, I just remembered what I forgot :)  And just on time, too.. Thank you, brain. There's hope for you, yet :p

Monday 5 October 2009

Deviant Art


I've posted about 50 or 70 illustrations and photos on Deviant Art (also got 68 sightings in two hours, ugh).. Would you believe if i said my hands are shaking? I haven't had a coming out like this since for ever..

I figured since I've taken so much from it, I may as well give some back. My next move is to upgrade. That would be me, going pro 8)

Sunday 4 October 2009


...more Beehive Panels

After the two-day no-work diet, doodling with the 'bookmarks', playing WoW and drinking my coffee smoothies - last ice coffees of the season :'( - I am back to painting the panel designs. Outside I get the whole nature's show - morning mists, daily drizzle, fine Indian summer afternoons and evenings that smell of fried chestnuts and sound of chatter.

I draw these completely spontaneously, usually while Piček is powerleveling me through instances and I have to wait in the corner so as not to get eaten, trampled, poisoned, frozen or all of the above..


I've gone two ways with the two new panes: one of my city, with an old map, the castle and compass, done in almost none typical way for the Beehive Panel style... whereas the second is almost exactly like an original would be. (I haven't aged it either.) Though I employ far more perspective and space composition that there should be, and more living gestures, more color and a direct theme. Because I still have no idea what plastering them onto the actual wooden plates and then lacquering them with aging chemicals will do to additionally 'age' them, I'm leaving the 'Vine harvest' one intact.

 
 
 




 


It's not entirely finished yet, this last one, as I am not yet exactly certain what I want to do with the castle and what the flag over town will say, but I love the way ink from the compass melted.. I was watching Fringe 'Night of Desirable Objcts' at the time, hehe. What a name for a lure!