May 2008 Archives

Nor do I usually draw baby noses. (Illustration Friday, topic: baby)

Prints: chrisleavens.imagekind.com

I don’t believe you. You break our date even before we have a chance to meet? You seemed pretty eager to get together a week ago when you made the date (yes, that’s right – you made it). I don’t get it, what’s your problem? We exchanged e-mails, we talked on the phone, we had a few IM conversations – I thought we were all ready to go. Now you pull this “I don’t feel like we’re connecting” crap on me? Of course we’re not connecting yet! That’s what we were going to try to do on Saturday!

When your home is overrun by orange and yellow vines and vegetative cyclopes, it's time to worry. (Illustration Friday, topic: worry)

I put a little extra work into this one, hope it shows. Now the tired is setting in heavily.

On an Adobe Illustrator-related tech note, I've found the root of my computer's slowness when confronted with complex images. It's all tied to the thumbnail previews in the layers pallet. After each new item is drawn, it's redrawn in the layers pallet. If I hide the layers pallet momentarily while working on complex images, the slowness disappears. This is a minor nuisance for me because I like to keep the layers pallet exposed all the time -- I use lots of layers (I like my files to be somewhat organized). But I guess if it helps me to put off dropping 2.5 Gs on a new computer, I'll deal with it for now.

Prints: chrisleavens.imagekind.com

They sat across the table from each other, unblinking. The one on the left was glaring at the one on the right, who was glaring right back. They weren’t engaged in a glaring contest (a close cousin of the staring contest, only with more ire), but they might as well have been.

They both sat rigid in their chairs, their hands resting on the table between them. One could imagine the two of them starting a shoving match with it, but neither of them seemed inclined to instigate one. Each appeared to be waiting for the other to make the first move.

The large-footed bird strode along happily in his new extra-wide loafers he picked up at the factory outlet store in Camarillo. (Illustration Friday, topic: wide)

I'm super busy this week, so I figured I'd just throw together a VERY quick ink & paper drawing this time around. It's too bad, because I'm in the planning stages for a piece that would've fit this topic perfectly.

So what's keeping me so busy? Tonight, I'm taking part in a group art show in downtown LA, so I've been prepping for the show for the last couple weeks, putting together promo materials, carting prints to the show location, and updating my portfolio site, which isn't quite done, but it's definitely informative enough and functional.

Bobby Ryan was as surprised as anybody when he was named Employee of the Month at the data entry center. He had been on the job for a little over a year and didn’t think he’d distinguished himself too much one way or the other. He showed up on time every day, never called out sick and carried out his duties competently and without complaint. If that was enough to qualify him for Employee of the Month, then so be it.

The perks enjoyed by the Employee of the Month were minor, but Bobby wouldn’t have wanted a whole lot of hoopla anyway. He received a $20 gift card to a local eating establishment and a display with his photo and a brief write-up on the office wall (if they had an in-house newsletter, he might have been interviewed for it, but they didn’t, so he wasn’t), but the most tangible benefit was the use of the Employee of the Month parking space, which was right across from the building’s entrance. The trouble was he never got to park in it.

I was passing by the liquor department in a grocery store near the famous University of Southern California when I saw this sign.

A little science for you alls...

For those of you not in the know, the name of the sporting forces of the USC is the "Trojans," named after the "Trojans." They have had this name since before the widespread adoption of broadcast analogue television and, rumour has it, plan to keep it in the coming age of broadcast DIGITAL TV.

While they have been having "Trojans" as their sports-people name, there has been another school in Los Angeles, called the UCLA, where they have opted to call their sports-practitioners not "Trojans" but "Bruins."

Perhaps it was over this point that these two fine institutions of college stuff went to war and became bitter enemies; or perhaps became bitter enemies and went to war. Irregardless, a state of tension, occasionally flaring into real-deal street violence has simmered twixt them for a time that the kids and the wags both refer to as "long ass."

Because of this, new laws apparently have been enacted while I have been busy playing stupid computer games. These laws probably make it very hard for people from the UCLA to buy their liquor in the store where I took this picture. In the past, that wouldn't have been such a big deal, but today's unpredictable regional real estate prices and the recent discoveries about the health benefits of moderate red wine consumption make this one of today's big "hot button" issues.

It should also be noted that, in the local parlance, the term for gamboling about while on the sauce is to be "a-brewin'" (due to the idea some here might have that, even inside of you, the booze, she continues to brew). This sign thus has a second layer of meaning and is actually frightfully clever for being able to efficiently block purchases by both registered students and faculty of the UCLA as well as ANY adult who dares to enter the joint on less than a fully even keel.

Two sky arms develop the land, ironing away the mountains and electrically binding buildings to the flattened earth. (Illustration Friday, topic: electricity)

I'm really not sure about this one. I had to finish it on my 12" iBook G4 because Adriana and I went out of town this weekend. The colors on the iBook are really hard to gauge. Creating something like this on a computer of this caliber is a brand of masochism I'm not eager to soon repeat. I'll probably go back in and fix it when I'm on my home computer.

What time is it? Five after? Don’t fret; he could just be running late or something. Maybe he’s having a hard time finding parking. I know how difficult it can be around here at this time of day. I even showed up ten minutes early because I didn’t want to risk being late.

At least I know he can’t be lost because he’s the one who picked this place. I don’t even drink coffee, but, as I figured there would be, there’s hot chocolate or fruit juice if I want to go either of those routes. I’ll wait until he shows up to order, though. There’s nothing more pathetic than sitting in a coffee shop and drinking hot chocolate by yourself – if you don’t have a laptop, that is. I suppose I could have brought mine, but frankly I didn’t think I’d need to.

The seemingly endless parade of oblivious birds chomping his brethren had planted enough seeds of resent, anger, and hatred to animate the building. (Illustration Friday, topic: seed)

I've been invited to display some of my work at a group show here in Los Angeles on May 17, so I've been busy preparing (hence the lateness of this post). If you live out here, or you're going to be in the area and want to check out the show, feel free to email me for more details: chris[type at symbol]unloosen.com

And yes, as one might imagine, I was really, really tempted (in a heavy sort of way) to use this topic as an excuse to draw multiple Neils from The Young Ones, but I found restraint.

Prints: chrisleavens.imagekind.com

Word has it that when the Trojans are feeling INhospitable, they take off the tape...

Even as he took the first bite of his sandwich, Earl knew he was making a phenomenally stupid mistake. It was the latest in a string of mistakes he had made in the last few days and the one that was likely to cause him the most immediate grief.