Iris Amelia: Thoughts, et cetra

By the way, happy new year.

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve posted last (as usual) and I see WordPress has revamped a bit. I like it, even though I’m a little overwhelmed – probably has to do with the fact that I’m still half-asleep…

I’ve recently met two wonderful people.

One (December 3):

I am currently spoken for and I’m very happy right now. He is absolutely amazing. (He actually set this drawing as his desktop wallpaper on his laptop! Nyawww…)

Two (December 13):

THE OTHER LOVE OF MY LIFE, ALTON BROWN. I’m so so so so thrilled to have gotten to meet him. He is probably the friendliest, most down-to-earth celebrity to ever exist. I need to write a thank-you to the Adrienne Arsht Center.

Life is pretty good right now. I’ve finished finals, I’m home, and catching up with a lot of sleep.

I hope Mr. Spiegelman wouldn’t be offended by his portrayal in these drawings. I don’t know the guy, but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be like this. I’m such an odd one, yes.

Click for larger view.

It’s almost the weekend(!!!)

Been doing a lot of thinking. Today’s been a long day.
One day, one day.

Click for larger view.

Came out very rough, needed to take more time with it. Wah.
‘Night, all.

So today I attended day 1 of 2 of my book fair weekend. As you may know, Miami Dade College hosts the Miami Book Fair International every year. It is an amazing, amazing event with so many authors visiting from around the world to give talks about their craft and works.

The Book Fair, for the first time ever, hosted what’s called the Comix Galaxy, which is all about comics as an art form. They had a huge tent filled with comic books to buy – there was even a stand just for Watchmen books. I, of course, was thrilled about the installation of the Comix Galaxy, and I pray to God they bring it back next year.

I attended two lectures given by artists today, both of whom were affiliated with the Comix Galaxy exhibition.

Hints?

I think I’m in love.

I purchased Spiegelman’s Breakdowns, a collection of his earlier illustrations and McCloud’s Understanding Comics, which looks like a fascinating read. I met both men separately during the book signings, which was absolutely great.

I asked questions during both of their lectures and got great responses. I wish I could hang out with Scott McCloud one day. I can totally see us having Cheetos in my dorm. Oh God, I do NOT have a crush on Scott McCloud, I DO NOT!

Spiegelman’s just fascinating. I think he noticed me when I was taking photos of him having a cigarette while he was on the phone. Oops. I wish I wasn’t stupid enough to forget my camera in my bag… but I was absolutely dumbfounded with both of these artists. I have found two new figures for inspiration and influence. I am ridiculously excited, but

Expect more updates soon!

And hello to you, Mr. Webcomic Artist I met in line at the McCloud signing! Best of luck to you!

I know I’m supposed to be drawing my life, but the weather this evening was pretty nice. Finally got some poetry out of me. Untitled, for now.

———

Blissful, crystal air
That glides across my arms like a swan about to leap up,
Up into the air
Cool and crisp and there,
Embracing me after a long and weary absence;
It is finally autumn and I can sense
The leaves teasing the blades below my feet,
Adding the crunch to my step, pooling together,
And I soon remember those miniature towers I’d brutally (joyfully) destroy.

Night cloaks all. The auburn streetlights poke the sky
And interrupt its nightness – that’s what stars are for, don’t you remember?
They stand tall in iron, glowing bright, eyeing me as I
trample through invisible golden leaves.
And then the wind whisks about me, and I feel my hair
Dance about me there, and I feel that curl of air
Embracing me like a woolly scarf around my neck,
Or a cat, around my neck.

And now I say: hello, winter, hello.
You can never overstay your welcome, you know.
You are not a rude guest until you freeze,
and bury the golden boys beneath your heavy, soppy tears
Of white heaven cream.
You will not bury me, until I say goodbye, goodbye
to your precious crystal air.

As part of the job on the paper, my friend/editor & “superior” (I mean this in the nicest way, Eric!) writes weekly e-mails to our writers. Sometimes these e-mails contain highlighted sentences and words in different colors. I’ve described them like this: it’s as if a rainbow threw up into a letter.

I’ve said this metaphor in regards to my own work as well; a father’s day card I drew (and lost) was full of sparkling hearts, bright colors and stars; I was short of glued-on macaroni to make it a true masterpiece.

Why do I bring up this rainbow barf metaphor?

Well.

Say hello to my current desktop.

Found this great wallpaper over at Pixel Girl Presents, as well as many of the dock icons seen here!

The dock, from L-R: Finder, iTunes, Stickies (digital Post-It notes), Adium (IM client – Eve from WALL·E – cutest thing ever!), Photoshop CS3/Elements (I got bored of the standard “Ps” box), Firefox (THIS ICON IS SO AWESOME), iCal (didn’t change it because I like seeing the date on start-up), Preview, System Preferences (because the first thing that comes to mind when I think, “Oh, my, I want to change my desktop background” is a symbol of the Chinese Zodiac morphed into cuteness), Microsoft Word 2008, iPhoto, HP Scan Pro (didn’t change), Downloads (BUNNYYYY) and (filled) Trash.

I also have a great fondness for my doodley hard drive icon (from the same batch for my Finder). You can see there’s lots of bunny love here.

Eric (and to anyone else thinking of buying a Mac) – this is why you should really buy a Mac. No, forget the ease of use – look at the customization-ness! Your computer could be just as a-Doral-able adorable as mine! That is, if you want it to be adorable. I understand if you want it to just be cool, slick and/or bitchin’.

I’m tempted to leave the library now since I got some studying done for Chaucer; I specifically looked and read through the tales that’ll be on the midterm I have on Tuesday. My friend informed me of this fantastic site with superb translations of the tales in modern English. Saints be praised, indeed! But I do wholeheartedly appreciate the original text of Chaucer’s epic work; you really do lose the melodiousness of the verses with the translation.

I was amazed/amused at how much sex Chaucer puts into these tales. Everyone gets screwed, literally!

I suppose it’s back to work for me, but my computer is extremely sexy right now and I’m a bit distracted. Yes, I ♥  and many, many developers, illustrators and digital designers. So sue me.

Since Photoshop CS3 + WACOM = LOVE, I’d like to share a few things I’ve drawn that I’m particularly proud of. The blog posts that I regularly put here of my routine (like my last post, for example) usually take about … 15 minutes. (It’s uploading that takes the longest.) The below pictures elapsed a bit longer, at least 30 minutes per drawing, not including coloring/shading.

——

My dear friend Jonathan. Drew this for the paper as a small mug. Fun times!

Decided to try out these new brushes I downloaded. I LOVE THEM TO DEATH. Taking the extra time to “manually” color in the drawing = TOTALLY WORTH IT. Here’s a friend of mine from the paper, Sergio. He’s awesome, and quite athletic. Also very nice and intelligent.

Dearest Ercirageous, caricatured. He actually did write the above quote in a hilarious Facebook note. It’s a shame people actually believed him.
*~*~OMG SO CRAYON-EY~*~*

Moi/my current Facebook profile picture. The quote stems from an inside joke that went horribly, horribly, horribly wrong.
And I mean HORRIBLY wrong.

Being whisked away. This one didn’t take as long as the above illustrations. (You can really tell, too.)

——

With the new “sketchy” brushes, I’m re-tempted to jumpstart on my webcomic again, even though I really, really, REALLY don’t have the time for it. (Papers/midterms are right around the corner – hey, one exam’s on friggin’ Friday!) I don’t know if I want to do an autobiographical comic – I mean, this blog is kinda fulfilling that purpose, albeit infrequently – so if you have any ideas for a webcomic, let me know. I’ve asked this already, somewhere (perhaps Twitter) so… yeah, go at it.

What should I draw?

Now I’m tempted to draw some more doodles/illustrations, but alas, I cannot! Must sleep!

This week hasn’t been particularly kind to me. I haven’t been thinking the most positive of thoughts (sigh, and after such a motivating post too!) and I’ve been stressed like you wouldn’t believe. It’s difficult living at a commuter school; you really get to spend a lot of “you” time, simply because all of your friends disappear for the day after class. I will remedy this, somehow – I need to treat myself to a movie. Shaun of the Dead is sitting on my dresser now, but so is the complete set of Azu Manga Daioh!… decisions, decisions.

… So, yeah, holy crap, Twitter is a lot cleaner! (What a segue.) I really like the new look a bit. It’s certainly a lot more fresh and “airy.” Speaking of Twitter, I’ve noticed a lot of Batman RPers have been following me. It’s amusing to get updates from The Joker, The Riddler, Rachel Dawes, Harvey Dent, etc. I love how well these people stay in character.

I used to RP when I was younger (the most I can remember right now was when I played Harley Quinn from Batman within a probably now-dead forum) and I also wrote a lot of fanfiction (ahhh, the ‘f’-word!) for animated programs and some live-action stuff (notably Beat the Geeks, my, was I so mature). I’m so glad I grew out of that.

My room is kinda-sorta in shambles. Classes today were all right. I didn’t attend my first one because I was sick. I swear I was going to throw up if I moved out of bed. Luckily, that cleared up after about an hour of sleep. I’m back here in my room, with just my little bendy psuedo-Pixar lamp on now, feeling insomnia take hold.

I’ve been having trouble sleeping so I’ve been taking Tylenol PM this week. It’s really helped.

I think I need to learn to step back and relax. You’d think a girl who’s almost a senior in college would already know how to do that.

I haven’t blogged in a while and Erci/Eric told me to write about something positive.

Looking at my last two entries, I know I’ve seen better days.

So, okay, I will write something positive – holy fuck, I can’t wait for the weekend! This week has been tremendously difficult for me, so I’m pretty close to kicking back, relaxing and having a good time tomorrow (well, today) and Sunday. Yes, there’s much work to be done (reading, to be precise) but I deserve so much awesomeness right now. I am not joking.

It was nice to see my mother again today, even though I ended up sobbing into her arms for about half an hour. It’s good to de-stress. I’m feeling so much better, and I’m looking forward to what’s ahead.

A lot of opportunities have come up for me, one being this.

Seems pretty interesting and awesome. I’d probably go for the Institute of Political Journalism, as it’s the only media-related thing available. Speaking of internships, I’m thinking about trying out to intern for The Sun-Sentinel next summer. For sure I’d have to get a car, but wow, working on a local South Florida paper would be awesome. It’s a shame I don’t read it (wah, Dade/Herald family, wah) but I know it would be a fantastic experience. Shame about the whole “holy shit newspapers might disappear” fear going around, too.

Let’s see… ah, yes! Has anyone seen THESE?

Oh, dear, there’s drool on my keyboard…

I’m ridiculously tempted to buy the purple one, but the iPod classic models are the MUCH better buy. Uh, can someone say 80 GB of space? Seriously, all the money is going for is

- The color
- The size/shape

… and okay, FINE, the shake to shuffle shit that makes it pretty damn cool.

Did a lot of drawing on the tablet this week, but nothing blog-post-worthy.

Talk of a bonfire this evening at the beach, but God knows if it’ll really happen. I WILL do something fun tonight, though, because a) I want to see my friends and b) time is of the essence! Tally-ho!

Wait, tally-ho? Who says that anymore?

Highlights of my day:

- A co-worker singing THIS in the office.
- Other theme songs from my favorite animated programs.
- Friends.
- Friends.
- Friends.

I’m positive.