Barcelona street art

One thing that I really noticed around Barcelona was a lot of seriously cool grafitti. I loathe tagging but real grafitti can look great sometimes. And this wasn't actually on walls and things, but on the metal screens used to cover storefronts and the like. So ... I liked it. I'm having postcards made of it. :-)

ATCs

Some ATCs I've made recently ... all of them for swaps on Swap-Bot. I used one of my own photos to make one of them, guess which one ... ;-)

Cryptozoology
Ireland! :-D
Nightmares & fairytales
Peacock
Fair trade

'Simpsons' ATCs

It's been a while since I've posted any ATC pictures here, so it's about time. Like it or not. ;-)

I made these for a swap over on Swap-bot - no surprises there - the subject as you see was The Simpsons, but pretty much free theme beyond that. We each had to make two ATCs, and the only requirement was that we had to pick two different characters, not the same one for both ATCs. So, pretty simple. I knew from the start which ones I'd choose ...

... first, of course, my all-time favorite Simpson, Lisa Marie!!

... and second, another favorite of mine, Charles Montgomery Burns.
Excellent ... !! ;-)

Movies A-Z

I'm doing a series of ATC swaps on Swap-Bot that are themed around movie titles ... we're supposed to do all the letters from A through Z. So far we have done three. :-) Of course I have no choice but to use Keanu movies where possible. ;-)

For A I went with Anna and the King. The Animatrix doesn't really count and I haven't seen Act of Vengeance. Yet. :-)

Clive Donner: Babes in Toyland

Francis Lawrence: Constantine

More ATCs

Some more ATCs that I've made recently. I've made fewer in the past month or so, because I've been travelling. But still, a couple of good ones, IMHO. :-)

The theme for this first one was 'Fit For A King', so I made a portrait of our Crown Princess, HRH Mette-Marit. She is certainly fit for a king, she will be the wife of one some day. ;-) This ATC hasn't been sent to its recipient yet, I'm really psyched to hear what she'll think of it. I hope she'll like it. :-)

Joss Whedon - Angel

True Blood - Sookie Stackhouse Johnny Depp movie character -
Ichabod Crane from Sleepy Hollow
Buffy the Vampire Slayer - the Master, season 1 villain

Keanu ATCs

There's a swapper over at Swap-Bot who has hosted several ATC swaps with the theme of various specific famous actors, one for each swap ... she said she was happy to take suggestions for future swaps, so of course I had to PM her with an idea that she could use. ;-) She set up the swap and I joined, along with, let's see ... five others. Plus of course the host - you always have to take part in the swaps that you host.

This was the ATC that I made and sent off to North Haven, Connecticut ...

... and this is the one I got in return, from Michigan. Cool. :-)

More ATCs

Some more ATCs I've made recently. :-)

Insects.

Favorite quote - David Walliams.

Favorite quote - Anne Frank.

Juno.

The X Files - Fox Mulder.

Did I ever mention ...

... that I wish I could draw?

Artist Trading Cards

So, if anyone remembers my New Year's resolution to do more crafts this year ... I am so definitely living up to that, and one of the new things I've really gotten into recently are Artist Trading Cards, or ATCs for short. They are basically little artworks that can be any medium or style, the only restriction is the size, which has to be 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches. You can read more about them here, and see lots of pictures.

I was nervous about trying to make these at first, I didn't feel confident that I could make them to the recipients' standards ... they are meant for trading, as the name indicates, so that you're not really supposed to keep the ones you make. At least not all of them - I know that some people make doubles of all of theirs and trade one and keep the other, but I haven't done that with any of mine so far. I just take pictures. :-) Anyway, some swaps came up on Swap-Bot that I just couldn't possibly resist ... the themes were just too tempting ... so I tried a few, and I'm happy to say that I've been getting mostly really good feedback on them. So ... always nice to get compliments. :-) That's not in any way saying that I'm fishing for them now ;-) but I wanted to share some of the ones I've been making. I'm pretty happy with all of these. :-) They're on pretty varied themes, as you'll see. :-)

Pride & Prejudice character - the BBC Mr Darcy

Joss Whedon - Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Atheist quote

Cryptozoology

True Blood - Bill Compton

Dragon

Too much spare time ...

... is bad for you. As proof of this I submit the following. I was playing around at BigHugeLabs the other day, and look what I made! How utterly useless! :-D

(Click to enlarge, otherwise you won't really see what this is exactly. I mean, apart from the obvious. :-)

Someone please give me a job ... !!

But it isn't actually as bad as it sounds. I'm trying to make good use of all this free time, so I'm going back to school, more or less ... I'm going to take a course to learn some useful skills, trying to build on some of the things I already do anyway in my current job but don't have any formal knowledge of. Started today. Here's hoping I can keep up. But judging by at least the majority of my classmates I don't think that ought to be a problem. >:-)

In other news, my decoder problem has been sorted out. trilltrall fixed it as I knew he would. :-) Thank you, I so appreciate it!! I've got a can of Ubuntu Cola here with your name on it ... ;-)

Wow!

I wish I could draw like this. :-) Take a look:



Is this guy talented or what?? Yeah, I really wish I could draw even half as well as him.

You can see some more of his work on his Youtube channel, here. And while we're on the subject of Youtube, will someone do me a favor and watch my kitteh video that I posted on Thursday?? If you go to my channel, it's the one in the bottom right hand corner of the 'front page'. I have issues. Thanks. :-)

Something clever not by me

Exaggerated use of an advanced vocabulary and complicated sentence structures only result in the cognitive capacity being reduced and the simple and uncomplicated words being, when utilized in an adequate context, the only ones that really remain

Keanuart not by me

This is something that someone on Club Keanu made, based on an image from The Day the Earth Stood Still. I like it. :-)

Keanuart by me

These are two posters I made for my living room wall at home a couple of years ago. Too many Keanupics, not enough to use them for ... !! :-D But I thought this was a pretty creative solution. The film strips are frame stickers I bought at Panduro and attached to plain white paper. Partly to break up the image as a whole and partly to cover edges between clippings.

I was really happy with these when I made them ... whenever I make stuff it normally tends to turn out pretty different from what I envision before starting the project. Not that it turns out badly, necessarily ... it may sometimes even be better than I hope for ... it's just that I generally have a hard time creating things that look like I want them to look. o_O If that makes sense. But these came out just as I'd pictured them in my mind. :-)

The frames are the regular cheap kind from IKEA. I wish they still made them in black. :-( Click the pictures to see bigger versions!

Keanupic of the week, testing

I tried posting this via Flickr. First time I tried that and, well, it didn't work. The post didn't look like I wanted it to. And of course I'm quite particular with unimportant things like that. :-) So ... test failed. Must edit. Should look right now. :-)

I lurve these photos. <3

I found this on Flickr (where I should be spending less time surfing, but there you go - quel surprise). From this photostream. Thanks to Sigh! for letting me post her artwork! :-) (Original is here.)

I met Karstein Volle!

woot!! :-D

Remember a few days ago, um, let's see - the week before last, when I posted about an online comic whose creator had asked for a shoutout, so I gave him one? And I posted some samples of his work (click here to see that post). The artist, Mr Volle of this post's title, was grateful for the shoutout and not at all miffed that I'd posted his artwork without asking permission. I know, shame on me, in principle. I was pretty sure he wouldn't mind. ;-) Anyway ...

He lives in Helsinki, for some mysterious reason, but right now he's in the old country for a few days, couple of weeks, or whatever it is. This weekend he's in Oslo and, get this, he wanted to meet up with me. :-o He's going to some major comics fair in Angouleme at the end of this month, and he's translated some of his comics into English so he can present the strip to anyone & everyone he'll come across there. :-) And he wanted me to look at his translations and 'give him some pointers'. :-o It would be 'enormously cool' if I'd be willing to do that. o_O Willing!! He must be nuts. Of course I emailed him back and said that it would be an honor for me to help. I mean, seriously. Wow. :-)

So this afternoon we met at the Library Bar at Hotel Bristol downtown for some hot chocolate (mmm, chocolate ...) and looked at his translated pieces on his MacBook (I think it was a MacBook, but maybe it wasn't, I don't really know about these things) and just basically had a really nice and fun conversation. At least I thought it was. :-) We were there for almost five and a half hours. I had a really good time. And before we parted ways he asked me to - get this, again! - maybe, if I wanted to and I had the time, if I'd be willing, etc - to help translate the 57 In the Future strips that don't have translations yet. o_O Yeah, OK, I'll glance through them, whatever. 'If I'd be willing'. Yeah, he's gotta be nuts.

But apart from that he was - as far as I could tell in five hours ;-) - a really nice guy. Funny and smart. Pretty hungover, but not that slow on the uptake, even so. ;-) And he was even polite to the Coat Nazi. (But then again he'd never been to Bristol before, this was his first time, so I guess that explains it.) And - as expected - he was just happy to indulge me when I, before we left, went all fangirl on him and brought out my copies of his three books for him to sign. Thanks, the value just went up on those babies, I think. ;-)

A good time was hopefully had by all. :-)

Signing one of my books ... writing cryptic messages ...

I met Karstein Volle! woot! :-D

Shoutout: I fremtiden

Today's post will be of interest mostly to Norwegian-speaking readers, alas. Or at least those who understand the language well enough to read it. Although this comic is funny enough to make it worthwhile learning Norwegian just to read it. ;-)

I just want to give a shoutout to this blog, 'the online home of the daily comic In the Future'. The artist & blog owner asked me to ... well, not me specifically, but just all his readers. I fremtiden is a comic which tells us what the future will be like. It's going to be very interesting, I can tell you that. Some people resent this comic on principle because it isn't drawn by hand, but on computer ... which some purists 'feel' is cheating. Well, I stomp on their 'feelings'! This is an extremely funny comic and the artwork is just right, so there.

Karstein Volle, the artist, posts a new strip every day. He's a very funny man. If you can understand simple sentences in Norwegian and you're curious about what the future will be like, then hesitate no longer! You will find what you seek ... In the Future!!

Some samples (click to enlarge, all translations mine):

In the future, we will all die from mercury poisoning because of all the fish oil we force down our throats to be healthy.

In the future, everyone will have super quick wireless networks everywhere.

We will also have tumors the size of oranges.In the future, robots will FINALLY take over.

In the future, they're coming for you.

And here's my favorite. I love this strip. This is the future that I have always dreamed of!!

In the future, there will never be white Knotts in the Knott bags.

What are Knotts?? The most special candy there is ... !!?

Mountain vacation 2008. August 15th: Per Lysgaard

OK, time to shake off all this doom & gloom and move on to something merrier. More holiday pictures! :-D To refresh your memory, we're still at Røros, the famous Mountain Town. Lots to see there, and beautiful architecture, I wish we'd had more time. Maybe next year. If anyone's thinking of going, I definitely recommend it as a holiday destination. :-)

Although I'd probably advise going in summer as Røros is an infamous 'coldhole' and can get almost beyond freezing in the winter ...

One thing my mother really wanted to see while we were there was a workshop/store/showroom place belonging to some amazingly talented artist that she'd heard about ... and I think she'd also visited this place once before. I'd never even heard of it. But it sounded cool so I was happy to tag along.

This man's name is Per Lysgaard and he is a widely acclaimed ceramic artist. He designs all sorts of items and then makes them in his workshop. His range is pretty amazing, everything from little knickknacks, animal figurines etc, via mugs and plates and bowls and dishes to decorative tiles and even statues. His work is rather easily recognizable as he works a lot with some rather specific forms and colors. He sells his work through his shop and he also takes commissions. He's participated in a number of exhibitions both in this country and abroad. All in all a very creative, talented and recognized artist. I definitely recommend a visit to his place in Røros, it's pretty unique. :-)

You enter through one of those old fashioned narrow alleyway-like things that are typical of the town. Then you arrive into a courtyard from which you can enter the store/showroom and also another workshop/store where some friend of Lysgaard's, apparently, sells silver jewellry. Some very pretty pieces here too. The walls of the entranceway and the courtyard are decorated with glazed ceramic tiles, and a lot of Lysgaard's serving dishes are hung on display on the walls. Very striking. The first thing you see as you enter is this design in the tiles:

The head on this thing was higher than my head. Beautiful. And extremely detailed - you can pick out every scale. Must have been a huge job. Pretty amazing.

As you enter the courtyard, you see this design further along on the same wall - wow!!

This is soo detailed, and it's as big as a real tree. Amazing.

There are serving dishes hung everywhere, and there are also several huge figurines and statues placed around the courtyard.

One flying statue, even!! :-D

Interior detail. :-) The showroom slash store was chock full of all sorts of items for sale - bowls, mugs, saucers, plates, dishes, fridge magnets, figurines, wall decorations, ceiling decorations, mirrors - and the walls and staircase were also beautifully decorated with more of those glazed ceramic tiles.

My second cousin Elin in one of the doorways in the showroom. She will be so pissed off at me for posting this ... !! :-D

Detail from one of the tile designs. I love dragonflies. :-)

As we were leaving, I wanted to take one last picture of this cactus-like thing in the courtyard. But there was a woman standing next to it talking on her cell phone; seeing as she was a total stranger I didn't want her in the picture, but she totally did not take the hint. Finally my mother - shown here :-) - went over to stand by the statue, and she said 'I'll just stand here and block her so at least she won't be too visible' - she said this so loudly that I heard her clearly from fifteen feet away, but the woman, standing right behind her, was totally oblivious. So that's why she looks kind of giggly in this picture. ;-)