Sunday Scribblings
Topic: Monsters

I have a lot of monsters under my bed. I mean they just keep piling in down there likes its a huge frat party. I know that I did not invite them there but I can't seem to get them out. You would think through all these years of new monsters joining in under my bed that they would eventually kick one out for more space. Nope. Can they even breathe down there? Do monsters breathe? I feel like they inhale my thoughts and exhale my mistakes.

Well anyway, I do get to meet these monsters before they go under my bed. I haven't found one monster that I truely liked yet. How come I can't decide which ones go under my bed and which ones dont. I mean, it is my bed!

I remember the first monster I met. I was about 12 years old. His name was Age. Funny name huh? Age told me, "the older you get the more you'll find that responsibility will start to become more important than imagination. I'll come out from under your bed when your childhood imagation comes back." I told him, "Don't worry about that, I have a lot of imagination left in me no matter what my age may be!" Needless to say, he's still under my bed.

Only a couple years later I met a monster by the name of Boozer. I couldn't pronounce his name, but he told me that he and I would be faced most often. "You're going to hate me but you wont even know until you've hit rock bottom", he said.
I told him, "No way, I'm only 14 why would I need to drink?"
"Yeah, kid, well you also met the Age monster too soon. What can ya do, people just do things too soon these days. Now, I'm going under your bed and I'm not coming out until you realize that you don't need me by your side to fight with every night." Boozer is still under my bed and he makes the most noise.

After that, the monsters began piling in. Most them were reflections of boys that I met who have hurt me. Sometimes they came in two's and three's. I met the monster Tom who played soccer and sang to me, the cops took him away and locked him up... under my bed. He's still there but I try not to think about him. Patrick the monster faught with me, yelled at me for hours, screamed at me for allowing all those other monsters in. I had to push him under my bed just to shut him up and, of course, he is still there. Esmo the monster was the most bothersome monster. He was the only one that was rejected of going under my bed but he kept coming back. Finally, he was welcome under the bed and he sure as hell is still there too.

More and more monsters were coming in every night. They make so much noise under my bed, it sounds like party down there. They must hate eachother. I wonder how I can get down there and I wonder how I can kick them out for a good night's sleep.

Outsiders Art Club
Topic: Phobias
"Failure Sketch"

I have a fear of getting possessed by an evil spirit. I run out of the kitchen when I know the toaster is about to pop. And I'll avoid a room for an entire day when I see a spider. But, I wouldn't call these phobias. I don't know that I actually have any phobias. One thing that has been a concern of mine lately, as I approach graduating from an expensive private college in May, is failure.

What if I end up not getting a good job? What if I can't pay back my student loans? What if I end up a poor, lonely girl sitting in an alley with just enough change in my front hoodie pocket to get my next 40oz? As much as I am pretty sure this will not happen to me, I can't help but wonder and grow concern. Now is the time make the decisions I need to make in order to avoid such a position.

On tour with his band

Breaks to play music with her

She inspires him...

One Deep Breath's haiku topic for this week is music. I found this picture of husband and wife couple, Shanti and Greg (Bouncing Souls), in Shanti's music myspace. At a lot of his shows, at least the ones I go to, and I try to go whenever they are in town, he is always thanking "his beautiful wife Shanti" for either being there or inspiring some of his music or helping him out, etc. Shanti plays music of her own. I love this picture of them playing piano together and the haiku that I wrote just relates to what I feel is going on in this picture.

Self Portrait Friday
Topic: Enclosed Spaces
Work Work Work

Plotting technical difficulties. Having conversations with the computer in Autocad command language. Falling asleep on foamcore board pillows. Deadlines and prisma marker highs. All of these are a part of the Architecture student's Studio All Nighter drama.

School starts in a week. The first week is usually laid back but, after we get settled in the work seems to change the meaning of life. This picture shows me stuck in some of my projects as the workload begins to pile up.

This was my first piece for Mixed Media Memoirs. The topic is I Know so I just picked out a few things that I know. If you click on this picture it should show up more clearly. When I make a scrapbook piece I usually use scraps from my Interior Design material samples. For example, the background of this one is a wallcover that was a collage of eyes. Bamboo is the top and bottom border.

SUNDAY SCRIBBLINGS
LIVE OF PETS
PETE PIES MY BUNNY

He came home from the petshop
With me and one of my college roommates
This happened one random day last fall
I began to take full care of his dirty work
And the other roommates just liked to play
But he only lived in the dorm room with us
For about a week and a half
Which is longer than I thought
The rules clearly state "NO PETS, JUST FISH"
Then I moved him into a friends' apartment where he was
spoiled with love, constant attention, toys and his very own room.
So many people played with him and grew up to take so well to humans
No biting or scratching but he loves to dance around us and get pets
Its good that he has such huge ears
because rabbits express emotions with their ears
I've learned so much about rabbits in the past year
They're so much smarter than most people give them credit for
Pete has had such a fun life so far
And he's almost a year old, he's grown up so fast
We leave to go back to school in a week
And he'll see his friends that he misses so much
Wish us luck that he wont get caught in my new apartment
I know the rules clearly state "NO PETS, JUST FISH"
But, I already cant imagine life without him




For this week's Sunday Scribblings I must have rewritten it 4 times and each time my computer shut down. Very frustrating. Maybe next week's topic should be how much computers can be a waste of time. Well I had to write this week's topic out so fast so I just kept writing what came to my head next. Pete's such a great rabbit.

"Coffee Haiku"
My morning coffee...

Heart racing as it may be

Makes me act crazy

This was my first haiku for One Deep Breath. The theme was coffee and of course its the morning and thats exactly what I'm drinking. I can't write poetry and be serious about it but I was thinking of adding some poetry blogs into my new addictions because words are important to me and poetry is another form of expression so why not. Although I am worse than your average kindergardener when it comes to poetry, its still personally fun to me as long as I'm not taking it too seriously. When I get serious when I'm writing poetry I think too into it and it comes out terrible.

Inspire Me Thursday
Open Challenge
"Mixture of Past Ideas"


I was watching a marathon of Miami Ink last night and it inspired me to try out a tattoo drawing today. I've had a few ideas for tattooes of my own and in this week's challenge I decided I would see about putting them onto paper. Instead of drawing them out seperately I decided to put all my ideas into one drawing.

The butterfly...
"Butterflies are passive agressive and put their problems on the shelf. But they're so beautiful." - Ben Kweller

The anchor in heart...
"Anchors are aweigh my friends, we're blowin in the wind." - Bouncing Souls

The roses...
Beautiful flower with thorns that can make the skin bleed.

The turtle...
Was close with a pet turtle who was a stress reliever during my pop-pop's long dieing process and he went with my Nana on the same day as her death only weeks later.

The swirls...
My life the past couple years: crazy, twisted, dizzy.

I'm not saying that I am going to get this as a tattoo, but who knows maybe one day. Here is the original though. I wasn't sure which version to show so I'll just throw this one in since its got the real coloring and all.

Sunday Scribblings
Topic: What I Could Still Be

Sunday has passed but I'm new to this blogging thing. Its becoming a new thing to look forward to and a way to make sure I stay within my creative side of the brain. Studying Interior Architecture and Design the past few years has forced me to jump back and forth from left side to right side and in the middle. Graduating from college this spring and learning how to stand on my own two feet for the first time is going to be pretty scary for me. While learning how to survive independantly I want to make sure that I can still be the artist that I am, the companion that I can be, and the learner I will always be. This leads me pefectly into this week's Sunday Scribblings topic, What Could I Still Be...

I can still be an artist.
I can still be myself: a carefree, creative artist, even when I have to be a business woman in a competetive, innovative feild. Architecture may deal with codes, restrictions, other people's needs that they want and other people's needs that they might not even know they need. However, art, as a whole, has no boundries and encourages one to sink deeper into the medium and away from the world. Allows them to hide, disappear, discover, and come back with something new. Art forces you to get that insane side that everyone possess and express it to yourself and anyone you share it with. To go on a temporary vacation and show more than just pictures, show feelings and thoughts and visual emotions. I can still be the artist I always wanted to be without getting too sucked into my occupation.

I can still be a companion of all kinds.
I'll find Mr. Right someday. In fact, as soon as I'm more comfortable in my own skin, I'll start on a more extensive search to find him and maybe he'll be the one to find me. He wont take away who I am and he'll learn from me while I learn from him. I'll be a good friend, near or far, I'll make sure that my friends are in a good place, on the right track, and if they fall I'll give them my hand. I'll be a loving daughter to my mother and father who gave me everything from the cash I haven't earned, to the knowledge not taught in school. I'll be a mother to a child of mine own, to an adopted child, or to a pet. Whatever the case may be, someone innocent will count on me for a healthy survival. A business partner, collaborating my ideas with others into blueprint to renovate and restore ruins, to keep the beauty of a building whether it is physically present or taken away with the storm of nature or the storm of time.

I can still be a learner.
Just because graduation is less than a year away does not mean I'm finished learning. To continue trying new things means to keep living. So far, my list of after school learning is extensive but it will keep me from dulling out in life. Here are some things I'll continue to learn someday: glassblowing, ballroom dancing, Japanese language, bonfires, the endurance of running miles, jewelry making. Exploring through traveling or reading, jotting down these experiences, scrapbooking to look back on them and forward to more, sharing them with others.

An artist, a companion, and a learner. Three things that are more important to me than anything else and three things that I could still be now and later.

Portrait of a Middle Brother
Charcoal and vine on bristol
14"x17 ", July 04
Inspiration: an article from Spin Magazine

I did this drawing a while ago (maybe two years ago) and used it in a collage once. So, it was just sitting in this computer and I decided I'd throw it in here. I'm not going to point out the parts of it that I dislike or feel are messed up because it was embedded into my head by Maria MacDonald to never talk about mistakes.

And, of course, it doesn't come out clear once it gets scanned into the computer but at least there is a concept of the detail.

Inspire Me Thursday
Black and White
"An X-Ray"

This is my first time submitting anything to Inspire Me Thursday. After checking out other art I decided it would be fun to start joining in. I found my inspiration while looking at the black and white screen of my ultra sound today at the hospital. Although I did not get a copy of my insides (that sounds weird), I did manage to come home and search through old x-rays. Much to my surprise I found what I was looking for, a hand.

I wanted to use an x-ray of a hand because I wanted to express the idea that the heart and the hands work together in making a piece of art. I put a sketched heart where the screw was in the hand.

I wanted to use sketchy writing to express that I don't think art has to be crisp and and clean if that particular project isn't meant to be that way.
Technique: Of course, I didn't write directly on the x-ray. I used my light board, put the writing under the x-ray, took a picture with my phone, finished it off in paint.