happy holidays

happy holidays, everyone
its been a great year

hey friends

heck out the daily drop cap by Jessica Hische! so beautiful! she's got a bunch of them and includes the html code to place it in your blog! what a great idea. In other news, I'm procrastinating working on my school projects, and i really should get to work. right now. after i go downstairs and get some chocolate covered almonds. what is it with those things?!

hello blog, i've missed you.

WIWT november 3, originally uploaded by bunnyjrobot.

this is quick post to just let you all know what i wore today & show you my muppet hands. i use them to do big work.
speaking of big work. there's a show coming up. portland state friends of graphic design is putting it on, and i'm gonna have a few little things in it.
//////// lovewhatyoudopsu.com /////////////

hope to see you there!!

xo

september 17

september 17, originally uploaded by bunnyjrobot.

what i wore today. well yesterday, actually. but whatevs.

september 16

september 16, originally uploaded by bunnyjrobot.

i look a little like sloth from Goonies in this one.

september 15

september 15, originally uploaded by bunnyjrobot.

what i wore today. quick & dirty. literally. its a boring outfit, but i'm committed, so there it is. maybe tomorrow i'll be looking a little better. maybe i should just draw amelia's outfits, she's cute all the time.

september 14

september 14, originally uploaded by bunnyjrobot.

okay, so i'm doubling up today so i can be caught up. today i went to school to turn in some paperwork. it was the first time i'd been around campus in a while & just being there made me excited about school starting up again soon! at the same time, i'm a little sad, we've had such a fun summer i don't know if i'm really ready to say goodbye and get back to work just yet. i've got a few more weeks, i guess. tomorrow, the people writing stories for the Portland Spectator (the student run magazine i work for) are supposed to have their rough drafts in. i want to get working... it goes to press the 28th. same day school starts... this will be my first issue doing the art direction. i'm looking forward to it.

september 13

september 13, originally uploaded by bunnyjrobot.

sunday was a really fun day. Alma midwifery had their annual picnic at Creston park which is right down the street from where jake & i used to live. my sister & her babies met us there. its fun to see the midwifes and talk about babies and see all the new babies... babies, babies, babies! and lots of yummy food. after that, all of us biked to NE and hung out, went to a coffee shop, went to an expensive hipster thrift store where there were lots and lots of cute things. i bought a scarf. & some awesome shoes, but i'm getting ahead of myself... i need to start working on today's drawing...

also, sometimes when i blog from flickr it chops my picture like it did on this one, you can click for the full size or click where it says 'by bunnyjrobot' and you'll go to my flickr page...

september 11

september 11, originally uploaded by bunnyjrobot.

so i solved the problem with drawing hands, (not mittens) just put them behind my back. the skirt i'm wearing is made of two of my favorite t-shirts, one is from some school or maybe a camp in vermont, and the other is a neil diamond concert t-shirt. i wore this skirt a bunch when i was preggo because it was so stretchy and comfy, its also really cool. cool, cool. well, its both kinds of cool. whatever. today its supposed to be super hot. in the 90s or something! i'm so glad because i was worried we weren't going to get to use the baby pool again this summer. i still need to get better at drawing hands, but i'll save that for another day. i'm off to go eat some leftover pad thai!

september 10

september 10, originally uploaded by bunnyjrobot.

so, its not every day, but i'm trying. it actually takes a lot longer than i thought to draw, scan & color a picture. maybe i'll start trying out different methods. also, i have a hard time drawing hands and feet. i think this happens to a lot of people. i'd like to just draw a circle at the end of the arm, but that's not going to work.

september 8

september 8, originally uploaded by bunnyjrobot.

this is a day late, i realize. i plan on doing this daily or as close to daily as possible. i need to draw more. this will give me something to draw & make me better at figure drawing.

my zine

my zine, originally uploaded by bunnyjrobot.

i just finished. its a really good feeling to have finished something. it feels like i haven't done much of that this summer.
now hopefully tomorrow goes well, i'm working @ the psu graphic design program's table at the zine symp. i'm bringing amelia. i sure hope she's down for it.

++UPDATE++
i forgot to mention that if you want a copy of my zine, its only TWO DOLLARS! let me know and i can mail one.

also, amelia had a great time @ PZS

i'm a little late posting this...

i'm more of a skeptic myself.

i think more because i love a good conspiracy than anything else.

*click for larger view.

look up....

hello again.
if you look at my blog through your google reader you should go look at the actual blog because i changed my headline picture thingy banner whatever you call it. anyway, its really cute. i made it using a scanned drawing and photoshop. i used to be afraid of photoshop, but after messing around with it tonight i'm a lot less afraid. ok, that's all, just a quick little update.

zine-a-rama

hello friends.



i really can't believe that july is halfway done! this summer its been a bit hard to get any of my big art projects done, or started, for that matter... but one thing that i WILL be doing is putting together a zine and selling it at the portland zine symposium! woot! (if any of you are in Portland, come check it out!) my zine is going to be a collection of self portraits that i drew while i was pregnant with amelia.

one of the best pregnancy books that jake and i read (and we read a bunch of them) was this zine called Placenta Zine. i don't know who made it or if there are any others, but it was a really sweet zine with birth stories, and basically how to be a radical parent.

i think my zine is going to be my tribute to Placenta Zine, in a way, although i'm not sure if i'll have much text, i think its mostly going to be to story of my pregnancy told through drawings. i'm also thinking that if i can pull it off, i'll put together another little zine of some illustrated conversations that i have in some of my sketch books. here's a little preview of some of the drawings that will be in my zine...

also, the link to pdx zines

hello kitty

hello kitty
tuns thirty-five this year! i have loved hello kitty and all of her little friends for a very long time. i remember spending hours in the Sanrio stores looking at all the little treasures. the anniversary website is amazing, they have cataloged all kinds of hello kitty merchandise from all of the years. its wonderful. i could seriously be on there for hours looking for things that i used to have. obsessed. literally, i'm obsessed with it. if only i still had my hello kitty stamp set...

me & the babies

me & the babies, originally uploaded by jake_mrtnz.

today was my last day of watching liam. it was a lot of fun to get to hang out with him. he and amelia had lots of fun playing together (basically squishing each other, drooling, and in amelia's case stealing toys from liam) it was a great week. and now, to get back to working on the business end of my life...

summer times.

YAY for summer!

amelia & i have been very busy now that i'm done with school & jake is back on the study train. we spent all of last week playing with my mom, and the two cousins, ben & liam. this week, liam is playing over at our house all week (grandma left & ben's outta town). its good times. we call it cousin club. well, i call it cousin club. i like to make clubs, so does my sister. it goes way back to the old days. other than going to the park and playing babies, i've been trying to finish up a project that's been going on since my typography class started. they're initial pendants made from a typeface i created. here's a picture. they're not quite done, but its a start. there'll be more about how i made them & possibly painting on the letters as i get them finished.





this is the letter f. for fun, francis, or fiona.

final finally finalized.

weesh.I didn't know if i was going to make it out of this term with all of my hair, as of this post (and maybe a few more organizational things) i'm done. hopefully. there might be some loose ends here and there...BUT-- My poster series is done, and that's all that's important right now.
I made a series of three posters based on the artist/graphic designer/illustrator/sculptor/accordian player Leo Lionni. he's a great fellow, and i really enjoyed learning about him. I based the structure of each of my posters on a design he did for the MOMA exhibition book The Family of Man (1955). I used it as a framework to show some of his other design work, illustration, photography, sculpture, children's books, and paintings. He really did a lot of stuff, kind of a jack of all trades, that Leo. The text that i used was from his autobiography (between two worlds) and from AIGA's article on him. I set all my text in Century School book because read somewhere that he really liked it.
here's me series:

so, i made these book covers a while back and i totally forgot to blog about the

frankenstein book cover, originally uploaded by bunnyjrobot.

The assignment was to pick three penguin classics books and design a set of book covers. I chose the scary set, dr. Jekyll & mr. Hyde, Frankenstein, and Dracula. I chose them mostly because I had read the stories before ( well, in the case of frankenstein, i'd seen the bride of frankenstein... close enough) anyway, i felt like i had enough of an idea about the stories to be able to create some cool book covers.
i got my images for Dracula & Frankenstein from books in the library that were essays on each of the books. the frankenstein picture is my favorite of the bunch, its someone's weird interpretation of franken-people that came out around the time Mary Shelly's book did.
The technique i used for getting my images to look the way they do is a printmaking technique called Van Dyke. you get a negative transparency of the image, and expose it to paper that has the Van Dyke solution painted on it using a very high watt light table. i learned to do it this term in my intermediate bookbinding class.
I used bodoni as the typeface for my book covers in bold, regular and italic. I chose it because its got that classical feel, but still keeps things neat and simple.
I struggled with how to place the title on my book covers - you can see the different attempts i made by looking through my photostream. eventually i settled on this 'tag' set at the edge of each book slightly askew. i'm still not really sure if i love it, but eh, it works. i think this is one of those projects that i'd really like to come back to when i've learned a little bit more and see what i'm able to do with it. again, to see my progress in this project or to view the other two book covers in the series, please check out my flickr photostream.

making progress...

some type cards, originally uploaded by bunnyjrobot.

I finished my intermediate bookbinding class yesterday with a final critique that went pretty well. In the end I had 3 new books to show. I'm really happy with how my do-si-do book turned out. I'll be uploading pictures of it to my flickr later on.

In the meantime, I've been spending every spare moment working on my type cards, my leo lionni poster series and my final group project on rhetoric.

the next post will be about how everything is done, and i'm ready to start my summer break!

authentic tube sticker.

authentic tube sticker., originally uploaded by bunnyjrobot.

I'm so so so glad to have the portfolio review behind me, only now, there's the mountain of work that I have been neglecting and need to finish to make it out of the term in good shape.
I've got my poster series that I'm working on, four books that I need to finish making for the critique on Monday, I need to buy more 4x6 cards for the little term-long type project that I totally didn't forget about until the last minute, and I have a group project that needs some love too. I'll be updating to my flickr more regularly as the work starts workin' ... one more week left, & I can't wait for my summer break to begin.

some people take care of their computers, some people eat muffins while working.

I've kind of neglectedmy little blog here for a while. but, I'm back now, for the moment. Here are some of the things that I'm currently working on:
"Children's Benefit Gala" event campaign where I'm appropriating the style of Ed Emberley, a children's how-to drawing book author.
Making Book covers for Three Scary Books : Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Dracula.
Making a Portfolio, a Theater Box, and standard book box mock-ups in my book arts class.
AND, As Always, My Portfolio Review - I've got a total of 7 projects that I'm currently reviewing and revising, and basically freaking out about:
here are some screen captures:

This is a really beautiful typeface. just sayin.

type project... promotional stuff.

Multimedia message, originally uploaded by bunnyjrobot.

i finished making the posters to promote my typeface. i'm still not sure how i feel about them, but that's usually how it is after staring at something for several hours.
one thing for sure, i wish i would have printed them on the khaki paper that i was using. as it turned out, i didn't have any left that was big enough for a poster, so i used some printmaking paper. i think it was Reeves BFK. there's a little bit of a disconnect from the stuff i made earlier and these posters because of the change in paper. hmmm....
i made two different posters, and as i was printing them, there was one that i totally liked better than the other one, but by the end, something happened and i ended up liking the one that i thought i was going to have to scrap and hating the one i thought was coming out nicely. i might use the one that sucks and re-do my envelope, but i'm still not sure i want to go hacking into anything just yet.
since my necklaces that i ordered aren't ready, i thought i might make some buttons or print on some fabric and make some patches, or print on fabric and make some cloth buttons. cloth buttons are rad. i might. it really depends on if i have time tomorrow before i go to school to print up a few things.
aight, i'm out.
later bloggity friends.

Art 225 Project 1

Picture 1, originally uploaded by bunnyjrobot.

the recipe booklets are due tomorrow. i don't think i'm too satisfied with mine. i had a lot of technical problems with the colors. you would think working with only three colors would be easier. i think i should have gotten help from our professor, but i never got around to doing that, and that's my fault. at this point, though i'm just like whatevs its done. i can think of a few things that i'll be changing about the booklet for the portfolio review - such as color, more time spent on the typography, better arrow drawings, so, yeah. but its monday night, so i guess i'll be done for now.


(a few more screen shots @ my flickr page)

idaho stop law

i listened to this whole thing on mute and still understood it.it was like a recipe without words.

Bicycles, Rolling Stops, and the Idaho Stop from Spencer Boomhower on Vimeo.

chubs.

chubs., originally uploaded by bunnyjrobot.

welp, i finished my typeface... well, sort of, i still want to do numbers and maybe some dingbats, but i've got to work on another neglected project. so i think this is it for now.

brought to you by the letter P

so....i've been doing some things... working on my experimental typeface. i've gotten to letter 'P'. wooh, 16 letters, i'm almost there. its getting easier to construct the shapes as i go along. after this, i'm going to start putting them into words and see if they read. then do some adjustments... CHECK THEM OUT!

thinking about my typeface....

i still don't know what i'm going to do...
at first i thought i wanted to make
a typeface out of objects,
i was thinking maybe
baby flab rolls, art supplies,
food, utensils, clothing,
keys, or freckles.
but now i'm thinking that i just want
something a little less weird
that i can use for something
other than just this assignment...


oh, and this is awesome.

my first book.

Todayi finished my first project for my bookbinding class. the assignment was to take a random quote from this old book of quotes and design a book around that quote without actually using it in the book. my quote was by some guy named george granville. basically, he was just some English creepster who was born into wealth and then ripped off some of Shakespeare's plays, had some crappy poetry, and at some point was quoted as saying "whimsy, not reason, is the female guide"
so that was the quote that i used to design my book. as you may have noticed, i'm not a huge fan of george granville and as i began planning how i would make my book, i kept getting annoyed at the quote. i mean, who is this granville guy to say that women are guided by whimsy and not reason. what does he even know? ugh, jerk. but part of the assignment was that we couldn't switch quotes, so i was stuck with it.
i decided to break down the quote and come up with key words for each part. it went something like this:
whimsy: whim, whim-wham, ridiculous notion, wander, whisk, trifle, giddy, fancy, fantastical, rash, sudden, impulsive, why not?, caprice, bold.
reason: reasonable, sensible, ordered, logical, centered, clear, precise, neat, smart, sense, feeling in control, understandable.
female: shoes, fashion, shopping, magazines, lipstick, barbies, glamour, trinkets, little boxes to put stuff in, jewels, tacky, crafty, yard, ornaments, flowers, perfume, doilies, pink, pastel, ribbons, nail polish.
please note that for my female key words, i was thinking more along the lines of the stereotypical extreme frilly girly type that i'm assuming george granville was talking about.
so, real briefly, here's what i did to make my book:
i began gathering pictures that represented women and whimsey as the female 'guide'.
basically i chopped up a few NYLON and Star magazines and then pieced them together on some paper i had leftover from some other project. it was looking a little um... high school collage, so i added some cool net-ish paper over the top to kind of tone it down and give it that 'ordered' look. next, i bound it together (using a saddle stich), made the cover, sewed some details with my sewing machine, other than some technical things i'm pretty happy with how it came out. and um... yeah, here are some pictures!

i had a lot of fun making this book, so much fun, that by the end i wasn't even mad at george granville for saying that women are guided by whimsy! in fact, i may even agree with him.

art 254

welp,i'm going to start using this as a school blog. i figure its easier than starting up a new blog (i did that once, but it was very boring). plus, what else do i really have to blog about? other than um, like, eating something yummy, or daffodils blooming, or amelia doing something cute and that's all just blah blah blah....
so, now its official.
i am blogging about school, specifically my art 254 and my art 225 classes, but there might also be some of my bookmaking class thrown in here too. that's it though. for the rest of this term, i'm only blogging about school. no crafts, no babies, no bikes, no knitting, or sewing. like i have time for that stuff anyway. no rambling either.
ok, here are some typefaces that i found that were interesting to me for some reason or another:

click the images for a larger view!
ok, bye my little bloggie friends.