I started looking through photos around 1 am and I'm taking these ones with me.  I thought I only needed to bring my clothes, but I guess I was wrong.  I also thought the previous post would be my last for awhile, and I was wrong about that too.  I didn't sleep for very long, and my dreams were large, hazy pencil drawings that I could barely make out.   

In about 36 hours I'm leaving California, and I don't think I'm going to be ~blogging~ much, if at all, for at least a month.  I haven't been consistent the past couple weeks either, because as soon as I realized I really am leaving, I had to stop drawing, get in my car, and spend time with everyone I'm not going to see until December.  I didn't realize I had many friends until I had to start saying goodbye. Tomorrow I have an entire goodbye itinerary, which begins and ends in the catastrophe of clothes and boxes that is my room.  I'm going to leave you with this photo of Delaney, because it seems appropriate, and it is all I can think of right now.  

I always think that maybe I'll live in L.A. again one day, which is always followed by a big No Way!

Things That Happened Today / Making Out Like Teenagers / Smile With Your Mouth

Dylan does some sort of work for Holiday Matinee, a super cool "global lifestyle brand" (?) out of San Diego.  I don't know anything about anything.  But I know when things look cool, and this shit looks cool.

So, the job today was to take these three graphic t-shirts and make them look cool.  For the earth!  For every shirt you buy, 20 trees are planted. Now, I don't wear t-shirts really, unless it's an oversized cropped batwing one, so the challenge was to look normal and hip and stuff.

So yes, my modeling debut. Haha. When I look at the second photo, all I can think is omg, amazing knee structure. Haha! Thanks Bev. 

Later in the day, Taylor gave me a $1,095 Yves Saint Laurent Bag.

Proof! I agreed to leave the price tag on forever.

Like really, it's not that cute, but whatever, it was freaking expensive so I'm going to use it. 

I'm so bad at photo taking. Left to right background: Box because I'm moving to New York on Friday, Rainbow flip flops sitting on my shelf next to my ~Art Bin~, ENORMOUS HEAP OF CLOTHES AND BAGS. 

 

I'm trading her for this $150 vintage YSL bag. Obviously way cuter. Studs! Tassels! Drawstring!  Whatever, after tax and stuff, my new bag is worth more than $1,000 more. 

New things, like using paint before pencil and then not even using pencil, using my imagination as I go and not drawing from life, trying new colors,  new styles.  I don't know if I like these or not, but new things are still very important.  

Imaginary Friends

Jump Rope

Drawings, paintings, collages, knit objects, photocopied trading card things, all by an artist you've never heard of, my mom, found around my house.  There's so much in the house it sucks me in and I never leave except when I need to go buy some Jello from Vons.  Today I'm making paper dolls.    

The painting on the right I did probably before I was school aged.  The figure in the center is my grandma and the black thing is her brain.  The figure on the far left with a red scar and blue belly button is my sister who had multiple open heart surgeries.

Crop top made of leftover fabric from the quilt I made in high school with shell buttons.  

It's difficult to narrow life's experiences down into favorites, but the clinking of buttons is my favorite sound.  Real buttons, not plastic.  I would often pick up dozens and dozens of freshly dyed corozo buttons for Wren in Los Angeles, and I loved way they clinked so cleanly in their little zip-loc bag.  

I also discovered my favorite meal in Los Angeles: spicy tuna hand roll pre-made from the market, followed by tart frozen yogurt with mangoes.

It Will Never Be Today Again

Diwa and I recently talked about making a zine together, which inspired me to make a couple pages today.  They could go towards that or one of my own.  I just read on Grace's blog that titling unfinished work limits you, but I can't help it; I get titles and lines and phrases stuck in my head on repeat.  It never turns out the way I planned it anyhow. These two are hypothetically for a zine titled It Will Never Be Today Again which is about nice moments, to put it plainly.  Like sitting on the beach in Santa Monica the day before you move away from L.A., knowing you will never return for good, and it is really pretty out, and you go swimming in the ocean for the first time all year.  Or like going out for iced coffee with some people that are pretty much your friends and someone takes pictures on a Nikon Coolpix digital camera and puts them on Facebook and then you look back at them and think, that was a nice day.         

I saw Delaney off to her prom yesterday, which meant congregating with over 40 17-18 year olds and their parents in a picturesquely landscaped Socal backyard before watching them board a "party bus".  I never had this high school experience, so it was kind of fun.  

So prom. The girl on the far left looks like she's wearing a Bumpit, then there's the girl with a tiara in a pink polyester jeweled dress raising the roof, and the girl next to her with her arm up like haaaay, and then Delaney and Muriel back-to-back looking gorg.

My baby sisters who outgrew me back in middle school.  They're all wearing four inch heels. Delaney second from the left in her dress I made.  Excuse my face.   

 Janey is fantastic. (Omg, read the link, it's hilarious. Janey is a "primate Picasso" it says. I read it as "primitive Picasso" and can't get over the art history jokes that come with that reading. Omg, I'm nerdy.) This is the second time I've been there that she's sat for me as I drew her.  She doesn't hold that still and there's a huge glare on the glass, but if the glass weren't there she'd be mere inches from my crossed legs. 

People always talk to me when they see me drawing, which is nice, but I get quite bashful.  I'm only a secret exhibitionist.

And now on to fashion. . .

I finished Delaney's prom dress tonight.

I was very prolific yesterday, sketchbookwise.  I went to the zoo again and then sat and watched my mother (left) and grandmother (right) sew crocheted squares together like it was 1899.     

Hi guys! I know you're reading this now; I installed a statistics system of some sort. There are way more of you reading this than people I know in real life. Email me! Come to my yard sale! Buy Dylan and Gareth's t-shirts! Let's be friends! 

Decided against Parsons -- got into University of Pink!!

Winston Balloons, at The Winston School, Del Mar, CA

Upon Leaving Los Angeles, in Silverlake, L.A., CA, and wearing all Wren 

Winston Barbeque

Empty Balloons

Tower

(Sorry Melanie, I've dismembered you in two of these now.)

Every time I take pictures and get them developed it is very expensive and they come out blurry or boring. And despite any merits a photo may have on its own, I can never just leave it that way, so I cut it up. This is what I came up with tonight.

Flamingos

 

Site-Specific Installation

 

Park West Balcony with Child

~world famous san diego zoo~

I Always Thought Sam Was a Nice Name for a Giraffe

"Tell all your friends"

I painted a t-shirt.  I wore it today while riding my pink beach cruiser and while walking my dog.  I will probably wear it to the beach tomorrow over my swimsuit. Life in Carlsbad is too good!

Home-Ec also made a t-shirt--three, actually, and in very limited editions.  I can personally vouch for their quality because unlike me (I used gouache of course and it bled all over the place) they used proper water-based ink, and unlike me (I chose a stretched-out, stained-up American Apparel tunic) they got shirts from JS Apparel.  I recommended JS to the Home-Ec guys a few months back after going to their factory in L.A.  The tees are cut well and are really soft.  I like how the v-neck is shallow and wide, in contrast to the AA deep and narrow v (ugh).   

If you buy this one we can wear them on the same day.

I've been making a lot of collages these past few days.  They are strange.

Poodle Bedroom