O Hare

I was able to get another illustration finished this weekend.

Made with watercolor, gouache and a lot of little tiny brush strokes I completed this little hare.

As I was finishing it up, I also happened to be listening to This American Life, and a story about The Portland Meat Collective. This collective teaches people how to butcher animals, and also how to kill animals for food.

The founder of the meat collective was sharing a story that I had heard about this past year. Someone, or someones, broke into a man's yard where he was raising rabbits for food. This person, or persons, stole his rabbits to free them. This person was not aware that the rabbits he/she were stealing were also momma rabbits who were caring for 10 day old bunnies.

Sadly, the baby bunnies died from lack of food and warmth that their mother rabbits provided. In freeing the rabbits, thinking they were doing a "good thing" these people unknowingly killed tiny bunnies in the most inhumane way possible. Slow and drawn out.

It was an interesting story about food, meat and how oblivious we are to where and how we get our food. It made me think about my eating habits and the eating habits of the people around me.

Well, I didn't mean to bum anyone out. I just thought it was interesting how this story was told at the very same time I was painting this little hare.

7 Irrelevant Things About Me

Ok.

So I have been tagged not once, but twice! Once by ArtKitten and once by ChristopherandTia.

I have been racking my brain for useless facts that you probably don't know about me, and honestly I think I have shared much of these facts with you already...so I have had to come up with some new ones, that maybe you don't know already.....

Here I go:

1. I have a giant tattoo on my back. It wasn't suppose to be this big....
I went in and Jerry Ware at Atlas Tattoo in PDX, had drawn it up for me, and it honestly didn't look that big on paper. Then he put it on my back, and it still really didn't look THAT big...and then he showed me what it looked like about half way through...and it did look really big. But, what could I do? Besides...if you're going to get a tattoo, you might as well go big, right? :)

2. Wet bread totally grosses me out. If there is bread or cereal in the sink, and it's wet, I seriously want to gag. It's so disgusting. Ewwww......

3. I have a huge crush on Ira Glass of This American Life. *swoon*

4. In my early 20's I tried to be really cool and pretend that I didn't care about boys and their feelings. I had been hurt pretty bad by a couple of guys, and decided that from that point on I would treat guys the way that I had been treated. Yeah, I learned pretty quick, and hard, that that wasn't the kind of person I am at all.

5. When I was 16 I had really long hair. It went down to the middle of my back. My best friend and I decided that it would be really cool if we just bleached the front part of my bangs too. So for two weeks I walked around with bleached yellow blonde bangs. It finally relaxed and actually looked kinda cool. I hope that it's ok that I post this picture of the both of us Trinks...I love it. We went to the mall and got our pictures taken professionally by one of those Children's Portrait Places :)

6. I loved Bikini Kill when I was 16. I still do, but I use to worship Kathleen Hanna. I made my own Bikini Kill shirt using acrylic paint and a water color paint brush. It was very cool, and I wish I still had it.

7. The final one! My friend and I wanted to start a punk band when we were 15. We didn't have the money to buy equipment, but we would sit at Starbucks and try to write songs that we thought were cool. Haha. That's actually kind of embarrassing...

Ok. The continuation of 7 Irrelevant Things about me continues tomorrow. And I'll announce the people that I tag too!!

ps...here are some pictures of what I was working on today :)

Exacto Expert

Alright, I am more than half way done with my project. I think I have put a total of 24 hours into this thing. I don't think I have worked on anything so frustrating since I was in high school algebra, but even then I figured it out in a couple of days. I also didn't have to spend a lot of money every time I messed up.

I think the most frustrating thing about this project was when I would be doing really good, no mess ups, almost done, and then something stupid would happen, like my exacto would slip and I's scratch the main piece. The worst was when the rubber cement would dry too quickly and when I would go to pull up the area that I had cut out, the illustration board would come with it. Argh.
I realize that you have no idea what I am talking about, but if I tried to explain it here you would be more confused, so just go with it.

So all I have to do now with my four designs is mount them on some railroad board, and be done. Now if I can just measure and cut those right I'm in business. I had to stop for the day though. There is only so many times you can mess up and not lose your mind.

It's MLKJ day! Hooray for that. I heard this really great This American Life last year, and now I think of it every time I think of Christmas and MLKJ day.
It starts out with this man talking about his little girl. When she was 4 or 5 she was really curious about why we celebrate Christmas. When her dad explained to her that we celebrate Christmas we celebrate the day that Jesus was born. She then became really interested in who Jesus was. She would ask her dad all these questions about him. He wasn't religious by nay means and tried to answer as best as he could. When it came to his death, his daughter asked him why people had killed him. He simply explained that it was because he had a lot of beliefs that other people didn't agree with. She replied with "Oh." And that was the last of that.

The next month he didn't have to go to work on a Monday. His daughter asked him why he didn't have to be at work that day. He told her it was MLK day and that it was celebrating his birthday. She immediately thought of Christmas and Jesus, and asked him if MLK was still alive. He told her no, and she asked if he was killed because he had different beliefs like Jesus did.
"Yes. Yes, I guess you could say that," was his answer.

Needless to say, I was in tears at the end of the story. This American Life is good for that. It can have you laughing, crying, and pondering the mysteries of life all in one hour.