Ancient History (image heavy)

Fun fact: I did graphics design in college. I had the intention of being an illustrator or graphics designer, and then decided I couldn’t handle ‘constructive criticism’ well, on an emotional level. I had this pictured in my head:
Client: Hm, this isn’t quite what I had pictured. Maybe recolor everything… and change this half to that, and that half to this.
Me: You don’t…. like it? *emotional breakdown*
Client: Nevermind, it’s fine! Ha! Don’t worry about it. (hasty retreat, never to return again.)

Fortunately I also learned retouching photos, which I thought was fun enough and was good at but had no real interest in pursuing as a career at the time. I had an opportunity to work for a big photography company as a retoucher, but had talked to a girl who used to do it for the same company and she painted me a picture of 8 hours a day, 5 days a week of retouching teen acne. 40 hours a week… zoomed in on facial blemishes… all day, every day. Hmmmmm. Nope, pretty sure that would get to me. I did do a practicum as a fashion illustrator, and that could have gone somewhere, except my dad thought that would lead me down the path of unrighteousness. But mostly that didn’t pan out because the designer I was working with took a job opportunity owning a small burger chain in Alberta. (You can’t make this stuff up.)

Anyways, I thought it might be fun to share some of my past illustrations. The most recent one is from 2008, but most of them are from my angsty/wierd late teen years. I wasn’t a drinker, and I wasn’t a smoker, and I didn’t do drugs. But I did draw some weird stuff. I was pretty self-aware, though, one of these files even had the filename ‘angsty’ ;) Anyways, try not to be creeped out. Some of these are vector art, most of them are drawn in a variety of illustration programs using my old graphics tablet. (which I sold because it was enormous and took up too much space considering I never use it anymore. I kindof want to buy a small one now though.)

I was fascinated by piercings. I have my ears done and that’s it.

This is the one with the filename ‘angsty’, in case you didn’t guess that. You can observe my professional illustration skills if you note that she is in fact hovering in nowhere with a blurry stock photo of a tree in the background. You’re welcome.

Those two were wallpaper images.

Even though this style was my wierd doodle style, I still love it. It made me smile then, and it makes me smile now. :D

BOO YEAH.

My dark era? ha. Also, how awesome was I at drama as a teen. “My innocence lost… my hatred found”… BAHAHAHA. Wow. I was reading a lot of fantasy books at the time. This wasn’t actually a fallen angel thing, I had read a book about a race of winged people and when they met unwinged people they were fascinated and a little haughty until the non winged people decided they were scared of them so it was time to kill them. It was a long time ago, I don’t remember how it all went down, just that it was good and angsty and I listened to Evanescence.

Another wallpaper image. Still love. haha.

The only major illustration I’ve done since I had kids.

It’s like a Troll doll got buff and became a pirate. Awesome.

some cutesy stuff was going on for a while there.

Vector image of a classmate in college.

I can’t really explain this one to you. Caffeine was (and is) my drug of choice but perhaps I was tripping out on some espresso while watching Emporer’s New Groove because the filename on this one is “LLAMAFAAAACE”

 

I take no responsibility for this one, it was a commission.

A vector image of a friend’s horsey, Mercedes.

I kindof hate the nose on this girl. But not quite enough to fix it now, because I don’t think I have the original file with the lineart layer any more.

Another vector. Music piracy, get it? I was into pirates and music for a while there. See troll pirate above.

My shotty webcam and my graphics tablet had a strange baby that was my user id pic somewhere for a long time. Boy, I had pretty volumous hair. Nice. I wonder who my hairdresser was at this time… I could use a good cut… (I have to be like, eighteen here.)

More vector art from in college! I made this with the intent to print it poster sized. I still smile when I see it. OUTRAGED SMILEY!!! (maiden name, what whaaat!)

Here’s the lineart for the “most recent” picture. I think I shall print it out for Nicole to color. Feel free to use it for the same purpose! Here is a link to print it out full size, let your printer resize it for a letter sized sheet. If you want to send me colored in pictures I would be delighted! Like, beyond tickled pink.

I hope you enjoyed my little walk down memory lane!

The Incident

So, for Christmas last year and this year, my parents take us and my youngest siblings (the ones that live at home) to Grand Forks for a few days and get us all a hotel room in the Canad Inns Grand Forks, where we spend a lot of time enjoying the waterpark. (We spend a lot of the rest of the time shopping at places like Target, which we don’t have in Canada. Nursing tanks for $16, whaaaat! Same quality costs at least $40 here…. but I’ve wandered off topic.)

The waterpark is divided into this area, which is a splashpark with two smaller waterslides, and then a middle swimming pool, and then another little splash area for really small kids which is attached to a ‘river’ of sorts that you ride floaties around, and the main attraction, a whirlpool waterslide.

Nicole enjoying the waterslides, and me hovering like the mother hen I am… my mom was up in the hotel room with Olivia, she has Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Disorder and the chlorine really gets  to her. (and clearly I’m not in bikini-body shape but since I had a baby six weeks before this picture was taken I’m not hating on myself.)

Now, we all had a hoot, especially Nicole. She ran around CONSTANTLY. Like, wow. The batteries do not die on this kid. There was no pause, there was no break. Just the on button.

So, I was taking her down the whirlpool waterslide just one more time before I headed back up to the room. The first time I had gone down, I’d ask the lifeguard at the top, who was wearing glasses, what I should do with mine … wear them or hold them. He said, “I’d hang onto them.” So I did. Now watch the photo progression as I hit the bottom on the last round.

Yay/whoosh! Yay/whoosh!Kerplunk! *snap*Oh, shit!Exucuse me… my lens snapped when I hit the bottom and dropped into the pool! (Lifeguard doesn’t say a word and just walks off…)

And now I’m cheerfully yelling at my sister to stop taking pictures and go find my husband and tell him what happened. I get very panicky feeling when I can’t see, my vision is pretty bad. And of course I didn’t pack any spare glasses! Now I need to buy a new pair, but the next night when I got home I did find an older weaker pair with the nosepiece broken, but two lenses. Far worse off was the hotel, they did some diving and came up with four pieces of my lens and decided the responsible thing to do would be to shut down half the waterpark – everything connected and unfortunately most of the main stuff – and drain and totally clean it. I felt really bad for all the people who were there and for the Canad Inns as well. I mostly was just feeling sortof panicky and sorry for myself at the time though, since I could only see clearly out of one eye! My choices for the rest of the time were either a wierd trippy sort of double vision, complete blur, or closing one eye to look out of the good lens. Bummer. Note to self – when you’re dependant on breakable plastic to see, bring a spare, always!!!!

So for now I went to walmart vision center yesterday and got fitted for my first ever pair of contacts. I have been meaning to for a long time, sometimes glasses are pretty inconvenient, although I do love mine. I hadn’t seen myself clearly without glasses for more than ten years (except for really up close.) I kept staring at myself in the mirror off and on while wearing them yesterday and today! (a few hours at a time, to get used to them.) I also keep feeling like I need to put my glasses on, since I don’t see them in my line of sight. Like I said, it’s been more than ten years of wearing them all the time! Here is my last good self-portrait, taken in June.

So, here’s the big reveal of me without glasses, and having done my hair and makeup to be worn without glasses. (The first time I did my makeup to wear without glasses my hubby flunked me and sent me back… LOL.)

So, New Year New Me, I guess! i have been chickening out of trying contacts for years and years now. It wasn’t touching my eyes that bothered me, or putting things in my eyes… I have just been wearing glasses for so long I was afraid I’d look crappy without them. I’m still going to order another pair of my current prescription to at least have on-hand… I haven’t quite decided yet if I will wear contacts most of the time or not yet. I am soooo insecure about this, you have no idea. I’ve had glasses and hinged a lot of how my face looks at any given time on them since grade six, people. That’s a lot of formative years and then the full chunk of my adult life so far. I mean, I have never stepped back and taken a good long look at my adult face without glasses before. I wasn’t sure at first, but I think maybe it’s not so bad. (and now I can buy cheap sunglasses for the first time ever… super yay!)

Happy New Years, everyone!

Indian Summer

Well, today is the first day of fall, and I have a lovely new hat to celebrate. Indian Summer, which you can preview on whipup.net here.

I knit it up in a bamboo/silk blend and I found the ribbing to be really loose. Very possible it's the yarn I used. I'm knitting up a smaller version in pink, fluffy yarn for nicole. This hat knits up really quickly and easily! This is actually my first knitted hat... normally I crochet them freestyle.


And yes, I do have photoshop again. The precious. It's a free trial, sadly. In 28 days a little piece of my soul dies. If only I hadn't lost my copy... sigh.