long weekend adventure

Having an extra weekend day is wonderful. Somehow I am always able to get infinitely more done with just 24 more hours. This weekend a friend asked if I wanted to join her on a hike with her dog so we headed over to the Marin headlands and started walking. I don't think we were really prepared for quite how steep the whole thing was, there was a lot of scrambling up very steep rocky hills (felt more like climbing cliffs!) but the scenery was beautiful the whole way. It started out clear and blue skied and incredibly hot.


Then as we turned a corner towards the ocean the fog started trailing in between the hills. It got very moody, there were sections where you couldn't see anything beyond the particular path we are on. I'm sure on a clear day the view is spectacular, but there was a certain neat something  going on with all the fog.

There were some old grafittied bunkers (with this spectacular panda above!) and other various military buildings, even a giant cannon. And eventually we got to the ocean which reminded me of home, though perhaps with higher cliffs. Finally we crossed the beach and went through a short section of woods and were back at the car. It was a perfect day for a walk and I'm sure we will go out there again for more exploring. 

last minute valentine postcards

Last night I decided that I wanted to make some sort of valentine to send out to some far away friends. So I dug around in my collection of already cut blocks, picked out some ink and laid out some paper and made some cards. It was quick and messy, two dozen postcards took less than an hour. I always like getting colorful things in the mail so I'm hoping that these are fun to receive as well.

buried treasures

I haven't done any creative work in the past few days because I undertook a pretty massive closet clean out that turned into a studio clean out that turned into a apartment clean out and then of course a subsequent cleaning of said cleaned out spaces. So I was knee deep in detritus and unable to make anything pretty. Sort of unfortunate, but also supremely satisfying. In doing this life clean out, I rediscovered a bunch of interesting things. Including this mixed metal belt buckle that I made back in college when I was able to squeeze in a jewelry elective my senior year. It's amusing to see that I had a similar style (I still do the same exact house silhouettes) I'm just sad this was hiding in a drawer for so long. So, for now I figure my dress form Peggy can rock some cute accessories, but soon I'm going to have to figure out somewhere to actually wear this.

Also, as proof that I really was clearing things out, the below picture is what my hallway looked like yesterday. Not pictured are the bags that went to trash and recycling and thrift store which I had already taken. These are all just clothes going to various yard sale and or resale locations. So here's to starting a new year (ish) with a bit less stuff.

{snapshot}

researching exteriors

A lot of my time recently has been spent on a big project, and the other day I got to wander around my neighborhood taking pictures of pretty buildings all in the name of research, which was lovely. I can't really go into detail about the work itself but a big victorian house is one of the characters and so I've been collecting inspiration. These are just a few of the pictures I took that afternoon (there were so many good buildings!) and I was mostly focusing on trim and windows and how two different buildings lined up next to each other. 

Anyway, just wanted to share some of the pretty snaps I got. My walk was great in that it cleared out in my mind what I was really looking to do as far as the house style.
And now back to my desk.

a messy desk

Last week I went to open one of my desk drawers and it was stuck. I had to remove the drawer above it to fix the situation. Needless to say, things couldn't stay that messy. So I went to my favorite dollar store and picked up a much of little bins and trays and spent an evening straightening things out. I also got rid of a lot of supply/tool clutter that was frankly junk, and now everything is working much smoother. Simple fix, and now I don't have to dig around for that one pen I want to use.

weekly art project: muni people

I really wanted to do some sort of small scale, regular art project this year. I have been keeping a growing note in my phone with descriptions of people I see on the train and bus on my daily commute, and so inspired by that, I decided to do a weekly project, where I take one of those descriptions and illustrate it each week. I'm using 3 by 5 index cards, ink and one color in watercolor for each character and I have been posting them to Instagram some time each Sunday. Now that I have been keeping this up for a whole month I feel like I can share them here.

I'm not sure what I will do with this series at the end of the year (fingers crossed I keep it up for the whole 52 weeks) but I have eleven more months to come up with ideas. In the meantime, I'm enjoying having one more excuse to aggressively people watch each day, and I look forward to whatever characters I manage to observe in the wild next.