Jared

I've had an interesting week... and I don't really feel like writing about most of it. I am, however, excited to have recently finished my first painting on my new computer. Big screen + more RAM = happy painting times for Jared. I've been looking over my recent work and I wasn't entirely happy with how it's been turning out so I decided to try out a different technique with this illustration. I think I achieved quite a bit more tonal depth with this than I have with my previous stuff. I get frustrated pretty easily when I struggle with painting, but all I have to do is look at some of my work from this time last year and I become pretty satisfied with my progress so far.

Click for full size.... How I paint a kid today. How I painted a child last March. Damn. :|

I had a ridiculously long, shitty day. I was originally going to post a rant about it, but I'm far too exhausted a the moment to dwell on it any longer. If today was any indication of how the rest of the week is going to be, however, I'm sure they'll be a lengthy rant in the near future. Clients from hell. :S

I decided to focus on the positive instead. I'm currently working on a series of 'dress-up' illustrations in my free time that I'm pretty happy with. I find I have two very different styles for my illustration work - one which comes very naturally to me and one which takes a little more time. This is an example of how I draw naturally and I decided to just go with it for once instead of always trying to force myself to draw in a style I'm not comfortable with. I had honestly forgotten what it felt like to just draw without all my hang-ups. I was surprised by how quickly things came together.

Anyway, here are three of the character sketches for what I'm working on. I won't go into much detail now but I hope the final series is as fun as I expect it to be. I have nine more characters at various stages of development at the moment. I'll start painting these once I get my new computer and have the correct RAM and screen size to properly illustrate.

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Cheers

I was in shorts and sandals last weekend. It was beautiful, warm, sunny, etc.

I woke up this morning to clouds of snow blowing past the balcony and the threat of 30cm of accumulation for the day.

What the fuck Mother Nature? 

So... I kinda just ordered a new iMac. :)

I promise it was only sort of an impulse buy after I saw that Jenn had bought one.

Truth be told, my iBook is still working pretty well and would likely have done me just fine for another year, but I'm really struggling with only having 512MB of RAM on this thing. Tonight was especially painful as I'm trying to work on a rather large illustration and dealing with the spinning pinwheel every couple of minutes is driving me nuts. Not to mention, my battery has completely died so now the computer has to be plugged in at all times which kinda defeats the purpose of having a laptop in the first place. Oh, and only one speaker works.

Those are really the only problems though. All things considered, that's pretty impressive considering I've had this thing for over three years and I treated the computer like shit. I literally left it on without shutting down or restarting for three months straight at one point. Oh, and I dropped it in the street one day on the way to school... and on my cement floor. I've never had it crash and have never had any other frustrating problems like I've had with previous computers, though. If it wasn't for those minor problems, I likely wouldn't buy a new computer for a few more years but I figured if I'm going to spend $500 on RAM and who knows how much on a new battery, I might as well just get a new computer.

To be honest, I'm a little bit sad to be giving up on my baby. :)  BUT, I'm also extremely excited to be upgrading. I'm going from 512MB to 4GB of memory, (OMG!) gaining six inches in screen, getting the built in webcam, and increasing hard-drive space (not really a big deal since I have my externals anyway)

It'll be weird not to have a laptop anymore, but then again, I guess my current computer has been immobile for months now anyway so it won't be much of a switch.

Sometimes when I'm alone, I start pretending that I'm acting out a scene in a horror movie. I have no idea why.

For instance, yesterday when I was leaving for work, I got into the elevator alone and starting frantically jamming the 'close door' button while craning my neck to see if my pursuer was running at me down the hall. It's funny. I can get so into the moment that my heart actually speeds up and I believe that I'm actually being chased. I act out entire scenarios where I'm home alone and here a noise and then have to investigate... slowly making my way from room to room to check for intruders.

Fuck I'm lame. :D Keeps me entertained though, so whatever.

Moving on...

Mike and I went for lunch the other day and while we were eating, I noticed an adorable little Thai girl nearby with her mother. She was dressed in pink from head to toe and carrying a stuffed bear that I found especially charming. Naturally, I was staring at her like a pedophilic old perv because I was trying to remember what she looked like so I could sketch her later. (I really am strange, folks) Anyway, the girl started picking her nose but I forgave her for it because she was only five or six and her blunt haircut had my attention. But when she pulled her finger out with a giant, crusty booger, clearly visible from where I was sitting, and stuck that finger in her mouth, I almost spat up my Pad Thai. And then she did it again. And again.

AHHH!

I mean, whatever, most people have picked their nose. Who cares. I just do not understand what would make someone want to eat it? The thought has never even occurred to me and I was a gross little kid. Ew. For some reason, I cannot get that booger-eater out of my head and keep replaying that giant hunk of nose-gold being rubbed onto her tongue.

I took my nipple ring out about three years ago but every so often I can still feel it... and even absentmindedly reach down to play with it. I'm currently having one of those moments - where I'm strangely 'aware' of my right nipple. 

As usual, not much of importance has been happening for me. I still find myself longing for some sort of adventure or discovery, but I figure I'm the type of person who will always be searching for something else so I'm coming to terms with it... I guess. ;)  I'm just bored. I want to learn new things and I'm horribly impatient. There are a few things that I've wanted now for quite some time and none of them seem to be getting any more attainable. Anyone who actually reads this journal should know by now that the top of my 'to-do' list is to get to Asia. (Tokyo preferably but Bangkok more realistically and likely) At this point, even I'm sick of hearing me talk about it so I really just need to get there in order to get it out of my system, I think. However, maybe upon arriving there I'll be even more infatuated and only return to Canada with a stronger desire to get back to Asia. I guess we'll see... eventually.

Another item on that list of things I'm impatiently waiting for is to get my dog. Unfortunately our new apartment, though ripe with perks, also comes with the drawback of not allowing pets. The other building in the complex does, however, so there's always the chance we'll move into that one sometime in the future. The idea of moving yet again just so we can get a dog seems pretty silly though. Who knows. Mike and I are both pretty serious about it and I think we'd get a puppy tomorrow if we could. I really miss having that companionship. I've always had a dog since I was two years old, so it's been strange not having one for so long.

Work has been going more or less good. I've gotten into one of my design-funks where I lose all confidence in my work and can't seem to produce anything. Fortunately, I've spent the last two weeks doing realistic renderings of things so I'm at least in my comfort zone. I find that even though I still lack a lot of finesse as an illustrator, I feel much more comfortable with it than design. At some point in life I can see myself focusing on it entirely, though it'll be a long time coming I'm sure.

I also have a hard time reading people at work and tend to worry about how I'm perceived. I really like everyone there and think two of my co-workers in particular are hysterically funny but in typical Jared fashion, can't seem to open up to them. I can't figure out whether they intend to lengthen my contract when the woman I'm covering for is back from maternity leave but if I'm being realistic, I really don't think they will. For one, they don't really have the room for me in the office so they'd have to make special arrangements just to bring me on. Plus, I'm not sure if they'd really need an additional person. Things are pretty hectic at work right now, and I know the bosses are working crazy overtime but I get the impression it's not very common for them to be that swamped. And plus, I haven't really done anything impressive enough for them to think I'd be valuable enough to keep in spite of any complications that may come along with it. That's not me being negative, just honest. I think I'm fairly decent at what I do but I can identify my shortcomings and know that there are several areas of design that I struggle with. I think it's fairly lucky that they just happen to have a few illustration jobs coming through the office at the moment.

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that at this point, I assume I'll be looking for another job in July if only because they simply don't need another full-time employee. I won't worry about it until then though. I'm making this seem much more dramatic than it actually is. :)

Speaking of work, my whole office and Mike went for dinner and drinks last night. I had an extremely good night. My bosses are ridiculously funny and light hearted. They crack inappropriate jokes, poke fun at some of their more eccentric clients (and there are so many) and are just all-around fun people. I find that I'm a lot more open when I'm not in the office setting so at least they get to see a little more of my personality when we all go on outings - whether that's a good thing or not remains to be seen. ;) Not to mention, they're crazy generous. They paid for everyone's cabs but also paid for seven people's dinner, (steaks with blue-cheese and chocolate sauce :) ) drinks, desserts, etc. Plus, they bought me and my two other co-workers awesome new jackets from Veer. (picture below) Of course, they also bring treats into the office ALL the time, take us out for lunches, buy as coffee, and so on. I think I got very lucky with my first job - which makes it a little crappy that I likely won't be staying around after the summer. <:)

Anyway, I'm ranting. Here's my new design-themed jacket which is geeky as hell but awesome all the same. Oh, and I finally got my beanie from Scott last week and have been wearing it entirely too often considering the unusually warm weather around here. :) I love it.

Ta ta.

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Since I have a few extra minutes this morning, I figured I should make a quick update since I'd meant to write one earlier in the week. As usual, however, I just never got around to it. Poor neglected blog. I need to buy you an ice-cream.

Last Wednesday was my birthday. Ew. 23 is just an ugly age to me.. and I'm not even sure I can make sense of that. Like, 22 and 24 seem like fine ages, but 23 does not. Maybe I just have a thing for even numbers or something. It's strange that certain ages have particular attributes assigned to them. Like, 13 - you're a teenager, then there's sweet 16, at 19 you can drink (Canada), etc etc etc. Nothing is exciting about 23. *sigh* I guess I have a full year to get used to it.

As usual, nothing has really been happening for me. I find that while I still like my job, the novelty has worn off and I'm officially at the point where the weekends don't come quickly enough. Last week in particular was hellish. I spent many days near tears from pure frustration with what I was working on. Thankfully, I'm off the project now and this week looks to be fairly monotonous. I'm doing illustrations all week for two different clients. One set is purely vector and has been in my docket for a month already at work. It looks like the illustration job that will never die simply because there are SO MANY things they need. The other job is a series of realistic paintings of 2-story houses for a construction company in the city. It sounds boring, and kinda is, but it's extremely challenging as well. I'm ashamed to say that I've never drawn anything in 2 point perspective before and wasted an hour or two just trying to figure out how to draw the damn thing. I'll post a picture of the process eventually.

What else. Oh, our furniture from IKEA arrived last week and everything was great except they sent three black-brown chairs and one pine. So last Saturday I had to make the trip out there to get it replaced. The guy at the Customer Service counter was amusingly homosexual and made me laugh. When I explained the problem, he said in the entirely stereotypical lisp "Really? Oh SNAP!"  I don't even know what that means. But he was adorable so I'll let it be.

I think that's all. My life, though never very exciting, has definitely fallen into the adult routine. Wake up, work, gym, home, tv, sleep.

And, I still want to go to Asia.

Ta!

This weekend is proving to be quite the expensive one. I'm making good on my promise to make our new apartment a comfortable, inviting home rather than just another transitional, temporary place. My wallet is begging for mercy. :) It doesn't help that Thursday (Friday for Mike and I) was Valentine's Day. I took Mike out for dinner at a charming New Orleans-style restaurant. I spent about what I expected to for dinner, drinks, appetizers, and dessert, but I still have guilt over forking over so much money for food I could have made at home if I would just put the time in. In fact, I've made jambalaya several times at home so it's a tad pointless to go out and order it somewhere else. ;) Whatever. Mike got to have his oysters. Gross.

For my Valentines gift, Mike bought me a new pair of running shoes and insoles. He was going to buy me a Nintendo DS - something I've been considering buying myself for months now - but in a rare moment of maturity and responsibility, I vetoed the decision in favor or shoes instead. Seriously, the fact that I've gone 22 years without proper insoles for my hob-goblin feet and can still walk is a modern miracle. Actually, I like my feet, but my arches are ridiculously high. I have the feet a sexy stilleto dreams of. Unfortunately I've always been too cheap to buy myself the proper shoes, or better yet, get orthotics so I've been know to have serious foot cramps on occasion. So while Mike's gift might not seem overly romantic for the occasion, it's actually very sweet. :) It still feels really weird to walk with my entire foot supported though. I've been walking on the outside of my feet for my entire life...

And those insoles came in handy yesterday for walking through IKEA for hours. With my new determination to love my surroundings, frugality has been abandoned. I spent nearly 700 dollars in a few short hours... heh. Fortunately, when shopping at IKEA, $700 goes a long way and our apartment will basically be fully furnished once the delivery arrives next week. Our loot from yesterday includes:

• a coffee table and two matching end tables
• a bookcase cabinet with doors
• four kitchen chairs
• four thick cushions
• one large area rug
• two hand-blown frosted glass lamps with beautiful pattern (LOVE THEM)
• one orb lamp (funky as can be)
• three CD storage boxes
• one giant glass vase with 6' willow branches
• one magnetic backsplash for the kitchen with three magnetic spice containers. (So fun)
• various necessities such as screws, hooks, etc.

And now, I have to go spend even more money because I split yet another pair of jeans yesterday. That's five pairs of pants in the last year that I've ripped the crotch out of. I cannot explain it because it really makes no sense. If I was splitting the ass out than I'd assume that my butt was just too big and it was time to give up the chocolate (NEVER!) but it's just the crotch. Maybe I should stop buying cheap pants.

Oh, and I'm very thankful that today is a holiday in Alberta. I've never heard of Family Day, but I'll gladly celebrate it.

Love yah. ;)

Lately, I've been discovering a bunch of artists I've previously been completely ignorant about and I've noticed that my musical tastes are changing significantly. That's not to say that I still don't have a lot of guilty pleasures... (Britney Spears - Blackout was seriously a GOOD pop album and I'm definitely going to get Janet's comeback album) but for my everyday listening, I generally prefer my music to have a little more substance and less computer-generated filler or random Timbaland sound bites.

Here are a few of my newly discovered favorite artists. I'm sure other people with better musical tastes than I have been aware of these artists for much longer and already have their own opinions but there's a chance I could be introducing someone to a new favorite and that's awesome.