dailies 8/31-9/6.

first week of classes! sort of. two of my classes did not happen because of labor day, so it was a little bit of an anti-climactic start to the semester. but! i moved into my shiny new studio in the fox building - it's lovely and it has a nice big window for primo natural light. i'm trying out this new work-stays-at-work, studio-stays-at-studio, home-stays-at-home thing, so we'll see how that works out for me.


sunday, august 31st: "i love my new house and the people in it."
monday, september 1st: "hit the ground running? or hit the ground face first?"
tuesday, september 2nd: "i'm not so good at keeping in touch."
wednesday, september 3rd: "...and the class hasn't even started yet."
thursday, september 4th: "i wonder how many people ignore them when they say hello."
friday, september 5th: "she needed me to be there and i wasn't."
saturday, september 6th: "getting things up an running bit by bit."

in other sort-of exciting news, i am finally trying to put all these dailies to good use and am preparing an application for a solo exhibition in one of mica's student space galleries. i realized that this spring (when the shows are slotted) i will have an entire year of tiny square illustrations to show, so i figured it was worth a shot? wish me luck!

hello, house!

so, it turns out that despite my best efforts to remember who, where and when i am, i mis-dated all the dailies for last week, sliding the whole collection into the past by a day. this is me acknowledging, but not correcting, that fact. think of it as preserving the past in which i didn't know what day it was.

in other news, here's my new home! there's still a little work to be done in terms of adorning the walls and such, but all three of us are here and wonderful and so is this place. so begins our tour! coming in the front door and looking left, this is what you see:around the corner is the bathroom, and the second door is my room (please note the totally-not-dead bonsai tree and his little light-happy shelf):
here's my lovely plein-air closet (sort of), with my bureau and wardrobe next door to it.
and my reading nook, complete with one-hundred percent awesome view.leaving my room, we see the shiny shiny kitchen, then turning left, you see the living room.
the crazy makeshift bookshelf display is probably my favorite part. moral of the story: i like it. i'm hoping that a swell apartment sets the tone for a swell year.

dailies 8/24-8/30.

dailies dailies dailies dailies, as per usual.


sunday, august 23rd: "dreaming things into complexity."
monday, august 24th: "i can now add 'thriller choreography' to my list of useless skills."
tuesday, august 25th: "hmm, just add shit."
wednesday, august 26th: "planting too many seeds to see if anything will grow."
thursday, august 27th: "cranky in a cute dress."
friday, august 28th: "what's self-control?"
saturday, august 29th: "i'm counting down a lot of things."

i'm finally unpacked unpacked, settled in and loving my new apartment and roommates. things are looking up, so look for a shameless apartment photo shoot a little later this week before classes get too far underway.

dailies 8/17-8/23.

just a little late this week, it's been a crazy few days. i'm finally getting nicely settled into my new (lovely!) place, i'll probably post pictures and deviate mildly from the strictly art nature of this blog to show off my new house as soon as we get the finishing touches squared away. apparently our toilet is a 'toto', which i'm told is essentially like having a bentley parked in our bathroom. i'm not entirely sure why that was relevant, but here we go:

sunday, august 17th: "a silver lining that basically tied my loose thesis ends in a big fat bow."
monday, august 18th: "a cold shower in a steamy apartment i guess balances out."
tuesday, august 19th: "my thinking cap was exceptionally high-functioning today."
wednesday, august 20th: "actions speak louder."
thursday, august 21st: "i'm letting too much in."
friday, august 22nd: "i'm suddenly ready and willing to pick a fight."
saturday, august 23rd: "too many things are demanding my attention."

the end the end the end the end. classes start up in a week, so expect much more in the visual stimuli department than just week after week of dailies really soon! like whoa!

dailies 8/10-8/16: thrown off my axis.

an absolutely crazy week of moving and ra training and a zippy trip to philadelphia won the great dailies battle of 2008 and i did not get to post this yesterday. apologies abound, but i am presently very distractable with both a shiny new (and pretty much amazing) apartment to settle into and a whole slew of awesome staff mates to be bonding with. so this will stay short and sweet.
sunday, august 10th: "crossing the wrong sorts of things off my to-do list."
monday, august 1th: "scraping the bottom of the fridge-shaped barrel."
tuesday, august 12th: "a weird limbo-state between old and new homes."
wednesday, august 13th: "there is probably a reason that particular song was stuck in my head all day."
thursday, august 14th: "if i am ever interviewed by james lipton, the job i would never like to attempt would 100% be 'professional mover'."
friday, august 15th: "taking a stand, even it is for something embarassingly marginal."
saturday, august 16th: "i'm ready to be a grown-up now please."

we'll see if i can keep this up now that i have legit responsibilities again.

dailies 8/3-8/9.

an early dailies post this week, since i am moving in the next few days and i need to pack up my trusty scanner all safe and sound so that it makes it in one piece and continues to be trusty in my new home too. sunday, august 3rd: "i spent the day waiting."
monday, august 4th: "my overactive imagination is alive and kicking."
tuesday, august 5th: "i'm losing confidence in the most basic of skills."
wednesday, august 6th: "oh, no."
thursday, august 7th: "turns out i am still an unconditional fan."
friday, august 8th: "i accidentally upped the disillusionment ante."
saturday, august 9th: "i made a strut-worthy playlist."

there was a mini-update to my portfolio site this week, but the next few days will be little more than packing and moving, dragging and lugging. i can't wait. on the horizon after that is a desktop wallpaper submission to kitsune noir's "desktop battle!" on the topic of facial hair, and finally, a resolution of sorts for my backlog of 2008 dailies. and of course, you know, school.

SLACKER SLACKER SLACKER SLACKER

so, i was feeling bad about my lack of non-dailies posts in approximately one million years. to be fair, a lot of my illustration-type work has been sketch-phase stuff for thesis, and i've been working three jobs, but i believe that's just a long-winded way of saying "excuses, excuses." maybe i'll scan some sketchbook pages to detail "the great squatty progression of 2008" that's been happening over the summer too, but until then, here's the t-shirt design i did for res life, since i will be an ra in the fall. i'm pretty sure it was supposed to have something to do with the theme "through the ages," and i'm pretty sure i said "pshhhhht" to that and just drew this instead. man i love cowboy boots and hugging things.

dailies 7/27-8/2.

rounding out month two of the weekly-dailies posts, and feeling pretty okay about that. though the start of august is unofficial code for "PANIC!!" since that means that means real-life sorts of things are getting started very soon.
sunday, july 27th: "in desperate need of some girl talk."
monday, july 28th: "hanging on tighter than i should."
tuesday, july 29th: "it snuck up on me, like a riptide would if i didn't hate the ocean."
wednesday, july 30th: "a sad, ugly duckling state of affairs."
thursday, july 31st: "feeling so out of my element is causing me to lose confidence."
friday, august 1st: "a nerve-wracking combination of not not knowing what to expect and probably expecting too much."
saturday, august 2nd: "being surrounded by couples just made me want it more."

coming up next: alissandra tightens up slash actually drafts her thesis!

in other news, in case you haven't heard of the delightful "dr. horrible's sing-along blog" you should go ahead and give it a shot. finding a loophole in "hey the writer's strike means that we can't do anything" mandate, this was an extremely low-budget online mini-epic thrown together by joss whedon (the buffy/firefly guy) starring neil patrick harris (the awesome guy) in the title role as a lovelorn super-villain with a penchant for melodic overtures. start-to-finishing in just three 'acts' (about 15 minutes each) it's available online for viewing here and you should check it out. the end!

dailies 7/20-7/26.

another week, another round of dailies. i just got back from a whirlwind trip to jersey, and am way glad to be back in my own space. here's the week, nothing monumental to report as of yet.

sunday, july 20th: "it's half past 'chill the hell out', but i can't help myself."
monday, july 21st: "grasping at too many things at once and coming up empty."
tuesday, july 22nd: "you look like a birthday present!"
wednesday, july 23rd: "a 'feel like i'm being hugged on the inside' sort of day."
thursday, july 24th: "i can't be the chicken."
friday, july 25th: "a most classy bon voyage."
saturday, july 26th: "planting and cultivating my own doubts."

the end the end the end the end. i don't yet know what exactly all these weekly dailies-strips are going to do slash be, right now its just a weird habit. any brilliant ideas?

dailies 7/13-7/19.

i'm a free woman, sort of, at this point. pre-college is finished (about which i have mixed feelings, as always), and i have a few miscellaneous things going on for the rest of the summer, mostly involving paycheck acquisition and little else. i have maybe translated my mixtape project into a thesis semester, so that may be a longer time coming than originally intended... here's the week:


sunday, july 13th: "i think i'm way behind."
monday, july 14th: "there's enough on my mind to instigate hermit behavior."
tuesday, july 15th: "french presses help make friends."
wednesday, july 16th: "too indulgent for anyone's good."
thursday, july 17th: "i am 100% sure that curiosity definitely killed the damn cat."
friday, july 18th: "i'm over-doing it."
saturday, july 19th: "i guess i really did make an impact on them like they did on me."

that's it. i'm especially snoozy tonight. i need to get organized before i'll have much of anything to show for myself, now that pre-college is done and done and i finally have the time to focus.

dailies 7/6-7/12.

more dailies, as always. interesting occurrence that did not get immortalized as a daily this week (due to the guilt factor of denying a group of high school students who begged to be that day's drawing): while playing mini-golf on tuesday, post-'giant rain storm', i completely botched the quintessential obstacle - the windmill. forget the fact that the entire course was waterlogged and most of the holes were under a half inch plus of cloudy, lukewarm, gangrene-breeding water, i took the aerial route and banked my ball off the ramp, ricocheting off any number of things before landing a hole in one in the previous hole, which another group was presently playing through. whoo? they gave me the credit, but i also cemented how much i truly suck at mini-golf. i also lost my ball in the bushes at the end of the game. i suck. here's my otherwise golf-less week:


sunday, july 6th: "i think we both pegged each other wrong."
monday, july 7th: "he insisted on referring to the gallon of spilled paint on his floor as an "orange hue", even though it was undeniably pink."
tuesday, july 8th: "desperately trying to stay a secret-keeper."
wednesday, july 9th: "soaking wet and dressed in trash bags, the priority was still, "CAN THIS PLEASE BE YOUR DAILY?!"
thursday, july 10th: " re: hellboy two - my socks are still on."
friday, july 11th: "if i hadn't been in public, i probably wouldn't even have used the spoon."
saturday, july 12th: "apparently i'm a catch, i'm just not paying attention."

expect updates on a few more real life things soon. the mixtape comic is half-sketched at this point, and hopefully will be finished-sketched by this time next week. which was maybe last week's goal also, but don't judge.

dailies 6/29-7/5.

congratulations to me, i have successfully blogged more than a month's worth of dailies on a weekly basis! also a secondary congratulations to the fact that i have ironed out the playlist and formatting for the narrative mixtape comic plan i have been stewing over for a few weeks now. i also uploaded it as a muxtape so that it is out in the ether and i have to stay committed to it. click the link and go have a listen if you're feeling musical. with that, here's the week:

sunday, june 29th: "quick closeness via surprising commonalities and the ability to actually discuss them coherently."
monday, june 30th: "vastly varied but equally emphatic movie-watching reactions."
tuesday, july 1st: "i'll look down later."
wednesday, july 2nd: "hopefully i charmed rather than terrified my kids with my musical selections."
thursday, july 3rd: "blurring the lines, just like always, but this time from the other side."
friday, july 4th: "perfect."
saturday, july 5th: "rapidly redesigning the alissandra aesthetic."

the mixtape-comic progress is slow-going, but i really want to be able to move significantly forward really really soon, so i'm fighting the urge to blow my free time (translation: frivolous spending) and focus it on this new project. in theory, the twelve songs will collectively tell a story, with each accompanying image illustrating the overarching narrative as well as the independent details specific to each song in a sort of patchwork-grid composition. in gouache. we'll see if it pans out the way i am envisioning it. and i say "we'll see" in the sense that i am crossing my fingers that i will have finished sketches to show the "you" part of the "we" in the next week or so.

in other mostly unrelated news, go see wall-e. for the love of all things good and pure in this world, go see it go see it go see it. and then stay for the beautiful, beautiful credits. and i'm out! but seriously, go see it.