This photo was taken last July. That’s Tootie, me and my Mom all trying fervently to beat the snot out of each other on the Wii. True love for someone is knowing you can make a fool out of yourself in front of them. I love you, Mom.
Well, I didn’t make the top 8 of that design contest. However, it was such a great opportunity and learning experience that I’m grateful for the exercise. It has prompted me to create some designs that I probably wouldn’t have pursued creating. Thank you to all of you who voted for me. I really appreciate your encouragement & support.
If you have been a reader for any time you would know that I adore language and words: alliteration, homophones, puns, similes, metaphors, etc. are what amuse me most. Grammar not so much as I was a tad lazy in my youth to memorize all the rules.
my drawing of Pat
For the past couple days I have been dogged with the idea of what a Pariah Piranha would look like. Don’t ask why I get these ideas ’cause I don’t know. What I do know is that once something likes this pops into my head I have to tease it out completely or it will run in my head like an earworm song. Normal people repeat songs in their heads I get alliteration and homophones. (insert sad trombone here) Once I take such idea to it’s completion I am done and can move on.
So, what would a Pariah Piranha be like? The most obvious is the literal; a vegetarian outcast piranha. But, what if it was a person? Pat Piranha the Pariah Proctologist. Can a proctologist be a pariah in the field of proctology? Isn’t it inherent? or a pariah pariah? That’s like a mirror of a mirror. Welcome to my brain.
I have a favor to ask of you, my dear reader. I entered a fabric contest with Robert Kaufman Fabrics & Spoonflower and I’ve made it to the semi-final round. Would you vote for my design “Content Chaos” that is shown above? I am one of 100 designs that were picked out of 780 in the first round. When you vote you will have to page through all 100 designs to find mine, click on it and a green border will appear around it then page through the 7th page to register your vote. If you are not registered with Spoonflower you will be asked 2x to write in the Captcha letter code to prove you are not indeed a robot and it will confirm your vote. Remember, it will ask twice.
Here is the link to vote – http://www.spoonflower.com/contest_voters/new?contest_id=137
Between May 3-9, audiences around the world will have a chance to vote for their favorite fabric designs on the Spoonflower site Those votes will determine the final eight designers, each of whom will be asked to develop a collection of eight fabrics based on their original designs by June 5, 2012.
Between June 7-13, the fabric-loving world will choose its favorite collection. The winner will be offered a contract from Robert Kaufman Fabrics along with $1000 advance against royalties and a Wacom professional digital drawing tablet.
Well, I’m not dead. Not that you would know one way or another due to my reoccurring absences from this blog. Dec. 29th, 2011 I tempted fate. We decided it would be fun to go to Disney World. Lucky for us 2 million other people thought the same and joined us that day. The only other time I have ever seen that many people was when I was at a Giant Fountain Show during the Lantern Festival in Nanchang, China. Every where I turned there were people. It was like being on a mobile crowded elevator for 8 hours. My Father hates crowds so it was rather amusing to watch him during the course of the day. Imagine someone holding an unpleasant smelling fish under my Dad’s nose. That was his expression while walking through the massive sprawl of humanity that surrounded him. Like he was smelling a big stinky fish.
Disney was just one of many days of excitement since my last post. Earlier this week I went grocery shopping. It wasn’t nearly as crowded as Disney was. I saw a guy put about 30 cans of tuna into his reusable grocery bag then take them all back out like he suddenly changed his mind. That’s not something I got to see at Disney.
I’ve had some time to read and watch lots of television. Can you see why I haven’t posted? Who wants to read that I read a book and watched TV? That’s what Facebook is for.
Sometimes when I write a little autobiographical blurb I add the line “I like words” as my last sentence. It’s true. I love them. If I could eat them I would. It seems to me that saying certain words are so delightful that it is like eating them. Now you think I’m a bit weird and I’m alright with that. If you like words then you should check out this website which is all about homophones (the words not princess telephones from the 70′s.)
Spoonflower runs a weekly fabric design contest with a different theme each week. This weeks theme is Cameo. Typically, cameos are depicted as a figure seen in profile usually from the shoulders up framed in a decorative oval with a high contrast background. Me, being well, me, didn’t want to do the obvious. I flipped through my sketch book and found some drawings of cone of shame dogs I had done without really knowing what I’d do with them.
from my sketchbook
Knowing that cameos are typically bust profiles depicting beauty, I thought cone dogs would be the perfect antithesis to it. I also really like the idea of using a typical point of shame and elevating it to be a badge of admiration. We all have our own foibles and defects, no? Most people are masters of disguising them. But a cone? That, you can’t hide.
So, here’s to you cone wearer, Mr. Public Display of No Self Control. You tried not to mess with it but failed miserably and an intervention occurred. There’s no shame. Everyone has their weak moments. Yours just happen to be currently visible for the world to take note. So wear that cone with pride my friend. Wear it with pride!
Please take a minute to go to Spoonflower’s contest, find my design (click on it to highlight it in green) and vote. You’ll have to go through all 11 pages to the end to cast your vote at the bottom of the page. Vote here. If I get enough votes to win I can get this printed up. I think it would make fantastic veterinary scrubs.
I love my little town that I grew up in and thought I would pay tribute to the quaintness of the historical district by making a design using a map of the Uptown area. We have had a little bit of National attention lately with Ken Burns & Lynn Novick’s latest documentary Prohibition. They, along with Mo Rocca visited the library which houses the Anti-Saloon League Museum. You can see photos of their visit here. The library provided primary source materials such as pictures, pamphlets and cartoons for the series. If you haven’t watched the series and enjoy learning about history then you should check it out.
So, the pillows…I decided to make them up because I couldn’t find anything decor-wise that had something about Uptown on it. Yeah, there are some prints out there and a throw blanket but nothing designey and modern in style. Gosh, I hope other people think the same way and buy them or I’m going to be stuck. Hey, if they don’t sell then I know what everyone in my family is getting for Christmas! I wish I had these made up a month ago. I would have given one to Mo.
Hello there. I’ve been busy now that I’m feeling much better. I finished the 4 Toothy stuffies and delivered them today to Encircle. Doesn’t he look cute? He was originally designed by my friend Samarra Khaja. She is a New York-based art director and graphic designer. I met her through Spoonflower’s online message board. She created Toothy for one of their weekly contests. I fell in love with the design the minute I saw it and KNEW I wanted to make some up right away.
Toothy is not only cute but he serves a great purpose – he’s a keeper of baby teeth that need to be exchanged for major coinage. What’s the going rate now? A dollar coin? I got a whole quarter when I was a kid. He has a handy backpack that opens to a dandy pocket where a child can keep their tooth safe until the proper exchange is made during the night.
Pretty nifty. What I really appreciate is that Toothy is a great gift for a girl or a BOY. Maybe his real name isn’t Toothy but rather something more androgynous like Pat or Chris.
See the pillow in the background that he’s leaning on? That is my next post. Can you guess what it is of? I’ll post tomorrow with more info. Until then go check out Samarra’s blog where you can see what she is up to. Pssst, she is unveiling her own licensed fabric line this weekend at the big Fall Quilt Market in Houston Texas. Impressive, huh?
