Sunset

Normally you get to see my sunrise photos. Here's a rarity: sunset.
The sea was angry this morning, my friends...

Ha! Well, I'll ...

... shoyu!

Great research

I remember seeing these ads on tv, in magazines and on billboards about last June and remember thinking, "Woah. Dove is onto something huge."


And then, the SuperBowl.



Note: this isn't just a screen shot - - it'll play the video if you click the 'play' button

This is what really good demographic/market research will get you. It's not about the latest fashion, color or shape, what's cool or hip. It's about really getting inside people's minds and hearts to understand what they're thinking and feeling. And then .. going from there. You don't just create products; you change or even create markets, change perceptions and lives.

This is the kind of research work that I'm aiming for.

Step-Sitters at Panda

More Panda Express today. I need to have Panda about once a week. Do they have Panda Express in ... say, Pittsburgh? Just wondering.

I seem to enjoy drawing in public, keeping to myself. There’s something about being around other people, listening to whatever music is piped in that lures me into drawing mode. It’s kinda like drawing back in the studio at Art Center. Beats trying to hurry through a meal so I don’t have to sit around by myself.

So, I haven’t gotten my copy of Everyday Matters yet, and haven’t started reading through the yahoo! Group emails. But I think the general idea is to draw whatever is around you, the everyday. You can’t bellyache that there’s nothing to draw! One of the challenges is to draw something with folds (#40), so I’m going to go with a crumpled napkin to be able to check that one off. That’s what was handy after a late lunch at Panda. Folds, crumples; it's about the same. Almost. So here’s my napkin.



There was a group of high school kids there at Panda. A pretty big bunch of ‘em. I looked over and guessed at a clique and thought, “Hey, these guys are probably … not that far off than what we were” … 25 (oy!) years ago. Happy, lively, thinking, creative, a little on the geeky/dorky side. The group laughed, talked about strange sleep-walking adventures, and eventually straggled away in twos and threes. The last group got into the nitty-gritty of what they were struggling with - - auditions and acting, plays and theatre. I paused drawing and thought, “Bingo!”. Another group of Alexander Step Sitters. It would have been complete if one of them had broken into a Monty Python skit, which didn’t seem like it would’ve been much of a stretch, actually. They were singing though, and not music-on-the-radio stuff, but, you know, show tunes, in that show tune-y theatrical performance sort of way. Yup.

So I guess there’s hope for the world (we assume that Step Sitter types grow up to be good people). And there’s something nice about thinking that some things and personalities are sort of universal. I hope they have a lot of fun through the rest of high school and treasure the friendships that they have.

One last one

... from the Getty.



I did this at the Getty, but wasn't crazy about it just as an ink drawing. I played with it a little today and am happy enough about it to share.
Right. The stuff I'm not happy with, do you really think I'm going to share? Hah....

Telling details

In my refrigerator one will find...
'In'? The fridge door is the stuff of life!

Descanso sketch crawl

My first sketch crawl (what's a sketch crawl?).
Four of us braved the threat of rain to draw at Descanso Gardens. Sure, it was a little cold and a little drizzley, but we got in a few great hours of sketching and painting and a few more of coffee and just sharing thoughts on art, creativity and life.
A pretty great way to spend a Saturday, I'd say. We hope to get together at Descanso to draw the gardens as they change day to day, season by season. Stay tuned for more Sketch Crawl (I keep typing 'Sketch Drawl') drawings all 'round Southern California, too.









Click here to go to the flickr site to see a slide show of my sketches (you can see them in a larger size and at a better resolution, I think. And you can read my notes, too) and photos, as well.

See more sketches by Robin and Karen.

Puppy Love II

I'm smitten! [Sigh!]

All we need is ...

Happy Valentine's Day!

You have to walk carefully in the beginning of love; the running across fields into your lover's arms can only come later when you're sure they won't laugh if you trip. – Anon.

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength. Loving someone deeply gives you courage. – Lao Tzu

Do all things with love. –Og Mandino

Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit. – Peter Ustinov

Love is all fun and games until someone loses an eye or gets pregnant. - Jim Cole

For every beauty there is an eye somewhere to see it. For every truth there is an ear somewhere to hear it. For every love there is a heart somewhere to receive it. - Ivan Panin

Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves. - Albert Einstein

True love is like a pair of socks- you gotta have two and they've gotta match. - Anon.

Love is like a painting. In the beginning it is only an idea, but over time it is built up through errors and corrections till you have a breath-taking work of art for all to see. – Anon.

Love doesn't hide. It stays and fights. It goes the distance, that's why love is so strong. So it can carry you all the way home. – Anon.

The first symptom of love in a young man is shyness; the first symptom in a woman, it's boldness. -
Victor Hugo

Every woman needs one man in her life who is strong and responsible. Given this security, she can proceed to do what she really wants to do - fall in love with men who are weak and irresponsible. - Richard J. Needham

Love is 2 minutes, 52 seconds of squishing noises. - Johnny Rotten

Love is what makes you smile when you're tired. – Anon.

It's better to have loved and lost than to have to do forty pounds of laundry a week. - Dr. Laurence J. Peter


The heart knows things that the mind will never know. – Carl Hammerschlag

To be in love is merely to be in a state of perpetual anesthesia. – H.L. Mencken

A word to girls with vocabularies like encyclopedias: reference books never get asked out. – George Burns

Love is being stupid together. – Paul Valery

Perfect love sometimes does not come till the first grandchild. – Welsh proverb

xox,
-Wendee

You know you wanna

Take the Nerd/Geek/Dork test. It'll take 5 minutes. And post what you are, gentle readers [oh, this'll be fun].

~~ Survey says Wendee is: ~~

"Pure Nerd [We needed a test to confirm this?]
60 % Nerd, 39% Geek, 13% Dork

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored better than half [Excellent!] in Nerd, earning you the title of:
Pure Nerd.

The times, they are a-changing. It used to be that being exceptionally smart led to being unpopular, which would ultimately lead to picking up all of the traits and tendences associated with the "dork." [Ooooo, dork=bad]
No-longer. Being smart isn't as socially crippling as it once was, and even more so as you get older: eventually being a Pure Nerd will likely be replaced with the following label:
Purely Successful.

Congratulations!"

Making peace

I think I've made peace with my set of pan watercolors.

The Getty at Night

See more of the photos in my Flickr photo set

Puppy love

My buddy Mike stopped by over the holidays to enjoy some of the cookies and beer. He was eyeing the kitchen gadgets that I have and exclaimed,
“Wendee! I can’t believe you haven’t added eyes to this!”

Really, huh?

It’s a silicone mini hot mitt. Being silicone, I figured if I painted eyes on it, the paint would just peel off. We all know that I have enough trouble separating the food and paint in my kitchen as it is. I thought about adding grommets as eyes, but, gee, never got around to it (see ‘a Round TUIT’).

As it was, I’d started out with one of the full-arm orca silicone oven mittens, and it just wasn’t cutting it.



Anyway, fast-forward a month. I was at a cooking gadget store last night, enjoying myself quite a bit (imagine that), and then I spied this!
And laughed, out loud!

“Ha!”

And of course, this adorable critter followed me home. Can I keep him?
He's not only helpful:



but he's such good, expressive company, too!



[sigh] Puppy love.

Gouache gradations

These are the gouache gradations I'd mentioned. We were supposed to use them as backgrounds for little sketches (of cars, I seem to recall. Which would explain why I didn't get to them, right?). I don't know what to do with them, although I'm tempted to just get them matted and framed, put up on the wall, and call it all done and good. I'm kind of liking them without too much else on 'em. Hmmm.
Stay tuned.

Pray for sunshine

Got a hankering for a jar of mango chutney? How about fresh, hot malasadas? Or how about getting a haku lei? You know who you are out there, and you *know* what I'm talking about. Know why you're thinking about all those things?? Could it be?

Yes, it's ...


... Carnival Weekend! Woo! Wanna go??

'Woah, check that out'.
Yup. The above image of the carnival grounds, a few days before the mayhem, February 1982.



The Big Cheeses themselves, February 1982.
'Hey, look, Doc McPhee..'

Any event from that era would not be complete without a pair of these:



Crazy - check out those 110mm cameras.
If you're lucky, I'll post the matched set from Kramer's (Cramer's?) Day in a bit, too.


I'm going to regret posting this one.
Hey, don't give me any guff. I'll bet YOU were younger and skinnier 20+ years ago, too. :)
For the record, of course, this is from Senior Show, not our Carnival. Remember the burgundy T-shirts? Burgundy... Right... I know I have one around here somewhere...
Was any other class rebellious uh, unconventional enough to go with a non-blue/yellow theme? For both Carnival and Variety Show? Who woulda' been crazy enough to spearhead that?! Oh, ... wait... >;)


Yep, a ... 'walk down memory lane' ... for sure.
I'll be sending my thoughts for a sunny weekend out there, gang.
Somebody have a malasada for me.
[sigh]