So, the other day at work my boss comes to the press and tells me he's got a guy with a load of flat files he's looking to get rid of for $25 and asks if I'm interested. I think my voice steadily rose an octave as the reality of the offer set in and I gave my reply of "hell yes!" Even now it seems kind of surreal, but let me put this in one clear sentence.


Ooooooooooooh fucking hell YES!!! I've wanted a flat file for AGES. I think probably anybody who does work on paper sort of drools over the thought of getting one of these. But the thing is they're heavy, HUGE, and generally cost hundreds of dollars unless you score one from some place going out of business. And that's basically how this worked. One of my boss's buddies clears furniture out of industrial buildings when the businesses shut down. He had 20 of them, and was only asking $25 for each one. Really, I just got lucky that my boss is well connected, and that this connection though to call him first.

I went ahead and purchased two. I figured I would be retarded not to. Part of me thinks I should have gotten more, but two is enough for now, and they are really big, so I have to consider that I have to PUT these things somewhere. What I'm thinking right now is that I'll break down the shelving I built under my kitchen table and put them there. Hm. I really need to build a stand for my vacuum table and move it back to my room before I do that, though.

Anyway, that is pretty goddamn exciting and I needed to share! Still need to post about halloween! And I've got another [BIG] contract printing job coming up, so that's super exciting, too :)

More later!
-P.

Howdy yall! I'm very pleased to announce that I've finally worked my iPod cases up to the point that they're ready for the general populace. And I now have four of the li'l beauties available at my etsy store--3 skulls and a cupcake. So go check em out!

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade flameswithin.etsy.com

And hopefully sometime soon I'll have cases available for other versions, such as the iPod Touch/iPhone and iPod Nano! If you'd like me to custom make you a case to fit your device, just let me know!

Cheers!
-P.

So, about a month ago, I signed up for a meme committing me to make something for the first six people who signed up. I ended up doing a little more than that, but it's ok. These are the results.


First up, for Jenn pac, a new headband, since her manfriend Richard vomitsaw stole the last one I made for her. This one's a little more fancy than that though; I took the opportunity to redraw her horns, and add a decorative stitched border around the front. Er... and ignore that huge spot in the hem where I clearly fucked up, lol. Modelled by my roommate Jen.





Next up, iPod cases for four lovely people: Ali mckenzee, Josh joshtothemax, Laura alethalruby, and Aubrey spookyelectric1. Note the custom hand-screenprinted designs on Josh and Aubrey's ;) Fun stuff :) And, I fixed the tops on Josh and Laura's so they don't look quite so fucking bobo now.



For Lisa mishmashed, who requested not an iPod case, but a woodcut, I made this, heh. I haven't had a chance to print it yet, but I should be doing that one night this week. Once it's printed, I'll watercolor it or tea paint it. The image is flipped, so you can read the text. This was a hell of a lot of fun to make actually. I haven't worked much with wood, and when I have it's always been a nightmare. But I carved pretty much all this in the "proper" way, using a single blade and carving out each line individually, rather than just using U and V gouges like I would with linoleum.






And, for my friend Tim, I drew up this pretty wicked skull and screenprinted it to some purple fabric and sewed up him up a case. I've gotten a lot better at making these. In the end, it turns out that while machine sewing is fine for the inner and outer linings, to stitch the top in place, I pretty much have to hand-sew it if I want good results. I discovered this doing Aubrey's, which was too small to even attempt machine sewing. I've got some more cupcakes and skulls printed to a couple different fabrics. I may sew up some more of these and try selling them on etsy.



Anyway, gotta run to work, but wanted to share these.

Later, yall!
-P.

At last! New, from The Shallow End Press--the When You Are Squeezed shirts are NOW AVAILABLE at my Etsy store!!!

The prints came out really well--all the fine details of the original linocut printed true. The shirts are high quality Anvil raglan 3/4 length sleeve shirts, and they're printed with high quality waterbased ink, so the print is SUPER soft on the shirt; you'll never know it's there!

I hope you enjoy wearing them as much as I enjoyed making them!

-P.

So dig it, I've got some ratty, holey clothes. I work in a factory, so this isn't really a problem. But, my favorite pair of work shorts recently started developing a hole in the right leg, and I simply wasn't going to stand for that. The hole was forming as a long, horizontal tear and I thought it'd be pretty funny to make a patch for it that read "CENSORED," so, I did. (Because, as religion teaches us, the flesh is evil and must be censored.)

I measured how big I wanted the patch to be and drew out the word that size, cut it out of a piece of film with an exacto, taped it to the bottom of a screen and screenprinted myself some patches! I actually had some other goodies burned into my big screen, so I decided to make some other patches, too. I patched up a hole in my pajama pants with a censored patch as well!



I also snazzied up some headbands for mahself, too! Heh, I took some t-shirt sleeves and printed 'SHALLOW END PRESS' (actually, the text from the Green layer of my poster, still in my screen) onto them, with the image from my birthday coozies (with the '25' blocked out) below it. And on the other side, I printed the Key layer from my I Love You hand cards :) They look pretty badass.


I ♥ making shit.

Later,
-P.

Is my goddamn jackpot.

If you live in an area with college students, ALWAYS. CHECK. THE DUMPSTER. A week or so ago, as I went to throw out some trash, I saw something by the dumpster that surely couldn't be there... the remnants of a cardboard container marked "MOHAWK PAPER." Surely, there couldn't be paper left in there, could there? I thought to myself.

OMG. Yes. There was. SO much. Some IDIOT in my apartment complex threw out more than 60 sheets of ~26x40" Mohawk drawing/watercolor paper. Most of them have been folded in half, but other than the bend in the middle and water damage on some of them (it was raining), they're in great shape. And now they're mine. FOOL. Already used a couple sheets to try out the sky blend I did on saturday. Hells Yes.


As I was going to the dumpster TONIGHT to throw out some trash, I saw something else which caught my eye. And I got wood. No, literally, look:

From what I can tell, this was someone's bed frame, and I guess they decided to chuck it. Judging from the child-like scribblings on one side of the plywood, I'm guessing it was someone's childhood bed.

Know what it is to me? All the lumber I need to build my own exposure unit!

HELLS! YES!

Now if only I could luck my way into a free piece of 1/4" glass, fluorescent light figures, bulbs, switch and plug.

-P.

Hey! Pay it Forward folks! Your gift is done!!! I made a bunch of little Alabama postcards! The ink is still drying on the last few, so they won't be mailed till sometime next week. They're really neat. I varied up the colours throughout, so each one is a little bit different. There are two layers. The background really jumps out from a distance, and the foreground is best viewed up close, so it's pretty successful from wherever it's viewed. Not my best carving, admittedly, but I'm happy with the project as a whole.



Anybody want a hand printed Graduation Announcement? Free?
Now, speaking of cards, remember my graduation announcements I printed up in May? Well, I've still got a whole box of them sitting here collecting dust, and I'd love for anyone who wants one to have one. FREE. So, if you'd like one, just email me or leave your address in a comment and I'll mail you one. FREE! (Pay it forward folks, I'll probably stick one in your envelope regardless). If anyone wants to make small donations to cover the mailing of a few, I'll gladly take them, but that's completely optional. If you want a grad announcement, just tell me where to mail it, and it's yours :)

-P.

*sigh* Well, everything is mortal, I suppose. My computer, AKA Morningstar, died sometime durning the night Wednesday. He was on at the time, but I have no reason to think he suffered. It's either the motherboard or CPU that went, I'm hoping the CPU (easier to replace). An autopsy this weekend will determine the cause of death.

Morningstar has served me phenomenally for 4 years, and still performs great, even on new games. I was hoping to not spend money on upgrades for him though, and when the time came, to buy a Mac. This is a little sooner than I wanted to be spending that kind of money, but it did press the issue. I think for now I'm going to hold off. I can probably afford to pay off an iMac in about a year and a half, I'm just not sure I want that extra $100-150/mo added to my budget just yet. So, I'm probably just going to replace the CPU and rechristen Morningstar with a new name.

Anyway, if you need to reach me until I get my machine fixed, call the cell. Ta!

-P.

PS - I'm having an awesome time printing these Pay It Forward gifts :)

PPS - The usericon is a bit melodramatic; I'm not that upset. I don't spend nearly the amount of time on the computer that I used to. It's just a big inconvenience to have it down.

This would make me start wearing a watch again. Well... maybe. Pretty damned cool at least.

-P.

I had a pretty major nerd-scare on Thursday. I had just purchased Half Life 2: Episode One on Steam and started to play it when I noticed weird static-like pixellation in the graphics of the game. I'd heard descriptions of this happening before but didn't want to think the unthinkable..... I quickly exited the game and opened my Catalyst Control Center. Sure enough, my ATI Radeon 9800XT graphics card was overheating. SHITE! A quick peek inside the case confirmed that the fan had gone. It was too late to do anything about it that night, so I tried not to do any more on the computer than I had to. Friday, I went to Intrex to see about getting it fixed. The card came with a really slick-looking, but far from standard heatsink/fan combo, and naturally Intrex didn't have a replacement. However, they did have a heatsink/fan combo that was designed for video cards, so long as they had standard holes. The dude helping me popped my old heatsink off and sure enough, there were standard holes underneath. So, I was saved from having to buy a new card, or ship mine off for a lengthy repair. For $20 I got a fix that I could do myself. It was really fun, but pretty nerve racking at the same time.

( Pictures of the Operation )
Yours in geekery,
-P.

I hope that everyone had a great new year. I sure did, but more about that in the next post.

Hm. I had a bunch of projects I wanted to tackle over the break, and I didn't touch a single damned one of them. *sigh* The same thing happened last summer and I felt so ashamed about it. This time though, I'm not going to worry about it. Feeling bad about it isn't going to get anything accomplished, so instead, I'm just going to concentrate on what I can do in the next four days before class starts.

I've begun researching what the hell I'm going to do when I graduate. I haven't fully investigated anything yet but from what I've read so far I definitely want to apply to Penland, and probably for an internship at Lower East Side Print (that's in NY, eeek!).

Josh and Laura got me what might be the best Christmas present EVAR!!!!!!!!!! But rather than tell you about it, let me show you...


That's a Bill Fick shirt I'm wearing, btw.

Hey Josh and Laura (and Emily), since you guys are working stiffs, you wanna do our movie night this weekend instead of this week?

Hehe, I also just ordered my first pair of capri pants! Prepare yourself world, for Señor HighPants!!!!

-P.

Lady In Red (Framed) Also, remember this? Jesus. I can't believe I seriously was asking $400 for this thing. Come ON, Phil! It's a student drawing, and not a great one at that. It barely even looks finished. If you're interested, $150, negotiable, framed.

As I clean out my room/get packed, I'll be finding things to get rid of. These four posters are FREE TO A GOOD HOME! They're all about 24x36", admittedly fairly dinged up, but hey, they're great posters, and they're FREE.

Let me know if you want them.
-P.

American Beauty Poster	Army of Darkness Poster
Bettie Page Poster	Lord of the Rings Poster

Before I try to sell them online, would anyone be interested in purchasing the following computer games?

F.E.A.R.  -  $20

XIII   -   $10

Both come in perfect condition, unregistered, in their original boxes with all original packaging and documentation. Both are for the PC.

-P.

Ok, I guess I have things to talk about again. I'm going to use this cool list format again. I like it :)

Potter
My roommates are huge Harry Potter fans, and went to see the 12:01 showing of the movie Thursday night. Brittany had an extra ticket, so I bought it and tagged along. *Shakes head* Oh Jesus... You see, my roommates went infull costume. These are twenty-two year olds *grin.* We left an hour early, which meant having to sit in the theatre for 45 minutes with all the other dorks in costume yelling and screaming. Hehe, it was an interesting experience to say the least, but, I had fun. I thought the movie was pretty good, and was able to follow along despite not being familiar with the story or characters. Vanessa said it didn't stand on its own. I disagree. Hey Josh... 'like Elvis.' Hehehe.

Life Drawing
God DAMN I love my life drawing class, man. I wish I could take Life Drawing II next semester. Thursday, my instructor gave us a free day, in which the model held the same pose the entire class. We could use whatever media we wanted, and do as many or as few drawings as we liked. I focused on doing one drawing, and it came out great. I can't wait to post it.

I've actually got a ton of art I want to post, but in order to get half way decent pictures of the drawings--without glare--I pretty much have to take the pictures outside, and appropriate weather hasn't really overlapped with my schedule this week.

Video Project
In my digital design class, we're working on a video project with Adobe Premiere. Cool program, if not mildly irritating to use. Anyway, I stupidly decided it would be cool to do a hand drawn animation for my project. Me == Dumbass. Anyway, the video is supposed to be 1-2 minutes long. I stopped my animation after 36 seconds. I'm going to turn it in, but I don't want to turn it in alone that short, so I've decided to do a second video which will be a moving portfolio of some of my work. I know it's kind of a trite subject, but it was actually suggested to us by the professor. *Shrug*

Oh, when I told my friend Shawn B. about the project, he asked if I'd ever seen an animation called 'Rejected.' I told him I hadn't, but would look for it. Matt|xem found it for me the next day. Check it out, it's pretty funny, and... NSFW: Rejected.

Frames
I've got some badass artwork that I want to hang up in my room and around the house, but I need to frame them first. I want to get some cheap ones; a black plastic border and a plexiglass front would be fine, really. Glass/wood optional. I just need various sizes; I need frames that will hold artwork ~12x15", ~18x22", 11x14", 19x25". Any Suggestions for places to shop?

Camera
My brother has loaned me his old manual camera, which is fucking cool. It's a Pentax P30t. Hehe, I have no fucking idea how to use it, though, so it's good he included the user's manual. I read half of it last night and will read the other half today. The telephoto lens he included is fucking HUGE, mang. If my neighbour was reading a book on their porch, I could read along with them with this damn thing. Anyway, I'm stoked, and this makes me want to take Photography I next semester. I might actually, despite how badly I want to take etching.

-P.

The other night, my roommate Brittany and I went to the store to get a few things for the party. Whilst we were out, she asked if we could stop at Rugged Wearhouse. The place had been recommeneded to me as a place to get cheap, swanky shirts, so I looked around. Dear god I was in paradise, they had GREAT stuff! Unfortunately, most of it was WAAAY to big for me; I could have worn some of those shirts as dresses, but I did find a couple of things I liked:

( Five pictures in new shirts! )

I hope you'll forgive the brief moment of vanity, but to those of you who know how I dress normally, this is actually fairly significant. I'm such a loser, hehe. Oh, and what kind of pants/shorts would go best with these shirts?

-P.

Goddamnit. Neither of the art supply stores in town have blueline illustration board, nor Raphael or Windsor Newton Series 7 brushes. Do any of you other artists have problems getting the one or two items you need at supply stores?

I'm trying not to be mad at my roommate. It really could have been any of us closing that dryer without looking inside it. This particular roommate is just really careless about everything, though.

I miss my kitten.

-P.

[Edit: Speaking of carelessness, I just discovered that our oven was left on all day. Fucking christ.]

Yesterday my roommate and I went to Ed McKay's used books. I was hoping to get another season of CSI to watch, but then I found something better: the art section.

I found some real gems; four books with in-depth looks at Norman Rockwell, Escher, Titian and Rubens, including biographical information, sketches, drawings, paintings, studies for larger works, etc.



I also got a book on professional graphic design. It was published pretty recently (2004). Its pages are devoted to analyzing professional logos, magazine/album covers, web pages, etc for their meanings and processes. Oh christ, I'm SALIVATING for the knowledge contained in these books.

What am I doing on here? Imma go read now.

-P.

I'd like to get some new shirts. What I want are

a) button down shirts with collars, preferably lighter, flowing fabric with interesting patterns on them, short sleeved, or easily rolled up long sleeves and

b) Duo-tone t-shirts just like Garth is wearing in the fourth and fifth panels of this strip.

The problem is, I have no idea where to shop for said items, and I really don't want to spend more than $10-15 for a shirt. Name brands aren't important to me. Any of you on this list are guaranteed to have better fashion sense than I. What do I do?

-P.

Hehehe, this SO just got added to my shopping list.

In other news, it feels orgasmic to finally be able to type 100wpm again. w00000t!!!

-P.