busy, busy, busy

I’ve been drowning in work since school started. So much drawing to do, it’s making me crazy. But practice makes perfect, I suppose…and that’s what ACCD is making me do.
I haven’t had much projects to do….just a lot of foundation homework, such as figure and head drawings. (Last week’s homework was 150 figure drawings.)

I don’t need to post photos of that on here. Instead, I’ll show some of my favorite faces in my head & hands class. I have to keep a small sketchbook, and I can use whatever medium I like (which is wonderful since all I work with in class is just charcoal! I need me some color.)

Harold is the adorable squirrel Afsoon and I came across in Pasadena!

My grayscale project for Design

AND I LOVE BEATLES ROCK BAND.

I love my prismacolor markers.

Oscar says hi.

Oscar loves his treats (and I may be vegan, but Oscar is not….I don’t think he would like it very much…he has refused to eat vegan dog food that I tried out.)

My passport and leftover pounds are patiently awaiting April to be stamped and used again.

England & Art

My recent trip to England was wonderful (minus the last three days of which I got very sick.) 

95% of the time I was by myself because my father had work to do. This was heaven- exploring my favourite city where each step was chosen by me and not someone else. 

Here are a ton of photos:

Piccadilly Circus as beautiful as ever. 

Where it all happened- Abbey Road Studios

“Twinkle, Twinkle…”

“…Ringo Starr” is what I wrote on the outside wall of the Studios. I couldn’t find what I wrote last year, because I’m certain they paint over it each year so that the zillions of fans coming by can have a clean place to write something. 

And of course something that every Beatles fan must do. 

MPL- Paul McCartney’s office! Too bad he was in NYC rocking Citi Field, because maybe he would have been here.

3 Savile Row- a.k.a. Where the Beatles performed their rooftop concert. 

Rootmaster vegan restaurant! I was so happy to come back here. You can’t find this in L.A.!

Cold tomato soup and “bus baked” bread. SO good. And so pretty, I had to take a photo. 

I don’t remember what this was called, but it was some strawberry tofu pudding type thing (I’m great at descriptions.) and almond biscottis! 

Hahah I saw this in Camden Town. Should I have bought it?

Or how about these?

This is where a prospective art college I’d like to attend is. Camberwell College of Art. Isn’t it a beautiful location? It’s a bit out of the city, but it’s nice nonetheless. 

Horses! I love how much horse poop you walk by in Hyde Park.

Primrose Hill in Regent’s Park is breathtaking. You can see the entire city. I really wish I brought my camera this day rather than just my iphone. 

Dogs love Primrose Hill, too!

Holy crap. I went to Manna Vegetarian restaurant (one of the oldest veg restaurants in London, they have a seasonal menu and their summer menu happened to be entirely vegan!!) This is a Knickerbocker Glory. On top is a shortbread cookie, a cherry, soy whipped cream, and cherry sauce. As you go down, there is soy vanilla ice cream, vegan brownie, chocolate sauce and fruit. It was a vegan’s dream. I’m so glad Manna had this since I couldn’t make it to Pogo Cafe who also make an amazing looking Knickerbocker Glory. 

Chocolate orange torte from Mildred’s. mmm

I couldn’t wait to go to Inspiral Lounge in Camden Town to try their vegan cakes! This is tiramisu. And the best damn vegan tiramisu cake I’ve had. 

Also from Inspiral Lounge- raw ice cream made from cashews. I had no idea if this would be good or not…I’m glad I got it because it was great. Although the amaretto scoop kind of tasted like you were drinking almond extract. But the mint choc. chip made up for it. 

OKAY, done with food. I just wanted to make you guys jealous. 

 

On to Liverpool. I love this city. It’s Beatles Disneyland. I got to go into John and Paul’s homes, a tour I didn’t get to do last summer. 

My room at the Hard Days Night Hotel

Johnny and me

I’d like to own this car.

Paul in the backseat

John in the backseat

First stop, Mendips. John’s childhood-early Beatle years home. 

Here is John at 10 years old in front of Mendips.

The front yard

The backyard through the fence. We had to put away our cameras once we entered the backyard. 

Me at the front door.

Me at the front door of 20 Forthlin Road- Paul’s home. 

Through that door and to the left is the living room, where this photo was taken. John and Paul are writing “I Saw Her Standing There”. 

Here is John in Paul’s kitchen…..one of the few remaining ORIGINAL, never removed, things in Paul’s house is the tile flooring in the kitchen. Yes, my friends, I stood exactly where Johnny is standing in this photo…my shoes touching the exact same tiles his and the boys shoes touched. 

Me by the living room window. 

 

And that is that. I planned on having MANY more photos, but my body just HAD to go get terribly sick. I had to cancel so many plans. It was very depressing, but due to my parents feeling bad for me, they bought me tickets to see Paul in Boston on August 6. I can’t wait!

 

And here is some recent art:

John Lennon

acrylic, gold leaf, ink

Paul McCartney

acyrlic, gold leaf, ink

I’m still working on this Lauren Bacall oil painting. 

 

Afsoon and me at Yoni Tattoo. She got a beautiful James Jean illustration on her left arm

 

Audrey and San Francisco…

I will first start off with what I initially made this blog for- to post my art!

With a little help from my friend Afsoon, I finally achieved a skin tone color with watercolors that wasn’t either too yellow or too orange!

Beginning stages

 

Beginning stages of skin tones. She looks FREAKY without eyes. 

Final close-up

Entire final piece. I’m pleased with it!

 

For July fourth weekend, I went to San Francisco with my brother and his girlfriend. Although it isn’t too much fun going with people you have nothing in common with and are not very close with, it was a nice few days…filled with it’s ups and downs. 

Driving on the Bay Bridge

Some houses I liked on Haight St….my camera died out before I could take pictures of Grateful Dead sights and all the smoke shops. Oh well, there’s always next time!

This sweet kitty was staring at us on Haight. 

I wonder if a fellow vegan lives here?!?

I think one of my favorite things we did was walk through Golden Gate Park…I LOVE it there. Even though we kept getting lost, it was stunning with each wrong turn.

This pond was surreal. I don’t even know what the top layer is…moss? Please feel free to correct me on this. 

My green tea at the Japanese Tea Garden. It was nice to have after the long walk through the park.

Yeah, I felt like getting artsy while having my tea. 

And on Saturday, we began our day at the Police Station! How fun!!

So, here is what happened. My brother, being the cheap person he is, made reservations in one of the crappiest parts of town- the Civic Center. We stayed at the Civic Center Inn…my only sense of safety was the can of pepper spray I kept on the bedside table. 

Friday night, I went to sleep before my brother and his girlfriend. They went out to a club. The following morning they told me that they had to park in the back alley because the front lot of the motel was full. There, they were heckled by three homeless people. Thank goodness nothing happened to my brother and his girl, they left the car parked there and went to sleep. Saturday morning, we go to our car and it was broken into. They stole my brother’s TomTom navigation, some loose money and a Gucci scarf. Glass was all over and the car smelled NASTY. 

As we were looking to see if they took anything else, one of the homeless men from the previous night came up to us and started talking. He was saying how he was trying to protect our car, but as he went to piss in the street, his friends broke in. Bullshit. We were scared that these homeless people would do something more to us, so for our last night in San Francisco, we made reservations at a nicer hotel in the Market District…the W. Swanky place it was. 

It was funny, when filing a report at the police station, they could care less. I bet this stuff happens every 15 minutes. The homeless in San Francisco are just nuts. They’re really quite something. 

A highlight of the visit was MAGGIE MUDD!!!!!

Jealous much?! I had lemon meringue pie and a mocha-like one with vegan brownie chunks. Topped with soy whopped cream, peanut butter sauce, peanuts, sprinkles, and of course a cherry! So damn good. 

The Rose Garden at GG Park is lovely. We sat down for a bit and I just went people watching. It was so relaxing.

Pretty, pretty roses.

Nice sky.

Outside a window at the SF Modern Art Museum….where’s Waldo?

Fireworks at Fisherman’s Wharf. 

 

I love San Francisco. I just hope next time I can experience it with friends rather than feeling like a third wheel. And next time I am, from the start, staying at a nice hotel. No more stealing I say!

And next time I need to save money for a dinner at Millennium. 

 

By the way, I’m going to London on the 8th. I’ll be back the 26th. I can’t wait. 

 

Bake me up.

 

The vegan bake sale was amazing. Great food. Great people. Great cause. What more could you ask for?!

 

I got to meet some great people. Afsoon is the lovely gal who set the whole darn thing up along with Ashley. I love it when you meet people you just immediately click with…Afsoon and I have so much in common from being vegan to hating feet. Haha. And Ashley, she’s a Beatles geek. 

Since neither Natalie nor I baked anything, we made promotional posters and tried to stop traffic to get people to buy some vegan goodness. 

Photo by Afsoon.

You should visit Afsoon’s Posties for more photos of the scrumptious treats there. 

AND GO TO THIS SUNDAY’S BAKE SALE TOO!! It will be even more fantastic. 

 

Yesterday I saw Elvis Costello at Amoeba Music in Hollywood. It was divine. My friend, JD, got there at 4 in the morning…the manager saw him and was like “You don’t have to wait here all day!” and wrote a little note guaranteeing JD and two others (me and his dad) to be first in line. FREAKING AWESOME. I had the best spot in the house, directly in front of the man himself. 

The set, although quite short, was great. His new album- Secret, Profane & Sugarcane- is really good. Best I could describe it is jazzy, country and a little bit gypsy. Haha. He can do anything and it’s okay with me. 

At the end of the show, I got a setlist, the towel Elvis used to wipe his sweat off (it’s sick, but I love it.) and a pair of panties (don’t worry, they still had the label on them.) that some girl from the San Francisco show threw to him. 

Afterwards, he began signing things for everyone. I got my limited edition poster signed and it’s great. I need to frame it.

Here are photos.

 

 

 

 

birthday boy

It’s the 18th in England, so…

Happy 67th birthday, Paulie. 

I would have gotten tickets to all three concerts he is doing in NY this July…but I’ll be in London/Liverpool. 

 

And I am painting George. 

Will post that eventually. 

Good summer.

Conan yesterday was pretty awesome. I got there early so I had good seats right behind Andy Richter. Each time the camera moved to him, you could see my mom and me. 

Conan is unbelievably sexy in person. I love that my mom thinks that too. We all know that he is tall and skinny, but in person he is even taller and more skinny. The man is a walking toothpick.

Spinal Tap were brilliant. I thought they would be doing their unwigged stuff, but they came out in full costume. Nice surprise. Harry Shearer has amazingly beautiful, blue eyes. He reminds me of Pete Townshend…a much shorter one….must be the eyes and nose And I don’t know if Harry was as cute as Pete when he was younger. 

My brother and his girlfriend invited me to go on a trip to San Francisco! Having only been to the Oakland area for one day, of course I said yes. I plan to have Maggie Mudd ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yes. Oh, and do some sight-seeing, museum going,etcetc. 

 

On a more serious note, I need to vent out about a coyote that breaks my heart. My neighborhood has a lot of coyotes, but there is this particular one that lives close to me. I know it is the same one because his little foot is injured and is running on just three legs. 

A couple months ago, I was in my car and spotted him laying around in this grass field nearby. I happened to have some of my dog’s carob “brownie” treats in my car, so I threw a couple out of my window. The poor baby is so skinny and I’m sure so hungry. He was hesitant at first, but finally ran over to the treats, picked it up and ran a few feet away to lay down and eat them. Exactly how my dog does it, haha. 

It feels good to know that I am the only person in my neighborhood who doesn’t want to kill the packs living here. In fact, yesterday I bought a bag of healthy dog food, full of nutrients, and poured it out in a few locations I have seen my coyote linger about. I really hope he eats it. 

I feel so helpless…

 

Back to happy news, I will post this also on my livejournal because more people I know in LA will see it there than here….there is an awesome vegan bake sale taking place at Locali on June 21st and 28th. Proceeds go to great organizations…so we should all stuff our fat vegan asses with great vegan treats. And why not bring something home for your dad because the 21st is father’s day. Perfect. 

Made by Afsoon

 

Haha, hardly anyone reads this, but I like to do my part within the vegan community. 

 

A compilation of re-mastered and never before heard editions of George Harrison’s songs came out called “Let It Roll”.

You know that you are an obsessive Beatles fan when at Best Buy you start crying when you lay your eyes on the cd…it is a breathtaking photo…

People were looking at me weird because I had tears down my face….and I am not embarrassed by that at all. 

I’m not religious, but for Georgie-

Hare Krishna.

I like to be random.

Next Monday I have tickets to see Conan O’Brien. You have no idea how ecstatic I am that he is out here in L.A. now (even though his Tonight Show is not as good as Late Night…sorry, Conan). Anyways, when I recieved the call that I got tickets, the first thing I did was rummage through old photographs to find a photo of the vegan cake I made for my mom’s birthday last year (she is in love with Conan, too.) 

Sorry that the quality of the photo isn’t too great, I took a photo of the photo with my iPhone. This is a vegan vanilla cake with espresso buttercream frosting, drizzled with some chocolate frosting and topped with sugar-glazed pecans and strawberries. Yummy. And I made royal icing to pipe out Conan’s caricature. I am totally bringing this photo to the taping in hopes I can possibly show it to him, hahah.  

By the way, SPINAL TAP is the musical guest!!!

 

I did this really quick sketch with a light green sharpie. Not great, but it’s workable. I want to gold leaf the dress and colour her using ink and varnish. I’ll post a photo of that when I’m done. 

 

Oh, here is me being bored while driving to Las Vegas- a cool shot of my Wayfarers (I’m so L.A.).

 

And, I’d like to introduce my dog, Oscar. He is the love of my life. 

He enjoys drinking from the sink. 

And tugging on our mother’s pajamas. 

 

 

On to some more random news, Elvis Costello is doing an in-store performance and signing at Amoeba music in Hollywood on Monday June 22 at 8pm. I know where I’ll be that day! 

 

Vegan travel…

I’m going to London and Liverpool again next month. I just called United Airlines to request a vegan meal. Last time, I was given a suspicious stir-fried veggie plate…it reeked of butter. Oh, an not to forget a roll, with a yellow egg-like inside, accompanied by a nice chunk of butter awaiting my spreading. The only thing I could eat was a small, and I mean small, fruit bowl…I believe it consisted of 5 grapes, 2 strawberries and 2 blackberries. I recall reading on the Urban Housewife about a Nutrilicious doughnut that she was given?! I never received one…though if I did, it can’t compare to Ronald’s in Vegas…so happy they changed the sugar they use so I was finally able to have it. 

I plan on making my own food to bring. At least I know my favourite cities in the world hold some of the best vegan restaurants I have ever been to. I love England.

I can’t believe…

I’ve seen Green Day 15 times now. It seems like yesterday I first saw them at Pop Disaster.

Anyways, I’ll use this to also update about my life and not just art.

For Carson Daly, I got to be second in line at around 9:30am. They started letting us in around 5. First, Carson interviewed them. Hysterical interview. Tre us fucked up, but that’s why I love him. Then they played a small, but great set of seven songs- five new ones and two Foxboro Hot Tubs songs.

The set list:

Know Your Enemy (least favourite songs on the album…I’m so sick of it.)

East Jesus Nowhere

21 Guns

Murder City

21st Century Breakdown

Stop, Drop and Roll

Mother Mary

The stage is TINY. And I was right up front. 

One of my favourite things was that in between songs (since it was being filmed, there were like two minute breaks between each song) the speakers were playig a mix cd of GD songs… During some of them like Church on Sunday, Billie started playing along with it on guitar and mouthing the words!! I loved that. 

Before the Foxboro Hot Tubs songs, Billie was like “alright, another band is coming on stage” they leave for a few minutes and cone back out dressed in their funky, retro Foxboro outfits! 

During Mother Mary, there’s a lyric that goes “mother marys in my hand, I’ll be a saint, I’ll be your man. I’ll do most anything cause I don’t care, mother marys in my hand” for that lyric, Billie grabbed my hand and held it, finger interlocking style. AGH! Hahaha so great. I can’t wait to see that on TV!

Then he kept crowd surfing over us, and I got to hold on to his love handles. And he threw beer all over everyone. Classic Billie. 

It went by fast, but so worth it. It was REALLY fun.

For Thursdays show at the Fonda, I got there around 3:30pm. Late for usual, but I was still at the beginning of the line because I got in contact with my internet friend’s, Zalex from New York, friend from New Jersey, Howie….he let me stay in line with him and he was about tenth in line. Anyways, the cheapest scalp ticket I could find was for balcony seats, not the floor. So I was able to be in the first row of the balcony, which were great seats…it is a small theater. 

Here is my crappy iPhone photo…don’t remember which song this was. 

The first part of the show was all new songs- which sound fucking great live. I don’t have the setlist memorized, but I’m sure you could find it somewhere. 

During East Jesus Nowhere, Billie pulled on stage a cute little kid, probably like 11 years old. He sang to the kid then had him stage dive safely back to his mother. It was super cute. And apparently at the end of the show Tre gave the kid his drumsticks…I saw the kid walking with them after the show.

The second half of the show they did some American Idiot classics like Amrrican Idiot, Jesus of Suburbia and St. Jimmy. During JOS, he had someone come on stage to sing the Dearly Beloved part…the guy was pretty good! He got all the words right and had the attitude as if he is most likely a singer in a band….he grabbed a hold of the mic stand and was all cocky about it, but, hey, I don’t blame him…he was on stage with Green Day!

Then for the last half of the show it was classics time. They even took requests and played songs they NEVER play like Brat, Coming Clean, Christie Road and Who Wrote Holden Caulfield. I was freaking out. It was awesome. During Longview, Billie pulled on stage (gosh, he is so nice) my new found friend, Howie, the guy from Jersey! He sang the second verse of the songs and text messaged me after freaking out like a 13 year old girl. I’m so happy for him! 

They ended with the brilliant King for a Day…which they always extend with a version of Shout, and eventually lay down on the stage at the “little bit softer now” and while on his back, Billie sang teases of such classics as Baby Face and Stand by Me (which I always live because Paul always plays Baby Face at shows and Lennon did a classic cover of Stand By Me)

And I bought my ticket for the Forum show on August 25th.

Random

I made this bag out of a toddler’s t-shirt.

 

Jerry Garcia painting for my brother’s birthday.

I made these three wall decals with contact paper. They’re quite fun to make.