Intentional Media Consumption

I aspire to be well read, and you know, have a general understanding of the world, society, and all those pop culture references that permeate media like giant inside jokes. I got a Toronto Library card last summer and have never looked back. You can read as many books as you want for FREE and they will send the books you want to read from all over the city to wherever you want to pick them up. Yeah, I'm lame, but I like free stuff a lot.

For the most part, I just read casually while I'm on the subway or waiting somewhere for a while, but in a couple of weeks we'll be going away to the middle of nowhere, so I imagine I will have a lot of time to read while we are there. We'll be a couple of hours out of Thunder Bay so we will not even have internet for essentially a week and we have a super long drive on the way there and back. I'm taking the opportunity today to update my library hold list so I'll be able to pick up books next week before we leave.

I like to watch TV and things while I'm sewing and doing other half-attention activities. There is a lot more to watch during the September to May TV season, and thus in the 2011-2012 season I watched a lot of shows. The trouble is that I start to do it compulsively after a while and just keep watching episodes of things even if I don't particularly like them just because I watched them before. Now that it is summer the process has to change a little because there isn't quite as much being shoved onto our screens by networks.

I haven't been too terribly into anime since high school and yaoi and Beyblade G Revolution, but ever since I finished university and had some more time, I've been trying to get back into it in some way. I watched some of the beginning of Black Butler, Hetalia, and K-ON, and every once in a while I put my Dragonball Z DVDs on because it has always been the perfect thing to work to. I do always watch English dubs though, because my Japanese isn't nearly good enough to understand and not stare at the screen to read the subtitles. Right now, I'm one season into Avatar. I never watched it the first time around and it has been recommended to me countless times. I'm also three DVDs into the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. I've been borrowing it from the library, so I can watch it while the internet is being slow. I've been considering doing cosplay. Otherwise, I recently started watching My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, partly to see what all the fuss is about. It is really cute and it's giving me some cute ideas so we can look forward to when I have time to try them out.

In terms of live action, my boyfriend and I are currently watching Breaking Bad, Firefly, and Game of Thrones. I've also been watching Sister Wives sometimes on the internet.

Below is an amalgamation of lists of books that I posted to my old Livejournal a while back. I use it as a guide to what I should read next if I'm not sure. I also have been reading the Hunger Games series, although I'm still waiting for my hold on Mockingjay to come in, so I've been avoiding spoilers.

Project Runway Michelle: Anime North Edition

In one week, I will be at Anime North. This is what my costume currently looks like:

I'm going to pre-wash it all this evening. Then I can get started somewhat soon and be Rapunzel from the Disney Tangled movie.

...But after she gets her hair cut off. I hate wearing wigs. If I do, I always get a migraine and have to take a break from the convention to take drugs and a nap and that is no fun, so I need to find people to cosplay with hairstyles I can create with my current hair length.

I was thinking about doing this for last Hallowe'en and then ended up working a bunch of overtime and not having time to sew anything for myself. I really enjoyed Tangled, a lot more than I expected to. And I really like Mandy Moore from before when she was a popstar and stuff.

For Anime North, I originally wanted to do Assassin's Creed, but I'm not built right, so Logan would have to be Ezio and I was going to be either Rosa or Cristina. Then I procrastinated. When I make Ezio I want to do it really, really well, and he's got a lot of accessories, so I am choosing something simpler for now.

So I bought all the fabric a week and a half ago. Looking at some of the detail shots, Rapunzel has embroidery down the front of her skirt, and I really don't have time to do that, so I looked at the options I had so I could still have the texture. I found the pink I got as well as another brocade that was closer to the right colour, with a pattern that was really wrong for the dress. I was also considering getting a solid fabric in a better colour and an embroidered lace/netting overlay and doing the texture like that.  I decided the pink was closer to the feel I wanted to achieve, so I got that. It was also a lot cheaper than my other options at $12.50/yd.

So I've got a week to go and I've drafted nothing, and I've still got plenty to do for my table too. Luckily, I've got the next 3 days off work to do just that. So here goes; wish me luck. ;)

Birthday art time

It was my mom's birthday yesterday so I've been working on a little gift for her. She's planning to open up a café soon and she mentioned she wanted some fashion-type illustrations for the decor when she does.

So I broke out the watercolours and started doing some sketches to figure out what I wanted to do, and, you know, remember what bodies look like. I haven't drawn very much since I finished school last April, and haven't done any life drawing for a while before that. I'd like to go take a life drawing class at some point. Maybe I will have time after the end of May.

I decided to draw a fashion version of a mermaid. I used a little bit of wax resist for the print on the skirt, but otherwise just watercolour paints and watercolour pencil crayons. I decided to stick with making fashion drawing based on mythical humanoid creatures so for the second one I decided to make a genie. I think it looks too much like a genie literally and not enough like it was just inspired by one. Instead of having a magic lamp, I decided she could have a teapot; it'll be more relevant to the café environment. (Just now, I'm thinking she looks a little fat...)

I framed them in frames I bought at Dollarama and gave them to my mom last night when I got to her house and she liked them. "Now I'll need about six more of these," she said.