She Sure is {Notetaking}

On Friday we had a loooooooooong meeting at job-job. I took notes:

These are actually all applicable to my fulltime job. Lately I write stuff to my former self:
.......

Dear Past Amber,

SEE? It was worth the wait! 

- signed future Amber

Big Waves... Close Together

TODAY SUCKED....

and then i turned my head to the left.

Also, at job-job I am designing animal crackers.

In exactly one hour I am going to acupuncture.

How are you holding up?

What's the fun stuff?

Monday Morning

In Which I Draw A Tear

Oh! To live in a perpetual weekend - that is my wish and my sweetest dream.
Let us hope this week will at the very least be punny. I'd like a new contract too. Let's hope it involves Target.

Hippo to the Jive-o

Hippos are the job-job word of the week.

So I drew some, all sciency/cartoony.

Cause and Effects and hippo facts!

um... but this one is bonus, and um... not directly related to job-job.

Zoooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Last Thursday job-job took us to the zoo!!! What the what? Yeah. THE ZOO.
Childhood aspiration achieved.

Was it the best day ever?

Most definately.

Did it make me want to kidnap baby animals?

Of course!

Did this trip reveal never before seen wonders, such as finally allowing me to see the red-panda, something that I attempted to do every other weekend for two years?

YES!!

The red panda actually exists!

Did I laugh at Monkeys?

Silly monkeys.

Did I remember how cool giraffes are?

Seriously. they look like aliens.

Did I laugh at more monkeys?

Hahahahahaha.

Did I wish I had stripes?

Just a few next on my ankles. Why can't we have markings too?

Did this guy's face make me forgive him for eating bugs?

Awww, what a face.

Did I squint to see this "leopard's" spots?

Woh, they are so camoflauged!

DId I freak out at this pile of otters?

SERIOUSLY!? A pile of otters?! Soooooooooooo cute. Like cuter than Hello Kitty cute.

Was I totally crazy jealous of this seal?

You bet. How come he gets to live here? It is amazing.

Did I want a pignosed turtle?

Did I sing about it Veruca Salt style?

um.

See, perfect day at work ;)

The Tornado

Here are some work in progress still shots from the movie I'm in charge of this month at job-job.

Lately I've been feeling like we're becoming the 'opposite of racist' in the movies we provide--whatever that is. It's just that tons of our films feature African Americans or Latin and Spanish people. We hardly ever make a movie about a white person. I've been exasperated by it, in that I think it's getting strange that we're not representing a true melting pot. So when my schedule docked on Wilma Rudolph I rolled my eyes. Then I had to start researching her. I'm awe inspired. She rocks so hard. I love when my job teaches me new things. Wilma Rudolph was one of those people who shouldn't have succeeded. She was born premature, weighing only four and a half pounds. She was the twentieth of twenty-two kids! In the first few years of her life, Wilma's mother nursed Wilma through scarlet fever, mumps, measles and double pneumonia.

Wilma contracted Polio. Hospitals were segregated and she almost died multiple times, submitted to the kind of medical help you can imagine a poor little black girl in the South in the 1950s would receive. She had a Forest Gump kind of brace on her leg until she was twelve!

I loved the stories I read about her mother who would not give up. Determined to beat the odds, her mom packed Wilma up. They traveled fifty miles twice a week to get Wilma to physical therapy in the only place that would treat her. Her entire family worked round the clock helping Wilma do strengthening exercises, nursing her to health.

Look her up. She died so young. but in her short lifetime she shattered boundaries. She wrote her own biography. She consulted on the movie made about her life. She won so many awards. If you Google her you'll find multiple accounts saying she changed the world. Talented enough to brake through the time's preconceived notions about race and gender she changed the way the world measures the value of a person.

In 1960 she became the first American woman to win three gold medals in a single Olympic games.
Ooh and she was sooo so fast.

Watch her run. She'll blow your mind.

White on White

I don't know if I've mentioned this before... but I freaking love my job.

This is the conversation I had with my art director this afternoon:
This is the conversation we had in my head:

Him: Have you drawn a Beluga Whale for us before?

Him: Have you used your subperb drawing skills to render us an illustration of the most noble creature of Oceania?

Me: No.

Me: You mean a Beluga Whale!!? Gee. I wish!!!

Him: I'm suposed to draw a Beluga Whale for this next movie.

Me: Lucky!

Me: NO fair!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I WANNA draw a Beluga Whale. I only got to draw that stupid Bowhead whale for the Arctic Movie.

Him: What was the name of that stupid whale you drew for the Arctic Movie?

Me: The Bowhead Whale?

Me: My Bowhead whale was not stupid...

Him: You wanna draw a beluga whale for me?

Him: I guess since your eyes have gotten as big as 45s I will let you draw it, mainly because you are cute.

Me: Um, I guess.

Me: SCORE!!!! I GET TO DRAW A BABY BELUGA WHALE FOR MY JOB. I AM THE LUCKIEST GIRL EVERRRRRRRRRR! I get to draw a beluga whale. Yayyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!

There you have it kids.
Welcome to She Sure is Sketchy -- where I let you into my head.

listening to right this second: "Soil,Soil" -- Tegan and Sara

Sweet and Simple

I'm working on a new activity at job-job. This month I made a math movie about patterns. It's funny, I spend so much of my career doing surface design. I just never break it down to this simple and beautiful idea that's based in the simplest math; math that you learn when you're in kindergarten. These are going in our geometry unit.

I had to make our activities for this movie as simple as possible.

It is important that the kids can draw in what's missing themselves.

My instructions were as follows:

"Draw simple shapes: Cat, Dog, Mouse, Blank, Dog, Mouse, Cat, Dog, Mouse......"

This one might be my favorite. I'm going to let this new way of thinking about pattern bleed into my normal artsy life. I'm sure you'll see this reflected in my surface design in the very near future.

Yeah, like when do I ever think about keeping a butterfly "as simple as possible"?!

I love this little gal! (Oh and incase you couldn't tell -- It's National Punctuation day, seriously!)

3rd graders at Auburn Elementary School (Auburn, MI)

These kids know how to properly celebrate a holiday.

(I'd use an exclamation point, but you know you're supposed to use those sparingly.)

Roughed Out

These are a few random bits from a storyboard I did for Job-Job a couple of weeks ago. I particularly loved the babies and the turtles and thought I might as well save the birds too. I think when I do the turtles I'll make them look a bit like fairy mushrooms.

The Better To See You With