Survelliance

Lately, in full game-design mode at job-job, I find myself people watching in earnest. This is my morning commute on the F. 

She Sure is {Sketching Again}

Once upon a few weeks ago day, when it was just getting nice outside, the artist and the bosom friend, who is also known as "the running writer",  ambled down one Atlantic Avenue in one Brooklyn neighborhood. They passed a little shop, just a tiny shop - and upon consulting with one another entered its doors. They wandered thru the wares. They sifted thru the stores, and then - it happened! The artist stumbled upon an object of magic!

Then a lot of things happened. Maybe the artist realized she'd forgotten her purse at a nail salon a few blocks away, and maybe the shop keeper was skeptical about the particular mysticism of a particular object, and maybe there was a seagull that chased the poor girl down her block while she carried the object aloft- but at any rate, soon the magical object sat upon the artist's studio table. After the artist had begun to recover from a cold and been to new jersey back and forth, and had a really intense dance class, and took a really long two day workshop at General Assembly and worked like a happy little coal miner at her fancy game designer job-job, the time came to test the power of the new-found object. It had its moment, and the artist pronounced it good. 

All is right in the world. We're back at the drawing table. 

She Sure is {Wandering with Whispering Thoughts}

Psssst.... Lately I've been thinking a lot about 'being nice'. Last weekend I had the chance to go to an anniversary memorial service for a woman who knew me seven years ago when I felt like my life was falling apart. I had just started working at job-job days after ending a years long relationship. I felt like a shell of a person and everything felt overwhelming. I can remember most of my interactions with her, because they always coaxed me in to feeling so good. For hours after we finished a quick five minute chat I'd be calm with the expectation that everything was going to be grand. When I think about her now I am impressed at her wonderful kindness. This week I've been marveling at what a unique thing it is to be able, at the end of your life, and for years afterward, to be remembered as that one beautiful word, kind.

I left last weekend's memorial service for Naomi with a keen sense that I need to try harder. I need to be kinder. I am working on it - which is all we really have to do in this life. As a health coach I am so lucky to be able to coach people to be kind to themselves too - because that teaches me a ton too.

Listening to.. right. this. minute: "Chasing Pavements" by Adele

She Sure is {Botanical}

Last night I painted this Okra.

Than I put it in a stew (the vegetable, not the painting). I know. I know. I am so legit domestic.

She Sure is {almost drawing stuff}

Job-job has required near full attention as of late. As a result you've seen less sketchiness here than previously anticipated this year. Luckily, I really like job-job. Also, I really liked these fish at the zoo this weekend. That is all.

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

She Sure is {Urban Gardening}

A few months ago my mom visited NYC for 24 hours. When she left, there were fond memories of manicures and Middle Eastern food and three miniature elephants, left behind as a calling card of sorts. I laughed and wondered what on earth I'd ever do with this tiny cast of characters. On my way out the door this morning they caught my eye as they marched across my copy of Michael Chrichton's Travels. I realized we had all been called to this higher purpose. Like some 1920 hot femme-conservationist I transplanted them in my satchel for a jaunty trip to my Terrarium class at Smith Street's By Brooklyn. They are taking to their new environment like champs.

She Sure is {Sketchy} - A Return

A few months ago I had a creative crisis that resulted in the symbolic breaking of a 4b pencil over my knee. I declared myself the un-artist. It was done in an eff-this-crap kind of way.
Here's the thing -- the low down is this:
IT IS THE BEST JOB IN THE WORLD UNTIL IT SUCKS

Two months ago it sucked. I was so OVER it. I stopped blogging, I stopped drawing. I still had to go to my totally artistic job-job. While there, in one of the more creative adventures of my life, (an irony not lost on my Pratt friends) I built a video game with an amazing team of people. Other than that I declared myself NONARTIST.

My dad (a fineartist) was rather supportive. However, he also managed to piss me off by laughing at me.
--"Sorry, kid - It's too late. You're an artist. It's OK to take a break"

"NO! I am not taking a BREAK! I am DONE! I say who... I say when..."
(When I am truly lost I retreat in to quoting Pretty Woman). 

Anyway. They were right. I was wrong. I'll blog more about this later. I'm actually a driven and dedicated artist who had a total meltdown. It might help my readers to know that that stuff happens even when you're not painting starry nights or sculpting vaginas -- and on that warm and fuzzy note...

Yesterday I went to the zoo. I innocently thought I'd maybe take a pen. Then I thought I might want to take some written notes or write a letter. I'd need some paper. Last Spring Ashley Robison organized my studio to absolute dream perfection, making paper oh-so-accessible. Fine. I thought I'd tip-toe in to that scary space I haven't been in since May. She'd mounted some hanging clipboards for me up against a wall. I reached in to the room. This way I didn't have to fully cross the threshold. I ripped a pre-papered clipboard down and scampered towards the Bronx with it.

It started innocently enough. There was this polar bear. He was a show off.


I sketched him without thinking about it.

Later, on the monorail, there were some deer.

So  this just happened:

Totally understandable. 

We happened upon this expansive bramble of peacocks.


I watched them for a long time. So long, I absently doodled them on the edge of my clipboard.
Nothing wrong there. Sometimes non-artists doodle! Whatever.

We packed up at the end of a looong day of Bronxing. I stepped on the 2 train.

Then we hit 129th street. I thought, maybe I should just look at those sketches...

By the time we hit Carroll Street, things had gotten out of hand. Apparently I'm an artist, and I'm back. Expect more blogging.

(Credit for All Photos Goes to April Alvarez, my kid sister who is more than actively shutterbugging her vacation in NYC).

She Sure is {Busy} - A New York Minute

Lately when I hang out with the friends who I've never ever, ever (what's one more for good measure?) had comment on my blog. They nudge me with their feet and say,

"Hey! Why don't you do a New York Minute at She Sure is Sketchy anymore?

At this I usually put my hand against my forehead Disney Princess style and feign ennui. We all know that is a lie though. I am always way too busy to get bored. Also, as a kid I wasn't allowed to use the word because it was treated like a curse word in my house. In the third grade when Kellen Brade declared himself as such during an epically long spelling test I was truly scandalized.

So in absolutely exciting news this week I...

• Spent a blissed out morning with Rodin at the Met's sculpture garden 
• I did some weekend antiquing with my interior designer pal who is a Pratt Grad and a Hawaii boy. Brooklyn won over Chelsea and we fell in love with Holler and Squall. With a sign like this who could blame us??
• I hopped a train to the tail end of Brooklyn
• Walked across the Brooklyn Bridge
• Spent a simply perfect late evening with a best friend and a tall Tazo Calm Tea in the only soft and cushiony chairs at the Starbux off Pacific. You know in the second grade when there is only one swing available and you beat everyone to it? If so, you know you not only get to experience the exhilarating highs of near flying, but also the trodden faces of your sworn enemies (ie. the little girls who have mothers that do not force them to wear their hair in double braids). Winning that air conditioned nook at the coffee shop was like that.
• A glorious holiday was spent basking in the glow of Coney Island
  
  
• I tried to figure out when I had purchased the sunscreen I had on hand. Was it last summer or my trip to Hawaii.
• I decided to apply it liberally and hope for the best
• I nursed a burn because I bought it after I got back from Hawaii, to preserve an amazing tan, because it was not sunscreen, but rather suntan preserving lotion that is packaged to look like sunscreen.
• I shook my fist at the sun.
• I had a late night ballerina dance party in which I rocked out to Rob Thomas while wearing my polka-dot boxers and about eight yards of pink bubble wrap. I know it, my life is bliss. There are pictures, but they are not going to be seen here.
• There was an amazing night that involved dancing in the rain on NYC's high-line
• Followed by dinner at Sausage Inc. 
• Then a deep dish dessert of Chris Hemsworth. Having never before belonged to the Church of Chris, I was shocked at how instantaneously I became a true convert. If you have not yet seen the light that is this magnificent specimen of a lightning wielding god that is this elder Hemsworth brother, you can read all about it in the words of Brittany Warnock. She *ahem*... hits the nail on the head. 
• Later in the week I took back an iron clad rule I made for myself four years ago. In 2009 I vowed to never blatently lie to a man I am dating... I have kept that promise. However, I ask you, what was I supposed to do?!?! He asked if I'd seen the Avengers yet. He made it clear that he wasn't that in to seeing it. I blinked twice and I claimed that "I'd heard it was good..."
• I saw the Avengers for the second time.
• On Saturday there was another date that involved Snow White and the Huntsman. I'm concerned that there's a running theme here... 
• I noticed that no matter the hotness of your date it is impossible to not fantasize about Chris Hemsworth at any time any physical contact is made in a week in which Chris Hemsworth is seen for any time greater than 30seconds.
• I got distracted when a cashier's hand brushed mine while returning change. It's going to be a long blonde-god fantasizing week...
• I saw Cruella Deville's much younger sister marching along Avenue of the Americas and just couldn't help but whip out my camera. I wish I'd caught her from the front, because she was awesome, but here's what I managed:
  
• I had breakfast in front of the Flatiron before I headed to work. A new tradition for sure.
• I got a major two degrees close to Rob Pattinson. An adorable co-ed was being phot-oggled by her much grandpa lover against one of the large landscaping boulders that they put in the street to create a little island of cafe tables on broadway and 5th ave. The mini mountains are there to keep you from being killed instantly  by oncoming traffic. (You will instead be hit by rough and ready shrapnel from a taxi plowing into a gigantic rock and die in the hospital five days later). However, this will be the backdrop to your demise:
  
  
  So there's that.
  I looked on as the young camera-ready girl went full on Lolita. She was more than comfortable pouring herself against a rock in a - "we-are-in-a deserted-waterfall-on-a-private-island-and-it-is-just-us-and-no-one-will-ever-see-these-pictures-because-we-love-each-other-too-much-to-betray-that-trust" way. I caught the eye of one of the only other girls eating their breakfast on the little island. We exchanged the look that goes with witnessing something that private in the middle of one of the most iconic parts of Manhattan. She giggled and rolled her eyes. Then I realized, "oh wait that girl is famous..". I was texting at the time and she reached up and put her sunglasses on and said "please don't tweet where I am? I just couldn't wear Spanx today." So I love Anna Kendrik forever and even more because she knows that girl was redonk and also that Spanx are too much.
  
• I traveled to Soho where I shook down my brother's roommate with searching questions about the renter's market in Queens.
• Then Karma got me.  I crossed the Greene, where I almost fell when the delicate strap on my last Summer's afternoon heels decided it had seen one to many cobbled stones in its life. I almost biffed it, saving myself at the last minute. Just so you know, unless you're on the last crusade and heading over the invisible land bridge with Indiana Jones, there is no worse place to fall than SoHo.
  
  It means you'll have to be smiled at. These aren't just any smiles, they are the curved and delicate lips-only half-smiles pf gorgeous amazonian women who tower over you. They would never be caught in last summer's heels.
• Speaking of which, I have spent the last three months coveting my roommate's lipstick. She has been rocking a matte shade two tones pinker than her actual mouth, leading her face to look even more carved by Renaissance masters.  
• I marched myself to Sephora and two hours and 12 tries later walked on to fifth avenue just this side of Masaccio.
• I spent a fantastic and nerdy AM in the BK-Town at PolyTech at a robot fair. It was great. Then we saw this, and it became the best thing that happened to me all week:
  
• No. I still have not learned to take videos with my camera. I have my BFA in film. Give me a Forox and you'll see that I know what the hell I'm doing, but equipped with a cell phone you'll have to make do with my apologies.
• The Duchess and I worked on planning a bachlorette party of epic proportions
• I animated more blood and guts and gore at job-job, which I love.
• I realized that I am at a time in my life where I don't really have to do anything I don't want to do if I don't feel like doing it. With that in mind:
• I began crafting this little fish sushi that I fell in love with on laughing squid's eccentric blog.

• I had a great bf/gf-how awesome are we? chat with my roommate, the other girl who rules the penthouse at 302 Court. That's our weekend thing, but it always seems to be something of note.
• I was gifted the best gift any girl can ever get by Nick, from the Cobble Hill Diner. He is selfless and wonderful and I adore him.
• I grabbed my ratty copy of A Solitary Blue and decided to kick off my Summer tradition of visiting Jeff Greene a tinsy bit early. I did it here
  
  It filled me up with light.
  
  
  There were of course a lot of other things that happened this week, but those were the highlights and my favorites. I hope the day is busy for you. Want to fill me in on your best thing? How about your worst? Maybe your funniest? Lemme know, k?

Bucket List

Wear an amazingly fantasmagorical hat to the kentucky Derby