Cinderella and Ramblin' Rambo

It was pretty easy finding something to submit for this week's Illustration Friday challenge- Tales and Legends, since I work in a storybook theme park. This is #5 in a series of 7 murals I'm painting for the Cinderella Party Area of Children's Fairyland. It's still in progress, and I hope to be done with it this week, I've got some changes I want to make to the prince and some more mice, some more magic sparkle, that kind of thing. It's about 90% done, I think.

I saw Rambo 4 tonight. It was SO not my kind of movie. I absolutely hate how the teaser trailer for this glorifies war violence and seems like an army ad. So messed up. Because that's not at all the tone of the movie. I suppose I can't expect much from movie trailers anyway but I'm so tired of the lowest common denominator manipulation crap.

It is pretty much a war movie, and I generally do not make the choice to go out and view so much grotesque violence on screen. For me personally, I just don't feel a NEED to see that kind of thing, and certainly don't need to see it Hollywood-ed up. But I genuinely enjoyed Rambo 1, never saw the 2nd or 3rd, and somewhat enjoyed watching the Rambo character development in the 4th movie.

I saw a small boy leaving with his caretakers when the credits began to roll, and at first I thought, WHY WHY WHY would you take a kid to see this movie?! Which by the way, I equate the experience of watching the first 40-something minutes of this movie to having your face shoved in poop for 40-something minutes. But you know, I saw lots of messed up movies as a kid (as I'm sure we all have, right? Right?) and I don't actually remember them much nor did it ruin my brain, at least I don't think it did.

I wonder what the R. on the "R. Rambo" mailbox stood for in the movie. Ricky Rambo? Rambo Rambo? Rocky Rambo? Ramblin' Rambo. Whatever. Stalone is a giant man, and I think it would be cool to see him re-match against Hulk Hogan.

Ok, I've never seen all of Rocky 3, but really, why do I need to now that I've seen the above clip???? IT'S ALL I NEED TO SEE!

Alice in Wonderland - Off with their heads!

Alice in Wonderland - Off with their heads!, originally uploaded by headexplodie.

I have no new news to blog about today, so here's a super cool photo of two of my favorite dudes from the last puppet show we did at Fairyland- the soon to be beheaded card painters. They only appeared on stage for less than a minute, but they still rocked. Puppets designed by Lewis Mahlmann.

One Wacky Winter

Over the month of November I painted some scenery for my friend Randal Metz, of The Puppet Company. The show is called One Wacky Winter, and I posted some work in progress photos of the scenes being painted, and realized I never put up the finished paintings, so here they are!

Nice Trees

Nice Trees, originally uploaded by headexplodie.

'Nuff said.

Dr. Ryuta Vs. Annie

In the game Brain Age, Dr. Ryuta sets up drawing challenges for you to draw from memory. I actually kinda suck at drawing from memory, but I love these exercises anyway and always laugh at the results.

This time he asked me to draw Beethoven, and here are the results. Mine is on the right, obviously.

Now that I think about it, my memory is pretty spotty in general. I'm always forgetting my wallet, or keys, or something I need before I leave the door. Just now, while editing this photo, I felt like playing Brian Age and couldn't remember where I last put my Nintendo DS. I can see the polygonal head of Ryuta right now shaking his head at me. Guess I should get to work on that part of my brain.

Vivian Song and Dance

The last day I was in town with my younger sister, we did a goofy song and dance routine, this is the outfit she was wearing. I love to embroider and sew into paper, so I thought this might also work for the illustration friday topic, "Stitch."

I'm in an art show!

Hooray! Two of my paintings have been selected to be in the Pro Arts Juried Annual this year.
Nancy's in it, too! Here is the info:

Pro Arts Juried Annual 2008
Selections by Laura Hoptman - Senior Curator, New Museum, NY

Pro Arts Gallery
550 Second Street
Oakland, CA

Show runs January 22 - March 9, 2008
Reception: Thursday, January 31, 6-8 PM
Artist Talk: Saturday, February 16, 1 PM

laziness

I've been back from vacation for a week. I guess i forgot to post a few of these photos.

Catching up. Our Kids are Muties.

Man, I'm tired. And full of food. Vacation has been pretty good to me, I get to indulge in staying up late and waking up late, and not feel guilty for it. And not having to cook these past two weeks has been great also. Too bad it ends in a couple of days! Saaaaaadddd.

Spent the week of Christmas in San Antonio, and it was mighty enjoyable to spend time with my kid sister, Vivian, who I ADORE. Michael has also been enjoying time with his younger brother. Both our siblings are in that in-betweeny time of being not quite a kid and not quite a young adult. The changes are very noticeable since we only see them twice a year, during their summer and winter school breaks. The last time I saw them the changes were so visible, their adult features had begun to take shape, and if they were X-Men they would soon be discovering their mutant powers. Yep, that's right. I saw these kids as "Mutants." Of course I mean that in the most lovable way.

This became even more apparent when we arrived at The Incredible (Christian) Pizza Company and I paid for our admissions. The cashier asked me, "So will this be for 4 adults?" To which I replied, "UHHHhhh..."

"Kids are under 13."
"OH! Then, 2 adults and 2 kids."
"(Pause.) They're both under 13?"
"(Pause.) YES."
"Ooookay."

I tried to keep a straight face and not look the man in the eye, because (except when playing the card game, B.S. a.k.a. Liar, a.k.a. Bullcrap, a.k.a. horse-poopy) I'm such a terrible liar. After paying and receiving our "credit cards" for the arcade, I turned around and looked at Michael and his younger brother, Will, and noticed how incredibly tall he had grown, he was actually taller than Michael! He totally did not look 12, and technically he had been 13 for 3 months. So I felt like a big dork for lying so badly. I also felt like my Dad because he would do the same thing to me when I was around 12, try to pass me off as younger than I was so that he could still get discounted rates. I used to hate it too because as a kid, seeing adults lie infuriated me, and ironically, I didn't want to be seen as a kid anymore, I wanted to BE an adult.

Well, we had a pretty fun time with the muties, er, the kids. Vivian got me hooked on this horrible Jumpin' Jackpot game, where you stand on a small platform and jump when you see the yellow lights go around and under your feet, like virtual jump rope, basically. You win more tickets depending on how many times you successfully jump over the "rope." I swear this game must have been invented by Star Trek Ferengis because it is deceptively simple.

"Stupid Humans! Jumpin' Jackpot will make us a great profit!"

The music is this crazy loud DDR kinda dance music which draws you in and gets you PUMPED, but I saw many n00bs, including myself, get caught on the "rope" on the first jump. Then it makes you want to pump more money into it because you think "Wait! give me another chance! I can do this!!!!"

So frustrating, because even though I knew it's wasn't a game you could "win" necessarily, I felt like I could have been awesome and gotten several more jumps in...if only I were 12 again.