Have Diploma, Will Travel

Monkeys at Play

Simon — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 04:23:11 +0000

Here is another post of someone else’s linocut print. This is Elise’s first linocut. I think it looks really nice. I especially like the sun beams.

Monkeys at Play

I’m currently working on full page linocut. It’s taking me a bit longer than expected since I need to carve the whole 8.5 x 11 surface. I hope to have it finished by next week at the latest. I hate having projects stagnate. It has so text too, so that’s taking me a bit longer… Speaking of stagnating projects, I should also really finish the movie. It seems I’ve gotten ahead of myself with all these art projects! Oh well.

Movie magic

Simon — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 15:16:37 +0000

Last July, my friend Dave and I started making a movie. The idea came from a particularly terrible episode of Criminal Minds in which Jason Alexander play some sort of a criminal genius. However, the show was so terrible that we could only watch the intro scene before writing our parody movie idea. You can watch said scene below. Essentially, our idea is that scene, but more ridiculous. With stuffed animals.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to complete making the movie while Dave was here. We’re both easily distracted so we never could focus on it long enough to finish it. The movie ended up collecting virtual dust in my computer for a 5 months until yesterday when I set out to finish the filming and editing with a friend. Now the only part missing is dialogue for the last few scene!

Here are some “behind the scene” pictures to set the mood!

Working on the "pictures"!

This is probably what Jim Henson went through.

Special effects!

I’m so excited for this to be finished!

Sharing the craft and Occupy Mailboxes

Simon — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 06:17:33 +0000

I helped a friend make her first linocut today. It was loads of fun! Here’s what she made:

My friend's first linocut

I think she did a great job! I can’t wait to see what she’ll do next. She wants us to start making linocut DVD covers. It’s a bit of an ambitious project, but I think it could be really nice/fun. We’ll see!

Last Saturday, I hosted something at my house called Occupy Mailboxes. Basically, it’s a political letter writing party. It was lots of fun but also a bit disappointing (in relation to participation). My friend and I (with whom I organized the thing) were frustrated with the whole North American Occupy movement and decided to try something different that used our democratic system. I also figured anything was more effective than camping in a park, waving cardboard signs around and talking about how the “1%” are screwing us over, but I won’t get into a rant about how I disagree with how the Occupy is going about its “business”.

Anyway, my friend and I invited around 110 ~~people~~ of our friends via Facebook to write letters for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon and only one of these people showed up. To make things worst, one of the people I invited (I wrote personalize invitations to everyone I invited) is heavily involved in the Occupy Montreal movement, I figured he’d be the first to jump in and actually try and relay his message to politicians. I find it so frustrating, after that poor showing I see the North American Occupy movement is no more than radical slacktivism. Sure, it starts a conversation, but that’s pretty much it. Moving on before I get all worked up about this. It was an informative experience and we hope to host another Occupy Mailboxes event in January. Hopefully more people will come…

Christmas cards

Simon — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 18:26:10 +0000

As I mentioned last week, I decided to make homemade linocut Christmas cards this year. My last two attempts at linocut weren’t as successful as I’d have liked (you could even say they were the opposite of what I wanted), but I felt pretty confident that this third try would be the successful attempt.

I properly carved my sheet of linoleum (with the words backwards) and a few days later, with the help of my friend, we produced 35 Christmas cards. We also did this in her parent’s flower shop, which I feel makes the whole thing even cooler in a I-recorded-this-album-in-an-abandonned-barn way.

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

They’re not nearly as consistent as professional cards, but I think it makes them unique. And the ink gives them a nice tactile aspect. If you read this blog and you’d like one, mail me your address. I’ve got a few more than I know what to do with!

Last weekend, Elise and I went to Greenwich Letterpress in New York in hopes of finding some paper so I could salvage my messed-up Mustache pad (and it was Small Business Saturday, so she had 25$ to use in a small participating retailer!). She mentioned to the guy that I did some printing and on our way out, he handed me a business card (they’ve got the best business cards I’ve ever seen/felt! They’re printed on super heavy stock and it is beautifully embossed. I tried taking a picture, but my camera’s not good enough.) and said if I ever wanted to try to sell my stuff, I should contact a certain person on the card. Clearly I’m a ways from selling my cards, but I think it’s a really neat option if ever I get good at this!

My next objective to is salvage the Mustache print. I’ve got a really good idea how to do it. I’m pretty excited to see how it will turn out!

Remember remember the last day of Movember

Simon — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 19:13:30 +0000

Today is the last day of November, or as millions of men around the world know it: Movember.

This year, I participated in the global campagne for prostate cancer awareness by growing (or attempting to grow) a mustache. Finally, the month is over and I have a somewhat ok mustache to show for it (as well as having raised 121$ for prostate cancer research/awareness).

Hint: I'm on the right.

I’m thinking of keeping it until Christmas. We’ll see how that goes…

Problem with words

Simon — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 04:49:37 +0000

For my birthday, my parents got me a linocut kit (that’s the stuff you use to carve some pad and then ink it and then print that image on a page). I thought it would be fun to make some cards and prints for christmas with it. A few nights ago, I tried making my first print. Something silly and easy. I got the sketch done, figured what font style I wanted to use, and then carved the design on a soft pad. After a few hours, I had my first linocut project! I was jazzed! I called Elise to tell her about it. After I described it, she asked me if I had done the letters backwards. Gasp! Of course…. I needed to make letter backwards since the print is reversed! Nooooo! I put my mirror-world print away and thought it best to take a little break before my next project.

Here is a reversed print thanks to the magic of computers!

...but I'll shave it for later.

Tonight, I didn’t have anything exciting to do, so I figured I’d try my hand at carving the christmas card. I had a design in mind, so I set out to sketch and carve it. I was finishing the details when it hit me. I didn’t reverse the letters! Nooooooo! It’s too bad because I think it looks pretty good. I just need to pick up new pads and re-carve the design reversed… Third time’s the charm.

Spoiler alert: People who get cards from me, this is what you're getting. If you want one, let me know!

Though to be fair, I did make a mistake on the card. I got carried away and made the O in noël an A. I’d need to restart anyway… the trials an artist goes through for his craft!

Actively pursuing the (comic book store guy) dream

Simon — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 19:09:09 +0000

In my quest to fullfil my life long dream of working in a comic book shop (little known fact: I once almost opened a comic book shop in a gaming shop Sherbrooke, but turns out one was already in the works), I just dropped off my resume at another comic book store. Drawn and Quarterly is much less a capes-and-tights comic books shop as it is a graphic-novels-as-a-legitimate-literary-medium comic book store. They even have real book, silk-screening classes and author talks there! (Drawn and Quarterly is also a super cool graphic novel publisher.) In a bid to win them over, I dusted off my pen and spent my Tuesday night drawing my resume (it actually felt really good to draw again).

My resume, the comic.

I asked the man behind the counter if they hired part-time employees. Apparently they tend to hire (though not exclusively) in-house from interns, so we’ll see.

On (hopefully) becoming a comic book store guy

Simon — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 15:02:24 +0000

It recently came to my attention that a new comic book store (4th Wall) is opening in my area. Well, not quite in my area, but about a 15 minute metro ride away from my house, which isn’t too bad. Since working in a comic books shop has been a dream of mine for years, I’ve got a bit of spare time and getting a few extra dollars would be nice, I decided to drop off a resume. When I dropped it off, the guy manning the store asked me if I liked comic books. Obviously, I like comic books, but I told him haven’t been keeping up for over 3 years. I said this because I didn’t want him to call me out on my current knowledge by asking me who was currently part of the Avengers or what Batman was up to or whatever.

I don’t think the comic book guy was convinced. I left the store feeling a bit bummed, like I’d never hear back from them. A friend then gave me a brilliant idea, to send pictures of my comic books in a bid to prove my nerd legitimacy. I went home, updated my resume with a few annexes, and sent it on its way. Here are the annexed pictures in my “revised” resume:

Annex 1: Proof that I like comic books. This is as many comic books as I could fit on my dinning room table.

Annex 2: Proof that this table of comic books is mine, not some random picture I found online.

Annex 3: That time I met Brian Lee O’Malley and his wife Hope Larson in Halifax on Free Comic Book Day.

Packing light

Simon — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:07:22 +0000

I love packing light. For whatever reason, traveling with too much clothes drives me nuts. Here is what I brought with me for my Toronto/Chicago/Denver/New York trip this summer. 5 shirts, two pairs of shorts, swimming trunks, 7 pairs of boxers and a quick dry towel. Being able to bring so little is the advantage of traveling when it’s warm!

Enough to last me one month

The advantage of packing light. This is all I had to worry about.

The short road to New York City

Simon — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 21:24:21 +0000

The setting is Denver. Tuesday morning. I’ve been in Denver for 10 days now and the city is appealing to me in a way I didn’t expect. I know I will miss it tremendously. As much as I like it, I really need to go to New York City (spend some time with the lady friend). I had checked Craig’s List for anyone going to New York City, anyone going East really, but nothing came up. I was hoping to find a student returning to school on the East coast or parents driving their kids for their first year in university. No such luck. I even posted a ride request, but the closest I could have gotten was Ohio (about 10 hours West of New York City) and that would have taken me two days. Because I had my heart set on doing the Montreal loop (Montreal-Toronto-Chicago-Denver-New York City-Montreal) on land, I checked with Greyhound and Amtrak for their Denver to New York City prices. Greyhound didn’t have it available on their site (I would have had to call) and Amtrak was around 240$. Just so we’re on the same page, that’s 240$ to be sitting in a seat on a train for two days straight. I suppose it’s better than the Greyhound alternative which, if I had to guess, would be closer to three or four days. I decided to swallow my pride and check airlines for prices. I quickly found a ticket from Denver to New York City, direct, for 212$. As much as I wanted to feel like a hardened traveller and do the West to East road on land, it was an easy choice. Even if I had found a ride East, I probably would have ended up pay a lot more for gas, food and lodging.

After saying goodbye to my friends, I got on my eastbound flight on Tuesday afternoon.

Then I flew.

Then, 3 hours later, I landed in New York City. I’ll admit that it was neat to see night lights from the air. It was also a bit shocking to travel essentially the same distance that had taken me around 34 hours to cover over the past few weeks in 3 hours.

Traveling by flight, while way more time efficient, almost feels like cheating. It removes the feeling of accomplishment, progress and tactility you get from overland travel. Having to wait 20-ish hours to reach your destination really makes you appreciate the moment you see the highway sign welcoming you to where you’re going.