Insomnia and Broken Social Scene

Wow guys. I know its been a really long time, but look at ALL of these pictures. And this might just be the tip of the iceberg actually. And by "might" I mean it is, but I'm going to try and update more often so I wanted to hold onto a few pages. SO here, my friends, are some of the quickies I've put out in the last few weeks.

I just wanna stick my nose in here and let you know that I filled in colors using crayon, which is something I haven't ever used in a non-coloring book situation before. I really actually enjoyed the way they look...I'm most likely going to use them more often.






A lot to take in, I know.

Also, thanks so much everyone whose been pressuring me to post again. You're so wonderful.

Lets Get it On

Hello friends and neighbors. Back by popular demand (by which I mean a handful of friends asking about my next entry) I give you, SOME DOODLES!!

Its my first entry in 2011, and some of you may be wondering if I'm gonna be as flakey as I was last semester about posting. Probably. We all make resolutions, and very few of them are kept. When I worked at the Y, the worst period of people rush was the first 3 weeks after New Years, after that everything mellowed out.

By which, I mean, people talk the talk pretty big, but can't walk the walk. At least for a whole year...its hard...

But my resolution was just to generally be cooler. I think blogging falls under that. Maybe. This may actually fall under the vanity project category...in which case this whole thing is pretty masterbatory. I hope not.

But enough about me. Lets talk about this! Analysis of Deviance class leads to fun discussions about alcoholism, gay marriage, Prohibition, and many other fun goodies of cool tidbits from the mind of the amazing PJ McGann. Her first name is actually PJ. She changed it to that.

I love her.
I was, as always, thinking about food during class. Which is a shame, because it is Restaurant Week in Ann Arbor and my friend Megan and I had just enjoyed Salmon Burgers and liquid nitrogen milkshakes at Vineology on the cheep. This week (and the one in the fall) may just be my favorite time of the year.

This was in my Mad Men polisci section. Bookcover photo of a economist in black and white. And its a Profile??? Sketch CITY!
A discussion about Alcoholism that was interesting, but painful as my place of work had a huge party the night before from which I awoke bruised, battered, and still very, very drunk. Deviance is at 2:30, so I was rocking a fairly significant hangover by that class.
Sex and squids on the brain. The words above the unencumbered woman read "Sallie Mae has no Shame". I have several loans out through Sallie Mae. That bitch...The squid was an off-shoot of a comic book a friend lent me that featured squid-like aliens. The Gentleman Corpse series is really well drawn but not so hot on the story...still, I'd recommend checking them out. Fast and disturbing reads.

I draw the backs of people's heads in lecture sometimes. Its a fun thing to do.
The slogan I came up with on this page was "Give your V-card for Valentines Day". I may try and market that...

Also, guys, real talk: Thanks for being so awesome and supporting me in this venture. Also, you're pretty hot. Just sayin...

Take a ride on a broken train

Its Thursday! And with Thursday comes a whole new batch of drawings.

Drawings that I quite like, to be honest.

So this one was done in my Social Research Methods course, which I was late to because I was walking slowly eating a delicious peanut covered dark chocolate cupcake filled with buttercream frosting. First the frosting was in the cupcake, and then it was in me. This was a rapid transfer.

So I was late and sitting in the front row of class doodling intently, while at the same time trying not to get called out for doodling intently.

But I love this page so very much. The middle figure just came out of nowhere. If you enlarge the drawing you can read his description. The bottom guy I seriously identified with today, having spent my morning with a doctor, and my afternoon in class. 6 strait hours of class. Exhaustion being the key word here.

(Oh, and don't worry friends, typical doctor visit: more bark than bite).
I just like this one too. I was basing this off a woman we were watching in a documentary about Intelligent Design vs. Evolution. She was all angles, not quite elderly, not quite middle aged, and her hair was an odd pumpkiny color.

Cool broad.

Fun Fact: I think Intelligent Design is a load of hogwash

Fun Fact #2: The term Hogwash originated in 1440, meaning "slop fed to pigs". In 1712 it became slang for cheap liquor. In 2010 I used it to apply to Intelligent Design.

If you enlarge this page you will notice I misspelled "mustache".

Fun Fact #3: I can't spell.
The "Holy Awkward!" moment entailed above did not actually occur around me on this day. I thought it up in my dirty mind. I've often wondered how guys manage around those types of situations. I've heard ample testimony in favor of the "waistband method". My next question is do guys just figure this out on their own through trial and error, or is this explained to them at some point?

Sorry if that offended anyone's delicate sensibilities. Deal with it.
Another old lady. I'll call her Ruth. Ruth is stationed next to a rabbit that I drew because I randomly thought of my brother's late bunny Ted. There was no love lost between Ted and I. Therefore I drew an angry bunny as an extension of my Ted related angst.

And the panda? Why not a panda?

Iced Cooly

Why hello there! It's nice to see all of you again. How was your summer? Good? Golden. Great!

Well school's up and running again, which means that I have school work that I should be doing. Which of course means that you all will be seeing a LOT of my doodles.

Because I cannot concentrate for too long on anything. We are the MTV generation after all. I need quick cuts between shots. In my films, and my life.

Couple song lyrics added to these btw. Bonus points for those who can accurately name the artists involved.
Bio 130: Animal Behavior. Science credits for those who need them, but don't need a difficult course. Even mix between freshmen and seniors I do believe.

But hey, lecture notes make for the best possible doodle times.

This drawing reminded me a bit of Daria. Thus the lyrics. (I know I just gave away the answer to one...that's a freebie).
Soc 312. On the first day we spent an hour and a half going over the syllabus. No words of any kind were written down in my notebook.
No words, just emotions...and Batman. My favorite of the supers. Read "Death of the Innocents" at some point if you get a chance. A comic in which Batman takes on land mines. Superman did the same and they actually had to pull the comic, because of an increase of child fatalities due to land mines.

Meaning that children actually died because they believed that Superman would fly in and save them.

Moving on...
Law and Lit. The class I scrambled around and settled on after one of my 4 credit classes was canceled for the term on the first day of classes. All we have to do is listen to the ramblings of cranky grandpa professor. Very smart, very long winded.
Same class, same day. He has a LOT of stories.
I like simplified figures. For one, they're easier (by far) to draw. For two, they're more fun (by far) to draw.
So many drawings, I can't be bothered to come with tags for some of these. All bio notes from here on out I think.
Well there you have it! I find myself losing steam so....

Peace!

Michelle, my belle, sont les monts qui vont trés bien ensemble, trés bien ensemble.

It has been a good long time since I've last posted. This has nothing to do with anything besides my own laziness, as I still have class (hello Spring Semester!) and thus still have a good 6 hours a week to not pay attention to what my professor in training has to say about Weber and Marx.

Though I have been taking many notes, so the whole thing balances out in my mind.
These are all done using my favorite pen: Precise V5. Yes I have a favorite pen. It is expensive and often sold out of Michigan Book and Supply, but its just so wonderful, so its worth all the money and waiting for new shipments.

And why is this? Well, its just so inky. It's the best for any sort of comic book scribbling, line filling in, and random doodles all over your hands in class. All of these and more this pen and I have done together.
Most of these, I gotta say, aren't favorites. I think that taking a break from some serious drawing has really cramped my style. Or at least made it more difficult for me to sketch out the images that pop into my head at any given time. Most of class time now is given to daydreaming rather than drawing, so I'm actually forcing my self to sketch things half the time.
Which is alarming to say the least. When I was in High School I took a CR course on Creative Writing that was taught by a graduate student at UofM. I remember she was talking about her favorite contemporary poet one day and shared that he forces himself to write for somewhere around 3 hours each day, like homework, because he's terrified that one day he'll wake up and discover that he's lost all his talent.

And then she read a poem of his that included a line about him flying over the Atlantic ocean with his hard cock in his hand.

Which made me remember the animated movie "The Snowman" which involved a scene where a little boy and a Snowman are flying over an ocean.

Picturing a snowman with an erection in midflight is something that is pretty distracting, so I didn't hold onto much more of the lesson. I can't remember the poet's name, for example, but I do hold onto that idea: that talent can ebb away just like that, if you're not diligent.

And really all talent is is taking a skill and working at it for hours and hours until you're a little better than the people who haven't logged that kind of time. The book "Blink" outlines that concept pretty wonderfully.

Its a thought I routinely come back to as both a source of comfort and anxiety. If I haven't drawn for a while, I'm terrified that I'll come to the day where I no longer can. But on the flip side, by looking at any given skill as a simple matter of hours logged, its very easy to convince yourself that the only thing in the way of you and any talent is you and your inability to commit the required amount of time.

Funny thing about Spring and Summer. You always feel like you'll have more time than you actually end up with. Between the two jobs and school and other commitments, I find that my free time involves more naps than anything else. Naps and motionless staring at interesting spots on the wall. I haven't really sat down and drawn in months. Almost a year really since I undertook a project of my own.

Hopefully all this will change soon.

Hopefully my ability to draw will not vanish after weeks of nothing but lackluster doodles.

We'll I guess you'll see whether things improve or not. I hope for both our sakes they do.

And hey there readers, thanks for tuning in. You look good, damn good. I'm sorry I haven't kept in touch in a while.

Everybody loves a winner, so nobody loved me. Lady Peaceful, Lady Happy, thats what I long to be

No outside drawing occurred today, but fear not, this post is chock-a-block full of good stuff.

And do I mean good! Take a look at the work of lil' miss Caitlin! Our guest today happens to be one of my wonderful roommates who, on top of being a domestic goddess (which I say because she just cleaned half the apt. while I was curled up in a ball taking a nap), a bright and motivated student, and my date to Obama's commencement speech, happens to be quite the doodler.
Her handwriting? Glorious. The story here is that she was planning out her summer outfits for her aborted study abroad session to Spain. Though it didn't work out this summer, I have every faith that Caitlin will make it abroad as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

I see all of these in pastel watercolors. There's something so light and summery about the floating dresses and shoes. I must admit that I do the exact same thing when I'm planning a trip.

Let's give it a hand for Caitlin for providing us with a page of her talent!

The rest of this entry is, sadly, not quite as exciting. These doodles were done on Sunday night as I was quickly running out of the study steam and filling my bellows with the sweet smoke of procrastination.
As you can see, I was blowing smoke rings of "I don't want to take notes anymore" all over the place.
I was also going through a bit of a feminist fit at the time. My boyfriend caught an earful, but I could have spouted off for hours. In a class on inequality, we spent a good two classes on the Civil Rights movement (but only the black civil rights movement) and maybe 20 minutes of one class on the woman's movement. The Woman's movement was not on the final.

Which made me seethe in my seat for a good long while.
On top of the doodles inspired by my anger at the complicated spot in society that women still must put up with (and, lets face it, often help to facilitate), I also have two brief sketches of some very awkward early 20 somethings that were sitting near me, playing board games, and having one of those conversations that can't help but make you cringe. We also have Aretha Franklin tidle-bits (as "Respect" came on the radio at around that time).

So there you have it. Thanks Caitlin for allowing me to put up your stuff! Lets give the girl a hand!

Got a devil's haircut in my mind

Welcome Ladies and Gents, to the 2nd ever edition of "Guest Doodler"! Without further ado, I give you Vicky!

Thanks to modern technology this denizen of Chicago did not even need to leave her seat in order to send these bad boys my way. And do we got some stellar doodles here!

On top of some stellar notes. My friends, you are looking into the mind of one of the coolest all-around people that I know. And you don't even have to pay for the honor. She's taken her little party-of-one on the road to Northwestern for the past couple of years, but her true haunts happen to lie right smack dab in Ann Arbor (I hope this shall always be the case). In addition to her skills as a student, she happens to boast impressive and eclectic music tastes, formidable musical talents, and a fantastic sense of humor.

But let's let the drawings speak for themselves. Might I just say, this one's my favorite.

Something about the progression of faces in the bottom of the page I find so wonderful. It might be the little pinpoint eyes on the first two little coil monsters (but don't they just look so sweet? And slightly shocked? Electric shocked??), that lead to the massive dilated pupils of the last gentleman there. And doesn't he look fighting mad? This is why telephone cords are a thing of the past. This very reason here.

The horn-flower, on the other hand, is kinda Seusical. Not a threat, just something that wouldn't provide a relaxing home atmosphere.

I just find this progression of images really delightful.

And then there's this suckah, who personifies the end of the 2nd semester. I'm sure we can all sympathize with what he's going through right now.

He just looks like a he don't he?

Lets hear it for Vicky and her fantastic drawings! It was really a joy to receive and look through these.

And now another plug: anyone who would like to see their drawings immortalized should send them my way. Don't be scared, the water's fine. My inbox will welcome you (jordanma@umich.edu).

You know me better than I know myself. You know me the best.

I bought new pens. So I drew. It's the last day of classes today, and somehow it seems as if stress has mounted rather than ebbed.

In other news: the project that I'm working for in Histart is going swimmingly. I may have a museum something or other come out of it.

You know what might be nice right now? Swimming in the ocean. That sounds mighty fine to me.

Joy to the Fishes in the Deep Blue Sea, Joy to You and Me!

And I do mean that. And Gents. The story behind this one being that I was working with a slightly odious man who treats women the way that most slightly feminist college students would object to. Especially the women working out around them. The Y is not really a single mixer, unless you are two men in the steam room. I've read enough Craigslist postings to this effect.

In short, I really dislike this person. I also don't think I'm all that subtle about this, as I was drawing this as he was complaining about both his ex-wife and his current girlfriend in the same breath.
But lets move on to something else. Like the superhero gal here?? Yeah, this would be my lovely and bad-ass friend Megan, who really is like a superhero. I am continually so blown away by how hard she is in everything she does. Plus she has a perfect figure for a spandex bodysuit: Gal's got legs for days.

The naked lady is a sort of off-shoot from a Woody Allen piece which can be found in The Insanity Defense, which I would highly recommend for anyone who wishes to remain not lame.

Then we have "Joy to the World", which I remember was a constant in my childhood home. I also love the name Jeremiah for a boy. I have yet to meet a living person with that name, but if I have kids Jeremiah will be up there on the list of possible names.

"Up there" as in: it will be in the #1 spot.

Here's a fun fact: Toxoplasma-a parasite that is found in rats-can only breed within cats, so it releases some sort of chemical that makes cat urine attractive to rats. The rats go to the urine, get eaten, and the parasites are happy.

It also gets into humans. Thus explaining the crazy cat ladies. It also may cause schizophrenia (maybe), and also is linked to an increased risk of dying in car accidents.

Lets take a second and absorb how amazing this is. And by amazing I mean bizarre and slightly unsettling. But interesting and bizarre and slightly unsettling. This world is so very interesting.

Oh, and Happy Easter all you young so-and-sos out there. I personally believe that any holiday, whether you believe in it or not, is worth celebrating if marshmellow treats shaped like chicks and covered in colored sugar are involved. Thats my philosophy anyways.

I said, "I'll make you smile for the simple fact I'm good at it. I'll make you smile just so I can sit and look at it."

I had two hours in between class and work. The fruits of these two hours was Ice Cream, Sun Bathing, and this little wonder. If you magnify it you can read about the hidden dreams, and deep struggles of some of these animated characters. I realize that some of these are cut off...well my paper is slightly bigger than my scanner. Alas.

Sun is shining in the sky. There ain't a cloud in sight. Its stopped raining, everybody's in a play and doncha know? It's a beautiful new day! Hey Hey

HistArt 481 notes. Of course. So I'm posting during a break in my day while listening to Dan Savage's Savage Love Cast. It's a little challenging, to be honest, to write while listening to one of the most entertaining sex advice blogs cum podcast (and yes, I did knowingly make that joke) I've ever had the good fortune to stumble across. However, I am powering through. Because you're worth it, dear reader.
Its another very beautiful day in Ann Arbor. The sun is shinning, the birds are tweeting, and the bicycles are a-wheeling. I hope everyone in the area has some quality frolicking time today. Preferably in some sort of field.

Ahhh spring, when young man's fancy turns to love. At least, thats what I've been told. As someone who has had the good fortune of being a girl all her life, I wouldn't know firsthand. To all you young men out there, I hope that your objects of fancy are worthy of your forthcoming love.

And for aalllll the ladies out there. Enjoy all the sweet, sweet loving.

Cause hey, it's spring. So it WILL be happening. That's a fact.

I want the world, I want the whole world. I want to wrap it up tight in my pocket. Its my bar of chocolate!

First Guest Post! Are you excited? I certainly am. Those of you who eat at Monahan's in Kerrytown know that they boast some of the best frenchfries in the territory. Also, some of the coolest foodie employees. However, you may not know that Mike Monahan (yes, the owner) is quite an artist. His little doodles appear on boxes all over the basement of Kerrytown. It's always a little treat to see them. I salvaged this from a box due for recycling.
The rest of this is the result of an hour or so of doodleing after work today. Did it feel good? You betcha!

Happy Sunday night y'all!