maria Archives - Page 10 of 26

Riso Printing Crash Course Attendee

Posted on February 17, 2017

Last weekend, I took a crash course in riso printing. I like taking the occasional class, be it a crash course, or semester-long class. Besides learning something new, it gives me something to do and something to look forward to after a long day at work. Trying something new was also a goal for this year, so I’m feeling pretty accomplished so far.

There’s this local studio, actually a few blocks away from my job that offers classes and a membership in which you can use their facilities. My plan was to take the risograph class and hopefully after feeling comfortable enough to use it, I’d sign up for a membership.

So the risograph is a Japanese duplicator machine. It’s kinda living in the underground right now because there’s not much information about it out there. It’s intended for just making copies, not making art. But there’s something about it that gives artist a creative freedom to print in bulk. It’s not like your standard copy machine where it prints colors all at once. You have to manually take out the one ink drum and put in another one. It mimics a lot of qualities of screenprinting but it’s strictly for paper. You kinda should make sure you’re educated in the color wheel before taking on riso, especially when colors overlap. It’s pretty darn cool in that sense.

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Current Events Fanship

Trish Doan Remembrance

Posted on February 16, 2017

I guess you just never know what’s going on in someone’s head. And when you found out bad news, you can’t help but think “what could I have done to have prevented this?”.

So, quick backstory: when I started finding myself in middle school, I went through a metal phase, which I discussed once before. One band that really spoke to me was Kittie. They became my ultimate favorite band, making me feel like I too can be a bad ass chick. I bought all their albums, t-shirts, my first concert was to see them, and I even learned html coding to create a fan site on the now defunct Geocities. The band is known for excessive lineup changes, and back in 2005, they added Tara McLeod and Trish Doan on guitar and bass. Being one year into my fan site, I was eager to do what I could to expand the site and even get a first scoop. I immediately contacted the both of them for small interviews.

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Sewing

Band T-shirt Pillow Case

Posted on January 24, 2017

Last year I made the decision to really clean out a lot of my closet and, really, things in general. I got rid of loads of stuff. Every so often I had to made some hard decisions because I’m attached to everything I own.

When I was younger, I was way into collecting band t-shirts. I couldn’t stop. I had so much, but the thing is that I wore all of them so I didn’t feel right getting rid of any of them. So I had an excessive pile of band shirts.

Over the years, my wardrobe and style changed. I wore less and less of them and they just sat there taking up space in my closet. So I gathered all the shirts I couldn’t part ways with but didn’t wear anymore and set up some sewing projects for them. One idea was to making pillow cases out of them. I had the project set up but I didn’t execute it until recently. So I went for it making one pillow case to see how it would come out.

I gathered similar colored shirts. In this case I picked out my black and white ones. I took them apart, and compared measurements to a pillow case I already owned.

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Current Events

Women’s March NYC

Posted on January 21, 2017

Today was the big day for women to march on Washington. It turned into a global event featuring women not only marching in America but EVERYWHERE fighting for all human rights. It was amazing reading about the expected turnouts vs the actual estimated turnouts which happened to be more than double than what they expected. It was so damn exciting.

The signs were amazing, and I immediately regretted not making a sign to march with. I don’t know what I was thinking. But I attended with my roommate, and we walked, cheered, and shouted along with the protest chants.

I took so many pictures documenting this historic event, but here are my highlights.

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Sewing

Taco Tuesday Embroidery Hoop Art

Posted on January 17, 2017

After eight months of being in this apartment, I’m actually starting to feel settled and comfortable. Along with that feeling, I’ve been feeling good about the projects I’ve been getting done lately. Especially the ones that have been lingering for a while. Being halfway done with the first month of the new year, I’ve been feeling pretty accomplished so far which really gives my self esteem quite the boost.

Anywho, at some point past year I started collecting embroidery hoops without having any idea of what exactly I wanted to do with them. (I kinda feel like all my posts start this way. I just got hit with that groundhog’s day feeling) So, being settled into the apartment finally, I’ve been all about decorating the walls, but more like themed decorating. More so each wall has its own theme. I’ve been trying to keep the kitchen walls covered with food and kitchen related art. I recently was encouraged to make some of my own art, being that I’ve got all the supplies to do so. I guess you can say my excess embroidery hoops and the recent hoop stuff I made encouraged me to do so. In this case, instead of using beads, I wanted to actually do some fun embroidery art. I had a few ideas but settled on making some taco art because I love tacos.

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