Hello there, this is Katana, also known as Kat in some circles. I'm your friendly neighborhood twenty-two-year-old illustrator/writer whose sarcasm is second to none and harboring the ability to verbalize the parentheses in stories. I drink coffee and draw like an addict and am liable to get you into things that I like. Currently the wielder of a BFA in Illustration and a minor in English.
Questions? Comments? Death threats? Feel free to PM or message me in some iteration. I'm always around, you just don't know it.
"Some of the great artists of our time started off by doodling in class. ...Maybe. Oh heck I dunno."
- Miss Anonymous
Today was my second time going to SOFA, a big ol' art show in Chicago at Navy Pier. Sculptures as far as the eye can see, mainly in glass but also in wood, clay, plastic, random stuff...and jewelry. Oh man. The jewelry. There are so many sparkly things made in so many ways, I don't even know.
Although I usually do these things with Jiaqi and Terumi, I ended up splitting off from therm (one of Terumi's friends is with us this weekend). For the bus ride there, it was me, my sophomore friends Becca and Sarah, and Don, a guy my age with three thousand majors and also former peer adviser like me. Upon arrival, Don and I took off and spent two hours together, picking up all the things and holding our own in discussions to artists and dealers.
For the most part, art dealers don't really care what some college kids in t-shirts and hoodies think. It's just that when you get caught taking pictures or in whispers of "I can make that" "so can I" "let's trade" "okay", you have to be quick on your feet in response. Great practice.
There WAS a guy who genuinely didn't care that we weren't there to buy his stuff. I complimented him on the series collection because of it's name: The Cool Collection. Got a kick out of that. They were these awesome rings that were made of cracked graphite that basically covered a whole segment of your finger. Worth thousands of dollars and I got to manhandle it.
After lunch, Don and I banded with Sarah and Becca and did a second round of the floor. This time, we decided to speak in British accents. This went well up until a dealer said hi to us and asked where we were from, forcing us to break character and fess up...but she liked (and was convinced by) the act, so we made a cover story: We were foreign exchange students from the London Institute of Art and Design (LIAD) doing a study abroad trip to NIU because it is located in the heartland of America and is a good representation of midwest culture. And corn. 'cause apparently there isn't corn where we were from.
So for another two hours, we talked in British accents. The whole time. I don't think there was a minute where we weren't spouting dialogue of some sort. Whether looking at pieces or in line for the bathroom, we kept up the British thing and held conversations with a few people. Sarah got the furthest with the story, telling some random professor from some random art school that she was a foreign exchange student studying art education (her actual major). And the professor thought that was great.
It's not that I want to deceive people...it's just that talking in accents is so much fun, so why not mess with people who genuinely don't know who you are?
Today is the first day of NaNoWriMo. I don't expect my steam for it to last very long, but I do hope it kinda nudges me to get some words down. I'm setting my sights pretty low and hoping I can score 10,000 words. I'm thinking of actually putting The English World to good use and posting up my day-to-day writes and calling them, uh, exercises or something.
I've settled on calling the story "Tatters" for now (a conglomeration of "The Adventures of Tati and Robyn", Taotar, tatter) and even made a snazzy NaNoWriMo profile. Maybe we can start a club.
On to the tutorials. My two most recent art postings have been utilizing this weird faux-watercolor technique that I got through washable markers. I think I'll make a tutorial for how to do it, even if it is slap-your-head easy. I'm also sorely tempted to push that further and make it a .gif tutorial - IE, you'd get to see animations of things rather than having to guess through photos or watch a video.
And finally, it's Trip's birthday today. That is so weird. It seems like just three years ago this little kid wandered into Chat and was all "8D HI!" and stuff. Now we have jokes about 20 questions and splashy ninjas. Poor kid got raised by weirdos.
...Uh, what was the point of that. Dunno. Happy birthday, kiddo!
I haven't taken a vacation since before college. Not much to cry over, but it's telling that the longest time I've spent out of my area is when we went to Wisconsin last fall for my cousin's wedding and I was gone overnight. Seems all the vacations going on in my family involve my parents going to random places while I'm in school. Even during summer.
It's not that I'm, you know, angry about it or anything. It's just...it's nice to get away and go places. But I also understand that I don't have the funds to exactly support myself going someplace; not since I lost my job at the university. It's something I completely accept. And hey. I'm only 20. There's still a long time to go.
My dad just sent me an e-mail asking me where I'd like to go during spring or summer break. There were talks about me and my parents going to Disney World over spring break, but it was always a little "ehh". The thing about me and them is that I like...doing stuff. I want to go on rides and goof off and have fun. The last trip I took with them was the last vacation I took - to Williamsburg, Virginia, and while that was a better trip than most, it was still just a bit weird. Most likely it's 'cause I haven't exactly settled into being an adult. Alternatively, they're older than me and want to do different things. It's just how it is.
So while Disney World sounds fun, and while I've always had a teensy bit of resentment for my parents and my oldest brother going there when he was a kid, but never when my family was the whole of five, I haven't exactly been excited to go. It just seems like it'll end up as another one of "those" vacations.
There was a weird alternative in my dad's e-mail, and that was the option for me to go...anywhere. He asked if there was anyplace I, by myself, wanted to go. And that's not really the kind of thing I can answer right away, because I have to think.
Where do I want to go on vacation? That's a loaded question...
I'm pretty sure most of you know of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. It's in November, meaning it's just around the corner. I've never tried it before, mainly because whenever I'm reminded it's going on, the month is typically halfway over. Not cool.
This year, I've decided to give it a shot, but not in its purest form and not to its fullest. Instead, I'll be trying my own thing, swapping out one of the words - so rather than writing a novel, I'll be trying my hands on writing a comic.
Now, when I say "write a comic", it's a bit of a lie. I'll be writing it like I would a story, though maybe framed a bit differently. But since my ultimate goal is to get some material for a comic, I figure any place is a good place to start. I also don't plan on getting 50,000 words, seeing as how school is going to get even more brutal in November, so thinking I'll have the time to write 50,000 words is something I snort in my coffee at.
Anyhow, what is this comic? Well, it is where this picture comes from. It lacks a name, so my derpy title for it at the moment is "The Adventures of Tati and Robyn". TAoTaR? TATR? Tatter? Maybe that'll be it. Anyhow, it sort of just...exists right now. So few details are set in stone that I'm having a hard time starting it. That's something to ponder for the next week.
I do have a goal with it, though. My main beef with any story that revolves around women is that it's...girly. Alternatively, they try too hard to be...butch? Like, what happened to telling stories naturally? I want it to be the sort of thing that everyone can read and not feel awkward for doing so. And I REALLY want to avoid this BS.
Which I know sounds like me trying too hard. It's not even that. It's just me trying to tell a story and make a comic with leads that just so happen to be of the XX chromosome set that can just tell a story. I mean, there's differences in gender and all that, but I'm kind of thinking of what Nostalgia Chick says in The Smurfette Principle: "Why is it so easy to relate to male main characters, and yet to female main characters, not so much, unless you yourself are a female?"
Ah well, that's all for another day. The main point of all this is to just do something that I want to do. Because hey, when your dad goes "Have you ever thought about doing comics?", I figure there's something worth exploring for a career option.
