Presenting Problems

I've done a lot of terrible presentations in my time.  If you ask my mother, they were all genius.  

Well, I'm not delusional.  I know what horrors I have committed, and I've decided to share some of them (the ones I remember) with you.

Sometimes, I'm fairly certain, I actually based some presentations on whatever I had around me.  

For example, I had these ridiculous slippers that looked like fuzzy muppet bird... horrible... things.  

I decided they looked a little like the guys from the Labyrinth.  

You know, the David Bowie/Jim Henson movie.  

They looked like the red bird horrible things that take their heads off and sing "Our Gang" right?  

So I did that. 

I stood up there, in front of a class, and danced in those slippers to that song.  

Yep. 

Moving on. 

The next one was also a musical, stupid ass thing.  

Simon and Garfunkel began to play with, "I am a rock, I am an island" as I moved cards which each sported a drawing of a personified rock and island respectively, illustrating the song as I went.  

It gets worse. 

You see, I loved Happy Days.  

LOVED Happy Days.  

I used to watch it right before bed as a way to tell myself what my bed time would be.  

Somehow, I managed to rope a few of my friends in... what?  

Fifth grade?  

I managed to convince them to don poodle skirts, use hula hoops, and lip sync to "Rock Around The Clock"... Which, by the way, is sung by a man.  

Some tiny little girls, lip syncing to a man voice.  

I remember being incredibly nervous.  

I don't even know why I wanted to do it at all.  

I hate going on stage for anything.  

Perhaps, part of it was that I didn't have to speak.  

A lot of my stage fright does have to do with my voice, after all.  

Along those lines... 

A mandatory stage play in the third grade meant that I got two parts.  

You know, since I didn't want any at all.   

My teacher decided I was going to be two different birds, because, and I quote, she thought I was very, "bird like"...

Having low self esteem meant that I took this to mean something about me having a beak of a nose and squawking a lot.  

I will say, my mother was brilliant here.  

She made one costume work for two by simply having a removable red chest piece. 

 During a poetry week, I recited a poem I had memorized... 

Poe's The Raven.  

I was always that kid.  

I did presentations on serial killers about a bazillion times... 

Of course, I did presentations on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...

 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as well as presentations on Robert Louis Stevenson himself...

Actually, that one kept getting interrupted by two rude girls right in the front of the class.  

They weren't scolded for it, but I was for stopping in order to try and get them to shut up.  

It led to a very early Deddrie strip, in fact.  

Of course, there were presentations I didn't do... 

I didn't have a Bat Mitzvah, even though I went through all the schooling for it... 

I also took ballet, jazz, and tap all at the same time. 

 

I was best at tap dancing and I liked jazz the most.  

I was terrible at ballet and I hated doing it.  

I chickened out of the recital, unfortunately after my parents had already paid for the very expensive (and very itchy) costumes.  

...I'll have to do an edit eventually once I figure out how to illustrate the Little Mermaid thing.  It was a dance with a sheer green fabric.  I was told the dance was very pretty.  

At some point, I was roped into this fish based play that I only vaguely remember at all.  

We were to make our paper costumes and then kind of hold them in front of us... somehow. 

Mine was a clown fish.  I was super happy about it.  

That isn't sarcasm.  I really wanted to be the clown fish.  

Sadly, I was seated by an idiot.  He sloppily splashed blue paint on a bit of my fish.  

I sighed, realized that once it was dry, I could just paint over it.  

The teacher's assistant saw this and decided I was in crisis.  

...

THEN I was in crisis.  

She said I shouldn't be sad and that I should just splash more blue all over the fish.  "SEE???"  

I'm still angry.  

*breathes*  

I was also in choir for a few thousand years.  

My family is known for singing, so even though I had some issues with my speech, it was assumed I would also go in front of people and sing.  

They'd give me solos without even asking me to audition, and I'd hand them over to my friends who had talent or at least a want to do this thing that everyone but me seemed to want me to do.  

Mind you, these days, it would be nice to be able to sing, play piano, play guitar and all those things.  The only thing stopping me is my own blind fear based on shit (mostly just in my head) from when I was a kid. 

I remember Cats more than anything.  

Anyone without solos couldn't wear tails.  

I wore one anyway because I had been handed a solo and my giving it up did not mean I was giving up my right to a tail.  

By my fourth and final undergraduate college, I was presenting crap like this: 

I swear this was for a fashion course.  

Rowyn Answers: 4: Gouache

Question:  

What is gouache? 



Answer: 

The technical definition is apparently "A method of painting with opaque watercolors mixed with a preparation of gum."  I find this definition unhelpful and lacking, so lets add to that.  

Gouache is a word which has too many vowels. 
Gouache is like working with watercolors but being able to go back in and work with a piece hours later, like oils.  The colors are vibrant, which reminds me of acrylics.  
The paint is expensive, but a little tube can last a very long time if one is using them more like watercolors. 

So, it isn't automatically transparent and can be used without thinning it out.  An artist can choose the opaqueness of the paint pretty easily.  Sometimes the colors lighten when they dry and then can be layered or not in stages.  This can be a much thicker paint than other types of paint.  

Gouache is what artist Alex Ross often used for his famous superhero portraits. 

I'm not as good with gouache as Alex Ross.  
My dancing girls are done in gouache: 

To compare, here are a couple things done in watercolor:

 Watercolor pencils:

I have no idea if I answered your question adequately. 

This Post Brought to You By: Collaboration!

My Knight and I went to a tiny con this past weekend.  BadCon at UAlbany.  It was not a "bad con" but there was hardly anyone there.  I'm hoping to help out with spreading the word next year.  Still, we sold some things and met some people and saw some friends.  Mostly, we sat around doodling together.  This was like a dream date for me, as it turns out.

My Knight, Rob, draws people as potatoes.  They show up in his webcomic on occasion here:   http://www.unmedicatedcomic.com/
and he'll draw people at cons as potatoes.  I was highly entertained by this, so I decided to draw him as a potato.  ...But it didn't wind up as cute as his do.

Also, everything scanned for this had gotten a little wet because A. it was raining afterwards and B. we had a spill.  The spill was entertaining in it's own right because while our drawings got a little wet, everything else on the table was saved by the tablecloth itself. 

Since part of that looked like a face, my Knight drew the spill:

...I need a better editing program for my scanner so you kids can see these better. 

To give you an idea of the kinds of stuff sold at these events, we sell art prints, sometimes T-shirts, key chains and assorted body parts:

"Give someone the finger!"  Get it??

At one point, we took two words, put them together and then saw what we each came up with.  First was fish-apple:

His:

Mine (Which I think wound up more frog-like than fish-like.  ...Or maybe just sick):

Then came centipede and barrel.
His:

Mine:

and another try:

I also attempted to show the difference between antennae and penises.  ...I don't remember why.  But here they are:

Now, to conclude, I'm going to express how head over heels I am for this guy.

I don't do outside.

I just don't.

I think of the outside world and I think of the "tweezers" my mom has handed me when I wanted to pluck my eyebrows, knowing those things are for plucking off bugs and out splinters and other horrible outside things.

Seriously.  The fuck are these things?


I'm allergic to outside.  Literally.  Grass makes me itchy and red.

YET I went out by his family's house so he could show me where he spent his childhood days, by rusty pieces of metal and now overgrown thorns... And even with a busted hip from before then and even while stressed out of my mind and ridden with silent panic attacks, I still managed to have a good time.

Why?

Because he was with me.

...Also some of the plants did neat things like this:

Twisty and there's that curl thing at the bottom. 

Because I really never go outside, knowing that I do have some pretty amazingly bad allergies, when I do go outside, I feel a little like a kid in a bubble.  I'm stupefied by the beauty of it all, and TERRIFIED by any little prick of anything at all. 
I used to run into the woods as a kid and climb trees.  I'd walk over rocks and not complain when I got wet in a creek. 
Then 12 years old happened and the learned-the-hard-way-knowledge of what an allergen can do kind of ruined my life and ended what bit of a childhood I had. 

I'd like to go back to being that kid.  I'm not as brave as I used to be, but maybe with the help of my Knight, I'll get there. 

...that being said, I really DO have allergies, so it can't be all the time anyway. 
Still, worth a shot once in a while, yeah?

Showers, Baths, and Referring to Poop Too Many Times

Showers and I have a strictly business relationship. 

I get in, I do my business, I get out.  While some have a more loving relationship with both the shower and the toilet, I treat both with some amount of disdain. 

"You, Mr. Shower, are here to get me clean.  The end.  No funny business."

"You, Ms. Toilette, are here to catch whatever happens to come out of me.  Good luck."  *shakes toilet-hand*

EDIT: A friend/apartment mate of mine, Dustin (at http://www.flickr.com/photos/wiserobot) took this picture:

 
He had asked me to give the toilet eyes and arms.  Without question, I said "HELL YES" and did it.  So, now I can actually shake it's toilet hand.  Our apartment mate says it makes him feel like he is now one step closer to golden showers, having now peed in something that has eyes.   There are actually some pictures of me directly up on his site too...  Just sayin'.

In general, I'm just very uncomfortable while taking a shower.  I like feeling clean, but it's the standing up to do it that bothers me. 

Maybe it's my heritage and I have a strange association between showers and Nazis? 
More likely though, I've just watched Psycho too many times.

Fun fact, until a surgery leading to where she had to take showers instead, the star of Psycho took baths, often with someone in the room, due to the film. 

I love baths.  I could easily say to my apartment mates "Hey, I'm going to be in the bathroom for at least ever, so I need you guys to use it while you can." 
These are the guys who have had no issues peeing outside when the bathroom was taken, so they would be all, "Sure!" "No problem." *salutes* "Have fun in your bath, Princess!" 

But I don't ask.  Living with three to four people in an apartment with one bathroom makes me needlessly nervous and ultra aware of my bathroom time. 

Even having to take a crap becomes a stressful endeavor, once I feel I'm taking too long. 
I start thinking progressively more irrational things like, "Oh god.  Oh god.  What if someone needs this?  What if someone is really sick?  What if a cute little girl just came to visit and she needs to poo and I'm in here and so she has to go outside like an animal??"

I'm even the kind of person who turns the fan on, in hopes no one will hear me do what is meant to be done in the room with the toilet. 

Like I'm pretending to be some magical creature that excretes gummy bears instead.

Again, I know my roommates would be more than happy to ignore me while I crap.  This has nothing to do with reality or how people actually work.  This has to do with my screwed up brain. 

But baths... Man.  Baths are awesome. 

When I was a kid, I would make a fuss about getting into the bath, and then once there... I was sooooo freaking happy! 
And then I'd make a fuss about getting out.



I'm still like that, to a certain extent.  

And then I get in and it's, "Oh.  Right.  I like this.  This is awesome.  I forgot."

My mom would put this metal...plastic... who knows what it was made of...  It was white and it was a grid type thing that went across the bath tub.  Then, I had a series of cups and toys and even Little Mermaid figures.

Sometimes, Ursula would sing songs.  Sometimes, I was a mad scientist. 

I was awesome.

As a grown up who's too weird to ask to take a bath, I either take baths when no one is home, like some secret guilty pleasure, or I take showers begrudgingly. 

It helps to shower with someone, but even then, it's strictly business for me.  I have to be convinced to do otherwise. 
My boyfriend is there to wash my back if I ask for that.  ...He puts up with a lot from me, actually.  The whole typically-endlessly-patient thing is rather nice.

He doesn't wear glasses in the shower.  Just so we're clear. 

I will admit, there is a kind of comfort to showering with my boyfriend.  I figure, with him there, I won't get stabbed.  If I slip, he'll catch me.  Things like that. 
And washing my back if I ask.

He and I both have an issue with one sensitive eye.  ...Meaning that we each have one sensitive eye... Not that we share one.

His reacts to light.  Mine, as sucky as it is, reacts really poorly to water and sometimes to wind. 
...I wish I was kidding. 
It's from an old dog-stepping-in-my-eye-while-I-was-on-the-ground-after-falling-down-a-flight-of-stairs related injury. 

Therefore, washing my face is done very carefully, and often outside of the shower. 

The only other issue is that Boyfriend likes his showers boiling hot.

Oh well.


Also, I drew this a while ago.  It always bothered me that Flounder was not... a flounder... so I fixed it.