how to enjoy the sun

as taught by a cat.

I enjoyed the sun by going for a walk.

The paper press I bought on ebay finally came! I miss feeling things on my hands, and making things that require more hands-on work than my paintings do. So I've decided to take up paper-making. I'm excited to start.

Enjoy the beautiful day everyone!

Love,

Amanda

where have you been?

"Hey."

moleskin page 57.

Hey is my favorite Pixies song. 

The song starts off with "Hey," and then one resonating chord (depicted in the top right of the page). I love the vibrations of deep, heavy chords on cellos and bass instruments and the like. Your finger taps it once and it's like a ripple effect, like touching your hand to water - smooth circles. Just as much I love lighter chords. They're more like mini harps, more like air. 

I love instruments. Mostly I love orchestra instruments. But Pixies songs are good, too. :)

fodder for a morning dove

"Fodder for a morning dove (every june ours)"

acrylic on masonite, 11x14"

This is a painting I've been leaving and coming back to since the beginning of February, and it's finally finished. It was based on a drawing in my sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project. Those are the best kinds of paintings, the ones that come about with no planning. Pictures born from mindless sketches.

---

Last night I dreamt that I'd given someone a vintage book, but it went missing. For some reason, people who worked at the Met thought that it might be buried in sand that surrounded their museum and met the edge of Central Park. They gave me permission to dig through the sand and try and find the book.

I knew the book wouldn't be there, but I knew there would be amazing things buried in the sand around a museum like the Met. It was like an archeological dig of sorts. In the sand, I found scary things (like needles) and really amazing things (a black plastic owl with wings that beat like a hummingbird's). Unfortunately, those are the only two things I can specifically remember. Everything I found was really shallow in the ground, only a few inches deep and the sand was really loose and easy to brush aside. I kept everything I found in a plastic zip-lock bag.

Dreams always have a tone or a feeling to them. This one felt like the past. It felt like being on the baseball field in elementary school. It felt like places I haven't been yet, as well.

---

Anyway, I hope you're all having a wonderful Thursday. I also want to thank everyone for their kind words and encouragement regarding the CD cover. It's a very exciting time. I can't wait until the album officially comes out in April!

Happy almost weekend!

Love,

me

The Beautiful Untrue

Yay! My tattooed lady ("and with unspoken ease, I was your pet") has made her way onto Jerry Fish and the Mudbug Club's new album, The Beautiful Untrue! I can't say enough wonderful things about Jerry or his music. He's a kind and talented person with a big imagination. I feel that tattooed lady is very at home on this album cover.

To listen to the music of Jerry Fish and the Mudbug Club, see photos, and read behind the scenes info, visit their official site. You can listen to the first single off this album, "Back to Before," here.

I hope you're all having a good start to your week! I scanned a painting today but I thought this news should come first, so I'll be sharing that in a day or two. :)

Love,

Amanda

good morning, gin dobre.

This morning at the bus stop:

sometimes two people who don't even speak the same language are able to have a perfect  conversation. 

Happy Sunday morning, everyone. :)

my darling from the lions

Last week, I ordered a copy of My Darling from the Lions by Alice Denham on Amazon marketplace. The list image was of a modern penguin classics edition, and that's what I thought I'd be getting for $7.

When I opened the package when it came in the mail, I couldn't believe it - they sent me a first edition hardback copy!!! It has that great old-book smell and escaped from a Texas library (always the best kind of book).

Having a first edition of this book means a lot. It was Denham's first novel, and she had to wait ten years until her agent finally found a publisher who was willing to take it on. Just holding the book in my hands was like...I don't know. I'm getting all literature geek on you. But it was like, I was holding something that was the marking of a writer's first great accomplishment: one of the first copies of Alice's first novel. This book is from that first run of books that meant so much to her.

I've read her autobiography. I love the elegant way she writes. I admire her as a person. I'm so pleased to have a first edition of this book. I can't wait to read it.

en transit

These are my birthday presents for Ely, the boy I used to babysit. He's my kindred spirit in a number of ways. I got the combination journal/sketchbook (!!) at Borders on sale for $2! I got one for me too. I got the Westminster Abbey and bicycle at the antique store in nyc. 

I learned how to draw biplanes and ships (both clipper and steamer) by watching Ely draw them, so old fashioned modes of transportation always remind me of him.

Old cigarette cards are pretty neat.

 I love old ships, planes, and trains. I think it's because they represent a time when traveling was rare, exotic, and really did take you to another world. TV and movies weren't how they are today. There were far less glimpses into other ways of life in the early to mid 1900s. Visiting another country must have been such an unexpected adventure.

And speaking of old planes, there is an amazing spread in British Vogue this month... absolutely gorgeous.

& le Tigre with newly gessoed masonite. :)

Happy birthday Ely and Courtney!!!

Love,

me

weekend in new york city

Hey everyone! I was on a blog hiatus because I spent the weekend in New York City with my friend Nicole, and had an amazing time.

 a beautiful yard in Nicole's neighborhood.

Before the Brooklyn sketchbook show.

The show had a really different feel from the Boston one. It was at the 3rd Ward Gallery, which is kind of hidden in an old factory.

I looove the tree wallpaper! Someday I'm painting trees on my walls. I'm not sure in which room I'd like to paint them. Maybe a living room or on the wall behind the bed in the bedroom.

Ferris and Katie on the subway.

At the alligator lounge in Brooklyn after the show! If you buy a beer, they give you a ticket for a free brick oven pizza. You pick them up right at the oven where they're making them a mile a minute.

I liked this man on the subway with the globe between his knees.

Natural History Museum: boy and bears.

swift

a family of Flowers!

school

jelly fish

the whale

seacow

the squid and the whale.

thrushes

watching

one way

like a cathedral

iconic

beautiful faces like dogs.

T. Rex!

Central Park.

Nicole looking lovely! We did the most walking on Saturday and we couldn't have asked for a better day.

Ice cream from the ice cream truck. Mmm.

This was one of the most amazing places we went to - The Russian Souvenir shop. The sweetest man works there. I didn't try to take any pictures inside. His shop is full of things from the 1950s and older, and the items have probably been there since those decades, as well. There was an amazing leather tool bag that must have been 100 years old that had all these pouches inside it that would be perfect for paint brushes and palettes and pens and sketchbooks, but it was very expensive. Anyway, I'll never forget that man, and I did buy a beautiful cobalt lucite necklace there.

two words: beard wig. (and they took it seriously).

I just loved seeing this. it felt like looking in different sections of a dollhouse. I loved the couple in the window, and the terrier outside in his little argyle sweater, and the mural.

Florist and Jeweler combined.

"A Repeat Performance." One of the best antique stores either of us had ever been in.

St. Marks street. Jaymay mentions it in her song "The only one I love." I don't know why, but I always pictured St. Marks being a small island off of New York City. That's probably still how I'll picture it when I listen to the song, although it's neat to know where she's really singing about.

In this neighborhood is Pomme Frites. All they have is french fries, and you can choose from about 25 different things to put on them. I got rosemary garlic mayonnaise. It was sooo good.

Late night fruit tarts at a Whole Foods.

When we were at "repeat performance," I kept picking up pictures of really sweet couples to buy. After picking up about three photos, I realized all the pictures I was holding were of the same couple. As I looked through the photos for sale, I found several more of the same couple with their children and family. I loved them so much - they look so sweet and happy, and really in love, and kind of unique for the time. I bought all their photos; I felt like they should stay together. Mixed in with them is a polaroid Nicole took of me looking at the pictures.

Brunch in Brooklyn.

Scrambled eggs with cream cheese, chives, and smoked salmon. (I eat fish now if I hadn't mentioned it).

Lokal in the Polish neighborhood.

flea markets.

This dress was the big thing I bought in New York City, and I'm in love with it. I've been wanting a kind of elegant sailor-esque dress for a really long time, and this is the perfect one. It has a little white button and matching navy belt at the waist though it's not visible here. It's by the same company that made the dress I wore to my class's senior show. I can't wait to have an occasion to wear it to!

On the bus ride home, I always try to stay awake. Every house I see out the window in every nondescript state is another house I've seen in my life. There's so much in the world I haven't seen, so many streets I haven't been on. Even in Boston I feel excited every time I go down a new street. It's one more street I no longer haven't been down. 

I looooved visiting NYC! And Nicole made it a great time. We did the perfect combination of tourist-y and non-touristy things. I also met the sweetest dog - a rottweiler named Lola. I didn't get any pictures of her though, but I did kneel on a dirty new york sidewalk to rub her belly! It was worth it. 

I hope you all had a great weekend and have a great week. I should be scanning paintings next Monday to show you. :)

Love,

Amanda