It's just the spring escapades.

Things I'd like to know more about:

-The poetry of Ilana Fulop

-Is there a biography for Arija Muray?

-sign language

Things that I like, a lot:

-The discovery of new relatives in England

-chocolate bunnies

-dogs that lay their heads in my lap on the T

- wooden bears

-blue parakeets named Bambi

-John Denver

-dress weather

-30 Rock

-treasure maps

-Daniel Striped Tiger

-Cummings in my bloodline

-Neko Case on a saturday night

-book maker

-grey envelope

-the escape I'm planning and the green suitcase I'll take with me.

caught up in birds

The Fuller Craft Museum

"silver strapless" (a tree wearing a dress, be still my heart.)

gear duck

mixed-media portraits by Micah Sherrill.

installation by Kitty Wales.

Kevin.

and a dog named Otis.

The first book I ever illustrated?

Today I subbed at the kindergarten for the teacher I had when I was there!

With the help of my mom, I had made this book for my teacher, Mrs. Waugh, to give her on the last day of school. She had it out on the counter for me to find today! Some of the drawings are full of strange and mysterious happenings, while others are more straightforward. 

"When I first started kindergarten, Mrs. Waugh TOOK MY picture."

"My favorite holiday that we celebrated at school was HALOWEEN."

"The most important thing I learned in Mrs. Waugh's class was MY LETTERS."

"The funniest thing that ever happened in our classroom was when SANTU SAT ON MY LAP"

(It seems like it should be 'I sat on Santa's lap', but I don't think that would have been the funniest moment, so Santa must have sat on my lap.)

"My favorite subject in school was when we studied DiNOSORS."

"My favorite art project with Mrs. Gerwick was when we made OWLS."

"The best book Mrs. Waugh ever read to our class was THE 3 BILLY GOATS GRUFF."

"My favorite thing about snack time was TALKING AND EATING."

(is that a spider?)

"The best new friends I made in school this year are NICOLE, PATRICK, AND CHARLES."

(I put this on facebook and I tagged them. :)

"My favorite game we played in gym was SHARK."

"I especially liked when Mrs. Waugh would let us PLAY."

"My favorite classroom visitor was THE VET."

"The best book I checked out of the library was DABBLE THE DUK."

(I don't remember this book...at all.)

"Our best classroom pets are the geRBiLs. They are very cute."

(Their names were Sarah and Tiffany. I picked the name Tiffany. I got to bring them home for the summer.)

"My favorite song I learned in kindergarten was FRIENDS."

(Mom: how did that song go?

Amanda: I have no idea.)

"My favorite thing to do in Mrs. Waugh's class is READ ATTENDANCE." 

"The reason(s) I loved having Mrs. Waugh as my teacher are SHE WAS NICE."

"The thing I'll miss most about kindergarten is MRS. WAUGH."

awww.

Haha. Oh boy. Sometimes I wish I still drew like I did when I was little. It looks so free and from the subconscious, I think. But I'm glad I never stopped loving drawing. And I really have been loving substitute teaching for kindergarten and elementary school so much. I really think teaching art to little kids might be something I want to do.

---

I traded a print for this dress. I love it so much. It is my Nancy Drew-detective dress and it's vintage Sears. :)  I'm sorry I haven't been posting much lately. I feel back in the swing of the blog again. I hope you're all having a great week!

Love,

Amanda

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.