two pound press

Two Pound Press is moving...

2011-06-02T15:38:00.000-07:00

...or rather, it is getting condensed with my more frequently updated blog at www.windowledgearts.com.

I have this terrible habit of starting new blogs, thinking that I'll be able to keep up with everything and maintain a bunch of separate identities for myself. But what I've come to realize is that everything I do is connected, and it no longer makes sense to keep it all separated. And it's a crazy amount of work. So from here on out, I'm a one-blog girl. Stop on by and say hello, check out the latest projects and happenings, and of course, there will be doodles!

Family portrait.

2011-04-24T18:23:00.000-07:00

good things are in the making...

(hopefully with less facial hair. we shall see!)

I wasted 20 minutes drawing this.

2011-01-10T20:27:00.000-08:00

And man oh man was it a great 20 minutes.

One of the biggest reasons why my doodles have been sparse lately is because I find it kind of a hassle to scan things in every day. So I upgraded my tiny old pen tablet to something a little bit nicer, and now I can doodle digitally again. YAAAAAY!

Robo-tussin

2010-12-14T20:34:00.001-08:00

Poor poor doodle blog. Sad. Neglected. Lacking in doodles. Well finally, here's a new one. Last week I was under the weather with a cold, and I was dazed and in the clouds and making silly spelling mistakes left and right. Including the name of my cold medicine. It cracked me up so much that I had to doodle it out...

The Sketchbook Project

2010-07-27T19:18:00.000-07:00

I'm participating in the Sketchbook Project! I got my pretty new sketchbook in the mail the other day, and it's all blank and lovely and waiting to be filled with wondrous things.

The basic idea, as described on the Sketchbook Project website, is this:
"Thousands of sketchbooks will be exhibited at galleries and museums as they make their way on tour across the country.

After the tour, all sketchbooks will enter into the permanent collection of The Brooklyn Art Library, where they will be barcoded and available for the public to view."

Sweet. The theme I chose is "A face in the crowd," to be interpreted however I choose. Can I fill up a whole notebook by Jan 15? I hope so.

There's still time to sign up (you have until Oct 31, 2010), so check out the website or click on the graphic below and join in the fun!

Bunnies

2010-07-13T12:49:00.000-07:00

Oh two pound press, you have been neglected for far too long. Doodling comes and goes for me. Some weeks are filled with drawing, drawing, drawing. Other weeks are quiet, and I've moved on to other things that require my attention for the moment. I'm a bit of an artistic nomad that way. But I do enjoy having this space to come back to when the caravan swings back 'round.

Big Team Scribble Coloring Book now for sale!

2010-05-27T08:20:00.000-07:00

The BIG Team Scribble coloring book, which I wrote about back in February, is now up for pre-sale on Etsy!

It's 52 pages of coloring fun, and features the handiwork of over 110 artists - including me!

After the pre-sale the coloring book will only be printed in a limited amount - so order your copy today. BEST OF ALL: a portion of every sale will be donated to UNICEF!

You can learn more about The Scribble Project here.

Figments

2010-05-26T14:28:00.000-07:00

Strange company

2010-05-23T20:15:00.001-07:00

Moods come and go like storm fronts. It's usually at that awkward point of transition, the space between not-quite-happy and not-quite-sad that strange things are conjured up.

They are a comfort

drive home

2010-05-19T17:26:00.001-07:00

AMAZING PICKLE ART

2010-05-15T18:25:00.001-07:00

Doing a little cross-posting lately. Read about the most amazing explosion of pickle-themed crayon drawings over on my other blog, here.

Sometimes you just need to...

2010-05-02T10:37:00.001-07:00

little reminders

2010-04-27T19:14:00.000-07:00

Monster

2010-04-25T19:56:00.000-07:00

But not today. Today was a good day.

Color

2010-04-12T20:35:00.000-07:00

My art space at home is getting more and more functional every day. Today I got the scanner hooked up and hung some art on the walls. Everything feels better when you get some art on the walls.

I also found all my sketchbooks, and some old pieces that needed to be scanned in.

Now featuring: COLOR!

I'm really, really digging my new-ish Tombow markers. (Speaking of Blick, did you know there's a brand spankin' new store up on Capitol Hill? Yay!)

Boom.

2010-04-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

I'm back to doodling, but not at full capacity quite yet. So here's what I could muster at work in the past couple o' weeks.

I've been really interested in patterns lately. And of course, cute animals are always high on my interest list. Let's combine the two...

And sometimes, you need a little AWESOME.

Sadface.

2010-03-26T11:19:00.000-07:00

Moving.
No time to doodle.
Brain fried.
April. Yes, April will be good.

Doodle 4 Google

2010-03-09T11:46:00.000-08:00

My BFF Lindsey just sent me a link to a very cool doodle project for K-12 kiddos.

Sez Google: "At Google we believe in thinking big and dreaming big, so this year we're inviting U.S. kids to exercise their creative imaginations around the theme, "If I Could Do Anything, I Would …""

Well now doesn't that sound nice? I'm sad that it's not a global project, because that would be real interesting (but I know how these contest things work. It gets complicated. Trust me.) If you have kidlets or are a teacher, seems like a fun way to get them involved in doodling. Registration to participate ends on Mar 17, so sign up soon!

Encourage our youth to doodle! My dream: an otherwise stuffy corporate conference room where everyone's yellow legal pad contains at least one doodle. Keep the doodles alive! Even if you're 32, 49, 54, 89, or 102.

March: week 1

2010-03-08T08:23:00.001-08:00

A series of little drawings from the first week of March.

Camellias/Cranky

2010-02-19T08:43:00.000-08:00

Boy oh boy have I been a bear the past couple of weeks. I feel itchy. Springtime-the-sun-is-out-let's-go-have-a-picnic-and-ditch-work-itchy. And also creative itchy. I just can't figure out how to get it all out of my system.

BUT! The camellias are in bloom, and that's no reason to be sad.

The Scribble Project

2010-02-15T18:26:00.000-08:00

Cross-posting from my other blog here...very doodle relevant!

The Scribble Project posted my "scribble carriage" submission on their blog today. How cool! My little train car will (hopefully) be part of the Big Team Scribble, a huge collaboration of train cars scribbled up by doodlers everywhere and compiled into a coloring zine. Awesome.

There's still time to submit to the project - check out the details here. And be sure to take a look at last year's amazing totem pole scribble collaboration.

Fly away

2010-02-15T13:12:00.001-08:00

Another quality work doodle. Meetings are great places to get in some excellent doodle time.

stripe proud

2010-02-11T09:27:00.001-08:00

Love you mom.

relief

2010-01-21T07:57:00.000-08:00

when the day gets to be too much, i take a break.

Indicative of the current state of affairs

2010-01-14T13:58:00.000-08:00

Making history

2010-01-08T08:29:00.001-08:00

We're thinking about buying a house. Big. Scary. It feels grown up. It feels stupid dumb right perfect necessary ohmygodwhatamidoing intimidating natural fine exciting.

And then I realized...

These small lessons in type and words make me feel better. Get it all out in block letters. Ahhh. Much better.

Settle/Ireland

2009-12-15T08:47:00.000-08:00

The left hand page is a discussion I had with myself. The right hand page is the result of a lingering dream that makes my heart ache, along with a completely unrelated quote from Sam. Click on the image to enlarge.

Dolphin

2009-12-01T14:52:00.000-08:00

Click to enlarge.

Cloud dog

2009-11-25T13:58:00.000-08:00

47 faces

2009-11-20T15:55:00.000-08:00

Technically it's 49, if you really count 'em up.

Quality Work Doodle

2009-11-13T12:01:00.000-08:00

Twinkie man and flying beast.

Sad

2009-11-09T16:09:00.001-08:00

Skinny guys

2009-10-29T15:50:00.000-07:00

Found this ad in an old comic book today. As always, give it a click to read the fine print.

Safeway and the T-Rex

2009-10-29T08:45:00.000-07:00

Two completely unrelated events. (Click on image to enlarge.)

muffled.

2009-10-22T13:40:00.000-07:00

I am doing it again.
I am wearing my headphones with no music on.
I do this from time to time, when distracted. I just forget to turn it on and then I find myself sitting there (again), earbuds in place, the dull day muffled out. Then I remember.

Today I’m wishing for a sketchbook hooked to my brain hooked to a computer with no option to delete or edit. No no no, I say, don’t put that out there. It’s too dangerous. It might hurt.

But what I really want is to put it all out there and not care and know that it won’t hurt (in the way that crushing your fingers with a sledgehammer hurts) too bad.

That is what I wish for today.

Being American is Hard: The buzzer

2009-10-11T11:20:00.000-07:00

I caught myself, almost ready to scream "shut up!" at the dryer buzzer that goes off every 5 minutes or so when the laundry is done tumbling.

I could have shut it off the first time. But instead, I chose to ignore it and get progressively more and more annoyed each time it buzzed.

I swear, I was going to go upstairs and take care of it right after I wrote this post about how silly it was that I almost told the buzzer to shut up. I swear. But the dryer finally gave up and turned itself off.

Pumpkin thoughts, and ceramics class

2009-10-08T15:34:00.003-07:00

Click on image to enlarge.

Pumpkin Farm

2009-10-04T20:16:00.000-07:00

click on images to enlarge the fun!

Motivational Speech

2009-10-01T18:59:00.000-07:00

Linger.

2009-09-25T08:03:00.000-07:00

My grandfather is gravely ill, and I believe I am on the verge of losing my last remaining grandparent.

For so many, the notion of death is unacceptable. Faced with the possibility of unthinkable loss, people pray, hope, wish, beg, for an outcome of life. Even if “life” means full time care in a nursing home, hooked up to some machine, full recovery never being a possibility. I would never wish for this kind of life.

The realist speaks. We will all die, someday. And while sudden deaths at a young age are harsh and terrible, lingering deaths, in old age, are expected – even when they’re unexpected. These days must come.

I was discussing all of this with Dave last night, and he remarked that he had never gone through this process with a loved one. His grandparents all died suddenly, without much time to think or ponder what life would be like without them. I thought for a bit, and realized that all of the deaths in my family have been lingering. My grandparents on my father’s side were ill for a long time, and were very very old. My grandmother on my mother’s side was aging and ill, her heart failing after years of abuse. My father’s death, the one that stung the most, was far too fast and at the same time, far too slow: Fast in that he was too young; slow in that watching him die over the course of 9 or so months was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, and certainly something that a 16 year-old should never have to do. From the moment he was diagnosed, I knew he would not survive. I had 9 months to ponder that. It’s different from getting hit by a train, or suffering a sudden, lethal aneurysm.

Every death in my family involved a “turn for the worse” and spending the next few hours or days poised by the telephone. Nobody likes waiting for phone calls. Not these phone calls. Whenever the phone rings very early or very late, my heart freezes. It can never be good. At best, it’s a wrong number.

We cannot last forever. And try as we might, we cannot control this through prayer, wishful thinking, or rubbing lucky stones. Sometimes there is serendipity, and gratitude. And sometimes the outcome just is what it is.

Let it come, whatever it may be. And let it come calmly.

The longest days

2009-09-21T10:19:00.000-07:00

Home.
Dog's chin rests on my knee.

My fingers are frozen from catching up on email. I don't care what anyone says. I love my computer, and I missed it terribly in this particular instance. Now perhaps if my hands had been occupied with margaritas and books and warm white sand, I wouldn't have missed it so much.

(I did not even notice that there wasn't a TV.)

Cat makes tiny chirping noises in his sleep.

I'm still feeling the nausea and haze of travel, jet-lagged, cloudy. This too shall pass, but right now, I never want to set foot on an airplane ever again.

My bed was finally warm last night. Reunited with my partner in snuggling and his extra soft furry canine companion.

I'm right where I need to be.

More on this Squam thing later...I'm still brewing/brooding/something.

Bon Voyage

2009-09-15T13:24:00.001-07:00

Info here.

Self pity.

2009-09-10T08:31:00.001-07:00

(Actually from yesterday.)

night thought.

2009-09-09T22:08:00.001-07:00

i look at photographs in the dark

and think about how good men look
while leaning in to
ponder a menu.

A rough Tuesday

2009-09-09T11:34:00.001-07:00

The Burt Reynolds Dream: Part IV

2009-09-08T14:47:00.001-07:00

Here's the final drawing. Click to enlarge.

The end.

Channeling Shel

2009-09-07T18:23:00.000-07:00

When I was a wee young thing, I loved the poetry and drawing of Shel Silverstein. (And I still do.) I loved him so much that I decided to turn one of his poems into an original story of my own, retold awkwardly to my entire third grade class sometime circa 1990. I was in a new school, a bit lonely. I was also a dirty rotten stinking little plagiarist who thought she was super cool and was aiming to win the admiration of her new peers.

The poem that I decided to claim as my own was the one about the long-haired boy, who was teased and taunted so much that he finally flew away using his long, flowing hair. I remember standing up next to my little desk (I was probably wearing purple stirrup pants, slouch socks, and a sweatshirt with a fluffy, gemstone-eyed cat on it), and sharing what I thought was a stroke of personal genius with twenty or so of my little tow-headed classmates. But I totally butchered it, couldn't remember the whole story, and wound up trailing off oddly with forty small eyes staring blankly back at me. "Ummmm....and he flapped his hair and....um....he was really sad. Um. The end! Yeah!" My teacher asked me to sit back down. If I could have flown off with my mousy brown Dorothy Hamill bob, I would have.

(To this day, I cannot remember punchlines and successfully tell jokes.)

I look back on that awkward stealing/retelling of Shel's poem with a teeny speck of embarrassment. Mostly because I was pretty sure I was condemned as the "weird new girl" forevermore. And also a little bit because I knew full well how to make up my own stories at the time, but somehow felt the need to use Shel's instead. I was just an 8 year-old, though. No harm done. But there were some significant firsts involved: my first at verbal storytelling for an audience; my first moment of true embarrassment in front of a large group of people; and my first feeling that I had stolen something and gotten called out on it.

I guess it just goes to show how much I loved Shel's poetry, though. Lately I've decided that I'm going back to the things I loved as a child. I'm going to be silly and ridiculous and touching and wise. I'm going to be slightly bawdy, wildly creative, carefree but not careless, intelligent, questioning, and curious. It may sound silly, but I am a better person because of his books. Thanks mom and dad, for bringing his writing into my young life. And Shel, I'm sorry I attempted to steal your story as my own. I'll never do it again, I swear on my cat sweatshirt.

I'll close with a properly attributed favorite. Nice and realistic. Just my style:
The Little Blue Engine
by Shel Silverstein

The little blue engine looked up at the hill.
His light was weak, his whistle was shrill.
He was tired and small, and the hill was tall,
And his face blushed red as he softly said,
“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.”

So he started up with a chug and a strain,
And he puffed and pulled with might and main.
And slowly he climbed, a foot at a time,
And his engine coughed as he whispered soft,
“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.”

With a squeak and a creak and a toot and a sigh,
With an extra hope and an extra try,
He would not stop — now he neared the top —
And strong and proud he cried out loud,
“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!”

He was almost there, when — CRASH! SMASH! BASH!
He slid down and mashed into engine hash
On the rocks below... which goes to show
If the track is tough and the hill is rough,
THINKING you can just ain’t enough!

The Burt Reynolds dream: Part III

2009-09-03T08:06:00.000-07:00

...Part III (click to enlarge).

The Burt Reynolds Dream: Part II

2009-09-01T08:34:00.000-07:00

...continued from yesterday. Click to enlarge.

More to come...

The Burt Reynolds dream: Part I

2009-08-31T09:27:00.001-07:00

Many of you already know that I have some pretty messed up dreams. Here's a fantastic one from last week, which I'll share in several parts. I've decided that illustrating my dreams is much more fun than writing them out. Click to enlarge!

To be continued...

Why Two Pound Press?

2009-08-27T08:39:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, I got the bug to learn to play the ukulele. I bought an old banjo uke online, fixed it up real nice with new tuners and a couple of small tweaks, and started taking group lessons. The lessons were fun, but slow moving and a bit dull, so now I just go it alone and pluck around at home whenever the fancy strikes. The uke is by far the most playable instrument I’ve ever tried out – it’s pretty easy to pick it up and play something without being ridiculously skilled.

Sometime during the early stages of learning my new instrument, I decided that if I were ever to start a band, I would call it the “Two Pound Ham Ukulele Band.” I don’t know why. But it had a nice ring to it. I jokingly asked friends to join, and I recruited a backup dancer and someone to make a ham. Both of my recruits lived about 2500 miles away. Considering we only had one mediocre uke player, and the dancer and cook were halfway across the country, we really didn’t have much of a band. But I hung onto that name, determined to work it in to something, somewhere.

And thus, Two Pound Press was born. Perhaps someday, preferably once I can comfortably play past the fifth fret of my uke without looking at my fingers, I will start a real band. But for now, my efforts are best directed at the world of image and words. Interesting tidbit: the photo of the girl with the uke in my banner was found in the Library of Congress digital collection. See below.

So there you have it. Two Pound Press.

Guitar woman

2009-08-27T08:23:00.000-07:00

I want to be her when I grow up.

Things I thought about today.

2009-08-26T21:16:00.000-07:00

(Actually, this was drawn yesterday. Shhhh....Oh, and you're probably going to want to click to enlarge. The beauty is in the details, folks.)

So many colors!

2009-08-25T13:23:00.001-07:00

Pen fascination.

A love story

2009-08-24T09:49:00.000-07:00

He puts Willie Nelson on the record player, and we sit cross-legged on the blue craigslist rug, sketching out the plans for reupholstering the ottoman we found on the side of the road last weekend.

We are partners. This is our marriage. We hold hands in Ikea, shopping for sturdy fabric and end up with the sturdy fabric, plus herb seeds, potholders, and cheap towels. Our marriage is pulling trash from the street and brainstorming how to turn it into something beautiful. I watch him cobble together a solid wooden base where we will lay the foam. I love the look he gets when there is a drill in his hand, the furrowed brow of “figuring” and the confident movements of a man on a mission. He’s unshakable.

He lays a piece of soft leftover foam in the cat’s paper bag.

Hammers and nails, old staples removed, we have a naked ottoman. I plan out how to cut the fabric, but I’m terrible at visualizing and he patiently shows me with brown paper templates. “With your brains and my beauty, we’ll get somewhere,” I joke. And I think about how I’m really not that beautiful. And he says something about not being smart.

Our Achilles heels.

I think about how my parents could never work on projects together. They loved each other dearly, but were not compatible fixer uppers. They knew it. After the squabble, I’d be left standing on a chair in the hallway, light fixture in my hands, with my father telling me “Here, just hold this.” And I did. And I wondered why it was so hard.

Willie stops singing and we are left with the hollow sounds of hammer hitting wood, and it is 9 o’clock and next door a baby is sleeping. We clean up for the night and I wash the day off my face. A good weekend.

An open letter to the smokers who hang out in the parking lot of my building

2009-08-21T17:43:00.001-07:00

Dear smokers who hang out in the parking lot of my building,

Stop staring at me.

I don't know who you are. You must work for some other company that shares our building. Really, I don't care. But whoever you are, I really despise the way you form a small cluster that drifts into the driving path of moving vehicles. And then when the vehicle which I occupy wishes to pass you, you glare. You glare and shift ever so slightly out of my path, while defiantly flicking your ashes to the pavement.

Stop glaring, you unhealthy assholes.

Sincerely,

The non-smoking employee from the other side of the building

Note: I really truly enjoy McSweeney's "Open letters to people or entities who are unlikely to respond." So I'm making a series of my own, and will post them from time to time.

Legal pad

2009-08-13T13:56:00.001-07:00

The yellow legal pads at work are prime doodling surfaces. The also have the tendency to record brutal honesty.

Welcome to Two Pound Press

2009-08-12T15:20:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to Two Pound Press, a tiny branch of Window Ledge Arts. I am Jessica, your friendly bloggist and operator.

I struggled to decide how to incorporate writing and the art of print into my existing small business. Could it just naturally become part of it, under the same name and creative vision? Well, yes and no. On one hand, I do have the tendency to create new “business models” and spontaneously purchase domain names that I never use. It would be good for me to just wrap it all into one and commit, dammit, to something. But I can’t help but think that I never really had a creative vision for WLA. I didn’t commit to any one thing. It was an experiment. An exercise. And still is. Two Pound Press is something different. And since I’m not really sure where it’s going right now, I’ve decided to keep it a separate entity connected to WLA by a thin thread. Me.

OK, so actually that’s really a rather thick, strong thread. More of a jute rope, I suppose. But the point is, the space occupied by Two Pound Press is very different than the space occupied by WLA. It is a step toward this little patch of gut feeling where my conscience keeps guiding me. So instead of skirting the patch, as I have been for quite some time now, I’m opening it up.

And parking it. Right. Here.

So enjoy. This will be a space for doodles, drawings, print, and words. WLA will continue to putter along as a place for adventures in sewing, photography, craft, and the largely 3-D realm. But I long for a new fork in the road. So off we go…