NUMBER 200

Hey guess what?? I have reached 200 posts on this here blog!! In order to celebrate this momentous occasion, my friend Liz suggested I write a list of 200 Things I Like About America. It is by no means comprehensive, and about 70% is food-related. You are under no obligation to read this list. Well, here's to 200 more posts. Hurrah!


1. Kaia
2. Liz
3. Twizzlers
4. Reece's Pieces
5. Reece's Peanut Butter Cups
6. Blue Flavouring
7. Corn syrup
8. Awesome shower pressure
9. Gaycation
10. Driving on the wrong side
11. Saying cookie instead of biscuit
12. Friendos who have cars
13. Friendos
14. SmartWool
15. The Cup & Saucer
16. The government is not constantly watching me through cctv
17. Cannon Beach
18. San Francisco
19. Ashland, OR
20. Eugene, OR
21. Seattle
22. Blueberry pancakes
23. Everyone being really excited about my accent
24. Assuming I am smart because I am English
25. Americans being weirdly nice to strangers
26. Americans being completely sincere at all times
27. Tater tots
28. Microbrews
29. Nutter Butters
30. PBR
31. Clapboard
32. Lack of terraced houses
33. Beer pong
34. Sunshine
35. Everything being bigger
36. Road trips
37. Jolly Ranchers
38. Weird 50s packaging on candy
39. Maple syrup
40. Hipsters
41. Diners
42. Autostraddle
43. Cute girls with American accents
44. Cute American girls
45. Sitcoms
46. Chuck Bass
47. Deep voiced trailer guy
48. Sarah Haskins
49. Rachel Maddow
50. Tina Fey
51. 30 Rock
52. Liz's Netflix account
53. Milk Duds
54. The mailman takes your letters for you
55. Skype
56. Strange looks when you sing "On Ilkley Moor baht 'at"
57. Our awesome house
58. Our plates that you can drop and not break
59. Waffles
60. Liz waking me up with a cup of tea
61. Coming to awesome beer gardens at Reed
62. Going to see The Heartless Bastards in May
63. Voodoo donuts
65. Lesbians walking around everywhere
66. Saturday market
67. Blow Pony
68. Dots on Clinton
69. The Grand Canyon
70. Snuggies, when treated with irony
71. The larger budgets available to American tv shows
72. American Apparel
73. Enormous sandwiches
74. Mac & cheese in a box
75. Hot Lips pizza
76. Hot Lips home made soda
77. Sock Dreams
78. California
79. The railroad
80. Portland's Fremont bridge
81. The Hawthorne bridge
82. The Sellwood bridge
83. The Marquam bridge
84. The Ross Island bridge
85. The St. Johns bridge
86. The Broadway bridge
87. The Steel bridge
89.The Burnside Bridge
90. The Morrison bridge
91. The availability of Mexican food
92. The Statue of Liberty
93. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
94. The paintings of John Singleton Copley
95. Beyonce
96. Dive bars
97. The NBA
98. The WNBA
99. Women's college basketball
100. William Eggleston
101. Yosemite
102. Asher Durand's forest scenes
103. Martin Luther King day
104. American gothic
105. Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series
106. Lifetime movies
107. Fat Tire beer
108. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
109. Gummy worms
110. Caramel apples
111. Washington
112. New England
113. The Madonna Inn
114. A national sense of confidence
115. Theme parks
116. Roller derby
117. Hipsters
118. The adorable Obamas
119. Drew Barrymore
120.Veronica Mars
121. Biscuits and gravy
122. Don DeLillo
123. Thanksgiving
124. Ellen Page
125. Ursula K. Le Guin
126. Delta blues
127. Calling things ponds when they are the size of lakes
128. Margaret Cho
129. San Luis Obispo
130. Zion National Park
131. Old fashioned movie theaters
132. Calling them movie theaters instead of cinemas
133. The QRC
134. WALK/DON'T WALK
135. Better video stores
136. The wonderful exchange rate c. 2006
137. Amtrak, bless their hearts
138. Annie's Bunny Grahams
139. Enormous sandwiches
140. Tyra Insane Banks
141. Outdoor couches
142. Wider streets
143. Clam chowder
144. Pleasant porches
145. How they pronounce ts as ds
146. Night time drives
147. Garon's fun/terrifying driving
148. National Parks
149. RL Burnside
150. Native Americans
151. Chicago blues
152. Bluegrass
153. Glaciers
154. Volcanoes
155. The painted desert
156. OMSI After Dark
157. French dips
158. The Pearl
159. Primal screams
160. Garon putting down things that he likes on my list
161. Garon primal screaming in car parks
162. Epic roadtrip c.2007
163. 24-hour diners
164. The trunk, not the boot
165. The CW
166. Buffalo Exchange
167. Red Light
168. Jackpot Records
169. Whacked-out teabaggers
170. The Daily Show
172. Laura Veirs
173. Slide guitar
174. Junior Kimbrough
175. Parks and Recreation
176. Pandora
177. Breakfast food in general
178. Outdoor wear is fashionable
179. Everyone's North Face fleeces
180. Cowboys by Annie Proulx
181. Neatly manicured lawns
182. The street signs
183. Yellow school buses
184. Tiny children with tiny American accents
185. The Saturday Market
186. Ugly chic
187. SE
188. Streetcars
189. Deserts
190. Wide open spaces
191. Screwball roadtrip movies
192. Weird roadside attractions
193. Mystery spots
194. The Rockies
195. The Cascades
196. Food carts
197. Alcohol-serving movie theaters
198. No expectation to dress well
199. American Halloween
200. Jeans

Numbers 201, 202 and 203.

Untitled

A three-block linoleum print, each block being roughly postcard sized. This piece does not have a name, I am open to suggestions. But I never name anything, so what's new.



I'm kind of following a theme here, but more than that I'm just really enjoying drawing/carving these images. Complex and soothing at the same time.

Blue + Red = Purple, Who Knew?

Some more prints - as you may be able to guess, it is the end of this term and I am having fun scanning all the work I've done lately.





These are drypoint on plexiglass, and then I had fun liberally applying blue and red etching inks. They are not awesome, but they were fun little experiments, and I hardly ever use colour in my prints so they are valuable in their rarity.

Awning and Fire Escape

A quick little etching of a building in downtown Portland.




It's not great, but I used a salvaged bit of zinc, so it was FREE. And free things are always the most satisfying. The zinc had a load of crap on it already, I had to burnish away a layer of stupidly thick aquatint. The only thing left was a drippy sort of pattern running from the top edge, which I don't really have a huge problem with.

Invisible Cities

So here's a bookjacket image I made using a combination of Photoshop and Illustrator. Photoshop for the background and the shapes, and illustrator for the text. You may, if you know my work scarily well, recognise the source images used for the little architecture cutouts: it's the pen and ink drawings of US houses I did a few years back, you can see them here. The book I chose was obviously going to be Invisible Cities, because I love it so, and it ends up influencing my artwork a lot. That about covers it, I think! (Pun unintended.)

You know, I do not find this digital art stuff very easy, but I think it could be useful now that I am kind of starting to get the hang of it.

Tiny Bus Clip

A very short movie clip here, this shows my bus journey across the Ross Island bridge. I made it by taking a whole lot of still shots with my camera, and then sticking them all in Flash and making a little animation. See all the things I am learning. But seriously guys, this is actually my first ever movie. No laughing, you'll hurt my feelings.



I see this view every single day! (Usually for more than 3 whole seconds.) I am a die-hard commuter.